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5 easy ways to save the planet
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Simple advice to help us save the planet from global warming.

SuperPower Bloke. Five ways to save the planet.

So, SuperPower Bloke, you think you can save the planet?
That’s the spirit! Know about the climate change, do you?

When we burn fossil fuels, such as oil, coal and gas, we create energy for our day-to-day needs, but we also create CO2. We call theses "carbon emissions". The extra CO2 in the earth’s atmosphere traps the heat from the sun, which causes temperatures to rise. This "global warming" is causing all sorts of problems: melting ice caps, changing weather systems, desertification, to name a few. And each problem leads to another. If the ice caps melt, the sea levels rise, the rivers break their banks and then those wellies of yours won’t be much use at all. Doesn’t look too good, does it?

In the UK the average person has a carbon footprint of nearly eleven thousand kilos of CO2 per year. That will not do! If everyone cut down their carbon footprint, then we could lessen the effect of climate change, and here’s the good news: the cost to you is 0! Want to help by cutting down your carbon foot-print out cheque? Good man!

There are five simple things that you can do right now that will do a real difference:

NUMBER 1- Warm enough, are you? Turn your thermostat down by one or two degrees centigrade, and buy yourself some warmer clothes with the money you save on your heating bills.

NUMBER 2- Don’t leave appliances on stand-by, and remember not to leave them on charge unnecessarily. Switch them off at the socket.

NUMBER 3- Excuse me. Aren’t you forgetting something? Always turn off the lights when you leave a room. And do you really need quite so many?

NUMBER 4- When you do any laundry or dishwashing, make sure you do a full load.

NUMBER 5- Making a cuppa? Stop! How many cups of tea are you making?  What! There’s enough for ten cups in there. Only boil the amount of water that you actually need. Very good old boy!

Remember: 5 ways to save the planet. A small change from you can really make a difference.

BLOKE= in BrE, a colloquial way of referring to a man.

CLIMATE= a formal word for weather

FUEL= anything that can produce energy

SUCH AS= we use this phrase to introduce examples (=for example)

DAY-TO-DAY= an adjective equivalent to "every day, dayly"

SORTS= kinds, types

MELT= when ice melts, it becomes water. If you melt ice, you heat it to make it turn to water. You can melt any solid and turn it into a liquid, for instance, you can melt iron at a very high temperature and make it liquid.

ICE CAPS= the two big masses of ice that cover the North and the South Poles of our planet.

BANK= a river bank is the land on either side of the river. If a river breaks its banks, it overflows and water runs outside the usual place, flooding the surrounding areas.

WELLIES= the complete name (not very much used) is "Wellington Boots": the rubber high boots people use to walk on muddy grounds and cross water puddles.

AVERAGE= standard

FOOTPRINT= a mark in the shape of a foot that a person or animal leaves on a surface. In this context, it means the impact a person has on the atmosphere (their environmental mark).

CUT DOWN= reduce

LESSEN= make less, reduce

THERMOSTAT= the device that lets you control the temperature of a place or thing.

TURN DOWN= (talking about temperature, sound, etc) reduce, lower

DEGREES CENTIGRADE= the international standard unit of temperature.

BILL= a piece of paper telling you how much you have to pay for something

APPLIANCES= a machine or device that does a particular job for you at home (using electricity). For instance, a television, a refrigerator, a washing-machine, etc.

STAND-BY= a mode in which an appliance is not working but is not disconnected either, so you can restart it just by pressing a button. For instance, when you switch the TV off, it usually goes into a stand-by mode, and we can see a small red led (a little red light) to show us that the TV is off, but we can switch it on again quickly just by pressing a button in our remote controller. If we want to disconnect the TV, we have to unplug it or to press the switch off button on the television using our finger.

SOCKET= the place (usually embedded on the wall) where we plug our appliances in. The socket has two or more holes or slots (three slots in the UK), the plug has got two or more bars that fit into the holes of the socket, so that electricity may travel to the machine and make it work. A "switch" is a button or lever that let us turn on or turn off a machine. In the UK, sockets have a switch, so you can disconnect energy by switching off the machine or by switching off the socket itself!

LAUNDRY= the dirty clothes you put aside to wash. To do the laundry is to wash your dirty clothes (by hand or in the washing machine)

LOAD= the quantity of things you can put in a container. A full load is when you use all the space in that container.

CUPPA= (coll., esp. BrE) a cup of something (usually a cup of tea)

BOIL= heat water till bubbles of vapour start coming out of it (it happens when water reaches 100 degrees centigrade)

ACTUALLY= really, truly

GOOD OLD BOY!= the word "old" is often used in a loving way, not referring to age, and is usually used in the phrase "good old X". If I say "this is good old Jack" I don’t mean Jack is old, I mean "this is Jack, and I like/love him very much as a friend (or I think he’s very nice)". The expression "good old boy!" is usually used when talking to dogs or children after they’ve done what we told them to do (it sounds condescending when used with an adult, like here).

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