This is an All Ears English podcast episode 1137.
How to have a deep green conversation in English.
Welcome to the All Ears English podcast downloaded more than 50 million times.
We believe in connection, not perfection.
With your American hosts Lindsay McMahon, the English adventurer, and Michelle Kaplan, the New York radio girl, coming to you from Boston and New York City, USA.
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Today, our listener Taina challenges us to explore the topic of the environment.
Find out how to talk about it today and more.
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Hey, Jessica, how you doing?
I'm doing fantastic.
I got to go running in a t-shirt like short sleeves.
Oh, wow.
Yeah.
So this is, I finally feel like spring is breaking through and it feels amazing.
That's awesome.
That's awesome.
Yeah, I did a little spring skiing this past winter weekend.
And you know, it was icy.
It was really icy.
A lot of ice, but it was fun.
It was funny.
That's the definition of skiing in the East is ice, rocks and grass.
Oh, gosh, that's horrible.
You know what's funny?
I remember knowing this dude from Colorado and he was a snowboarder and he would, instead of saying like fresh powder, because like newly fallen snow, that is really like soft right.
We call powder.
And so he would say, oh, got to go hit the fresh pow pow.
I knew you were going to say that.
That kills me, that term.
It's so cheesy.
It sounds so dumb.
Hardcore skiers, they have their own lingo.
They really do.
They have a name for everything.
We can go into that.
Isn't that the way with like every sport though?
Yeah.
No, we should like do some episodes in the future about like sports specific slaying or something.
We really should.
We really should.
We really should, because that could be a great episode.
But I mean even talking about things like the environment, for example.
It has its own lingo, right.
This culture of talking about what's happening with the environment.
And, you know, I don't think about this enough of my impact there.
Right.
The carbon footprint.
The impact of driving an SUV three hours north to go to Vermont with two people in the car.
The impact on the environment.
Right.
Yeah, I've actually been thinking about that lately as well because, like James and I, want to take more road trips this summer.
And, like, the car that I have now is fine.
It's small.
It's a Kia Soul.
It's, you know –
Compact doesn't use a whole lot of gas, but it's also – like, on the other hand, it's not super comfortable for long journeys with James and Ozzy and all of our stuff and bicycles.
Yes.
So I've been thinking like I kind of want to –
Bigger car, but then why?
Is that responsible?
I'm only getting a bigger car to use with this small fraction of my life.
Yeah.
Right?
It's so tricky to find that balance.
It really is.
And this is such an important topic nowadays, right?
This.
It does scare me a lot when I think about the effects of the climate change and what you know.
What is life going to be like for our kids, our nieces and nephews?
You know?
20 30, 40 years from now?
What is the world going to look like?
I mean, that's the thing.
Environmental scientists, environmentalists these predictions are not – they're not 100 years from now anymore.
Right, right.
20 years from now, your world will look different.
And we still aren't really doing enough about that, you know, like if anything.
Exactly.
So that's why we need to have the vocabulary to talk about it around the world, right?
In English, for example.
So that's why I love that Taina wrote in with a really good question.
I want to read the question.
And then we'll dive into it, right?
Because Taina is challenging us here to go into a deeper topic, to address one of the more controversial topics or important topics, right.
That we could on the podcast.
So Taina says traveling all over the world is fun and understanding different cultures is important, but the flip side is environmental effects of air travel.
It made me ponder that maybe you could bring up a different view. on this matter for a change.
Climate change and sustainability are among the topics that will become more common in our daily discussions.
At least we hope so.
Maybe you could give us some basic vocabulary about climate change and ways to express our concerns about the future and daily choices we make related to it.
There's a ton of interesting questions to create a thought-provoking and inspiring episode.
You haven't been afraid to tackle matters like this in your podcast, so maybe this would be a great topic.
This is a great challenge from taina, so thank you, taina.
All right yes, this is fantastic.
Thank you so much for writing in with this question.
Yeah, for sure.
Um, we do talk about traveling a lot.
I'm sure you and michelle do as well right, i mean, all of us love to travel yes but, But yes, this is the difficult thing that we're going to wrestle with today and give you guys the vocab that we use and other natives use when we have these conversations with each other.
Yeah, I mean, I think the two of us, we both live in very liberal, forward thinking, progressive communities, you know Portland, Oregon and Cambridge Mass.
You really in terms of environmental awareness, you couldn't get more progressive.
This is true.
This is totally true.
Yeah, for sure.
So I like that Taina said sustainability, right?
So this idea is pervasive in both of the places where we live.
So sustainability, it's like making something last.
It could be making our environment last healthily, but also making our resources last and reusing, recycling.
So those are all parts of that word sustainability.
And one thing specifically that both of our communities do, on completely opposite sides of America, is –.
We have banned plastic bags.
