"Green Cliches and Polar Bears"

The full title of the article from The Guardian is: "Jeremy Clarkson and Michael O'Leary Won't Listen to Green Cliches and Complaints about Polar Bears." The writer George Marshall calls out two people for not believing in global warming, but as the founder of the Climate Outreach Information Network, he campaigns to wake up the world.

Here are all the word lists to support the reading of Grade 10 Unit 5's texts from SpringBoard's Common Core ELA series: I Need to Wake Up, The 11th Hour, Global Warming Alarmism, Global Warming, Green Cliches and Polar Bears, A Roaring Battle, Stop Sea Lion Killing, Sea lions vs. salmon
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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. enterprise
    an organization created for business ventures
    Let's talk about global warming in language deniers understand: energy independence and potential for new enterprise.
  2. denial
    the act of asserting that something alleged is not true
    Academics meeting in Bristol at the weekend for Britain's first conference on the psychology of climate change argued that the greatest obstacles to action are not technical, economic, or political--they are the denial strategies that we adopt to protect ourselves from unwelcome information.
  3. absolve
    excuse or free from blame
    They describe climate change as a global problem (but not a local one), as a future problem (not one for their own lifetimes) and absolve themselves of responsibility for either causing the problem or solving it.
  4. consensus
    agreement in the judgment reached by a group as a whole
    How is it possible that so many people are still unpersuaded by 40 years of research and the consensus of every major scientific institution in the world?
  5. rational
    consistent with or based on or using reason
    None of this bodes well for a rational approach to climate change.
  6. prestige
    a high standing achieved through success or influence
    She found the largest common factor was a shared sense that they had personally lost prestige and authority as the result of campaigns by liberals and environmentalists.
  7. sustained
    continued at length without interruption or weakening
    In order to maintain their skepticism in the face of a sustained, and sometimes heated, challenge from their peers, they have created a mutually supportive dissident culture around an identity as victimised speakers for the truth.
  8. elite
    a group or class of persons enjoying superior status
    It concluded that the denial of climate change had been deliberately constructed "as a tactic of an elite-driven counter-movement designed to combat environmentalism."
  9. skeptic
    someone who habitually doubts accepted beliefs
    So, given that skepticism is rooted in a sustained and well-funded ideological movement, how can skeptics be swayed?
  10. cliche
    a trite or obvious remark
    One way is to reframe climate change in a way that rejects the green cliches and creates new metaphors with a wider resonance.
Created on Wed Oct 15 20:05:44 EDT 2014 (updated Wed Oct 15 22:38:41 EDT 2014)

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