【推荐3】It’s a cold night, and strong winds are blowing atop a hill in southwest Uganda. The wind rattles the giant metal insect trap. A 400-watt bulb is fixed at its center. The light is blinding to human eyes, but it’s a magnet for local bush crickets.

Protein dense and full of iron, zinc, and other essential minerals, bush crickets, and edible insects in general, have been praised by the UNFAO as a “food source of the future”, key to establishing food security. That’s important in countries such as Uganda, where nearly half of the children and a third of women suffer greatly from poor nutrition due to food shortage.

The visitors, as they’re called locally, come together to mate and feed in huge swarms after each rainy season in the autumn and pring, when hundreds of people across the country set aside their day jobs to catch then. Salted and fried, the crickets are a delicacy in Uganda, sold for two dollars a bag at open-air markets, taxi parks, and roadsides. Now what once was a small-scale and personal harvest in Uganda has become an increasingly commercialized undertaking, with giant traps taking tons of the insects at a time to meet the growing demand. “You see how you enjoy a movie with popcorn? Me, it’s movie with crickets,” says one fan.

However, this month, it should be the middle of the autumn harvest in Uganda. Legend has it that the insects come from the moon, and tonight it’s full. Yet “we’ve got nothing,” says a cricket catcher and wholesaler. “Where are they?”

Decreasing catches suggest the problem is not just overharvesting. Logging to clear land for cash crops has destroyed much bush cricket habitat. And climate change is making the rainy seasons unpredictable, affecting the crickets’ swarming patterns. With so many problems accumulating, there is still a long way to go. Thus, scientists have to start from scratch.

1. What does paragraph 1 present to us?

A．A scene.

B．A view.

C．A plot.

D．A lifestyle.

2. Why are bush crickets considered so important in countries such as Uganda?

A．Because they are rich in essential minerals.

B．Because they can cure many different diseases.

C．Because they’re considered a symbol in local culture.

D．Because they can relieve hunger and ensure nutrition.

3. What does the underlined word “visitors” refer to in the third paragraph?

A．Tourists.	B．Crickets.
C．Local people	D．Cricket catchers

4. Why do scientists have to start from scratch?

A．Because the weather is unpredictable.

B．Because it’s a tricky problem to deal with.

C．Because it’s too late to save the bush crickets.

D．Because people’s awareness should be raised.

【推荐1】Politicians and the public tend to worry about carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions (排放) but neglect the effects of cutting methane (甲烷). Actually, dealing with the gas would have a large effect rapidly and at relatively low cost.

Human activity emits far less methane than carbon dioxide, but methane has a heavier impact. Over the course of 20 years, a ton of the gas will warm the atmosphere about 86 times more than a ton of CO₂. As a result, methane is responsible for 23% of the rise in temperatures since preindustrial times. Carbon dioxide gets most of the attention, but unless methane emissions are limited, there is little hope of controlling the climate.

By how much do methane emissions need to fall? Carbon dioxide stays in the atmosphere for centuries, making it hard to reduce its atmospheric concentrations (浓度). By contrast, methane has a half-life of roughly ten years, which means that it degrades quickly. If new emissions can be cut to below the rate at which old emissions reduce, the concentration of methane in the atmosphere will soon fall, slowing global warming. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimates that, to keep temperatures between 1.5℃ and 2℃ above preindustrial levels, human methane emissions must drop to 35% below where they stood in 2010 by midcentury.

That is entirely possible. A big step would be to stop millions of tons of methane from leaking out of fossil-fuel infrastructure each year, through pipes with holes, leaky valves and carelessness. The International Energy Agency, a global forecaster, estimates that 40% of methane emissions from fossil fuels, equal to 9% of all human methane emissions, can be got rid of at no net cost for firms. The harder task is to reduce emissions from agriculture, but even here farmers can make use of new ideas, including developing new forms of food for farm animals, and changing how rice is watered.

1. What does the underlined word “neglect” in paragraph 1 probably mean?

A．Ignore.

B．Blame.

C．Value.

D．Delay.

2. What does the author intend to communicate in paragraph 2?

A．A less serious threat to global warming.

B．The little hope of controlling the climate.

C．People’s more attention on carbon dioxide.

D．The urgent need to reduce methane emissions.

3. Why does the author call attention to methane emissions?

A．They are the only hope of controlling the climate.

B．Their atmospheric concentrations are hard to reduce.

C．Their impact on the climate is huge but manageable.

D．They stay in the atmosphere longer than carbon dioxide.

4. Which source of methane emissions is more difficult to reduce according to the text?

A．Coal mining.

B．Rice farming.

C．Fuel burning.

D．Oil leaking.

