BBC 英语学习 News Review 最富有的1%危害地球最多

Frequent flying, big houses and luxury lifestyles.

The world s richest are damaging the planet more than any other group of people.

This is news

review from BBC Learning English, where we help you understand news headlines in English.

I'm Meal and I'm Beth. Make sure you watch to the end to learn all the vocabulary you need

to talk about this story and to understand more about the world in English.

Don't forget to subscribe to our channel.

Now the story The richest 1% of people create the same amount of carbon as the poorest two thirds in the world.

That's according to data published in a new report by charity Oxfam.

It found that the lifestyles of the wealthy, such as taking frequent flights and eating out in restaurants, are closely connected to climate change.

Ox fan's chief called for world leaders to end the era of extreme wealth.

You ve been looking at the headlines, beth, what's the vocabulary people need to understand this story?

In English, we have well off plundering and clean up their acts.

This is news review from BBC Learning English.

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

This is from The Guardian. Restaurants, pets and Holidays How Uks well off have outside carbon footprints?

So this headline is saying that the UK is well off have outside carbon footprints.

Outside means too big, and your carbon footprint is the impact you have personally on the environment.

But we are looking at the word well off, we are.

And well off means rich, and it's an adjective.

It might look like a frasal verb, because it has two parts, and that 2nd part is off, but it's an adjective.

Now, this headline says that the well off, that's the rich and wealthy, are having a worse impact on the environment.

We have these words rich and wealthy already.

So why do we need well off?

What's the difference? Well, it's a bit softer, and it sounds more polite than rich, which isn't always a positive thing, and is similar.

But even softer way of saying, well off is comfortable.

That's a word you already know, but it's a slightly different meaning here.

Yes. And then the other extreme is this word loaded.

It means extremely well off, extremely rich.

And it's not that polite, it's very direct.

Let's look at that again. Let's have our next headline.

This is from the Washington Post, world's richest 1% plundering the planet.

Oxford Report says, we're looking at the word plundering.

Now, beth, when I hear this word plundering, I think of thieves or pirate stealing things, treasure.

Well, yeah, that's right. The literal meaning of plunder is taking things that don't belong to you by force.

Now, in this headline, the richest are plundering the planet.

So neal does that mean that the richest are stealing things by force?

Well, not exactly. But by choosing the word plunder, the writer is suggesting that what the rich are doing is wrong.

The sense is that they are using resources that actually should be shared more equally amongst people.

And that word plunder they actually took from the Oxfam report to support their opinion.

What other words for steel can we use?

Well, there's Nick and pinch. They're both a bit informal, though.

Has anyone ever nicked your phone?

No. Nobody has ever nicked my phone, but it looks like someone is trying to pinch my wallet.

Beth, let's look at that again.

Let's have our next headline. This is from the herald yousaf Urged to use budget for richest Scots to clean up their acts.

So campaigners in Scotland want the richest to clean up their act.

And clean up their act. Is the expression that we're looking at.

This word act, I recognize from the theater, like Shakespeare, to be or not to be, that's not the act we're talking about here here.

Act means behavior, and clean up your act means make your behavior better.

Improve it. Yes? And

although the expression has the word clean in it, it's not really about cleaning.

It means to improve.

So the campaigners want the rich, so the campaigners want the rich to do better.

When it comes to climate change, I was going to say that.

That's my line. You need to clean up your act.

I really do.

Let's look at that again. We've had well off rich plundering, taking what doesn't belong to you and clean up their acts, improve their behavior.

Now, if you enjoyed this episode and want to learn more about this topic, watch this episode of News Review, where we asked, can Flying ever be Green?

And click here to subscribe to our channel so you never MS.

another video. Thanks for joining us.

扫码查看听力音频