British sculptor Jason Taylor has made it his mission to use his talent to conserve our ecosystems by creating underwater museums. Over the years, the environmentalist has put over 850 massive artworks underwater worldwide. On February 1, 2021, Taylor launched his latest work---The Underwater Museum of Cannes.
“The main goal was to bring attention to the fact that our oceans need our help,” Taylor told Dezeen. “Ocean ecologies have been destroyed by human activity in the Mediterranean over the past few decades, and it is not obvious what is taking place when observing the sea from afar.”
The Underwater Museum of Cannes contains 6 sculptures featuring local residents of various ages. They range from Maurice, an 80-year-old fisherman, to Anouk, a 9-year-old student. Towering over 6-feet-tall and weighing 10 tons, the faces are sectioned into two parts, with the outer part like a mask. The mask indicates that the world’s oceans appear powerful and unbeatable from the surface but house an ecosystem that is extremely fragile to careless human activities.
Though the waters surrounding the sculptures now appear a pristine blue, the seabed was filled with old boat engines, pipes, and other human-made trash when the project began about four years ago. Besides removing the trash, Taylor also restored the area’s seagrass. Just one square meter of the seagrass can generate up to 10 liters of oxygen daily. The seagrass also helps prevent coastal erosion and provides habitats for many ocean creatures.
“The idea of creating an underwater museum was to draw more people underwater and develop a sense of care and protection,” Taylor told Dezeen. “If we threw unwanted waste near a forest, there would be a public outcry. But this is happening every day in our surrounding waters and it largely goes unnoticed.”
1. What are the underwater museums intended to do?| A．To make huge profits. | B．To raise awareness of protecting the ocean. |
| C．To show Jason Taylor’s talent. | D．To draw attention to endangered sea animals. |
| A．To popularize the features of the locals. |
| B．To remind people to protect themselves. |
| C．To reflect people’s protection of the ocean. |
| D．To stress the sensitiveness of the ecosystem. |
| A．How the project was started. | B．How the seagrass was restored. |
| C．What recovery effort the project made. | D．Why the surroundings were improved. |
| A．The situation of the ocean is easily ignored. |
| B．The destruction caused to the ocean is noticeable. |
| C．Forests play a more important role in ecosystems. |
| D．People have zero tolerance to damage done to nature. |
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【推荐1】Ever wonder how this season’s celebrations affect the environment? Guest blogger Krista Fairles takes an amusing look at this very topic:
The holidays are a wonderful, cheerful time when most people wait for Santa to bring them presents. But I’m not like most people. I spend my time wondering just what the environmental impacts of Santa Claus and his reindeer are, and more importantly, how I can calculate those impacts.
Lately I’ve been particularly curious as to whether Santa’s old sled is a clean green flying machine, or if he should be replacing his 8 reindeer with an environmentally-friendly car.
I should mention that, surprisingly, I was unable to find statistics specific to Santa’s magical flying reindeer, so these calculations use numbers from various sources and may not represent actual pollution caused by Santa and his animals. In other words, don’t complain to the government about the damage Santa is causing to the environment based on this article.
Santa’s yearly trip around the globe is 44,000km long, twice the average of a North American driver. If we assume that the magic provides the altitude for this trip, then reindeer power only needs to push Santa’s sled forward. To complete the trip in 12 hours, I estimate they must travel at a speed of about 3100km/h. To travel at this speed, for this length of time, the reindeer need to eat an incredible 980 million calories each!
So the next question is: how much food is in 980 million calories? Well, if they’re eating corn, they’d need to eat 16,500 lbs each - or 1.6 acres of food. Growing 12.8 acres of corn has its own implications for the environment that we’ll leave for another calculation.
We now need to consider that during the global trip the reindeer are “letting out” some of that corn in the form of methane (甲烷，沼气). A resting cow produces 110 kg of methane per year, so flying reindeer would each let out about 4.8 tons. With methane causing 20 times the global warming damage of CO2, and the altitude increasing that damage by 1000% that another 20 times, we can put Santa’s round-trip emissions at 15,488 tons. This is much more than the 100 tons an environmentally-friendly car would release on the same trip!
Bad Santa.
1. Which aspect does the writer NOT mention in her analyses about reindeer’s influence on environment?| A．Distance covered. | B．Money spent on food. |
| C．Tons of waste let out. | D．Calories consumed. |
| A．12.8. | B．16. | C．19.2. | D．128. |
| A．Humorous and concerned. | B．Cheerful and friendly. |
| C．Academic and formal. | D．Serious and boring. |
| A．Santa, watch where you’re going! | B．Let’s reduce waste on Christmas celebrations! |
| C．Santa Claus is coming to town! | D．Is Santa driving clean and green? |
【推荐2】The world is a greener place than it was 20 years ago. Recent NASA satellites data(2000-2017) have shown that human activities in China and India dominate this greening of the planet, thanks to ambitious tree-planting programmes in China and intensive agriculture in both countries.
