Joy English · Level C1 · Environmentjoy-english.com
The environment and sustainability
Name:Date:
Learn precise vocabulary such as mitigate, deplete, carbon sink, tipping point and greenwashing for discussing environmental issues.
Choose the best option
Choose the word or phrase that completes each sentence correctly.
- Planting native trees on hillsides can help ___ the effects of flooding.
- Decades of overfishing have ___ stocks of cod across the northern seas.
- What does greenwashing mean?
- Scientists warn that if warming passes a certain ___, some ice sheets could collapse irreversibly.
- What does land degradation mean?
- What does it mean to offset a company's emissions?
- A ___ economy keeps materials in use by repairing, reusing and recycling products.
- Because fossil fuels are ___, we cannot rely on them for ever.
Complete the sentence
Type the word that completes each sentence. Use each word once: biodiversity, degradation, deplete, greenwashing, mitigate, resilient, sink, stewardship.
- Coral reefs support an extraordinary level of marine ___.
- Communities with a strong sense of ___ manage their forests carefully for future generations.
- Soil ___ caused by intensive farming has left much of the land unproductive.
- The advert showed green meadows, but critics dismissed it as ___ because the factory's emissions had risen.
- Wetlands are ___ ecosystems: they recover quickly after storms.
- If we ___ the aquifer faster than rain refills it, the wells will run dry.
- Sea walls and flood barriers are built to ___ the damage from storm surges.
- Old forests are a major carbon ___ because they absorb more carbon than they release.
Answer key
Choose the best option
- a) mitigateMitigate means make something harmful less serious. Trees slow the water and reduce flood damage.
- a) depletedDeplete means use up so that little is left. Overfishing leaves fewer fish.
- b) giving a false impression that an organisation is environmentally responsibleGreenwashing is making a company or product seem more environmentally friendly than it really is.
- b) tipping pointA tipping point is the moment after which a change cannot be reversed.
- a) the gradual decline in the quality of soil and landDegradation means a decline in quality, so land degradation is the decline of soil and land.
- c) to balance them by reducing or removing an equal amount elsewhereOffsetting balances emissions by paying for reductions or removals somewhere else.
- b) circularA circular economy keeps materials in use. A linear economy does the opposite: make, use, throw away.
- d) finiteFinite means limited. Fossil fuels take millions of years to form, so supplies will run out.
Complete the sentence
- biodiversity / diversityBiodiversity means the variety of living things.
- stewardship / responsibility / ownershipStewardship means the careful, responsible management of something.
- degradation / erosion / depletionSoil degradation is the decline in the quality of soil.
- greenwashingGreenwashing gives a false impression of environmental responsibility.
- resilientResilient means able to recover quickly.
- deplete / drain / exhaust / emptyDeplete means use up. After we, the base form is needed.
- mitigate / reduce / limit / lessen / minimise / minimizeMitigate means make the effects less severe.
- sink / storeA carbon sink absorbs more carbon than it releases.