Page 10 - layout

05-55-LRN - C1 - Tests 1-5_CAE-PR-TEST-1.qxd 18/10/2017 8:48 μμ Page 10

Reading & Use
Succeed in LRN - Level C1 - Practice Test 1

Part 1

Read the text below about rising sea levels and then answer the questions that follow.
For questions 1-9, choose the best answer (A, B or C).
est 1 Rising sea levels

Practice T A profoundly altered planet is what our fossil fuel driven civilization is creating. By releasing carbon dioxide into

the atmosphere, we have warmed the Earth by more than a full degree Fahrenheit over the last century, and
raised sea levels by approximately eight inches. Even if we ceased the burning of fossil fuels tomorrow, the
existing greenhouse gases would continue to warm the Earth for centuries. We have irreversibly committed
future generations to a hotter world and rising seas, estimates which have to date, according to scientists,
been repeatedly too conservative.

Global warming affects sea levels in two ways. About a third of its current rise comes from thermal expansion.
The rest comes from the melting of ice on land. So far it’s been mostly mountain glaciers, but the big concern
for the future is the giant ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica.

Unless we change course dramatically in the coming years, our carbon emissions will create a world utterly
different. With business as usual, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will reach a thousand
parts per million by the end of the century. Such concentrations will take us to an all time high, not seen since
the Eocene Period, when the planet was ice free. According to the US Geological Survey, the sea level on an
iceless Earth could rise by as much as 216 feet higher than today.

Countries located below sea level have battled water for years. They believe they could engineer solutions at a
manageable cost to a rise of as much as five metres. Poorer countries, however, will struggle to adapt to much
less. At different times, in different places, engineering solutions will no longer suffice. Then the retreat will
begin. In some places, ________, there will be no higher ground to retreat to.

By the next century, if not sooner, large numbers of people will have to abandon coastal areas all over the
world. This could result in a flood tide of climate-change refugees. The cost of property on high ground will
escalate, while the price of waterfront areas will plunge.

But the idea that the sea is going to rise, a lot, hasn’t sunk in yet. How do you get people to realise that New
York or London may not always be there? How do you get people to project themselves into a waterlogged
future in order to rapidly change their present catastrophic lifestyle? Because there are no computer models or
scientists to tell us with absolute certainty how much and how fast the change will be, it requires a leap of
faith in imagination that is grounded in fact.

10