You do not get plastic bags at any supermarkets or convenience stores or anywhere in Portland Oregon.
Right.
It's gotten to the point here in Cambridge.
It's true.
This law passed.
Probably I would have won.
I would say three years ago, something like that.
It's probably been about three years and it's gotten to the point where you know, even now people bring their own cloth bags.
So in some way, in some sense, you feel a little embarrassed if you forget to bring your cloth bag because you're still going to be using a paper bag.
We are at that point of kind of like shame around using paper bags.
Yes.
Oh my gosh.
That is – and I like how Taina said flip side.
So that's the flip side of being so eco-conscious and environmentally aware.
Is that there's some shaming happening?
Like if someone is using a plastic bag or something, there will definitely be like other Portland residents that give them the eye like ugh.
Like, you're ruining the world.
Yeah, I mean, for sure.
I mean, I think that this is an issue that you know.
It's a luxury to be able to even think about this in some way.
You know what I mean?
So everyone's in every society culture city community, family is in a different place in terms of what we have the time and resources to even think about.
Right.
Right.
So that's important to keep in mind before we go further into this.
But yeah, right here in Cambridge there's some shame involved in not adhering to that and bringing it.
You know, having to carry out with a paper bag even.
That's true.
I know, totally.
And what's weird is, so you guys probably remember that James and I moved last summer.
And so we're still in Portland, but it's like five minutes from another sort of town.
And so I go shopping there sometimes because it's close and they don't have that law.
And the first time I went grocery shopping there and she was using all these plastic bags like, my reaction was like
I was like, oh, my God, what are you doing?
I mean I didn't say that, but like I was shocked inside and I literally did feel guilty, driving home with these plastic bags in my car,
It's like, oh, my gosh, I have to reuse these to like make this OK.
So there's there is some anxiety and stress related to being eco conscious.
Yeah, it's true.
It's kind of ironic that just adjacent to these large cities that are so progressive, we have small towns that aren't there yet, right.
They're not there yet at all, completely the opposite.
So that's really interesting.
But Guys, in today's episode we're going to give you guys some real tangible vocabulary words, because I really think that this is so important for us as a world community to be able to start talking about with the same language.
Oh, for sure.
And I think people are having this conversation, right?
All over the world.
And natives definitely are.
So guys, you can totally have this conversation and compare what your country is doing compared to what the native speaker's place is doing, right?
So this is, yeah, like so many cool conversations can happen.
Oh, for sure.
I know at the end of today's episode we want you guys to come back to the blog allearsenglishcom forward slash episodes.
This is going to be episode 1137.
Leave a comment.
Let us know what's happening in your community, in your city, what's being done, right, for this.
Yeah, let's get into it, Jessica.
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So the first sort of encouraging motto that I hear and see everywhere is telling people to go green.
It's this really succinct way of asking people to be environmentally friendly in their daily lives, right.
So it could be at the supermarket.
It could be riding your bike instead of driving your car.
But to go green is to try and make your daily routines, to tweak them to be better for the environment.
Exactly.
And this can be used as an adjective in so many ways.
You could say, I'm leading a more green lifestyle, for example.
Yes.
Yeah.
Guys, you'll see the word green all over the place, especially in communities like where Lindsay and I live.
Even restaurants will promote a green menu or something like that, right?
You'll see this word everywhere for businesses to prove that they are doing their part for the environment.
Exactly, exactly.
Or even in a laundromat they might have something on the wall that says you know, we use green practices, right?
Some kind of a green method.
So it's everywhere.
So remember this one, guys, write it down.
This is probably the most important one to take note of and to know what that means.
Yes, because definitely if you travel here, you're going to see that everywhere.
And then a couple more sort of adjectives that we use a lot, and Lindsay and I use them in our conversation already to say that you are environmentally aware or – like eco-conscious right.
So aware or conscious just means like you think about it, you know about your responsibility and you're trying to do some stuff to help the planet.
Yeah, exactly, exactly.
And I think this can spread throughout, you know, friend groups, for example.
And when your friends are aware of these things, You can become that way, too.
It's spread by word of mouth, I think more so than the city kind of implementing some kind of a new rule.
It's spread within a community.
For sure.
I think that, well, it's more immediate, right?
I mean the government could do whatever and encourage habits by passing bills, but how does that help on a daily basis?
If it's like rules for industry, that doesn't have anything to do with the individuals.
So it is.
It is about your daily routines and what you're doing with your friends when you go shopping.
I mean, so many decisions to make every day that you could go either way.
You could choose green or you could choose convenient and easy.
Right.
Yeah, I mean.
Unfortunately, right now we have an administration that really isn't paying much attention to the current science that's coming out.
They're almost going in the opposite direction, which scares me a lot.
But, you know, there's going to be an election coming up soon.
So thank goodness for that.
And hopefully things will start to change and we'll start to wake up again to what science is telling us loud and clear.
