What Next?: It's The End Of The World

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Enseñanzas Oficiales de Idiomas

Inglés Nivel C1.2

Lesson 2

 

What Next?: It's The End Of The World

Clock

Image by Bulletin of Atomic Scientists
in Wikimedia. Public Domain.

The Doomsday Clock is a symbol which represents the likelihood of a man-made global catastrophe. Maintained since 1947 by the members of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists' Science and Security Board, the Clock represents an analogy for the threat of global nuclear war. Since 2007, it has also reflected climate change and new developments in the life sciences and technology that could inflict irrevocable harm to humanity.

The Clock represents the hypothetical global catastrophe as "midnight" and The Bulletin's opinion on how close the world is to a global catastrophe as a number of "minutes" to midnight. Its original setting in 1947 was seven minutes to midnight. It has been set backward and forward 22 times since then, the smallest-ever number of minutes to midnight being two (in 1953) and the largest seventeen (in 1991). As of January 2017, the Clock is set at two and a half minutes to midnight, due to United States President Donald Trump's comments over North Korea, Russia, and nuclear weapons.

Objetivos

The End is Near
Image by Mickey in Flickr. CC

Get Thinking

What do you think? What does the "End of the World" mean?

  • A significant change to human civilisation.
  • The end of human civilisation.
  • The end of human life.
  • The end of all life on the planet Earth.
  • The destruction of the planet Earth.
  • The destruction of the universe.

Get Talking

Below are some of the things which have been suggested as being causes of the "End of the World". How likely is each one to occur? Discuss with your course mates and tutor.

  • Zombie apocalypse
  • Reversal of the Earth's magnetic field
  • An alien invasion
  • An asteroid striking the Earth
  • A man-made black hole formed by CERN experiments
  • The battle of Armageddon described in the Bible
  • Natural disasters (tsunamis, volcano eruptions...)
  • Nuclear, chemical, holy, or other types of war
  • Death of the Solar System
  • Environmental degradation (deforestation, species extinction, fossil-fuel depletion...)
  • Pandemic (flu, ebola, Covid-19...)
  • Climate change
  • Robotic revolt

Actividad

A great misfortune can be a catastrophe, a cataclysm, a disaster, or a calamity. The distinctions among these words are not absolute and vary from speaker to speaker.

A cataclysm is always widespread and involves sudden and violent change (often social and political). A catastrophe stresses the fact that there is a fatal outcome. A disaster implies loss of life or loss of property, status, or certain abilities. A calamity stresses the amount of upset or disruption caused by the event: It is used for personal misfortunes.

The world has conducted a massive macro-economic experiment since the cataclysm of 2008. In Europe, the fans of austerity have had their chance, and the results have been a disaster.

Often it takes some calamity to make us live in the present. Then suddenly we wake up and see all the mistakes we have made.

Success is not built on success. It's built on failure. It's built on frustration. Sometimes it's built on catastrophe.

Prosperous communities are much better able to survive hurricanes or other natural disasters because they have greater resources, both public and private, to fall back upon.

Objetivos

Remember that the final unstressed "e" in catastrophe is pronounced. Other words in which the final unstressed "e" is pronounced are:

  • apostrophe, coyote, karate, karaoke, machete, maybe, recipe, sesame
  • aborigine, adobe, anemone, Apache, epitome, Comanche, guacamole, hyperbole, simile, tamale
  • Chile, Gethsemane, Yosemite
  • Female Greek names: Antigone, Aphrodite, Ariadne, Calliope, Chloe, Daphne, Hermione, Nike, Penelope, Phoebe, Zoe