The researchers from Boston University found that global green leaf area has increased by 5 percent in the new century, an area equal to all of the Amazon rainforest. China alone accounts for 25% of the global net increase in leaf area with only 6.6% of global vegetated area. China’s contribution comes in large part from its programmes to conserve and expand forests, taking up about 42 percent of the greening. The greening from farmlands in China is about 32%, but that in India is about 82%.
Rama Nemani, a research scientist at NASA’s Ames Research Centre and a co-author of the study said, “When the greening of the Earth was first observed, we thought it was due to a warmer, wetter climate and fertilization from the added carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. But with data from NASA satellites, scientists realized that humans are also contributing, which was all against our expectations.”
Nemani sees a positive message in the new findings. “Once people realize there is a problem, they tend to fix it,” he said. “In the 1970sand 1980s in India and China, the situation around vegetation loss was not good. In the 1990s, people realized it, and today things have improved. Humans are incredibly resilient. That is what we see in the satellite data.”
However, the researchers rang bells as well. They said that the gain in global greenness did not necessarily make up for the loss of natural vegetation in regions like Brazil and Indonesia.
1. What is the second paragraph mainly about?| A．The decreasing size of the Amazon rainforest. |
| B．China’s bigger contribution to global greening. |
| C．Total global green leaf area in the new century. |
| D．China’s programmes to conserve and expand forests. |
| A．Human activities | B．suitable for analyzing data |
| C．A warmer and wetter climate. | D．Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. |
| A．Good at making programmes | B．Suitable for analyzing data. |
| C．Able to make corrections | D．Active in planting trees. |
| A．It is urgent to protect global natural resources. |
| B．Much remains to be done for global greenness. |
| C．Brazil and Indonesia lose most of their vegetation. |
| D．Global greenness needs all countries to work together. |
【推荐3】People living in the UK take quite a few holidays abroad and in this country each year. Choices made about where to go, how to get there and what to do while there can either benefit or harm the environment.
While on holiday
Many of the things you can do to the greener on holiday will be the same things you can do at home—but there are also some extra things too, like avoiding gifts made from endangered plants and animals. Here are some suggestions:
●Making the most of locally produced food and drink, and local activities and attractions will support people in the area you are visiting and reduce the need for further environmental influence from transport;
●Switching off any air conditioning, heating and lights will help reduce climate change effect;
●Save water—some countries suffer from water shortages and saving water can help avoid damage to our natural habitats.
Endangered species
Some gifts and foods available in some countries can be made from endangered plants or animals. Check before you buy and avoid animal and plant gifts. More details of the types of products to avoid and illegal trade hot spots can be found on the Souvenir Alert webpage.
Making a positive contribution to the place you are visiting
There are ways in which your holiday can help support local people and the environment:
●There are many opportunities to volunteer and help with projects that conserve and improve natural habitats;
●When you are away, or if you are looking for somewhere to visit, you can support projects or attractions which protect wildlife, such as nature reserves and conservation projects.
1. According to the passage, we can______ to help reduce climate change effect.| A．save electricity | B．buy local food and drink |
| C．make good use of water | D．go around on foot |
| A．sometimes they are of poor quality |
| B．they may be made from endangered animals or plants |
| C．some of them will do harm to our health |
| D．they may not be typical local products |
| A．travel dos and don’ts |
| B．the harm done to the environment |
| C．tips on protecting endangered species |
| D．greener choices for holiday |
【推荐1】One beautiful day, I showed up for work, where I had just been promoted. I was right in the middle of training a new girl, when my boss asked to talk to me for a second. After that conversation, you can effectively cross “had a good job” off my comfortable living checklist. No warning. In fact, just the month before I had received my fifth Employee of the Month award. I was speechless and so was everyone else. Seven of us were cut from my department that day. Later, I would discover that there were thousands of cuts companywide. I worked at a bank. A failing one.
When something like this happens to you, it’s natural to ask why. I reviewed all my work accomplishments. I thought about how I had been a top performer every month since I was hired and about how they gave me the highest rating on my review. What had I done wrong? What could I have done better?
The truth is that sometimes we search for a logical explanation in a situation that can’t be understood. The only way to move past it is to have confidence in the job you did as an employee and understand that you are a victim of an unfortunate circumstance.
Speaking of writing, with all of the extra time on my hands, I reunited with the long lost love of my life: writing.
I decided to pursue writing as an actual job. I designed a website and applied for writing jobs. I started getting more and more clients. It occurred to me that with some hard work I might be able to make a living doing what I love. So there I was, three months after the sky fell, thinking about how incredibly blessed I was. And this would never have happened if I had not lost something in the first place.
