Elderly woman:

Climate change is shocking; the media makes such a big fuss about it, maybe they are exaggeratting a little; However, I do what I can (recycling, low-energy-bulbs, no car,...) I'm a bit sceptical because I've heard that low-energy-bulbs release toxic emissions (too much mercury in them). In my opinion cars aren't as bad as everybody says either. Just one person can't decrease the release of CO2 so that it would make a difference. There have always been changes in our environment, so one should just leave it at that. The next generation will simply have to adapt to their changes.

A man who sells hats:

I don't like the winter because I injured my back when I went snowboarding so I don't care if it gets warmer. But i don't drive a car. (From then on he just joked about the climate change and said: We should live in the mountains because there would be more space and the environment could recreate again)

Finnish hockey fans:

Last summer was quite hot, which is quite unusal (One of the fans made a joke: We can also feel the climate change in our saunas, there it's not only 120°C but 130°C) But the winter before it was really cold, we had snow the whole summer. And as long as we can watch hockey the world is okay. (Then they have to leave the train)

young man (20):

We have to be carful with our CO2-emissions, but since Switzerland ist such a small country, we can't change much anyway. But the industrialized countries should reduce their CO2-emissions. Fish, trees and animals are endangered.

elderly couple (70):

We are afraid of the future and hope that the predicitions won't come true. Possible consequences could be storms, strong winds and a higher sealevel (not in Switzerland =)).

woman (50):

The climate change is a terrible thing but at the moment I'm not really thinking about it.

young man (20):

Shit, we should protect the natural world we live in! There will be storms, the glaciers will melt and the treeline will rise.

woman (35):

It's terrible and I'm shocked that the predictions are about to come true. the glaciers will melt and it's already getting hotter.

Lena, Simone, Martina and Lukas

a) The article says that the climate change is almost irreversible - no matter how much we reduce the emissions of carbon dioxide.

b) According to the article, there is no solution.

c) It was only a small article.

d) and e) see Gian's articles

a) The main problem that the article mentions are that there will be more droughts, storms and floods. In the following six years, about 375 million people will be endangered.

b) Especially the rich countries now have to solve the climate problem. The international help system that is provided when there is a natural disaster should be organized differently. In addition, the help organisation Oxfam wants the money that is given for the international help system per year to be risen from 14.2 billion dollars to 41 billion dollars.

c) It was a quite long article.

d) and e) see Gian's articles

a) Due to the rising temperatures, the harvest of corn and rice in tropic areas will decrease and will be decreased further by the drought and by the water shortage. This will lead to a massive food shortage for half of the world.

c) They wanted to shock the people so that they would change something.

a) Soot and sulfate aerosols have an impact on the climate in the arctic regions. The sulfate content in the air has been decreasing which has lead to higher temperatures, because the sulfate particles would reflect the sun rays. The temperatures have been increasing further because of the larger soot content in the air.

b) The soot emissions should be lowered by means of soot filters. The sulfate emissions have already been decreased which had negative consequences on the temperature. That’s why some scientists proposed to increase the sulfate emissions again. However, that’s dangerous because sulfate has a certain toxicity.

c) The aim of that article wasn’t in the first place to shock people, but to inform them about the fact that emissions have a direct impact on the temperature.

a) Too much CO2 is emitted per person in the city of Zurich. One of the reasons is the amount of traffic.

b) The percentage of renewable energy is supposed to increase to lower the CO2 emissions. (Annually one ton per person)

c) Too much CO2 is emitted but we can change that.

a) Coral reef and rain forests react more sensitively than assumed at first.

b) The government has to introduce new programs.

c) We have to react. If not, nature will be destroyed forever.

Eric, Mattia, Gian and Joey

Our emotions

We have different feelings about the topic climate change, anger, responsibility, hope, indifference and sadness.

In a way we are angry because part of it is our fault, but we know that we cannot change a lot as a little dot on this earth. We feel responsibility towards our world and we are absolutely aware of the fact that change is necessary.

Some people should change their way of living and not just say „devil-may-care“.

Our hope is that we can find an alternative energy source without any emissions and bad effects and that this can be converted in all countries.

We think indifference with regard to climate change is a very bad attitude and everybody should feel responsible for what is being done to our environment.

We are sad about the situation we are in and about the bad future prospects as far as this topic is concerned.

Lara, Yuri, Sophie

(no answer yet)

We want to get the people's attention with activities like bicycle-taxis and giving informations to them. The boys of our class had the idea to build a rickshaw out of old bicycle materials. Then we drive the people through our city and have some advertising on our rickshaw. While we're doing that, the girls will give informations about climate change to the people.

My family and I, we hardly fly and we don't have a car, but we use the train and other public transports. We also watch out that we don't buy food that had to be transported over a long distance to Switzerland and we buy a lot of organic food to support the organic farmers who don't pollute the fields.

Mattia

The most common means of transport in Switzerland is for sure the car. This does a lot of harm to our environment, due all the emissions. But Switzerland has also a very good public transport, which is improving all the time and more and more people are using it.

Martina

Madagascar is one of the biggest islands in the world. It's situated in the Pacific Ocean and belongs to Africa. The main language is French because Madagascar was a French colony. The capital of it is Antananarivo. We don't know where it is situated, but we would be intrested in finding out. Maybe you can tell us? Unfortunately, we don't know more facts about your country. So why don't you tell us a little more about it?

We all consume a lot of energy in Switzerland. But, in comparison to other countries, we saw that there is a problem and we try to find solutions. Fortunately, we have mountains with which we can produce electricity with reservoirs and we do not use any coal to produce electricity.

In general, we have still an intact environment, but we can feel the consequences of the climate change here in Switzerland too.

Eric