Who Really Owns Your Carbon Footprint?
Grammar: Prepositions — formal, dependent, and figurative
A Level 6 English lesson exploring environment.
What's in this lesson
A Level 6 (proficiency) ESL lesson on environment, practising prepositions — formal, dependent, and figurative. The worksheet has a reading, target vocabulary, a grammar reference with practice and discussion questions.
From the reading: Who Really Owns Your Carbon Footprint?
In 2004, British Petroleum ran an online calculator that invited the public to measure something called their carbon footprint. The tool was elegant, easy to use, and extraordinarily effective — not at reducing emissions, but at redirecting blame. Within a decade, the phrase had migrated from corporate advertising into the vocabulary of governments, schools, and environmental campaigns worldwide. Few people noticed that BP had borrowed the concept from the tobacco industry's old playbook: when the product is harmful, make the consumer feel responsible for the harm.
Vocabulary
- aggregate impact
- cast doubt on
- elevate personal virtue
- externalise its costs
- cast doubt
- elevate
- old playbook
- redirecting blame
- unforgiving arithmetic
Grammar
- Dependent prepositions
- She was responsible for the report. — fixed verb/adj + preposition pairings
- Figurative
- Blame was redirected onto the consumer. — preposition carries metaphorical force
Discussion questions
- Do you feel personally responsible for climate change?
- Can a single consumer decision change an industry?
- Who should set the agenda in environmental debates?
Who Really Owns Your Carbon Footprint?
Grammar: Prepositions — formal, dependent, and figurative
What's in this lesson:
Full lesson plan with reading, grammar, vocabulary, and discussion.
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