Where are the bees?
Bees are essential to the production of food we eat. Bees make honey, but they also pollinate large areas of crops, such as straw berries, apples and onions. About a third of the food we eat is a result of pollination of the bees. Unfortunately, bees have been disappearing at an alarming rate.
In 2006, bee keepers started reporting about something called Colony Collapse Disaster (CCD).The main sign of CCD is the loss of adult honey bees from a hive. In October of 2006, some beekeepers reported that they had lost between 30 and 90 percent of their hives.
There were many theories for the disappearance of the bees. But the most convincing one has to do with pesticides and lifestyles of bees today. Nowadays, beekeeper get most of their income not from producing honey but from renting bees to pollinate plants. This means that the life of the typical bee now consists of travelling all around the country to pollinate crops as the seasons change. That means a lot of traveling on trucks, which is very stressful to bees. It is not unusual for up to 30% of the hive to die during transport due to stress. In addition, bees that spend most of their time locked up on trucks are not exposed to what they usually live on. Instead, they live on a sweet liquid from corn, usually polluted with pesticides.
The exact reason for the disappearance of bees is not sure, but losing bees is very costly to the economy. The bee pollination services are worth over $8 billion a year. With no bees, pollination will have to be done by hand, which would have effects on the quality of food and increased food priced. We hear a lot about big environmental disasters almost every day. But one of the biggest may just be the less of that tiny flying insect.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
相似题推荐
A five-legged lamb nicknamed “Fiver” was saved from the dinner table thanks to a one-in-a-million extra limb.
Fiver caused quite a sensation (轰动) when she was born on Andrew Bell’s farm near York. But shortly after she took her first unsteady steps — the lamb appeared destined for the knife.
Thankfully for Fiver it was the vet’s scalpel (手术刀) rather than the butcher’s knife.
Mr Bell’s vet daughter, Katy said neither she nor her father had ever seen a lamb like her before. She said, “We think the most likely reason for being born with an extra limb could be that she was trying to form a conjoined (连体的) twin but failed eventually.”
Ms Bell brought the family’s miracle lamb to her colleague Julian Norton, the star of Channel 5’s The Yorkshire Vet. Mr Norton cut off Fiver’s extra leg as it was making it hard for her to feed. She said, “We didn’t want her to look physically imperfect for too long, so we got the operation done within 20 minutes. It was very short but Fiver came through it and it was a success. Within a few hours she was back with her mum in the fields having fun like nothing had happened. We feel much honored to have experienced such a rare event.”
They say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder and this was certainly the case when Katy spotted Fiver. The animal lover could not bear the idea of the lamb being farmed out and offered up her home.
She said, “I immediately wanted to give her a forever home; she is such an amazing creature and I didn’t want her to end up on someone’s dinner plate.”
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
近几年，各大科技公司纷纷推出配备有多种智能操控系统的仿生机器狗（robot dogs），被称为“人类高质量宠物”。有人认为，智能宠物的市场潜力巨大，随着技术的精进，它们会代替真实宠物，成为人类的好伙伴和好管家。面对机器宠物和真实宠物，你会如何选择，请通过比较阐述你的选择的理由。
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
My hero — Domi
Five years ago, I had a strange dream, directing me to adopt a particular dog. It was obvious from the dream that I would know the dog by his unusual face. But when I woke up, I could never recall what the unique facial feature was.
I was very curious. So early one Saturday morning, I went to the specified shelter to check the available adoptees. After looking carefully at all the dogs, I was disappointed that not one dog had anything unusual about its face.
On my way out of the shelter, I noticed a box of puppies (小狗) just outside of view from the main area. My attention was drawn to one puppy named Domi who appeared to have no fur on his face. I was worried about this strange-looking puppy, and hoped he hadn’t been injured. However, on closer inspection, I found he did have fur on his face, but it was a very odd shade of gray that made it look like skin. Satisfied and relieved that he was okay, I turned to leave the shelter.
And then it hit me: The face — it’s the dog with the unusual face! Immediately, I returned to the puppy. As I lifted him from the box, we bonded instantly. I knew I could not leave without him so I headed for the adoption desk. In that short amount of time, he had wrapped his paws around my heart; his barks, quite different from other dogs’, had a soothing (抚慰的) and comforting quality, also touching my soul.
