Climate change, pollution, overuse of water and development are killing some of the world’s most famous rivers including China’s Yangtze, India’s Ganges and Africa’s Nile, WWF said on Tuesday. At the global launch of its report “World’s Top 10 Rivers at Risk”,the group said many rivers could dry out, affecting hundreds of millions of people and killing unique aquatic(水生的) life.
“If these rivers die, millions will lose their livelihoods, biodiversity(生物多样性)will be destroyed on a massive scale, and there will be less fresh water and agriculture, resulting in less food security,”said Rayi Singh, Secretary General of WWF-India. The report, launched ahead of “World Water Day” today, also cited the Rio Grande in the United States, the Mekong and the Indus in Asia, Europe’s Danube, the La Plata-Parana River in South America and the Murray and the Darling in Australia as in need of greater protection.
Rivers are the world’s main source of fresh water and WWF says about half of the available supply is already being used up. Dams have destroyed habitats and cut rivers off from their flood plains, while climate change could affect the seasonal water flows that feed them. Fish populations, the top source of protein and overall life support for hundreds of thousands of communities worldwide, are also being threatened. The Yangtze basin is one of the most polluted rivers in the world because of decades of heavy industrialization, damming and huge influxes(流入) of sediment(沉淀物) from land conversion.
Climate change, including higher temperatures, also means serious consequences for fishery productivity, water supply and political security in Africa’s arid Nile basin. Tributaries(支流)flowing into the Ganges are drying up because of irrigation.
1. We can infer from the text that ________.| A．higher temperatures couldn’t affect fishery productivity |
| B．rivers’ dying out could affect food security |
| C．there are three Asian rivers mentioned in the passage |
| D．the Yangtze is polluted due to the lack of enough tributaries |
| A．climate change | B．pollution |
| C．wasting water | D．dams |
| A．a magazine | B．a newspaper |
| C．an organization | D．a report |
相似题推荐
【推荐1】Cities are the planet’s largest sources of greenhouse gas emissions (排放), so they offer the greatest opportunity to tackle climate change. Hitting net zero emissions by 2050, a target set at the COP26 summit, could be achieved more quickly using city digital twins-working virtual replicas (复制品) that help track, manage and reduce environmental damage rapidly.
The United Nations says cities, the most suitable subjects, which occupy less than two percent of the Earth’s surface, are major contributors to climate change, consuming almost 80 percent of the world’s energy and producing more than 60 percent of greenhouse gas emissions. Urban areas are forecast to grow by another 2.5 billion people by 2050.
Digital twins look and behave identically in their real-world physical environments. Similar technologies have been in use since NASA’s Apollo moon mission in 1969, where computers and machine replicas were used to test and monitor spacecraft. Virtual 3D city models link to networks of sensors that collect data from buildings, transport, air quality and energy use, to see where emissions can be cut and efficiency improved.
The UK is planning a kind of national digital twins that will connect digital replicas managing buildings, factories, and the other infrastructure nationwide. And that could lead to entire virtual world online, part of a virtual reality space proposed by tech companies.
Research shows that digital twins can save cities more than $280 billion globally by 2030 through more efficient urban planning. A provider of digital twins, City zenith, believes that net zero deadlines could be achieved 15 years early if the world’s 100 biggest cities use the technology to remove carbon. “They are the perfect tool for managing and accelerating the energy transition,” said CEO Michael Jansen. “We could get to net zero emissions globally by 2035.”
In the US, the Digital Twin Consortium is working to standardize how digital twins are built and share data. Big tech companies around the world have developed software for replicating cities, including a district of Berlin, the island nation of Singapore, and the entire city of Shanghai in China.