【推荐2】Take a period of limited rainfall. Add heat. And you have what scientists call a ‘hot drought’ — dry conditions made more intense by the evaporative power of hotter temperatures.

A new study, published in the journal Science Advances, Wednesday, finds that hot droughts have become more common and severe across the western U.S. as a result of human-caused climate change. “The frequency of compound warm and dry summers particularly in the last 20 years is unprecedented,” said Karen King, lead author of the study and an assistant professor at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville.

For much of the last 20 years, western North America has been under the control of a huge drought that has strained crop producers, city planners and water managers. Scientists believe it to be the driest period in the region in at least 1,200 years. They reached that determination, in part, by studying the rings of trees collected from thousands of sites across the Western U.S..

Cross-sections or cores of trees, both living and dead, can offer scientists windows into climate conditions of the past. Dark scars can show where fires have burned. Pale rings can indicate insect outbreaks. “Narrow rings mean less water,” said King, a dendrochronologist, who specialized in tree ring dating. “Fatter rings, more water.” Scientists have looked at tree ring widths to understand how much water was in the soil at a given time. King and fellow researchers did something different. They wanted to investigate the density (密度) of individual rings to get a picture of historical temperatures. In hotter years, trees build thick walls to protect their water.

By combining that temperature data with another tree-ring-sourced dataset looking at soil moisture (湿度), the researchers showed that today’s hotter temperatures have made the current western huge drought different from its past ones.

It also suggests that future droughts will be worsened by higher temperatures, particularly in the Great Plains, home to one of the world’s largest aquifers, and the Colorado River Basin, the source of water for some 40 million people.

1. What led to hot droughts?

A．Abundant rainfall.	B．Climate change.
C．Appropriate temperatures.	D．Dry summers.

2. What does the underlined word “strained” in paragraph 3 probably mean?

A．Protected.

B．Surprised.

C．Stressed.

D．Helped.

3. What do the researchers find about hot droughts?

A．They will not happen in the future.	B．They are affected by those tree rings.
C．They are similar in intensity to past droughts.	D．They have become more frequent and severe.

4. What is the author’s purpose in writing the text?

A．To entertain readers with a fictional story.	B．To persuade readers to protect environment.
C．To inform readers of severity of hot droughts.	D．To share personal experiences and reflections.

【推荐3】There are just two species of flowering plant native to the Antarctic peninsula (半岛), which are now growing at record rates as temperatures rise and ice begins to melt, according to a new study. One is Antarctic hair grass, which grew as much in 2009—2019 as it had in the previous 50 years; the other is Antarctic pearl wort, which has seen the speed of growth increase five times over the same period.

A team led by Nicoletta Cannone, a researcher from the University of Insubria, Italy, measured the growth of Antarctica’s two native plants at sites on Signy Island. The results were shocking: the sites have not only seen faster growth, but they have become more densely populated by the plants each year, which indicates the climate has got warmer.

According to nonprofit Discovering Antarctica, the region’s temperatures have warmed by an average of 3°C as a result of human-caused climate change, meaning once stable ice shelves are now narrowing down. In some parts, that has given way to land now habitable to the two plant species.

Peter Convey, at the British Antarctic Survey, told the New Scientist: “The most novel feature of this is not that something is growing faster but that we’re starting to see what is almost like a step change or a tipping point.” And Matthew Davey, at the Scottish Association for Marine Science in Oban, UK, added: “Increasing expansion is now clearly evident in the region. This research gives us the first all-sided data showing how fast and how dense the plant community may expand.”

The researchers acknowledged there could be other factors at play causing the plants’ growth, such as the decreasing fur seal population—but this also is linked to climate change. Meanwhile, as the land becomes more habitable, non-native species could also occupy the land and grow more than native plants, which could in turn destabilize long-established local ecosystems.

“If we estimate what we observed on Signy Island to other sites in Antarctica, a similar process can also occur,” said Cannone “This means the Antarctic landscape and biodiversity could change rapidly. And that really concerns all.”

1. According to the article, what factors play a role in the fast growth of the two native plants?

A．The climate getting warmer.

B．The fur seal population rising.

C．The non-native plants occupying the land.

D．The quality of the soil of the land improving.

2. What does the underlined word “destabilize” mean in the last paragraph but one?

A．Strengthen.

B．Change.

C．Benefit.

D．Narrow.

3. What’s the researchers’ main concern regarding the growth of flowering plants in Antarctica?

A．The decrease of fur seal population.

B．The occupation of non-native species.

C．The impact of human-caused climate change.

D．The rapid change in Antarctic landscape and biodiversity.

4. Which of the following is the suitable title for the text?

A．Scientists Working in Antarctica.

B．Native Flowering Plants in Antarctica.

C．The Effect of Global Warming on Antarctica.

D．Non-native Plant Species in Antarctica.