Shadowing Practice: Climate Change Debate | Prof. Bruce Pardy | Opposition - Learn English Speaking with Video
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And now look to Professor Bruce Pardee to close the case for the opposition and the debate as a whole.
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Mr. President, friends, Britons, countrymen, lend me your hearts.
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I come to praise your country, not to bury it.
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The evil that nations do lives after them.
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The good is oft lost in moral panic.
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So it is in this chamber.
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My friend LaCrosse has said that the West has brought upon the Earth the curse of climate change,
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that developing nations are victims, and the West is to blame.
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It is hard to remember what one has not seen, what life was like before,
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a century ago, or two or three, for the mass of humanity across the earth,
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a life of subsistence, hand to mouth,
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dawn to dusk, nasty, brutish, and short.
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90% in extreme poverty.
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And then, gradually, rescued by revolution.
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Not resistance, not marching in the streets, not by their revolution, but by yours.
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By the industrial revolution that raised humanity from the ditch.
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The developing embrace it, their people rise and prosper,
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which makes them victims, and the West is to blame.
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Where developing once met poor and weak,
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it now includes the largest engines on this earth, Not Ethiopia or Tuvalu.
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You know the ones.
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China, India, Indonesia, Brazil.
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Those poor and weak whose economies are larger than our own.
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Can we call China what it is?
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A wealthy, smoggy place with people spilling out from everywhere.
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Oh, the people!
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Two score of them, two score, for everyone at home.
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And each a source of climate change.
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Yes, so small a source, you say.
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Yes, a modest carbon print from each.
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Times ten, times ten, times ten.
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Times ten, times ten, times ten, times ten. and still not done.
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The developing countries are victims, and the West is to blame.
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The developing contribute more than half, have done so for a decade.
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The sky cares not how much from each.
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What matters is the total.
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from developing two-thirds and then three-quarters, and on and up we go, enough.
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Except developing countries are victims and the West is there to blame.
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The West has no right, they say, no right to save us all.
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No tit for tat, that's tyranny.
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To seek a quid pro quo to save the Earth may be just.
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They will not restrain themselves, for they are just developing.
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I am naive.
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I thought the cause was climate change.
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I see now it is not the gases in the sky, but blaming that we seek.
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The world will burn. So be it.
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For we have done the more important thing.
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Confessed our father's sins.
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Called developing nations victims.
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And blamed them on the West.
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One year ago, I went to see a piece of history.
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The source, the start, the first rumbling of the other revolution your country did bring to the world.
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Perhaps the best idea it has ever seen, no less so than coal and steam.
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A piece of paper where it all started.
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Under glass, the Magna Carta.
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The beginning of the rule of law.
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What does it mean, this rule of law?
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So many things, but here is one.
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Responsibility for our own actions.
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Punish not the son for the sins of his father, or his grandfather, or his great, great, great, great.
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our Western debt?
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There's no such thing.
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To seek rights and wrongs in history, to see whose lineage is owed and owes.
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Oh, to be a man whose lineage is free from sin.
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Name one, just one, who has not somewhere in his line Wrongs done by and to and on behalf.
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Surrender this, this counting up on ledgers of the past, reparations, apologies, accounting on behalf of people long dead,
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who lived in different times.
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We know not of their lives, the judgments that they made.
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We should start from where we are, deal with what we have, deal with people here and now,
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the ones who are alive, with intent to act within a deal to save the earth,
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with rules that apply equally to every nation.
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If climate change is as you say,
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no trifling thing but end of days,
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the answer is clear for all to say.
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For every country, keep its emissions to itself.
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For every nation, net emissions should be none.
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If not done by all, not done by anyone.
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So please, vote no. If not to be,
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a yes vote has us lose both the justice of the rule of law and the climate battle too.
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Thank you.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This C1 speaking lesson is built on the video “Climate Change Debate”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: developing, ten, victims, climate, nation. This video has 80 sentences and 762 words to shadow. The speech runs for 8:31. The speaker talks slowly, about 89 words per minute, so there is time to copy every sound. 87% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English; the rest is worth studying before you start.
Key vocabulary in this video
The 15 most advanced words in the video, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| lineage noun | /ˈlɪn.i.ɪd͡ʒ/ | Descent in a line from a common progenitor; progeny; descending line of offspring or ascending line of parentage. |
| emission noun | /ɪˈmɪʃ.ən/ | Something which is emitted or sent out; issue. |
| brutish adjective | /ˈbɹuːt.ɪʃ/ | Of, or in the manner of a brute. |
| countryman noun | /ˈkʌntɹimən/ | Somebody from a certain country. |
| ledger noun | /ˈlɛd͡ʒɚ/ | A book for keeping notes; a record book, a register. |
| prosper verb | /ˈpɹɑspɚ/ | To be successful; to succeed; to be fortunate or prosperous; to thrive; to make gain. |
| reparation noun | /ˌɹɛpəˈɹeɪʃən/ | A payment of time, effort or money to compensate for past transgression(s). |
| restrain verb | /ɹɪˈstɹeɪn/ | To control or keep in check. |
| rumble noun | /ˈɹʌmb(ə)l/ | A low, heavy, continuous sound, such as that of thunder or a hungry stomach. |
| smoggy adjective | /ˈsmɒ.ɡi/ | Having smog. |
| subsistence noun | /səbˈsɪstəns/ | Real being; existence. |
| trifle noun | /ˈtɹaɪfəl/ | An English dessert made from a mixture of thick custard, fruit, sponge cake, jelly and whipped cream. |
| tyranny noun | /ˈtɪəɹəni/ | A government in which a single ruler (a tyrant) has absolute power, or this system of government; especially, one that acts cruelly and unjustly. |
| naive adjective | /naɪˈiv/ | Lacking worldly experience, wisdom, or judgement; unsophisticated. |
| confess verb | /kənˈfɛs/ | To admit to the truth, particularly in the context of sins or crimes committed. |
Pronunciation to watch
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: emission /ɪˈmɪʃ.ən/, brutish /ˈbɹuːt.ɪʃ/, reparation /ˌɹɛpəˈɹeɪʃən/, punish /ˈpʌnɪʃ/
- Long words — get the stress right: reparation /ˌɹɛpəˈɹeɪʃən/, apology /əˈpɑ.lə.d͡ʒi/
How to practise with this video
- Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
- Shadow it sentence by sentence at normal speed, repeating each one until your rhythm matches the speaker.
- Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like lineage, emission, brutish.
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.