1. What are city digital twins used to do?| A．Decorate cities. |
| B．Change cities’ climate. |
| C．Reduce urban greenhouse gas emissions. |
| D．Popularize urban technology. |
| A．They occupy most of the Earth’s surface. |
| B．They contribute most to the greenhouse effect. |
| C．They produce little of solid waste pollution. |
| D．They consume little of the world’s energy. |
| A．To prove the accuracy of network data. |
| B．To explain the application of digital twins. |
| C．To tell us the importance of space tasks. |
| D．To show the difficulty of urban construction. |
| A．They are practical and promising. |
| B．They have reached a standard level. |
| C．They lack research funding. |
| D．They are complex and unrecognizable. |
【推荐2】Plastic-free July is a global campaign that challenges people to give up single-use plastic. The idea is the brainchild of Rebecca Prince-Ruiz, an activist living in Western Australia. She realized that, in addition to raising awareness, she wanted to do something to actually reduce plastic waste. She helped round up just 40 people in Perth, who volunteered to give up plastic for the month of July. In the last 6 years, the idea has become so popular that this year, over a million people in 130 countries are on board.
Beth Terry, America’s best-known plastic-free activist, first participated in Plastic Free July in 2014. She has nothing but high praise for this initiative and its founder. Beth’s website MyPlasticFreeLife.com includes “100 Steps to a Plastic-Free Life”, “carry your own containers for take-out food and leftovers,” along with reusable cookers and glass drinking straws. Eat ice cream on a cone rather than get it in a plastic-lined cup. Give up chewing gum.
You’re probably already using a reusable cloth bag rather than plastic at the grocery store, and drinking from a stainless steel or aluminum water bottle rather than buy water in a plastic bottle. But PlasticFreeJuly’s A-Z list shows how easy it can be to replace single-use plastic with a reusable version. The list includes replacing plastic doggy bags with folded up newspaper and using cloth diapers (尿布). PlasticFreeJuly’s website also lists some pretty astonishing facts. For example: Scientists predict there will be more tonnes of plastic than tonnes of fish in the world’s waterways and oceans by 2050. Plastic manufacturing consumes 6% of the world’s fossil fuels. In the first 10 years of the 21st century, the world economy produced more plastic than it did during the entire 1900s!
1. What is mainly talked about in Paragraph 1?| A．The background of Plastic-free July. | B．The challenges of recycling plastics. |
| C．The voluntary work of people in Perth. | D．The profession of Rebecca Prince-Ruiz. |
| A．Some childhood stories about Beth. |
| B．Some regulations to ban using plastic. |
| C．Some additional ways to live plastic-free. |
| D．Some pictures of people buying take-out food. |
| A．Plastic-free July has been operating for 40 years. |
| B．Plastic will have disappeared by the end of 2050. |
| C．A-Z list shows alternatives for plastic free living. |
| D．Plastic doggy bags have been replaced by paper bags. |
| A．Choose to Refuse Single-Use Plastic for Plastic-Free July |
| B．Plastic-Free July, a Growing Global Movement to Ban Plastic |
| C．Recycling Alone Could Not Solve the Plastic Pollution Problem |
| D．Rebecca Prince-Ruiz, America’s Best-known Plastic-free Activist |
【推荐3】Garbage has been negatively connected with germs(细菌), dirt and useless junk. However, a recent art exhibition proved that “useless” things can have practical significance.
Dear Pretty Rubbish, an art event organized by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWFN) and digital media art company Blackbow, was held in Beijing. It looked at wasteful consumption (消耗) and asked questions about the relationship between our lifestyles and our garbage.
“We hope that everyone who visited the show can think about how ‘useless things’ are produced why they are throw away, and whether ‘useless things’ are really useless, ”said Cao Yujia, the design director of Blackbow.
The organizers said that all the raw materials for the exhibition were collected from community garbage cans.
Artists Zhou Yuxuan and Liu Yifan collected nylon cable ties (尼龙扎带), LED lights and beverage bottles from designers’ workshops to create a work where plastics, in the shape of cells “grow” in a corner. There, the lights blink (闪烁) regularly to imitate (模仿) “breathing”. When people walk near it, the work responds by forming light patterns, as if communicating with the visitor.
Speaking about the work, Zhou said. “It’s like some kind of communication between humans and plastics.” Plastic has a life longer than almost any creature, taking centuries to break down. Though people blame plastics for damage to the environment, they are a big part of our daily lives.
“So we want to ask the question: Although the damage continues, whether there is a way for humans to reconcile (调和) with plastics,” said Zhou.
Liu said that plastic waste can be used to make clothes “Re-use of plastics will be a future trend, ” he said. Cable ties are a useful and common material for fastening. Many people will buy a large bundle of them but only use a few pieces. The rest of cable ties could be re-used as a decoration in handicrafts.
