GLOBAL WARMING

 Source: www.maganews.com

The Environment

The consequences of global warming

Climate change has caused great natural disasters all over the planet. If nothing is done, these problems could get even worse over the next few decades

Hurricanes, storms, droughts. These have always existed, irrespective of climate change. However, these natural phenomena have become more intense with global warming. In recent years, the Caribbean, the USA and Mexico have been struck by massively powerful tornadoes. Icecaps are melting in the planet’s coldest regions. In Brazil, the south and southeast regions have been battered by rainstorms and cyclones. Dozens of cities have been flooded. These are just a few examples of the greenhouse effect on the planet’s climate. And things could get worse in the next few decades. A study carried out by IPCC (a group of specialists from around the world) has concluded that the planet could see its temperature rise by 3 degrees by the end of the century. This would be enough to make massive natural disasters commonplace all over the world. 

Gloomy outlook 

According to the IPCC’s forecasts, by 2020 between 75 and 200 million people in Africa could be suffering from water shortages. Agricultural production and access to food will be impacted.Amazonia is at risk. Studies by IPCC and INPE say that in the next few decades the lush Amazonian forest could become a savannah (typical of the vegetation in Africa). And the northeast of Brazil could become a real wasteland.

Matéria publicada na edição de dezembro (número 52) da Revista Maganews.

Áudio – Andy Shepherd (sotaque britânico)

Ilustração - Calberto

Vocabulary

1 gloomy – sombrio

2 outlook – cenário / previsão / visão de mundo

3 hurricane – furacão

4 storm – tempestade

5 drought - seca

6 irrespective – independente

7 icecap – geleira

8 to melt – derreter

9 to be battered – ser atingido fortemente

10 rainstorms – chuvas intensas / tempestades

11 commonplace – rotina (virar rotina)

12 forecast – previsão

13 shortage – escassez

14 lush - exuberante

15 wasteland – deserto / lugar sem vida

Podenglish, lesson 61 LIFE STYLE

Past tense, Affirmative form

 

 Source: www.englishexercises.org

FILL IN THE BLANKS BY USING THE PAST FORM OF THE VERBS GIVEN

1) The princess was very sad because her golden ball  (fall) into the well.

2) Suddenly, the princess (see)a big, ugly frog and she   (ask) him to get her ball.

3) The frog (want) to be the princess' friend.

4) The frog  (jump) into the well, and (throw) the golden ball to the princess.

5)The princess  (catch)the ball, and quickly  (run) to the castle.

6)The frog (come)to the castle and  (start) to live with the princess in the castle.

7) Soon, the princess (begin) to love the frog.

8)They (become) very close friends.

9)One day, the princess  (kiss) the frog.

10)Then, suddenly, the frog (turn) into a handsome prince.

11)They soon (get) married and lived happily forever.

History 45 Years since the military coup in 1964

History

45 Years since the military coup in 1964 

Source: www.maganews.com.br recomendo a assinatura para professores e alunos

Authoritarian regime lasted 21 years and was marked by political persecution, prison, torture and complete censorship of the Press

    In the first months of 1964 a lot of military people and somesectors of civil society believed that Brazil was going through great social and economic upheaval. They  criticized the then President João Goulart and thought that the government could “open the country’s doors to communism”.  The military people who were unsatisfied then began to get organized and strengthen themselves. They had the support of the rich business class and some sectors of Brazilian society and even had the sympathy of the American government.

    And so on 31st March 1964 they managed to seize power by force. João Goulart and various political leaders and public personalities have to flee the country. For many years the military government persecuted its opposition. Many people were arrested,  tortured and even killed and others had to live away from Brazil.

The consequences of the “leaden years”

      From 1974 on, the military government slowly reduced its authoritarianism. With the passing of the years, various sectors of society began to get together to demand the return to democracy. Finally in 1985 the military left power. The dictatorship had lasted 21 years and had left a lot of negative marks on Brazilian society, such as an enormous external and internal debt, increased social inequalities and a great loss of quality in public education. Up to today Brazilian society is paying for the errors committed during the “leaden years”.

 www.maganews.com.br

Vocabulary  1 military coup – golpe militar

2 censorship – censura

3 press – imprensa

4 to go through – passar por

5 upheaval – desordens

6 to seize – agarrar / tomar

7 to flee – fugir

8 opposition – oposição (no texto está no sentido de “todos os opositores”)

9 to arrest – prender      

Life abroad, India

 

Life Abroad Source: www.maganews.com.br

India: exotic and fascinating

Animals in the streets, packed cinemas and a massive variety of religions and languages – welcome to India, a country of over one billion people with a 5,000-year history. This fascinating country is being shown in “Caminho das Índias”, Globo’s latest soap opera

Exotic. That is the most commonly used word by tourists to describe India. The traffic in the large cities is chaotic. There are so many vehicles in the streets and on the avenues, fighting for space with cows, monkeys, camels and even elephants. And don’t even think about running into a cow, an animal considered to be sacred by Indians. The lifestyle of the Indian people may also be seen as exotic. It is normal to see men walking hand-in-hand. Gay? No!!! Just friends. In India arranged marriages are still traditional. In many cases the parents choose the ideal partner for their children. The clothes are also exotic: men wearing turbans and women traditional, colorful saris. Globo’s new soap opera, “Caminho das Índias” (Globo 09:00pm), is showing us a little of the culture and traditions created by this happy, religious and welcoming people.  Maganews now offers some interesting facts about this country of 1.1 billion people with over 5,000 years of history.

