BBC 英语学习 News Review 雨林破坏加剧

We're supposed to be stopping rainforest destruction.

Actually, it's getting

worse. This is news review from BBC Learning English.

I'm Beth, and I'm Phil. Make sure you watch to the inter learned of vocabulary that you need to talk about this story.

And remember, subscribe to our channel, try the quiz on our website and like this video.

Now, the story more tropical rainforest was lost in 2022 than in 2021.

That's despite governments promising to stop destroying rainforests just two years ago.

In fact, the opposite has happened.

A new study has shown that 10% more rainforest was cleared in 2022 than in the previous year.

You've been looking at the headlines, what's the vocabulary?

We have Deforestation, pristine and pledge.

This is news review from BBC learning English.

Let's have a look at our 1st headline.

This is from the BBC Climate Change Deforestation Surges despite pledges.

So this story is all about the loss of tropical rainforests, and this is increasing or surging.

Now, the word we're looking at here is deforestation.

Yes, this is a great word, because it tells us how English works.

The most important part is forest.

You can see that in the middle, but it's the bits around it that give it a precise meaning.

We've got d which we can use to talk about removing things, and we've got Asian, which we can use to turn a verb into a noun.

So deforestation is the process of removing forests.

And this is an example that we see a lot in academic and scientific writing, where we turn verbs into nouns to talk about processes.

And this is called nominalization, yes, and there's quite a few that are to do with the climate.

So the process of places becoming deserts is called desertification.

The process of places and becoming cities is called urbanization.

And the process of removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, that's called decarbonization.

Yes? And learning new words like this can be done through memorization.

OK, let's look at that again.

Let's have our next headline. This is from The Guardian.

Destruction of world's pristine rainforests soared in 2022, despite cop 26 pledge.

Again, it's about the increase in destruction of rain forests it soared in 2022.

That means increased very fast. But we are looking at the word pristine.

Yes. Pristine means in its original, perfect condition, not ruined.

And we're talking here about areas of rainforest that have not previously been damaged by humans, and these are what are now being destroyed.

And we often use the word pristine more generally.

You will see it in the expression in pristine condition.

And this is used to describe something that is as good as new.

Yes, when you're selling something, you'll get a lot more money for it if it's in pristine condition.

We could also use it to talk about the way that things are looked after.

So museums might have lots of old objects that they keep in pristine condition.

That's right, OK, let's look at that again.

Let's have a look at our next headline.

This is from euro News World Forests continue to shrink despite cop 26 Pledge report says.

Now this headline uses Shrink to talk about rainforests getting smaller.

But we are going to focus on the noun pledge.

Now, phil isn't pledge a bit like a promise?

Yes, it is. And all of these headlines have referred back to the pledges made at the cop 26 summit.

And a pledge is a formal promise at the top summit government's promise to stop and even reverse deforestation by 2030, something that now looks unlikely according to all these articles.

And as you said,

pledge is often used in formal or very serious contexts.

So politicians make

pledges to voters in campaigns. People might pledge loyalty to their country.

In that case, it's a verb.

And couples make

pledges to each other when they get married.

Yeah, so it's not the same as a promise to buy your friend dinner or to get somewhere on time.

It's a lot more serious than that.

Okay, let's look at that again.

We've had deforestation, a loss of forests, pristine in its original condition, not damaged.

Pledge a formal or serious promise.

Now, if you found this interesting, try this episode on climate change and evolution, and make sure you subscribe to our channel.

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