“This exhibition calls for everyone to re-think their wasteful lifestyle full of single-use plastics and make changes, ”said Cao.
1. What was the purpose of Dear Pretty Rubbish?| A．To inspire people to reflect on waste management. |
| B．To remind people to live a healthy lifestyle. |
| C．To encourage people to use more plastic. |
| D．To teach people how to recycle different kinds of garbage. |
| A．Communication is important for everyone. |
| B．A community’s garbage is full of hidden treasures. |
| C．Creativity can change your life. |
| D．Plastics could be reused to reduce pollution. |
| A．An art exhibition held in Beijing. |
| B．The rise of a new lifestyle. |
| C．The many uses of plastics. |
| D．An introduction of two artists and their works. |
【推荐1】I am one of the many city people who are always saying that given the choice we would prefer to live in the country away from the dirt and noise of a large city. I have managed to convince myself that if it weren’t for my job I would immediately head out for the open spaces and go back to nature in some sleepy village buried in the country. But how realistic (现实的) is the dream?
Cities can be frightening places. The majority of the population live in huge tower blocks, noisy, dirty and unfriendly. The sense of belonging to a group tends to disappear when you live fifteen floors up. Strangely enough, nowadays people on the same floor don’t even say hello to each other.
Country life, on the other hand, differs in that a sense of group generally unites the people of small villages together. People have the advantage of knowing that there is always someone to turn to when they need help. But it is also true that you are cut off from the exciting and important events that take place in cities. Shopping becomes a major problem, and for anything slightly out of the ordinary you have to go on a trip to the nearest large town. The city people are often worried by a sense of unbearable stillness and quiet.
What, then, is the answer? The country has the advantage of peace and quiet, but suffers from the disadvantage of being cut off. The city raises a feeling of loneliness, and constant noise beats the senses. But you are at the centre of things, and that life doesn’t come to an end at half-past nine at night. Some people have found or rather bought a solution between the two: they have expressed their preference for the “quiet life” by leaving the cities and moving to villages within commuting (通勤) distance of large cities.
What then of my dream? I’m eager for the idea, but you see there’s my cat, Toby. I’m not at all sure that he would take to all that fresh air and exercise in the long grass. I mean, can you see him mixing with all those energetic males down the farm? No, he would rather have the electric fire any evening.
1. Which of the following makes city people unhappy?| A．Colorful life. | B．A sense of group. | C．Close neighborhood. | D．A feeling of loneliness. |
| A．Designer clothes. | B．Farming tools. | C．Daily supplies. | D．Fresh vegetables. |
| A．enjoys living in huge tower blocks | B．is in two minds |
| C．will continue his life in the city | D．will move to the country |
【推荐2】How to Cut Back on Playing Video Games
As you get older and shoulder more responsibilities in your life, your gaming time might need to adjust. Here’s what worked well for me.
Start Tracking Your Gaming Time
One of the reasons why video games eat up so much time is that they’re so engaging. I can’t count how many times I’ve sat down to play games for “a couple of minutes” then looked up to see hours have gone by.
Tracking your gaming time can help, says psychologist John M. Grohol. Prepare a spreadsheet or a piece of paper, and write down when you start playing a game and when you stop.
Start Choose Games Wisely
If you’re having a hard time stepping away from these kinds of games because there’s so much to do in them, cut them out of your gaming diet.
Figure Out What You’re Escaping
Video games are a fun way to de-stress and also one of the most advanced forms of escapism out there. To reduce my gaming thirst I started looking at my escapism habits from another angle.
Video games do offer a nice respite from the harsh truths of reality. More often than not, I would be able to identify the things that were stressing me out and making me want to escape to virtual worlds in the first place. If work was getting me down, I’d make a practical plan on how to improve it instead of grappling a controller.
| A．Why not get away from the game you are crazy about? |
| B．Shift your focus to games that are more pick-up-and-play. |
| C．Then add up your total gaming time at end of each week. |
| D．We find it hard to get rid ourselves of the addiction to games |
| E．I asked myself “What am I hiding from?” and worked from there |
| F．Some games require a much bigger time investment than other games |
| G．We often run to video games because they make us feel powerful and in control |
【推荐3】Mobile phones have become a problem for middle schools. Some middle schools in Australia have prevented students from carrying mobile phone during school hours.
