Unit 8 Buy, Sell, Trade Lesson 7 Talk about things that are done by other people
Talk about hobby
- Read and listen to Tom.
What’s his hobby? Why does he do it?
My hobby is spotting container ships. They’re amazing. Roughly 90 percent of all we buy is sent to us by ship. Some food companies even send fish to China to have the bones taken out. Right now, more than 5 million individual containers are being shipped around the world. Each container is given a number so it can be tracked. With this system, containers avoid being lost. Unfortunately, it’s thought that about 10,000 are thrown off ships in storms every year.
- Practice Read the text and answer the questions.
The food debate: The Local View
I’m a locavore. Too much of our food is brought from far away, and our planet is being harmed by the planes that are used to transport it. Also, if that food had been produced locally, the profits would have gone to local farmers. Farms will be driven out of business sooner or later without our support. They have been helped a lot by the locavore movement. Until recently, they produce wasn’t being sold locally. Now it is, so always check where the food that I buy was grown.
- Read the text. Answer the questions.
The Food Debate: The Global View
I have nothing against imported food. After all, bananas can’t be grown here, so they have to be flown in from somewhere else. It’s the same for chocolate. I know that the chocolate in our stores must be made somewhere far away. If food stops being imported, we won’t have some items we like to eat. As for the environment, I think the issues need to be put in context. A food’s carbon footprint shouldn’t just be measured by the distance it travels. How it was produced should also be taken into account. No one likes to be that they’re harming the environment, but sometimes food far away damages the environment less than food grown locally.
- Complete the second sentence so that it means the same as the first one.
- The government should give land to everybody so we can grow our own food.
Land should be given to everybody so we can grow our own food.
- If they know that air travel increases global warming, they ought to abolish cheap air
travel.
If it’s known that air travel increases air travel increases global warming, cheap air travel ought to be abolished.
- They should force all homeowners to install solar panels on the roofs.
All homeowners should be forced to have solar panels installed on their roofs.
- The government could send everybody a card allowing them to use free public
transportation.
Everybody could be sent a card allowing public transportation to be used for free.
- We ought to pay someone to repair old things rather than throw them away.
We ought to have our old things repaired rather than throw them away.
- Write and speak. Work in pairs
Discuss the statements in Exercise 4
