[originaltext]W: Hello, Freddy!M: Hello, Mary! How nice to see you again! How

W: Hello, Freddy!
M: Hello, Mary! How nice to see you again! How is everything going?
W: Fine. Busy these days?
M: Yeah, with lots of things to do. Would you like to join me for a drink?
W: OK. Thanks!
M: Any news recently?
W: Oh, well, I read in the local paper the other day that the government is planning to build an airport here. You know that?
M: Afraid not.
W: Well, my real objection to this idea of a new airport is, is that the whole thing is so wastefill. I mean we know we are currently in a fuel crisis, we know that we’ve got to conserve oil and fuel and all the rest of it and yet here the government seems quite deliberately to be encouraging people to, to travel, to use. And these jets use a heck of a lot of oil—I mean it takes a ton of oil, a ton of petrol before one of these big jets even takes off.
M: Mm.
W: It seems so completely short-sighted to me quite apart from all the waste of land and so on, I can’t see, I can’t see the rationale behind really wanting an, an airport at all.
M: Well, surely you must admit that the existing airports nearby are, are becoming swamped. I mean why should people er...
W: Well, they are being swamped.
M: ... be treated like cattle when there’s a chance of a new airport here?
W: But, but really people shouldn’t be travelling as much. That’s, that’s why most of the journeys, I mean they are swamped because there’s far too much unnecessary tourism and so on. It isn’t necessary for people to travel so fast or even so often.
M: Well, you take the climate here in this country. Now, just before Christmas, there was this dreadful cold spell and there was a tremendous increase in the number of people who wanted to leave and spent Christmas and the New Year in a reasonable climate of the sun and a certain mild climate. And, and in summer the same situation occurs. It is unbearably hot here and people want to go somewhere cool.
W: Well, yes. I can sympathize with that. But, it is still not really necessary to do whereas it is necessary to, to conserve fuel, and it is necessary to, well, not to waste land. I mean land for a new airport could be used for far more important things which would benefit the people here far more. I mean it could be used for farming, for instance.
M: True.
W: It could also be used for housing, or it could be used for parks, you know. People then could come and enjoy themselves without having to travel far.
1. Why doesn’t Mary favour the idea of a new airport?
2. According to Mary, what’s the attitude of the local government?
3. According to Mary, why are the existing airports swamped?
4. What is the climate like in the speakers’ country?
5. Why does Mary think the land for a new airport is a waste?