Mobile phone use among children has become a problem for the school this year. Several children have got mobile phones as Christmas gifts, and more students will want them.
Mary Bluett, an official, said mobile phone use is a distraction to students during school hours and it also gives teachers so much trouble in their classrooms. Teachers were also saying that sometimes students might use phone messages to cheat during exams.
She said some schools had tried not to let students use mobile phones at school. Some parents felt unhappy because they couldn't get in touch with their children.
Many teachers said students should not have mobile phones at school, but if there was a good reason, they could leave their phones at school offices. They also said there were many reasons why the students should not have mobile phones at school. They were easy to lose and were a distraction from studies.
Many people say that they understood why parents would want their children to have mobile phones, but they think schools should let the students know when they can use their mobile phones.
1. Middle school students are prevented from carrying mobile phones ________.| A．because they often talk with their friends |
| B．when they are free from homework |
| C．when they are at school |
| D．because they cheat in exams |
| A．by telling lies to their parents | B．by making trouble in class |
| C．from some mobile phone users | D．from their parents and friends |
| A．Something that makes you happy. | B．Something that takes away your attention. |
| C．Something that makes you focused. | D．Something that makes you crazy. |
| A．No school in Australia has done anything about the mobile phone use among students. |
| B．Teachers don't allow the students to leave their mobile phones at school offices. |
| C．Some students had their mobile phones stolen at school. |
| D．Parents give their children mobile phones for no good reason. |
| A．students shouldn't have mobile phones at school except for some special reasons |
| B．it is impossible to stop students from using mobile phone at school |
| C．some parents felt unhappy because they couldn't use their phones at school |
| D．parents should teach their children how to use mobile phones during school hours |
【推荐1】The Gloria Barron Prize for Young Heroes celebrates inspiring, public-spirited young people from diverse backgrounds all across North America. Here are some of our 2019 winners.
Adorn Appiah
Media Coverage:
WSPA-TV - 09/27/2019
Adom Appiah founded BalWGood, a non-profit that supports communities through sports. In the past three years, he has inspired and led numerous people in raising more than $70,000 for 16 local non-profits. Ball4WGood’s signature annual event, the Celebrity Basketball Games, draws sold-out crowds to watch community leaders take on Adorn and his peers. The 2019 games raised more than $30,000 for children.
Anna Du
Media Coverage:
Andover Townsman - 10/03/2019
Merrimack Valley Magazine - 09/22/2019
Anna Du created the Deep Plastics Initiative campaign (DPI) to educate others about preventing and cleaning up ocean plastics pollution. Through her DPI presentations around the world, Anna is encouraging scientists to work together in an open-source manner to develop creative technologies. She has written a children’s book, Microplastics and Me.
Jamie Margolin
Media Coverage:
The New York Times - 09/20/2019
Jamie Margolin founded Zero Hour, an international youth climate justice movement. Her non-profit provides training, resources, and entry points for young people who want to take concrete action against climate change and environmental injustice.
Grace Callwood
Media Coverage:
Cecil Daily-09/27/2019
Grace Callwood founded The We Cancerve Movement, a non-profit that creates ways for youth to help other children who are homeless and sick. Her group has donated more than $15,000 in cash and another $50,000 in products to youth-serving organizations across Maryland, Delaware, and Ohio.
1. What’s the purpose of Ball4Good’s signature annual event?| A．To raise money for those in need. | B．To attract assistants for Ball4Good. |
| C．To inspire children’s interest in sports. | D．To select players for Adom’s basketball team. |
| A．Both wrote a children’s book. |
| B．Both care about the future of our planet. |
| C．Both have worked for the good of the homeless. |
| D．Both have encouraged scientists to work together. |
| A．Anna Du. | B．Adom Appiah. | C．Grace Callwood. | D．Jamie Margolin. |
【推荐2】While peer(同辈）support has proved effective for adults with mental health challenges, scientific evaluations of teenagers helping one another are difficult to find- even though some limited studies show that teenagers experiencing the stress of adolescence manage better emotionally when they are with their friends than with their parents. YouthLine is one of the six youth lines across the USA that have demonstrated how teenagers can relate to their peers over the Internet or the phone in a way that adults are sometimes unable to do. These peer-run crisis lines are coming together to bring more young voices to crisis intervention (干预). The six youth lines, which together speak to more than 50,000 young people each year, have monthly conference calls to share best practices.
