news review from BBC Learning English. Hello, and welcome to News Review, the programme where we show you how to use the language from the latest news stories in your everyday English. Hi, I'm Neil. Joining me today is Dan. Hi, Dan. Good morning.

  What's our story? Our story is about heat and the future. OK, well, sounds ominous（预兆的）. Let's find out some more from this BBC News piece. At this moment in time, the world has warmed（使暖和） about 1°C above the pre-industrial（工业的） level. This new analysis（分析） says that temperatures would have risen much faster if it weren't for the oceans, forests and lands absorbing（吸收） vast（巨大的） amounts of CO2 from human activities.

  However, as temperatures continue upwards（ 向上）, the scientists say that these natural systems can flip（掷） from soaking（浸） up carbon（碳） to spewing out huge quantities into the atmosphere. That could cause a domino effect where permafrost（[地]永久冻结带） thaws（解冻）, forest dieback and ice sheets crumble（面包屑）, leading to a world with 4-5°C of warming with towering seas inundating（淹没） coastlines（海岸线）. So the Earth is apparently（显然地） 1°C hotter now than it was before the industrial（工业的） age. It could have been worse, except（除了） that the oceans, forests and lands have absorbed quite a lot of CO2. However, there is a danger that this could reverse（颠倒） and that the trees, oceans and lands etc. will give it back and this will cause a situation or our situation to get steadily（平稳地） worse and lead to a global（全球的） increase in temperature of 4-5°C.

  OK. Well, you've been scanning（细看） the news websites for this story, picking out useful vocabulary and you've got three things for us. What have you got? We certainly have. We've got tipping point, ominous and domino effect. OK.

  Let's hear your first headline（大字标题） with that word 'tipping point'. Certainly. From ITV News we have 'Earth just decades（十年） away from global（全球的） warming tipping point which threatens（威胁） future of humanity'. OK. 'Tipping point' meaning time after which events can't be stopped. This word 'tipping point' has got the word 'tip' in it.

  That's something you give away to, isn't it? That is something that you give away to Neil, but it's something you give away to Neil. That is something that you give away to Neil, but unfortunately it's not related（叙述） in meaning to this. However, we can use the metaphor（[修辞]隐喻） of a waiter to understand what this means. So imagine a waiter holding a tray（(浅)盘）. Now, he stumbles（ 绊倒） and the tray（(浅)盘） begins to tip（轻击）.

  If he's a very skilled（有技能的） waiter, he can catch the tray and nothing will fall. But if unfortunately the tray tips too far... Those glasses are sliding（滑） down my eyes. ...those glasses are going to slide and the tray will reach a tipping point, a point at which no matter what he does, he cannot stop the glasses from falling. So a tipping point is the point at which an event or action cannot be stopped. Very visual（视觉的） description there.

  Thank you, Dan. Thank you very much. Do my best. So this is used for sort（种类） of major events and processes. Can we bring it down to the personal level? Can I say...

  I'm really hungry now. So it's almost lunchtime, isn't it? My hunger（饿） has reached tipping point. I need to go and buy a sandwich. Well, of course, you're free to say whatever（任何） you like, Neil, on a very personal level and as is everybody else. But no, we don't usually use it in this way.

  We're talking about serious processes. We're talking about deeper issues（发行）. We could be talking about projects and business or we could be talking about politics（精明的）. In fact, you can also use the expression at tipping point to talk about the time when a decision has to be made or an action taken because there's no more time left and something has to be done. And it'll go one way or the other. Exactly.

  Either that tray will tip or it'll be saved. Exactly. So we can use verbs like 'reach a tipping point', 'approach（向…靠近） a tipping point' or 'be at a tipping point' and we can say 'at tipping point' or 'the tipping point'. It completely depends on the situation. OK, great. Let's move on to our next headline.

  With that word 'ominous', I mentioned right at the beginning of the programme. Yes, that was sneaky, wasn't it? Yes. So our next headline comes from NewsHub and says 'Hot House Earth scientists issue ominous warning（警告） over irreversible（不可逆的） climate damage（损害）'. Now（现在） this word 'ominous（预兆的）' is it connected to the word 'omin' by any chance? That's an excellent shout, Neil.

  Yes, 'ominous' is connected to the word 'omin'. What is an 'omin'? Well, let's say, for example, a really terrible accident happened and the day before you have a dream in which this happens or something bad happens in the dream, that we can say is an 'omin' or you could use an adjective to describe it as an 'ominous' dream. That's right, exactly. So an 'omin' is a superstitious sign of something to come and the word 'ominous' is the adjective for that. We also have an adverb（副词） 'ominously'.

  So you may have dreamt 'ominously' or you can have an 'ominous' dream. It's important to realise that an 'omin' or 'ominous' is always negative. Imagine that you dreamed or you dreamt a series of numbers and then you used them to buy a lottery（抽彩给奖法） ticket and you won the jackpot. You wouldn't call that an 'ominous' dream. No. No, it's got to be negative.

  But you can also talk about something being menacing（威胁的）, foreboding or sinister or lovely words. And you can also use the word 'auspicious' which is more formal but it's also neutral（中立的）. So an auspicious occasion（时机） can be a positive one. It doesn't have to be negative. Okay（好）. You told me about an ominous event the other day.

  You like driving, don't you? I do like driving. I've got my hat and my scarf out the back as well. And you were driving around the countryside（乡下）. That's right. For no apparent（显然的） reason whatsoever（任何）.

  And you heard something. That's right. My engine. Just like that. You never want to hear. A dry clanking.

  That's right. So that was an ominous noise coming from my engine and I realised as I was driving I'm gonna have to go and see a mechanic（技工） pretty soon. Let's have a look at our final headline. So our final headline comes from The Guardian（[法] 监护人） and says 'domino effect of climate events could move Earth into a hot house state'. Domino effect. A situation where one event causes a series of consecutive（连贯的） events.

  That's right. Now, you're familiar（熟悉的） with dominoes, Neil? I am. Those rectangular（矩形的）, black rectangular（矩形的） bits of wood, I suppose, with white circles on them. That's right. We use them to play a game where you match the dots（点） together to numbers but you can also use them for a different game.

  Oh yes. What do you do? Well, you can line（排成一行） them up and you can make the line（排成一行） as long as you like and when you press（压） or knock over the first one it knocks down all of the others and goes round corners and things if you're really cool. If you're really good, yeah. I'm sure you can find some excellent videos on YouTube about that. But yes, as you said, you push the first one, the next one falls, the next one falls, etc.

  down and down the line. So a domino effect, or the domino effect, is when one thing causes another thing causes another. And you can't stop it. And you cannot stop it, exactly. We're talking about consequences（结果） and we're talking about cause and effect. Maybe you can give us a famous example from history.

  Well, this very expression is used to describe a period for people who know their 20th century history during the Cold War. American foreign policy（政策） was concerned（涉及） with preventing the domino effect and that was why they got involved in wars in Korea and Vietnam because they thought if they stopped that one, the other countries wouldn't fall like dominoes to communism. Neil, you are a font of knowledge. Thank you very much. So the domino effect can be a neutral expression, but we often use it in a negative way because we talk about bad consequences following each other and verbs that we can use are cause a domino effect, create a domino effect or lead to a domino effect. Okay, well, we are reaching the end of the program, but of course we have our social media challenge（挑战） before our vocabulary update（ 现代化）.

  We asked the question, well, actually we put up a picture and we want to know what this building is called. It's made of glass and it's used to grow plants. The options were greenhouse（温室）, seed（种子） house or plant house. How did they get on? Well, we actually got mixed responses this time when last I checked people were torn（ 撕裂） between the correct answer, which is greenhouse and option a plant house. However, many people did get it right.

  So well done on Instagram to Hasina Navid, well done on Facebook to Conchi Villegas Mateos and well done on Twitter to Bushra. Very well done to everybody else who got the answer right. Yes, well done to everyone who took part in that. And now just a vocab recap. No problem. So first we had tipping point, a time after which events can't be stopped.

  Then we had ominous, implying（暗示） something bad will happen and finally domino effect, a situation where one event causes a series of consecutive events. Thanks for that and thanks for joining us.