What Earth in 2050 could look like
Watch this TED-Ed lesson once the whole way through, without pausing. It explains how different levels of carbon emissions could shape our planet over the next few decades.
TED-Ed, "What Earth in 2050 could look like" (dir. Sofia Pashaei, lesson by Shannon Odell), 5 min. Opens on YouTube if the embed doesn't load in your browser.
Comprehension checkpoints
Answer in the order the ideas appear in the video. If you're unsure, watch the relevant section again before choosing.
Key phrases
These phrases from the video are useful for describing future possibilities in academic English. Match each one to its function by choosing the best option.
Adapting to a warmer world
Read the passage once for general meaning before you look at the tasks below.
Cities across the world are beginning to treat climate adaptation as an urgent priority rather than a distant concern. Rotterdam, for example, has built floating neighbourhoods and water squares that fill during heavy rain and drain slowly afterwards, reducing pressure on the city's drainage network. Supporters argue that this kind of infrastructure investment is a rational response to a measurable risk: sea levels in the Netherlands have already risen by roughly twenty centimetres over the past century, and engineers expect this trend to continue.
Critics, however, note that adaptation projects are expensive and tend to benefit wealthier neighbourhoods first, since these are usually the areas where investment is concentrated. A further concern is that adaptation, on its own, does not address the underlying cause of the problem: rising global emissions. Even so, most urban planners maintain that adaptation and emissions reduction are not competing strategies but complementary ones, and that cities which delay adaptation now are likely to face far greater costs later.
This passage was written for this unit to model the claim → evidence → counter-argument → response pattern common in academic and opinion writing on climate topics.
Fill the gaps
Complete each sentence with the correct word from the passage above. Type your answer and press Check.
Claim, evidence, or counter-argument?
Drag each sentence from the passage into the category that best describes its function in the argument.
Claim
Evidence
Counter-argument
Global temperature anomaly, 1900–2020
This chart shows how far the global average surface temperature has been above or below the 1951–1980 average, in °C. Study it, then answer the questions.
Dictogloss: rebuild the paragraph
Read the short paragraph below carefully twice. Then click "Hide text" and reconstruct it in your own words in the box, keeping the same meaning and as much of the key vocabulary as you can. There's no single correct answer — compare your version with the model afterwards.
Check your progress
Five questions covering Units 1 and 2. You have two attempts per question.
Reflection
In 2–3 sentences, write about how this unit's material relates to your own academic reading or writing.
Before you finish, check your response against this self-evaluation checklist: