Step by Step 3000. Book Four.
Unit 8. Seeing both sides.
Part 1. Warming up.
A. Keywords

symbol, dragon, negative, positive.
Vocabulary

arbitrariness, offensiveness, domain, Shanghai Morning Post, Shanghai Public Relations Association.
Listen to a debate on China's long acknowledged symbol dragon, complete the following chart.
China's long acknowledged symbol, the dragon, may not be suitable for the image for China anymore.
At least that's according to a report in the Shanghai Morning Post, the paper quotes experts at Shanghai Public Relations Association who said the dragon is to some extent a symbol of arbitrariness and offensiveness in western cultures.
This they say could result in a negative view of China's image abroad.
Now they are designing a new Chinese symbol based on positive Chinese characteristics.
However, the move has triggered disagreement in the public domain and an Internet survey shows that an overwhelming majority of people believe that as descendents of the dragon, the image of the dragon is deeply rooted in Chinese people's psyche and can't simply be abandoned.
In traditional Chinese culture, the dragon represents the emperor's power, and it is also a symbol of good luck and wealth.
B. Keywords. bio-fuels, aviation fuel, alternative energy, green fuel.
Vocabulary. bio-fuel, babassu, stunt, arable, distraction, gimmick, un-negligible, Virgin Atlantic, European Federation for Transport and Environment.
Listen to the following news report on bio-fuels. Supply the missing information.
Bio-fuels have been held in some quarters as an answer to global warming.
Supporters argued that the plants which are grown to be turned into fuel capture the carbon dioxide that is emitted when the fuel is burned.
They are already used in some road vehicles, but they have never been tried in aeroplane.
But now a Virgin Atlantic aircraft has been flown from London to Amsterdam, to test an aviation fuel made from crops to show it actually works.
A Boeing 747 takes off, powered partly by coconut oil.
Virgin Atlantic say they are testing a new bio-fuel, a mixture of coconut oil and babassu nut oil from a Brazilian palm tree.
Flying a jumbo jet at 30,000 feet on an alternative energy has never been done before.
Richard Branson, chief Executive of Virgin Atlantic says it is the future of air travel and aviation history.
It's a major sort of technological breakthrough today in that everybody said that 4it was impossible for clean fuels to fly at 30,000 feet in a jet engine and we believe that we were going to be able to prove them wrong.
But Virgin's test flight hasn't been welcomed by environmentalists, instead it has been dismissed as a stunt by some, and attacked by other.
Jos Dings from the European Federation for Transport and Environment. The fact that something is called a bio-fuel, doesn't mean it's green.
The fact that it is alternative fuel, doesn't mean that it's a clean fuel. it depends crucially on what sort of bio-fuel you use, how much land that bio-fuel actually use.
If Virgin would power its entire fleet with bio-fuel, it would have to use about half of the UK's arable land.
The campaign group Friends of the Earth call the test flight a distraction and a gimmick.
The Campaign against Climate change say the belief this biofuel emits less carbon than conventional fuel is nonsense.
They point to the evidence that the growing processing and burning of bio-fuel emits other greenhouse gases, and their benefits un-negligible.
Virgin Atlantic say the fuel isn't perfect, but it could be a new beginning of aviation.