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