Seaweed farming, which has a long history in Asia, is spreading around the globe. Over the past 30 years, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization, world production of seaweed has boomed more than six times to over 35 million tonnes, with emerging markets in the Americas, Europe and Africa. The most recent numbers, from 2019, show that North America produces some 23,000 tonnes of wet seaweed per year.
Cascadia, which was founded in 2019, claims to be the largest cultivator in North America, with a harvest of 200 wet tonnes so far this year. Farms, small and large, are popping up fast. Many see this expansion as a good news story. The Global Seaweed Coalition (GSC)—a research and industry group—says humanity could, and should, be harvesting 15 times more seaweed by 2050. Coalition member Vincent Doumeizel is a senior adviser on oceans to a United Nations program working toward corporate sustainability. He talks about a “seaweed revolution” to feed the growing global population—a transformation as dramatic as the ancient shift to land-based agriculture. “In the ocean, we are still hunter-gatherers,” he says.
The Global Seaweed Coalition estimates that seaweed (high in protein and other nutrients) could add 10 percent to the world’s food supply using just 0.03 percent of the ocean surface. One recent study concluded that substituting 10 percent of human food with seaweed by 2050 could spare 110 million hectares of land for purposes other than agriculture. That’s about two percent of all farmland today.
Advocates like Doumeizel cast seaweed as the solution to many social and environmental problems: The industry requires no fresh water, pesticides or fertilizers; it doesn’t take up any land; it can overlap (重叠) with other uses of the ocean like offshore wind farms; it can help to decrease poverty in the developing world; and some companies, including Cascadia, are collaborating with local communities.
Seaweed creates a rich habitat for sea life, soaks up carbon dioxide, counter-acts acid and absorbs run-off nutrients, although evidence quantifying how farms, specifically, help with such things remains scarce.
1. What can we learn from paragraph 1?| A．New seaweed farming markets increase in Africa. |
| B．Seaweed farming in Europe is earlier than in Asia. |
| C．Seaweed production is over 35 million in North America annually. |
| D．Seaweed production of Asia was about 6 million tonnes 30 years ago. |
| A．Saving two percent of agricultural land for other applications. |
| B．Adding 15 percent to the world’s food supply by 2050. |
| C．Bringing more nutritious food and greater profits to GSC. |
| D．Providing human beings with more high-fat food. |
| A．It helps increase the diversity of sea plants. |
| B．It solves the pollution problems of the ocean. |
| C．It prevents ocean plant species from dying out. |
| D．It can be combined with other uses of the ocean. |
| A．Obvious. | B．Insufficient. | C．Ambiguous. | D．Invalid. |
相似题推荐
June 15 - September 15
Saturday - Thursday: 8:00 am - 8:00 pm
Friday: 9:00 am - 9:00 pm
Regular Hours
January 1 - June 14 and September 16 - December 31
Saturday - Thursday: 8:00 am - 5:00 pm
Friday: 9:00 am - 9:00 pm
Individual Ticket Prices
| Venues | Adult（12＋） | Senior（60＋） | Child（3 - 11） | Group（at least 3 persons） |
| Exhibit | Halls | Exhibit | Halls | Exhibit |
Exhibits:
◆ A Bird’s World
This exhibit includes a sample of every bird found in New England. It provides a lot of information about bird behavior, and New England birdwatchers will also find a useful bird “dictionary”. With this, you can learn how to understand the bird language you hear being chirped just outside your window at home.
◆Butterfly Garden
This garden offers a wonderful chance to get close to all kinds of living butterflies from New England and across the world. You can also look inside the “Emergence Box” to see hanging chrysalids（蝶蛹）change into adult butterflies. If you’re lucky, you might see a new butterfly crawl out of its casing.
◆Discovery Center
Designed for children under 8 and their parents, the Discovery Center offers lots of fun, hands - on activities that are designed to help them discover through playing. A perfect area for early learners, this educational environment emphasizes the use of real objects for exploring natural history, physical science, and technology topics.