Meeting with the shelter manager, I was informed a family had already selected him. There was, however, still a slight chance since the family had not made their final decision. After an anxiety-filled hour, I saw a member of the family, the mother, walk straight toward me, carrying Domi. My heart pounded as she approached. For a moment, she didn’t say a word. Then, with a broad smile, she said, “Here’s your dog.”
注意：
1.续写词数应为150左右；
2.请在答题卡的相应位置作答。
I was speechless as grateful tears were welling up in my eyes.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
When Domi was three. I had a brain disorder and fainted from time to time.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
The Lost Dog
One summer day, I went out my back door and found a small dog sitting in the grass. The dog stood up and wagged (摇) his tail when he saw me. I touched his short brown-and-white coat and checked him for a collar or ID tag (项圈或身份牌). He had neither. I lived in a small town. I knew all the dogs in the neighborhood, but I’d never seen him before. I told him to sit. To my surprise, he sat at once. “Stay,” I said, as I made my way into the storeroom where we kept the dry dog food for our dogs. When I returned, he was sitting in the exact place where I had left him. “Wow! You sure are trained,” I said. I set out some water and food, and the dog started eating.
I left him in the yard and went inside to read through the newspaper’s “Lost and Found” column (专栏). Unluckily, nobody had reported a missing brown-and-white dog. An hour later, my brother came home and asked why there was a strange dog in the yard. “I don’t know where he came from,” I said. “But he is owned by someone. Maybe he’s just lost and will find his way home.” Later that afternoon, my brother and I went outside and found the dog walking by the back door. We played with him for a while and found that the dog knew tricks. He could sit, stay, roll over, and lie down according to instructions. He also loved jumping to catch a tennis ball in mid-air. When my parents came home, we showed them the dog and all his tricks. My parents were shocked by his skills as much as we were. None of us had ever seen a dog so well-trained before. The dog got along well with our dogs, and we gave him a comfortable place to sleep in the storeroom.
The next day, I checked the “Lost and Found” column again, also with no result. Then, I called the newspaper and ran a “Found” advertisement describing our new friend.
注意：1. 续写词数应为150左右；2. 请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。Three days later, we got a call from a woman who had seen our “Found” advertisement in the newspaper.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
When the woman’s truck got near our yard, the dog ran to greet her.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
My personal relationship with Steve began when I was an 18-year-old college student. As I was a great lover of fruits, I often went to the Davis Farmers Market in California’s Central Valley to buy fresh fruits. At the market I could come face to face with some of the highest quality fruit on the planet and the experts who grew it. Once when I was there, I saw a man shouting, loud and excited, and I realized he was shouting at me, demanding I try his peaches.
That was how I got to know Steve, a fruit farmer who was selling wonderful peaches grown on his own farm. We had a chat about fruits and we felt like friends. Steve invited me to work part-time on his farm and I agreed. I would pick, prune (修剪), and run after birds, and I was paid in cash and fruit. About a year later my roommate observed that I might be addicted to fruit. I’d regularly come home from Steve’s farm with dozens of pounds of peaches, cherries, and apples.
When I was to graduate, Steve offered me a full-time job to drive a truck and sell fruit at Northern California farmers’ markets. But I turned him down. I wanted to be a news reporter.
While working as a reporter, I happened to read in an old book that Fairchild, a late 19th-century food spy, traveled the world to find crops that didn’t exist in the U.S. He was the man who brought America its first avocados, kale, and mangoes, and he helped to get the famous cherry blossom trees in Washington D.C. For three years I combed Fairchild’s diaries and his travel journals. And I sat up all night reading his century-old writings.
注意：1. 续写词数应为150左右；
2. 请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
These writings got me thinking about Steve and the fruit trees on the farm.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Last summer, I went to spend a couple of days on the farm.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
The Dog Who Saved Our Family
We met Max at the pickup area of Alaska Airlines five years ago. He was a standard poodle(狮子狗)born on Valentine’s Day in 2017， and came to us in a small blue box. We had adopted him from an out-of-state raiser who posted the news on the social network. Our only request was that he have a calm behavior, able to bear the pushing and hugging of our eight-year-old daughter and six-year-old son.
