News lessons how creating wildlife crossings can help reindeer, bears – and even crabs Level

‘We need to become the solution’: older New Zealanders join climate change fight
Level: 
Intermediate
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Home >> Adults >> General English >> NEWS LESSONS
Level: 
Intermediate
•PHOT
OCOPIABLE•
CAN BE DOWNLOADED
FROM WEBSITE
‘We need to become the solution’: older New Zealanders join climate change fight
b. Use some of the key words above to complete these sentences. 
1. The residents want the disco to 
noise after 11 p. m.
2. There are no trains today because of the 
.
3. We are trying to increase students’ 
about the dangers of alcohol.
4. He 
stealing the car. 
5. The detectives are 
that she was not where she said she was at 
the time of the crime.

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Published by Macmillan Education Ltd. © Macmillan Education Limited, 2021.
Home >> Adults >> General English >> NEWS LESSONS
How creating wildlife crossings can help reindeer, bears – and even crabs
Level: 
Intermediate
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OCOPIABLE•
CAN BE DOWNLOADED
FROM WEBSITE
Younger people have been more 
aware of the risks compared 
with older groups, but over the 
past decade that has changed
Eva Corlett in Waikanae
Tue 6 Jul 2021
On his early morning bike rides to school, 
David Yockney would ride through icy puddles. 
It was a winter joy he loved, and one he took 
for granted. Now, 60 years later, there is hardly 
even ice on the bird bath at his home on the 
Kāpiti coast, north of Wellington.
The 74-year-old climate activist has become 
worried by the changes to his environment 
caused by global heating, and he is not the 
only one. New research from the University 
of Waikato shows that both younger and 
older New Zealanders are worried about the 
climate emergency.
The 10-year study asked 56,000 New Zealand 
citizens across different age groups two main 
questions: Is climate change real? Is it caused 
by humans?
The data shows that at the start, younger 
people had more awareness of the risks of 
climate change compared with older groups. 
But in the past 10 years, that awareness is 
increasing in both young and old, and now 
more than ever, New Zealanders believe 
climate change is real and caused by humans.
Understanding the risks of the climate 
emergency came slowly to Yockney. The 
former teacher and video producer remembers 
discussions about the climate in the 1990s. But 
it would be another 25 years before Yockney 
would become convinced climate change is 
real and caused by human activity.
In his retirement, he began reading about the 
topic and started to think about the changes he 
needed to make personally, and the changes 
he wanted to see in society.
“You have to make changes. I’m not perfect – 
I would like to fly around the world and do 
things that retired people do – but we do limit 
ourselves.”
That includes riding his bicycle for short 
journeys, cutting back on meat and limiting his 
gas heater use, even in winter.
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But for Yockney, making personal changes was 
not enough. He joined Low Carbon Kāpiti, a 
group that helped convince the Kāpiti District 
Coast Council into becoming carbon neutral by 
2050. Yockney wants to leave behind a healthy 
world for his grandchildren.
Nearly 30% of the population on the Kāpiti 
coast is over 65, compared with roughly 15% 
for the whole of New Zealand. Former Kāpiti 
coast mayor and now chair of the Kāpiti Coast 
Climate Action Group, Jenny Rowan, said a 
growing number of older people in the region 
are starting to get involved.
Rowan has noticed a big change in attitudes 
from the local community towards people 
speaking out publicly about climate change.
“People don’t think we’re crazy anymore. I am 
a baby boomer. We are part of the problem. 
Now we need to become part of the solution 
and I’m seeing that happen here.”
Dr Taciano Milfont, the lead author of the 
University of Waikato study, decided to look at 
intergenerational attitudes to climate change 
after witnessing the 2019 school strikes.
Although all age groups have more awareness 
about climate change, there is still a divide 
between the number of people who believe it 
is real, and those who believe it is caused by 
human activity. Fewer people overall believe 
the second point.
This is “..the theory of responsibility. If we 
believe we are not causing it, then we will keep 
doing what we are doing,” Milfont said.
He thinks that the growing understanding of 
climate change is because of better science 
and climate communication.
There has also been a positive cultural 
change, he said. These days “… no political 
in New Zealand party denies the reality of 
climate change.”
581 words
© Guardian News and Media 2021 
First published in The Guardian, 06/07/2021
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