Leia mais sobre a Índia (aspectos culturais, econômicos, religiosos e turísticos, além de personalidades como Mahatma Gandhi e Madre Teresa) na edição impressa da Revista Maganews – edição de fevereiro.  O áudio desta matéria foi gravado em estúdio pelo irlandês Dave Brien e sua esposa Alline. 

Vocabulary

1 packed – lotado

2 massive – grande

3 the latest – o mais recente / atual

4 chaotic - caótico

5 cow – vaca

6 fighting for space with – aqui = disputando ou dividindo espaço com

7  and don’t even think about running into – e nem pense em atropelar…

8 sacred - sagrado

9 hand-in-hand – de mãos dadas

10 arranged marriages – casamento arranjado

11 children – aqui = filhos

12 turban – turbante

13 colorful saris – sari = vestido típico da Índia

Photo Taj Mahal – Dhirad (Wikimedia Commons)

Erica Jong is Back

Source: SPEAK UP

Language level: Intermediate

Standarda: American Accent, Edition 244

ERICA JONG Is Back!

When Erica Jong first published her novel Fear of Flying in 1973, Henry Miller predicted that “This book will make litary history...because of it women are going to find their own voice and give us great sagas of sex, life, joy, and adventure”. Miller was right: the book rapidly established itself as a “Classic” and it has now sold an estimated 18 million copies worldwide.

ALL THE WRONG REASONS

Jong has since published seven other novels as well as volumes of poetry and a number of non-fictional works that include a study of witches and one of the afore-mentioned Henry Miller. Her latest book is called Seducing the Demon: Writing for my life…In it she looks back on a writing career that has produced 20 books, not to mention four marriages. When Erica Jong met with Speak Up, we asked her about the amazing success of Fear of Flying:

ERICA JONG

(Standard American Accent)

When a literary book sells 18 million copies around the world, it’s not because of literature, it’s because, in some way, it was timed right for the moment that people found themselves in and…like The Catcher in the Rye or Portnoy’s Complaint or many other books about growing up and becoming an adult, one hopes. But it really became a bestseller for the wrong reason. Any literary book that becomes a bestseller, it’s usually for the wrong reason. Either   everybody’s interested in that particular nationality at that moment in time or, you know, we’re very interested in India right now and China, so Indian writers and Chinese writers always win the prizes and we’re very interested in Afghanistan and Iran, so probably you can predict that the Booker Prize and the Campiello and whatever will be won by somebody from these countries. It’s natural, but it’s never for a literary reason, a purely literary reason.

WOMEN TODAY

She was then asked how the life of women had changed since of Flying’s publication:

ERICA JONG

Many women were very liberated by Fear of Flying, many women felt that they…people used to say to me all the time, “I learned that I wasn’t crazy, that I wasn’t the only person who ever had these thought and feelings.” And I was quite comforting to know that you weren’t crazy! Now we’re – what? – 33 years later and women have learned to be free, to have a lot of plastic surgery, to have artificial breasts, to throw up a good meal. Somehow something terrible has happened, not because of my book, or feminism, but because, once again, we’re in a period or retrenchment.

MARRYING FOR MONEY

My daughter’s generation, which has been completely liberated to do whatever they want, to go to medical school, to go to law school, to be writers, to be engineers, computer experts, you name it, they realize, I guess, that the world still belongs to men and they might as well marry a rich man and have babies and then do what they want to do. So the pendulum has swung back. It’s not like…I’m quite horrified, in a way, by this. I never even… well, you know thought of marrying anyone with money, I thought that was disgusting, women who marry men with money. My daughter’s generation is very pragmatic. They say, “OK, we can do whatever we want if we have a nanny during a week and a nanny on the weekend” and for that you have to marry someone with money.

ALL IN FAMILY (NO AUDIO)

Over 18 million copies of Fear of Flying have not been read by Erica Jong’s daughter Molly Jong-Fast. She has also published colourful autobiographical novels, namely Normal Girl (for which Bret Easton Ellis has written the screenplay) and The Sex Doctor in the Basement, which “takes us on a tour of her big fat bohemian Jewish upbringing.”

MARRIAGE

Molly Jong-Fast is the child of Erica Jong’s third marriage, to Jonathan Fast (whose father, Howard, wrote Spartacus). In 2005 Erica Jong (in a joint interview with her daughter) told Time magazine: “ I seem to have married people because they would make good material which is a very had way of marrying people…which is why I have so many marriages {four} in my history . Don’t get married for good material, that’s all I can tell you.” Her current husband is a divorce lawyer.

Podenglish, lesson 60 Diet