◆Take a Closer kook
Explore the world around you using sight, hearing, touch and smell. Test yourself to see what you can discover when you pay attention to your senses, and learn how technology extends them.
1. If you visit the exhibits on a Wednesday in August, you can stay there until ________.
| A．3 pm | B．8 pm | C．9 pm | D．5 pm |
| A．$60.00 | B．$80.00 |
| C．$20.00 | D．$68.00 |
| A．Take a Closer Look | B．Butterfly Garden |
| C．Discovery Center | D．A Bird’s World |
| A．a sight - seeing park | B．a science park |
| C．a training center | D．an art center |
【推荐2】Children with long-term health conditions, such as asthma (哮喘), may be at greater risk of developing a mental health disorder in early adolescence compared to healthy children, according to a new study.
The findings, published in the journal Development and Psychopathology, show that kids with chronic illness exhibit higher rates of mental problems at age 10, and these health issues continue to be associated with poor mental health at ages 13 and 15.
In the study, the research team reviewed a sample of approximately 7,000 children to investigate the occurrence of mental health disorders, including anxiety or depression, and chronic illness. They found that children with chronic health conditions were approximately twice as likely at 10 and at 13 to present with a mental health disorder than healthy children. At age 15, children with chronic health problems were 60% more likely to present with such disorders.
“Although the link between chronic health conditions and mental health problems in childhood has been made before, this study provides the strongest evidence of it to data in the years of late childhood and early adolescence," said study author Dr. Ann Marie Brady. “The difference chronic illness makes to mental health is concerning, and the first impact can be seen even before adolescence, in late childhood."
The researchers also found that bullying and health-related absence from school were two most significant additional factors for children with mental health issues. The second one was identified as the most consistent factor predicting mental health problems over time.
“If children with chronic illness are more likely to miss school, or experience bullying, that can make the situation worse. Keeping an eye on school attendance and looking out for evidence of bullying amongst those children may help to find out who are most at risk.", said Dr. Brady.
1. The underlined term “chronic illness" in Paragraph 2 refers to a kind of disease_________| A．causing a lot of deaths | B．causing absent-mindedness |
| C．lasting for a long time | D．leading to mental disorders |
| A．chronic illness leads to the mental health disorder in early adolescence |
| B．healthy young adolescents have no chance of having mental problems |
| C．adolescents with illness are more likely to develop mental health disorders |
| D．chronic illness has some relation to mental problems in early adolescence |
| A．It makes a new discovery based on the findings of previous studies |
| B．It draws a more accurate conclusion based on the previous studies |
| C．It questions the accuracy of the findings by the previous studies |
| D．It draws more attention to adolescents' health than previous studies |
| A．Their school attendance. | B．Their physical conditions. |
| C．Their tolerance of bullying. | D．Their tendency for bullying. |
【推荐3】If businesses are to get those workers unwilling to go back to work to their position, finding ways to keep people who work together or meet at social gatherings between 2 to more than 2 meters will be the issue that needs handling badly. An Israeli company thinks it can help, using smart sensors hung on workplace ceilings.
PointGrab developed its technology before the pandemic to help workspace managers optimize (优化)how employees use office space. About the size of a smoke alarm, the sensors can record the exact number and location of people in buildings including offices, hotels and restaurants.
One of the company’s first clients was Deloitte, which installed the system at its flagship London office last year, PointGrab’s sensors were connected to screens in the building to show the availability of desks and shared areas in real time. PointGrab CEO Doron Shachar says it was one of a range of innovations that helped Deloitte fit 30% more people into 3% less space.
Now PointGrab has adapted the technology so the sensors can also monitor social distancing by keeping track of how far apart people are, and whether they’re traveling in one direction around a building. Workspace managers can set up alerts for when two people are closer than two meters for more than 30 seconds, for example.
The sensors have been included in the “six feet office” concept created by real estate services company Cushman & Wakefield to encourage employees to practice social distancing. They are currently being used in this way at a university in the Netherlands, and at an innovation hub in Belgium.