YouthLine trains volunteers who are between 15 and 20 years old. They answer calls from teenagers who reach out to their helpline by phone, text, chat or email. Volunteers go through 55 hours of training where they listen as their peers take calls. YouthLine asks its teenagers to commit to one three-and-a-half-hour shift per week for at least a year, but a considerable number of them sign up for extra shifts, and stay for several years.
Still, the model has its skeptics, who don’t think teenagers can or should take calls from people in crisis. Crisis Text Line, a nonprofit that provides crisis intervention by text, decided to avoid using volunteers under the age of 18 for a few reasons. Wendy Farmer, the chief executive of Behavioral Health Link in Atlanta, also had reservations about the model, until she visited YouthLine last August. Ms. Farmer spent a night on shift and conducted a focus group with some of the volunteers. What surprised Ms. Farmer was not only how effective these teenagers were at helping their peers get through challenges, but also the way that work helped them build their own resilience (适应力).
1. What lacks scientific evidence according to Paragraph 1?| A．Teens are experiencing more stress than adults. |
| B．Adults face more mental health problems than teens. |
| C．Adults in crisis can get much comfort from their friends. |
| D．Peer support is effective for teens with psychological problems. |
| A．Preparing the young for their future career. |
| B．Encouraging the young to care about others. |
| C．Helping the young out of psychological crisis. |
| D．Bridging the gap between adults and the young. |
| A．They sometimes answer calls from adults. |
| B．Most of them are bored with the workloads. |
| C．Many of them show great enthusiasm. |
| D．They lack confidence. |
| A．Tolerance. | B．Approval. |
| C．Indifference. | D．Doubt. |
【推荐3】American poet, one of the finest of rural New England's 20th century pastoral（田园的）poets. Frost was awarded the Pulitzer Prize four times.
Robert Frost was born in San Francisco in 1874.He moved to New England at the age of eleven and became interested in reading and writing poetry during his high school years in Lawrence, Massachusetts. He was admitted at Dartmouth College in 1892, and later at Harvard, though he never earned a formal degree.
In 1894 the New York Independent published Frost's poem My Butterfly, earning him $15. He had also five poems privately printed. While working as a teacher Frost continued to write and publish his poems in magazines.
In 1912 Frost sold the Derry farm and took his wife and four young children to England. There he published his first collection of poems, A Boy's Will, at the age of 39. It was followed by North of Boston (1914), which gained international reputation. The collection contains some of Frost's best-known poems.
Frost's poems show deep appreciation of natural world and sensibility about the human desires. His images, woods, stars and houses are usually taken from everyday life. With his down- to-earth（实际的）approach to his subjects，readers found it is easy to follow the poet into deeper truths. Often Frost used the rhythms and vocabulary of ordinary speech or even the free dialogue.
At the time of his death on January 29,1963, Frost was considered a kind of unofficial poet of the US. Frost described the fields and farms of his surroundings, observing the details of rural life, which hide universal meaning. Although Frost's works were generally praised, the lack of seriousness concerning social and economic problems of the 1930s, and his hatred toward the policies of the New Deal annoyed some more critics.
1. According to the text, which book made Robert Frost world famous?| A．My Butterfly | B．A Boy's Will |
| C．North of Boston | D．New York Independent |
| A．His poems showed great love to the natural world. |
| B．He got a formal degree in college. |
| C．He made poems more popular in the USA. |
| D．He was respected by everyone in the USA. |
| A．Because he often made some more critics angry. |
| B．Because his works did not connect with problems of society and economy. |
| C．Because he liked to write something about everyday life. |
| D．Because all his poems were not accepted by the US government. |
| A．An American Poet—Robert Frost | B．Introduction to Frost's Poems |
| C．Collection of Frost's Poems | D．Frost—A Person of Determination |
