The Great Global Warming Swindle Part 1 - ESL

A break from the back posts I'm trying to get caught up on ...

January and February are usually the coldest months here in Taiwan. Every winter I have to live with the constant pain of cold in my hands while typing. But this year I can't remember it happening once, and February 10 I went to bed with my windows wide open and no cover though it got nippy in the early morning. This has never happened to me in the past decade. All the next day was too hot even for the spring weather that will show up in March and we even turned the fan on. I don't like to think what the coming summer is going to feel like.  Today as I write this it's turned cold again and the weather is supposed to fall 10 degrees Celsius. Never thought I'd hurrah for that.

So is it man-made CO2 or a natural sun cycle causing climate change? I incline toward the latter because:

1) According to The Great Global Warming Swindle video, temperature leads CO2 with an 800 year lag to show which one changes first. The sun cycle heats the earth, which gradually warms the oceans, releasing their CO2. The heat releases the CO2, the CO2 doesn't cause the heat.

2) Animals and bacteria put out 150 gigatonnes of CO2 every year compared to a mere 6.5 gigatonnes due to humans. Decaying leaves are supposed to put out an even larger amount, and dwarfing all of that is the CO2 put out by the oceans.

So we can shut down every factory and economy and it's not going to stop the much huger amount of CO2 being put out by nature. I still hate pollution though ... do I have some nascent posts on that.

The following video is English audio with Chinese subtitles.



If you like this film and want to use it to learn or teach English, see the vocabulary list below of some of the harder words with their (Traditional) Chinese translations. Feel free to correct the translations in the comments, or take this list for your own website.

Or if you just want to watch the rest of the videos without learning English, here are the rest of the links:

The Great Global Warming Swindle 全球暖化是真是假 Part 2
Al Gore's movie "An Inconvenient Truth" is addressed here:
The Great Global Warming Swindle 全球暖化是真是假 Part 3
The Great Global Warming Swindle 全球暖化是真是假 Part 4
The Great Global Warming Swindle 全球暖化是真是假 Part 5
The Great Global Warming Swindle 全球暖化是真是假 Part 6

imagine 設想
reason 緣故
global warming 全球暖化
alarm 驚動
propaganda 宣傳
evidence 證據
greenhouse gasses 溫室氣體
climate 氣候
increase 增長
temperature 溫度
ice core record [can't find translation]
fundamental 基本
assumption 臆測
theory 理論
moral 道德
political 政治
campaigners 競選活動
debate 辯論
criticism 批評
rigorous 嚴謹
illegitimate
carbon dioxide = CO2
swindle 騙局
media 輿論界
apocalyptic [can't find translation]
politicians 政治家
intolerance 不寬容
dissenting 異議的
criminals 罪犯
politically incorrect [can't find translation]
orthodoxy 正統
frenzy 瘋狂
shriller [can't find translation]
geological timeframe 地質時間表
suspect 懷疑
concensus [can't find translation]
catastrophic 災難的
IPCC United nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
bibliographies 目錄學
polemic 論戰
resign 辭職
author 作家
ideology 意識形態
environmental movement 環保運動
activist [can't find translation]
influential 有影響
distortion 弄歪
funding 資金
vested interest 既得利益
panic 驚慌
bureaucratic 僚官
bandwagon = popular campaign [can't find translation]
farrago [can't find translation]
censorship [can't find translation]
intimidation 恫嚇
fury 暴怒
invoking [can't find translation]
hinder 妨礙
vital 重要
industrial progress 產業進步
developing world 發展國家
cautionary 警告的
defining idea [couldn't find translation]
heretic 異教徒
inquiry 調查
expert 專家
tropical forests 雨林 (?)
ice sheets 冰蓋
plunge 跳進
cold spell [couldn't find translation]
climatologists 氣候學家
illustrations 插圖
Thames [can't find translation]

This list is only for Part 1. If you used it to learn or teach English and want to go on with Part 2, let me know in the comments and I'll do up that post. (The comments are moderated, so I'll know the very next time I check my e-mail.)