Inside Reading Level 2

Unit 5

Bad Weather transcript

Broadcaster/Speaker 1: Hurricane force winds and flooding have left death and destruction yet
again in northern Europe. Landslides1 have closed roads in Portugal. Power is cut in England. A
British government prediction says winter precipitation will increase by 30 percent this century
because of pollution, making the brutal floods of 2000 here look like a tea party.

Speaker 2: This is much worse than what happened in October, November 2000 which I think
everybody thought was going to be a once in a lifetime event.

Broadcaster: Apparently not. Today's sunshine notwithstanding2, flooding will be common as

scientists predict wetter winters and drier summers because of the changing weather. Less
obvious are the effects on animals. There's real evidence that birds are nesting earlier and
butterflies live further north than they used to because of global warming.

>> Changes like the earliest migration dates, the earliest budding3 of a tree, are all moving
earlier. All of these changes are consistent with the theory of global climate change.

Broadcaster: Some butterflies appear more than two months earlier than they did in the 1940s
and breed twice a year instead of once. Birds are in danger of losing feeding and breeding
grounds as sea levels rise due to melting ice caps. Dr. Camille Parmesan of the University of
Texas has authored a new report that shows that 50 percent of the planet's wildlife is affected
by what she terms a tiny bit of warming. A finding that well exceeded4 her expectations.

Dr. Camille Parmesan: Plants are responding; animals are responding; everything from the
tropics to the Arctic to the Antarctic.

Broadcaster: If the predictions are true and Europeans suffer through decades more of floods
like these, global warming will no longer be a scientific debate but a reality politicians will have
to deal with.

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landslide: a mass of earth, rock, etc. that falls down the slope of a mountain or a cliff
22
notwithstanding: without being affected by something
33
budding: beginning to develop
44
exceeded: to be greater than a certain number or amount