Yeah, you know, with all of the like huge headlines and tweets and stuff like that, this sort of stuff I think has fallen under the radar, internationally at least, and domestically to some extent, are the number of laws and loosening the like environmental laws that the Trump administration has done everywhere.
And it is shocking.
And it is long-term impact we're talking about.
So whatever administration comes next has a lot of cleanup to do.
Oh, yeah.
For sure.
For sure.
And so the next verb that I really like is the word to align.
Right?
I love this.
For example, when I think about going skiing on the weekend, driving three hours north in an SUV, how can I think about better aligning my life with my consciousness around the environment?
Yes.
So this is such a great verb, you guys.
So align, it's really like balance.
I think of it as a way to balance, like your own personal goals, and ease and comfort with with the awareness you have of your impact right.
So maybe you sacrifice a little bit of your own comfort in order to align your goals or your actions with what you know is green.
Yeah, exactly.
Exactly.
When I drove across the US to create the Connected Communicator a couple summers ago actually I was lucky to rent a new car.
At that time, it was a 2016 Chevy Malibu.
And I didn't know that it had this feature where the engine turns itself off when you are in a stoplight.
You're at like a light.
Whoa, that's awesome.
Yeah.
And I didn't even realize it.
I thought the car was stalling out.
What's going on?
That would be really surprising and weird.
Did it ever like not start right away?
Did it work every time?
It works perfect.
It was a brand new car.
It had like 2000 miles on it because I needed something good to get me across the US.
But in hindsight, I didn't request that.
Maybe I should have, but I was lucky to get a car like that.
Just luck of the draw, right?
Well, you didn't even know it was possible to request it in the first place.
I've never even heard of that.
You've never heard of that.
So yeah, a lot of new cars are being built that way where literally, if it senses that it's sitting at a light, it'll turn itself off completely.
So it's not emitting it.
Oh my gosh.
Yeah.
Pretty cool.
Yes.
Because the what do you what do you call it when you're you're at a light idling?
Idling is like there's signs outside schools and stuff as well, telling parents to turn off their cars and not idle.
Right.
Just letting your engine run and releasing all of that CO2 and stuff.
Oh, that is fantastic.
Maybe I do want a new car.
Maybe that is a way for me to go green.
So another some more vocab here, guys.
We're thinking we're talking about the impact we have.
So Lindsay having that new car, it lessened the impact that she was making on the environment and it lessened her carbon footprint.
So the impact, the carbon footprint, these are all the bad ways that we're leaving stuff behind in the world that we shouldn't be.
Exactly, exactly.
But I mean, the first key is kind of becoming aware of it.
And having kind of buy in from the community in general.
And that's what changes laws, right?
That's what changes what moves things forward in the government.
I think in general, in this country, the popular opinion has to be in a certain way.
Like for this, we have to be scared enough or freaked out enough for laws to start changing.
True.
And if people don't believe in science, then there's nothing to be scared of.
And I think there's also just a quick, like sort of political, cultural note that you guys might not know about America.
California is usually like the first one to pass laws like this, right?
So they banned plastic straws, for example.
But because people have a certain stereotype about Californians.
Maybe they are elitist or maybe, like Californians, might look down on people from the rest of the country.
I think that pushes people away even more.
So like if middle America sees California bans plastic straws, that's not going to encourage them to do so.
They'll just be like, oh, of course they did.
And then they'll be less likely to do it.
I think there's all of these really interesting subtleties to how we think of the environment here.
Oh, that's really interesting.
I mean, I'm really excited to watch this issue with the new, with the primaries, the Democratic primaries that are coming up the election, to see what actually happens with this issue.
I mean, we all do our best personally, but we do need a big change.
Like I think we need a dramatic change in the way things are done to kind of to to take care of this issue for our, for my niece.
I'm thinking about my niece in the future in 20, 30, 40 years.
What is her life going to be like?
What's it going to be like to walk outside and breathe in the air, you know?
Right.
It is that immediate.
Yeah.
So guys, there's definitely going to be a lot of news coming out of America and lots of discussions that you could have.
And now you'll be able to understand a little bit more of what you're hearing and hopefully, have these important discussions with people you know.
Definitely.
So guys, come back to our blog on this one.
This is one where we really want to hear from you guys.
So come back to allearsenglishcom forward, slash episodes type 1137 in the search bar and leave a comment right there in the blog post.
What's happening in your country in regards to this issue?
And how are politicians treating it?
And what are citizens doing to take care of the environment or not take care of it?
We want to know all sides, so let's, let's talk about it.
Yeah, i love it.
I can't wait to read these, these comments.
All right jessica, thanks for hanging out and thanks to taina for asking this important question.
It was a good one.
Yeah, super fun.
All right, cool.
All right, let's see.
All right, take care bye, bye.
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