【推荐2】We can help you plan your holiday!

Welcome to Sunset Island Tourist Information Centre.

	1. Boat trips around Lighthouse Island Two-hour trip leaves each day at 09:00. Lunch included. Enjoy the scenic areas and swim in the beautiful water off Lighthouse Island. Tickets available at the entrance to the pier.		2. Exciting nightlife The clubs of Port George are open every night until 04:00—the latest music every night. Two free drinks if you arrive before midnight.
	3. Make friends with our wildlife At Rosetown Reserve, you’ll find wildlife that only lives on Sunset Island—get closer to wild horses, deer and parrots.		4. See Rose Mountains The highest mountains on the island with great views of the island in all directions! Catch the 22 bus to Rosetown at 09:30 and spend the day climbing to five different viewpoints.
	5. Our island story Port George Museum is open every day from 10:00 to 16:00 except Wednesday. Find out more about Sunset Island in the 18th century and the story of our people.		6. Sunset Island specials Port George restaurants are always popular with our visitors. They are famous for our Sunset Island cooking, a delicious Asian/African mix.
Sunset Island Tourist Information Centre 25 Green Street, Port George, Sunset Island Open every day except Sunday 09:00~17:00 We can help you find a hotel, choose somewhere interesting to eat and plan your day. Please take a free map of the island!

【推荐1】A kind of little cars may some day take the place of (代替) today’s ones. If everyone drives such cars in the future, there will be less pollution in the air. There will also be more space for parking cars in cities, and the streets will be less crowded. Three such cars can fit in the space now needed for one car of the usual size.

The little cars will cost much less to own and to drive. Driving will be safer, too, as these little cars can go only 65 kilometers an hour.

The cars of the future will be fine for getting around a city, but they will not be useful for long trips. Little cars will go 450 kilometers before needing to stop for more gasoline (汽油).

If big cars are still used along with the small ones, two sets of roads will be needed in the future. Some roads will be used for (被用于) the big, fast cars and other roads will be needed for the slower, small ones.

【推荐2】What will our life be like in 50 years? No one knows the answer exactly (确切地), but we are sure that it will be very different from the life today. My brother Jill White makes some predictions. Here are some of his ideas.

First, people will have less work to do, and robots will do most work. People will use robots to make cars, do housework, look after sick (生病的) people and teach students. People will spend most of their time playing sports and traveling. So people will become stronger and healthier, and they will live to be about 200 years old.

Second, cars will become very small and computers will control (控制) their speed (速度). So there will be fewer accidents (事故) on the road. Planes will be very popular, and most people would like to take them to travel.

Third, people will be able to live in the sea, on the moon or on Mars (火星). The earth won’t be crowded or noisy. So there will be much space for people to plant trees. There will be less pollution, and the air will become much fresher.

Finally, water shortage (短缺) will become one of the most serious problems. If people don’t save water now, there will be water wars (战争) in 50 years.

【推荐2】Some of you may play Ant Forest. It is a game on Alipay. Users collect “energy” to make their “trees” grow. When the “energy” reaches a certain level, some organizations and companies will plant a real tree in a desert area of China. And now it seems that the nation’s efforts as a whole to make a greener world have paid off.

According to a study by NASA and published in the journal(杂志) Nature Sustainability in February, China and India are mainly responsible for making the Earth greener over the past twenty years. The study has found that since 2000 the Earth’s green leaf area has increased by 5 percent(百分之……), or over 5 million square kilometers. That’s an area equivalent(等同于) to the total area of the Amazon rainforest. It is mainly the result of big tree planting programs in China and intensive(精耕细作的) agriculture(农业) in both countries, according to NASA.“China and India account for(占比) one third of the increased greening but contain(包含) only 9 percent of the planets land area covered in vegetation(植被).” Chi Chen, the study’s lead author and a researcher at Boston University, US, told CNN. China was the major contributor(贡献者), adding 25 percent to this increase, while India added 6.8 percent.

Over the past 40 years, China has made great efforts to green the land. In 1978, China began a national-level forestation project—the Three North Shelterbelt Forest Program, also known as the “Great Green Wall”. The program has seen many trees planted in northern China to act as windbreaks, according to China Daily. By the end of 2017, the forest coverage rate(率) among the places of the project had reached 13.57 percent, compared to 5.05 percent 40 years ago.

For example, Kubuqi Desert, which is near the Yellow River in Inner Mongolia, is the seventh largest in the country. It was once the source(来源) of sandstorms in Beijing. But thanks to forestation efforts, about one third of Kubuqi Desert is now covered with trees, and sandstorms are less common, reported Xinhua News Agency.

In the light of China’s success in dealing with desertification, the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) believes China is a good example for others to follow. “China is one of the most successful countries in greening the desert and has lessons to share with the world.” UNEP Executive Director Erik Solheim told Xinhua.

【推荐3】Do you know something about tree rings (年轮)? Do you know they can tell us what the weather was like even hundreds of years ago?

A tree will grow well in a climate (气候) with lots of sunshine and rainfall (雨量). And little sunshine or rainfall will limit (限制) the growth of a tree. We can see the change of the climate by studying the tree rings. For example, if you want to find out the weather of ten years ago, you should count (数数) the rings of a tree from the outside to the inside. If the tenth ring is far from the eleventh ring, then we’re sure that it was sunny and rainy most of that year. If it is close to the eleventh ring, then the climate that year was bad.

Tree rings are important not only for studying the history of the weather but also for studying the history of man. Many years ago there lived a lot of people at a place in New Mexico. But now you can find only sand but no trees, no people. What happened?

A scientist studied the rings of the dead trees there. He found that the people had to leave because they had cut down all the trees to make fires and buildings. Because all the trees had gone, the people there had to move.