Breathing lessons

Level 3 Advanced
1

Key words

Match these key words from the text with the definitions below.
aggravate
exacerbate

exhaust fumes
pollutant

apparent
buggy

smug
kerb

1. A substance that is harmful to the environment.

2. Easy to see or understand.
3. The edge of the pavement.
4. The gas or steam produced by an engine.
5. To make something bad become worse (2 words).
6. Someone who is too satisfied with their own abilities or achievements.
7. A light chair with wheels for pushing children in.

What do you know?

What is good advice to avoid breathing pollution in a big city? Put a tick next to the sentences below if you
think the advice is good.

1. Walk on side streets and avoid main roads.

2. Stand close to the kerb when waiting for traffic lights to change.
3. Cross the road as quickly as possible.
4. Dont go outside in the middle of the day in summer.
5. Wear a mask and clean it regularly.
6. Dont push a child in a buggy close to traffic.
7. Dont go jogging early in the morning.
8. Sit on the drivers side of a bus.
9. Dont allow lots of air into your home.
10. Dont drive a car.

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NEWS LESSONS / Breathing lessons / Advanced

Macmillan Publishers Ltd 2007

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Now read the article and check your answers.

Breathing lessons
Level 3 Advanced
Breathing lessons

streets and thoroughfares, instead choosing

side streets and parks. Carefully choosing your
route has a dramatic effect, he says, because
pollution levels can fall by a factor of 10 just by
moving a few metres away from the main source
of the pollution - exhaust fumes. Just being one
block away makes a massive difference as the
high pollution levels are generally restricted to
fairly small areas within a city, he says. Also, try
to avoid walking down street canyons (where
tall buildings hug tightly to the sides of streets,
creating valleys in which pollutants build up)
_______(2)______.

Leo Hickman
April 4, 2007

2 The idea that city air is bad for you is hardly

new, but it is an area scientists are only just
beginning to get a real grip on. Last month the
Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution,
an independent body set up in 1970 to advise
the government, confirmed what many of us
instinctively knew: that urban living should carry
a large health warning. In a major report entitled
The Urban Environment, it detailed what impact
urban air pollution is having on our health.
The headline conclusion was that air pollution
reduces life expectancy in the UK by an average
of eight months.
3 Meanwhile, the World Health Organisation
reports that transport-related air pollution
- which now causes the vast majority of
urban air pollution - causes a wide range of
health problems including cancer, adverse
pregnancy and birth outcomes, and lowering
of male fertility. But other than moving to
the countryside, what practical steps can city
dwellers take to reduce their exposure to urban
air pollution? ________(1)_________.
4 Watch where you walk
One of the best ways to reduce your exposure
to air pollution, says Dr Roy Colvile, a senior
lecturer in air-quality management at Imperial
College London, is to avoid walking along busy

Pavement sense
When youre crossing a road, stand well back
from the kerb while you wait for the lights to
change or for a gap in the traffic. ____(3)____.
As the traffic moves off from a standstill, the
fumes can dissipate in just a few seconds,
particularly if the wind is up, which means holding
your breath during this momentary period can
make a difference, silly as that might sound. Also,
cross the road as quickly as possible. And once
youre over, continue along the pavement as far
away from the kerb as possible.

Avoid pollution spikes

Predictably, there are large spikes in pollution
during times of high traffic congestion i.e., the
morning and late-afternoon rush hours. Pollution
levels generally fall during the night-time. ____
(4)_____. Pollution levels tend to be at their
lowest during the spring and autumn when winds
are at their freshest; the trapping effect of
extreme cold and hot spells tend to exacerbate
the build-up of pollutants.

Venturing outside when there is less pollution

obviously makes sense, but of course thats
not always realistic. In fact, the hottest part of
a summers day - the time when most office
workers go outside during their lunchbreak - is
a particularly bad time to head out, according
to Noel Nelson, one of the authors of the
Royal Commission report. Walking in the rain,

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NEWS LESSONS / Breathing lessons / Advanced

Macmillan Publishers Ltd 2007

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1 Take a deep breath. If you live in an urban

environment - which four out of five of us
now do - then you are exposing yourself to a
cocktail of airborne pollutants that could be
seriously damaging your health. According to
a study published this week, if you live in a
major city then the air pollution you suck into
your lungs each day could be shortening your
life expectancy even more than the radiation
exposure suffered by survivors of the Chernobyl
disaster in 1986.

Breathing lessons
Level 3 Advanced

8 Wear a mask
Masks can be a good thing, but they only make
a difference if they fit tightly and are cleaned
regularly. ____ (5) ____ Worse, if you fail to
clean or change the mask regularly, there is a
danger of allowing oily organic compounds to
build up on the filter. Build-up can make the air
you breathe dirtier rather than cleaner.
9 Pushchairs
According to the Royal Commission report,
several recent studies indicate that children
living close to busy roads have an approximate
50% increased risk of experiencing respiratory
illness, including asthma. Children are smaller
than adults and therefore much closer to the
source of pollution when walking beside roads.
They also have a faster metabolic rate and
breathe more rapidly, and tend to inhale more
pollution, proportionate to their size, than adults.
One small step that can be taken is not to push
them along in a buggy too close to traffic.
10 Beware of exercising in traffic
Cycling or jogging disproportionately expose you
to air pollution - you inhale three times as much
as if you were walking, according to Colvile - for
the simple reason that your lungs are gasping for
more air than the people youre speeding past on
the pavement. The best times of day to exercise,
thus avoiding the worst excesses of air pollution,
are early morning or in the evening. Alternatively,
exercise indoors or in a park. ____ (6) ____.
11 Where to sit on the bus
Intriguingly, Colvile says that his own research
shows that sitting on the drivers side of a bus
can increase your exposure by 10% compared

with sitting on the side nearest to the pavement.

