Humor4u

Arctic sea ice fell by 3.239 million km² in extent in 25 days (i.e. from July 1 to 25, 2020). Melting will likely continue for another two months. If it continues on its current trajectory, the remaining 6.333 million km² of Arctic sea ice could disappear completely within two months' time. The fall in extent over the next two months' time may not remain as as steep as it was in July, yet the sea ice still could disappear completely. One reason for this is that, over the years, sea ice thickness has been declining even faster than extent. The rapid decline in sea ice thickness is illustrated by the sequence of images below. The image on the right further illustrates that sea ice is getting very thin, which threatens the  latent heat tipping point  to get crossed.  Sea currents and the Coriolis force will make that the influx of warm, salty water into the Arctic Ocean will continue. With no buffer of sea ice left underneath the surface of the sea ice to absorb incoming...

This is a "human interest" story from Humankind , a USA Today video channel on YouTube and Facebook that features "uplifting stories about kindness, triumphs and special relationships".  Sam Giambalvo is a travelling nurse who tells an emotional story at the 7:00 clap back in June 2020. She speaks fast, standard American English, but there are subtitles, which can be very helpful. You will hear lots of expressions related to feelings, for example: sirens, applause, honoring, frontline workers, to pass away, ER, to follow your feelings, comforting, I lost it, let me be upset, a split second, to get me through the shift, to give a hug, to look forward to something, a terrace, a storey, to hold a sign, to wave for you, to point at you, he fist pumps, he'll blow kisses, sirens wailing, joyous, appreciation, to sprint out there, to show up, God is blessing us, break, upbeat music .   This video can be recommended to C1 students (with the subtitles).

Morgan Bullock is a 20-year-old African American from Richmond, Virginia, who uploaded an Irish dance version of Beyoncé's " The Savage Remix " on Tik Tok, which went viral. Many people loved her artistic performance, but there were some who accused her of "cultural misappropriation".  If you want to find out the end of the story you can click on the following BBC link to watch a 4:15 video of the story with subtitles, which could be accessible to B2 students:  bbc.in/30p2Y6w But if your level of English is higher, you can try the full BBC video report below, which is 10:51, and has no subtitles The video above is more suitable for C1 or C2 students, but I have taken rough notes of some salient words on this worksheet, which can be used as a viewing guide in class or as homework, for those students who might often get lost in the long flow of speech.  There is also a simple lesson plan to use this video with C1 students in class.   Finally, if you want some more...

The BBC reports that 100,000 mink are going to be culled in a farm in Puebla de Valverde (Teruel) because they have been infected with coronavirus, after Joaquín Olona, agriculture minister for the Aragon region, announced the decision yesterday.  The outbreak was discovered back in May, when the wife of a farm worker was infected with the virus.  It is not clear, though, if transmission from animals to humans and viceversa is possible.  Similar cases have been found in the Netherlands and Denmark, major producers of mink for their fur. Click here if you want more details of the story. This report is suitable for B2 students.  You will find interesting words and expressions in context like mink, to be culled, an outbreak, to contract the virus, to test positive, to be bred for their fur, hotspots, to stress [an idea], unwittingly, an unsubstantiated theory, to pass on a disease, to be slaughtered.

Bruce Springsteen published a memoir in 2016, entitled " Born to Run ", after his greatest hit, where he reveals some hidden aspects of his life and personality, so, he was interviewed by Terry Gross, to present his book on NPR's Fresh Air radio programme.  The listening is long, 22 minutes, so, it is problably very suitable for "extensive listening", that is, to listen to while you are doing something else, like walking, driving, or ironing, but you can always go the the script, if you are lost or if you want to check a word that you didn't pick up. I have used this interview as listening homework with my B2 students, although it is problably more suitable for C1 students.  I include some notes about how we discussed the interview in class and the cultural information I had to give my students to help them understand the context of the book, the musician and the journalist. Here are my notes on a link to Google Drive.

Global warming and ice sheet melting: Portents of a Younger dryas-like stadial event by Andrew Glikson Linear climate projections by the IPCC are difficult to reconcile with the paleoclimate evidence of stadial cooling events which closely succeeded warming peaks, including the Younger dryas (12.9–11.6 kyr ago), Laurentian melt (~8.3 kyr) and earlier interglacial stadials . Each of these events followed peak interglacial temperatures, leading to extensive melting of the ice sheets and transient stadial cooling events. Current global temperature rises in the range of ~ +1.19 ± 0.13 °C (Northern Hemisphere) and higher in the Arctic are consistent with this pattern, leading to the build-up of ice melt pools south of Greenland and around Antarctica. The growth of these pools is likely to progress toward large-scale to a global stadial, inducing differential warming and cooling effects leading to major weather disruptions and storminess, possibly analogous to the Younger dryas and Laurent...

As temperatures keep rising, should the IPCC raise the alarm? Some 1,750 jurisdictions in 30 countries have now declared a climate emergency, according to this post  dated July 8, 2020. The United Nations does  acknowledge the Climate Emergency , but its description is sourced from the  IPCC Global Warming of 1.5°C report  that was approved back in 2018. A lot has happened since, as described in many posts at Arctic-news . When a state of emergency is declared, doesn't one expect such a declaration to result in action, complete with updates on the effectiveness of the action? Described below are some events taking place right now. Arctic Sea Ice at Record Low for Time of Year Arctic sea ice looks set to reach an all-time record low in September 2020. In an earlier post, Paul Beckwith describes a  Blue Ocean Event (BOE) and some of the consequences of the changes taking place in the Arctic. A BOE occurs when sea ice extent gets below 1 million km², which ...

Ennio Morricone has died at the age of 91 in Rome. He was the composer of the score of  more than 500 films, including successful "spaghetti westerns" like " The Good, the Bad and the Ugly ", " Once Upon a Time in the West " with director Sergio Leone and other box office hits like " Cinema Paradiso ", " The Mission " or Brian de Palma's " The Untouchables ".  He won an honorary Oscar in 2007, and an outright one for Quentin Tarantino's film " The Hateful Eight " in 2015.  He was recently awarded the 2020 Princess of Asturias Prize for the Arts by the Spanish Crown. He managed to create an atmosphere of mystery, toughness and humour by orchestrating music based on "howls, gunshots and groans".  Rose Friedman, writing an appreciation for NPR, says that in Western movies, where dialogue was minimal, "music did the talking".   Here you can listen to a 4-minute radio report with its script, an...

You Don't Own Me (1963) is a feminist song that makes a strong statement in favour of women's emancipation in the second wave of the feminist movement (1960s-1980s), (you can find out more about this on this Wikipedia link). The song is quite easy to understand, here you can find a lesson plan for B1 students with a fill-in-the gap listening task, the full lyrics and a speaking activity which includes a discussion and an sing-along exercise to promote articulatory fluency. I would like to thank my student Cristina T. for sending me the video of this song. In 2015, one month after Lesley Gore died, the Australian singer song-writer Grace released a cover of the song which was a hit in the  music charts of Australia, New Zealand and the UK. Here, you can find a link to Grace's video and compare the two versions of the song:   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IEt7bnuO5y0