1. What happened to the author that day according to Paragraph 1?| A．She was fired. | B．She was forgiven. |
| C．She got a promotion. | D．She received an award. |
| A．Her performance was great. |
| B．Her colleagues weren’t friendly. |
| C．She was understood by her boss. |
| D．She always failed to finish her tasks. |
| A．Concerned. | B．Satisfied. | C．Surprised. | D．Disappointed. |
| A．Interest Will Help Us to Find a Way |
| B．Dream It and You Can Do It Well |
| C．Nothing Is Impossible to a Willing Heart |
| D．When One Door Closes, Another Opens |
【推荐2】Godfrey Hounsfield’s early life did not suggest that he would accomplish much at all. He was not a particularly good student in the teachers’ eyes—he neither observed the school disciplines nor worked hard enough at school lessons. His teachers described him as “thick”.
He joined the army during the Second World War, but he wasn’t much of a soldier. However, he was a wizard with electrical machinery—he would use the newly invented radar to help pilots better find their way home on dark, cloudy nights.
After the war, Hounsfield followed his commander’s advice and got a degree in engineering He practiced his trade at EMI, a company with a focus on electronics and electrical engineering.
Hounsfield’s natural talent for engineering made him lead the team building the most advanced mainframe computer available in Britain. But by the 1960’s, EMI wanted out of the competitive computer market and the brilliant engineer wasn’t sure what to do in the future in the company. Therefore, the company gave Hounsfield a long holiday.
During the holiday, Hounsfield met a physician who complained about the poor quality of X-ray of the brain, which looked like fog. This got Hounsfield to make a move into the new field.
Hounsfield returned to EMI and talked about the idea with his boss. Then he used a new way to appoach the problem of imaging what was inside the skull. By working backward and using the fastest computers, he could work on the mystery of each brain layer. But there was a problem: EMI wasn’t involved in the medical market then. The company allowed Hounsfield to work on his product, but provided no funding.
Luckily his boss, Bill Ingham, saw the value of Hounsfield’s proposal and struggled to ask EMI to keep the project run. Finally, Hounsfield built a safe and effictive human scanner.
Hounsfield’s innovation transformed medicine. He shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1979 and was knighted by the queen in 1981. He continued his invention career until his final days in 2004, when he died at 84.
1. What can we say about Houndfield’s early school life?| A．He worked really hard. | B．He didn’t manage to graduate. |
| C．He was popular with his teachers. | D．He didn’t behave himself. |
| A．Stayed away from. | B．Became tired of. | C．Came up with. | D．Was gifted in. |
| A．To relieve Hounsfield’s anxiety over stressful work. |
| B．To make Hounsfield think about his future career. |
| C．To allow Hounsfield to reflect on his mistakes. |
| D．To remind Hounsfield to learn from others. |
| A．Having no one on his side. | B．Experiencing too many failures. |
| C．Being short of financial support. | D．Being misunderstood by his boss. |
| A．To remember a great inventor. | B．To reveal the decline of a company. |
| C．To introduce the application of X-rays. | D．To show the improvements brought by technology. |
【推荐3】Today, roller skating is easy and fun. But many years ago, it wasn’t easy at all. Before 1750, people never tried skating on wheels. That changed because of a man named Joseph Merlin. Merlin's work was making instruments. In his free time he liked to play the violin. Merlin was a man with many ideas and many dreams. People called him a dreamer.
One day Merlin received an invitation to go to an important party. He was very pleased and a little excited. As the day of the party came near, Merlin began to think. He wanted to find a way to make a wonderful entrance at the party. Merlin had an idea. He thought that he would attract a lot of attention if he could skate into the room.
Merlin tried different ways to make himself roll. Finally, he decided to put two wheels under each shoe. These were the first roller skate shoes. Merlin was very proud of them. He dreamed of arriving at the Party and skating into the room while playing the violin. He was sure that everyone would be very surprised.
On the night of the party Merlin rolled into the room, playing his violin. Everyone was really surprised to see him. There was just one problem. Merlin had no way to stop his roller skating. He rolled on, playing the violin. Then, with all eyes on him, Merlin hit into a huge mirror on the wall. The mirror broke into many pieces with a very loud noise.
Nobody forgot Merlin's wonderful entrance after that.
1. People called Merlin a dreamer because .| A．he slept and dreamed a lot |
| B．he was full of different ideas |
| C．he invented the first roller skates |
| D．he always made peopled dreams come true |
| A．Merlin’s work | B．Merlin’s violin |
| C．A huge mirror | D．An important party |
| A．He couldn’t stop his roller-skating. |
| B．He couldn’t attract a lot of attention. |
| C．Everyone was surprised at him. |
| D．He couldn't play the violin while rolling. |
| A．Joseph Merlin’s Story | B．How Roller Skating Was Invented |
| C．A Surprising Entrance to the Party | D．Roller Skating |