He says its difficult to say whether travelling on
an undergound train, if you have that option, is
better or worse than taking the bus, but he does
say that the air pollution on underground trains
tends to be less toxic by weight than that found
at street level.
12 Protect yourself indoors too
We spend about 90% of our time indoors, on
average, and two-thirds of that time is spent at
home. And indoor pollution can actually be more
of an issue than that found outdoors, it seems.
Studies by the US Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA) suggests that pollution levels
can be two to five times higher indoors than out
- and this can rapidly rise depending on what
activity you are doing at home. Centrally-heated,
carpeted, airtight homes only act to aggravate
the situation.
13 Ventilating your home is therefore an important
step to take in reducing risk - hopefully with air
thats not full of air pollutants from the outside
- as is using a good doormat to help prevent
outdoor pollutants from the pavement being
walked into your home.
14 Feeling smug about the fact that you live high
up in a flat away from outside air pollution? ____
(7) ____ A study by Hong Kongs City University
used laser measurements to show that pollution
levels in the city remain constant up to heights
of 700m. Living in the suburbs, away from major
roads, seems the best way to avoid the worse
excesses of urban air pollution. But that then
means you are statistically far more likely to be
a car owner and are therefore only exacerbating
the situation.
15 Dont drive
The best thing you can do, both for yourself
and for your fellow citizens, is to get out of the
car. ____ (8) ____: diesel may produce less
carbon dioxide compared with petrol, which

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NEWS LESSONS / Breathing lessons / Advanced

Macmillan Publishers Ltd 2007

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conversely, is a good way of avoiding the

worse excesses of air pollution, he adds, as the
rain cleans the air both by washing out the
pollutants and bringing with it fresher air.

Breathing lessons
Level 3 Advanced
is good news in terms of climate change, but
it produces more ground-level pollutants. A
particle of pollution today tends to be 100 times
smaller than a particle of coal soot and therefore
it can pass into the blood stream via the lungs
as opposed to being caught in the bronchial
passage. The full health implications of this
shift in pollution type have yet to become fully
apparent.

16 Get out of town

As long as you go by public transport so as not to
create yet more pollution, lifting yourself up and
out of the urban jungle offers at least a temporary
escape.
Guardian News & Media 2007
First published in The Guardian, 4/4/07

3 Comprehension check
Read the article again. There are some sentences missing. Put the sentences below back in the correct
places in the text. Write the number of where they should appear.
___ and dont walk behind smokers.
___ Cyclists should stick to side-roads where possible.
___ Even the slightest gap to allow you to breathe more easily will cancel out any benefits.
___ Every metre really does count when you are in close proximity to traffic, according to Colvile.
___ Fuel choice is also important.
___ Quite a lot, it turns out.
___ The time of year can also make a big difference.
___ Well, unless you live in a penthouse at the top of a very tall skyscraper, then height doesnt seem
to offer significant sanctuary.

4 Vocabulary 1: Word formation - adverbs

Insert the adverb form of the word into the correct place in the sentence.
1. Pollution in cities now could be damaging your health. SERIOUS
2. The evidence about urban pollution is new. HARD
3. Many people know that standing in traffic is bad for your health. INSTINCTIVE
4. Very high pollution levels are found in small areas within a city. FAIR
5. Pollution levels fall during the night-time. GENERAL
6. Lunchtime is a bad time to go out into the streets. PARTICULAR
7. Masks are best if they fit and are cleaned. TIGHT / REGULAR

NEWS LESSONS / Breathing lessons / Advanced

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8. Children have a faster metabolic rate and breathe more than adults do. MORE RAPID

Breathing lessons
Level 3 Advanced
5 Vocabulary 2: Adverbs - adverbs that modify a sentence
Look at this example from the text:
Predictably, there are large spikes in pollution during times of high traffic congestion.
The word in bold modifies the whole sentence and means it is predictable.
Rewrite the following sentences, beginning with an adverb that replaces the expression in bold.

1. Its intriguing that research shows that sitting on the drivers side of a bus exposes you to more
pollution.
2. Some fires are good for the forest, which is odd.
3. In my personal opinion, I think that these forms are a waste of time.
4. The email was sent by a person she went to school with more than twenty years ago, which
was curious.

5. The director and actors hope the movie will be a huge success, its obvious.
6. Some of the worst traffic accidents, we hope, will be avoided with the introduction of the new system.

6 Vocabulary 3: Collocations
Complete the sentences with a suitable word. All the collocations are in the text.
1. Sit down and _______ a deep breath. The ambulance will be here soon.
2. Women have a longer life _______ than men in many countries.
3. To alert the population of the dangers of smoking, the government issued a new health _______ on packets
of cigarettes.

4. The doctor informed the patient of a high level of vitamin C in her blood _______.
5. The vast _______ of people in this part of the country live in cities.
6. Cyclists can get very sick from breathing the exhaust _______ from traffic.

7 Discussion

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NEWS LESSONS / Breathing lessons / Advanced

Macmillan Publishers Ltd 2007

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Do you live in a polluted urban environment? What do you do to avoid becoming ill?