While the social distancing innovation is new, PointGrab has deployed more than 10, 000 sensors for workspace optimization, including in the offices of Coca-cola, Facebook and Dell.
Workers might not like the idea, but PointGrab says no images or identifying features are recorded. Instead, each employee is represented as an anonymous dot on a dashboard. “The sensor does not violate people’s privacy,” Shachar says. “ This is extremely important in the workspace.”
1. What is the key to getting the workers back into the office now?| A．Maintaining social distance | B．Minding their own business |
| C．Offering more social interactions | D．Keeping workplace ceilings clean |
| A．Delayed | B．Inserted | C．Chaired | D．Fixed |
| A．They could stop the viruses from spreading |
| B．They may help reduce energy consumption |
| C．They can protect their privacy effectively. |
| D．They will help record their images clearly |
| A．Smart Sensors——a Way to Monitor the Workers in the Office |
| B．Smart Sensors——Tool to Track Social Distancing in the Office |
| C．PointGrab——a Pioneer to Use Smart Sensors in the Office |
| D．2 or more than 2 Meters——a Suitable Social Distancing |
【推荐1】All too often, a choice that seems sustainable(可持续的) turns out on closer examination to be problematic. Probably the best example is the rush to produce ethanol(乙醇) for fuel from corn. Corn is a renewable resource —you can harvest it and grow more, almost limitlessly. So replacing gas with corn ethanol seems like a great idea.
One might get a bit more energy out of the ethanol than that used to make it, which could still make ethanol more sustainable than gas generally, but that’s not the end of the problem. Using corn to make ethanol means less corn is left to feed animals and people, which drives up the cost of food. That result leads to turning the fallow land — including, in some cases, rain forest in places such as Brazil — into farmland, which in turn gives off lots of carbon dioxide(CO2) into the air. Finally, over many years, the energy benefit from burning ethanol would make up for the forest loss. But by then, climate change would have progressed so far that it might not help.
You cannot really declare any practice “sustainable” until you have done a complete lift-cycle analysis of its environmental(环境的) costs. Even then, technology and public policy keep developing, and that development can lead to unforeseen and undesired results. The admirable goal of living sustainable requires plenty of thought on an ongoing basis.
1. What might directly cause the loss of the forest according to the text?| A．The growing demand for energy to make ethanol. |
| B．The increasing carbon dioxide in the air. |
| C．The greater need for farmland. |
| D．The big change in weather. |
| A．the energy benefit | B．the forest loss |
| C．climate change | D．burning ethanol |
| A．impractical | B．acceptable | C．admirable | D．useless |
| A．Technology. | B．Sustainability. |
| C．Ethanol energy. | D．Environmental protection. |
CHEMICAL VERSUS ORGANIC FARMING
Chemical pesticides and artificial fertilisers have been in widespread use in farming since the middle of the 20th century. When they were first introduced, many farmers welcomed them as a great way to fight crop disease and increase production. Over time, however, what some scientists have found is that their longterm use can sometimes harm both the land and people’s health.
For example, pesticides can damage the land by killing not only harmful bacteria and insects, but also helpful ones. In addition, these chemicals can stay in the soil and underground water sources for a long time. This affects the crops grown on the land and, in turn, the animals and humans who digest them. Many people worry that these chemicals may make them ill and even cause cancer. In fact, some pesticides like DDT have been prohibited in most countries because of the damage they cause to people and the environment. As for chemical fertilisers, crops grown with them usually grow too fast to be rich in nutrition. They may look beautiful on the outside, but inside there is usually more water than essential minerals, and they often have less flavour as well.
As an alternative, some farmers have switched to organic farming, and many customers have turned to organic food when they shop at the local grocery. Organic farming is simply farming without using any chemicals. Organic farmers focus on keeping their soil rich and free of disease through natural means. For example, many organic farmers use natural waste from animals as fertiliser. This makes the soil in their fields richer in minerals. It also keeps the air, soil, water, and crops free of chemicals.