We were a sweet little family:me,my husband, and our children, Sophie and Jake. But for years I’d felt as if we wouldn’t really be complete until we had a dog. Also, my husband worked in a business company and had to travel some 200 days a year for his job, and I knew I’d feel safer with a large animal sleeping by the door.
When we opened the box, the last piece of our puzzle fell into place. With his black hair and intelligent eyes,Max was beautiful. He was so small that he fit into the palm of my hand, his big paws lapping over the sides. He was also a little bit scared. As I pulled him close,I felt his heart pound and wondered if we’d done the right thing, taking him from his mother. But it was too late. Sophie and Jake were already fighting over who would hold him next and who should have the right to take a bath for him.
Over the following months, we spent endless hours watching Max play with his Kong toy or roll around the living room floor. Like most poodles, he was smart. He mastered house-training quickly and never chewed on our furniture or shoes. He considered himself one of us.
注意1. 续写词数应为150左右
2.请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
One night we were sleeping in the bedroom when I heard some strange noise.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________At that time,Max ran towards me.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Bees are responsible for about 30 percent of the food supply in our world. Our fruits and vegetables would not grow without bees. Many farmers use pesticides(杀虫剂) to protect food plants from insects. However, studies have shown that these chemicals are also hurting the bees. Around the world, the insects have been dying in large numbers, along with big declines of farmland birds, butterflies and so on.
Researchers have been trying to find out the way pesticides affect bees. Some of them, including David Goulson, a professor of biology at Britain’s University of Sussex believe the chemicals harm the ability of bees to find their way. “These chemicals attack the brain of the insects and they interfere(阻碍) with their ability to learn and to navigate(导航), which is really important for a bee. If they get lost, then they are as good as dead.”
How does the problem come about? The answer may be related with the new genetically engineered seeds. Professor Goulson says some of these seeds are covered with pesticides. “So it is likely that the farmer buys the seed, pre-coated with pesticides. He then sows it in the ground, and the chemical dissolves(溶解) into the soil and the water in the soil, and then it’s supposed to be sucked up by the plant, and it goes to all parts of the plant including, unfortunately, the pollen(花粉).” And that pollen ends up on the bees.
The effects on human beings are not hard to imagine. Since many of the things we eat depend on these insects in order to grow, we may not have enough food to eat someday. Besides, researchers found the chemicals in 75% of all the world’s honey. They even found it on the French island of Tahiti, a place not known for industrial farming. Eating the honey with chemicals for a long time may cause diseases.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
The oil industry has known for half a century that pollution caused by the burning of fossil fuel has severe threats to human health. By the late 1960s, Shell’s internal documents warned air pollution “may, in extreme situations, be harmful to health”, while by 1980, Imperial College was warning of “birth defects among the children of industry workers”. And yet the same industry tries actively to persuade the government out of clean air regulations proposed to protect health and save lives.
Take another example of a product that has a harmful effect on the environment and our health: meat. Eating too much processed and red meat is bad for health, while meat and dairy production accounts for 14.5% of global greenhouse emissions. But healthier diets and lower emissions as a result of lower meat consumption would not satisfy big meat’s desire to maximize profits. This industry also succeeded gaining favorable regulations from the government.
In western countries, economic systems go hand-in-hand with political systems and there is often a direct connection between political influence and economic power. One 2014 study by US academics concluded that the US was a country where only a small group of people held all the power because “economic giants and organized groups representing business interests have great independent impacts on US government policy, while average citizens have little or no independent influence”. In other words, organized wealthy interest groups – like fossil fuel companies – had a powerful impact in shaping government policy; ordinary citizens didn’t.
According to one report, the top 100 companies are responsible for 71% of global greenhouse gas emissions, while the poorest half of people are responsible for just 10% of global emissions. The greedy search for profit represents a great threat to our health, to our lives, and to our planet. Without a determined effort to drive back the political power of these giant companies, our planet will continue to be destroyed. Time is not on our side.
1. 发表看法
2. 发出呼吁
注意：1. 写作词数应为80个左右；
2. 请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
参考词汇: 核污染水: nuclear-contaminated water
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