Organic farmers also use many other methods to produce rich soil. They often change the kind of crop grown in each field every year. For instance, they may grow corn or wheat in a field one year, and then grow beans there the next. Why different crops are grown is that they put important minerals back into the ground, making it ready for the next batch of crops. Organic farmers also plant diverse crops that use different depths of soil to help keep it rich. For example, peanuts grow on the ground’s surface, but many other vegetables put down deep roots. The goal of using different organic farming methods is to grow good food while avoiding damage to the environment or to people’s health.
Some people would prefer to stop the use of manmade chemicals in agriculture entirely. What keeps them from doing so is the fact that chemical farming serves the high demand for food around the world. Organic farming is nowhere near able to meet that need. Therefore, there is still a long way to find a suitable solution that puts sufficient food on the dinner table while keeping people and the environment as healthy as possible.
1. Why did many farmers welcome the introduction of chemical farming?| A．They can fight crop disease and increase production. |
| B．They harm both the land and people’s health. |
| C．They can help produce rich soil. |
| D．They are not expensive. |
| A．Pesticides can damage the land. |
| B．Chemicals can stay in the soil for a long time. |
| C．Pesticides can kill harmful bacteria and insects. |
| D．Chemicals may make people ill and even cause cancer. |
| A．It helps put important minerals back into the ground. |
| B．It can avoid damage to the environment. |
| C．It can help increase output. |
| D．The writer didn’t tell us. |
| A．Organic farming cost us a lot of money. |
| B．Organic farming can meet people’s need. |
| C．Chemical farming brought us huge profit. |
| D．Chemical farming helps serve the need for food. |
Farm Theme Parks Popular in Japan
In modern times, when we think or hear about major theme parks, what often comes to mind are successful franchises like Disneyland, Disneyworld and Universal Theme Parks. But a growing independent group of specialized theme parks in Japan are catching the attention of those who are in search of entertainment, fresh food and the feel of the great outdoors.
For example, Namegata Farmers Village is a sweet potato theme park in Ibaraki Prefecture, an area noted for sweet potato production. “The number of sweet potato producers has dropped due to the aging population. We thought up the idea to convey the charm of agriculture to young people who moved to urban areas because they didn’t want to take over from aging farmers. We hoped to secure a stable future for sweet potatoes,” said Toshikazu Nagao, president of the village.
Namegata Farmers Village covers a total area of about 33 hectares, or 82 acres, and utilizes abandoned farmland. A former primary school is used as the main facility. The park features the Yakiimo Factory Museum, a restaurant, a direct sales shop for agricultural products and rental farmland. Classes for making sweet potato cakes are popular among families with children.
The concept of an agriculture theme park is not new in Japan. Iga no Sato Mokumoku Tezukuri Farm pioneered the concept of agricultural theme parks in the late-1980s. The farm opened in 1988 when MokuMoku Tezukuri Farm Co., an agricultural corporation, attempted to improve the added value of Iga pork, a local brand. Local beer, bread and tofu are now produced at the 14-hectare farm. Visitors can experience making sausages in a factory, enjoy being close to animals, and eat at a restaurant.
“I think farm theme parks are the future direction of agriculture. It should also lead to the preservation of the local rustic scenery (乡村风光),” Naoyuki Matsuo, president of the farm said.
Whether the theme park concept flourishing in Japan would ever work in other countries remains to be seen, but for those in Japan, at least, thinking outside the box is earning farmers and food corporations alike a good profit.
1. Who are usually attracted to farm theme parks in Japan?2. Please decide which part is false in the following statement, then underline it and explain why.
The first agriculture theme park in Japan opened in 1988 with the purpose of helping young people living in urban areas know more about rural life.
3. Naoyuki Matsuo said, “farm theme parks are the future direction of agriculture”. Do you agree with him? Why or why not? (In about 40 words)
