1 . International governments’ inaction concerning sustainable development is clearly worrying but the proctive(主动出击的)approaches of some leading-edge companies are encouraging. Toyota, Wal-Mart, DuPont, M&S and General Electric have made tackling environmental wastes a key economic driver.
DuPont committed itself to a 65% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions in the 10 years prior to 2010. By 2007, DuPont was saving $2.2 billion a year through energy efficiency, the same as its total declared profits that year. General Electric aims to reduce the energy intensity of its operations by 50% by 2015. They have invested heavily in projects designed to change the way of using and conserving energy.
Companies like Toyota and Wal-Mart are not committing to environmental goals out of the goodness of their hearts. The reason for their actions is a simple yet powerful realization that the environmental and economic footprints fit well together. When M&S launched its “Plan A” sustainability programme in 2007, it was believed that it would cost over £200 million in the first five years. However, the initiative had generated £105 million by 2011/12.
When we prevent physical waste, increase energy efficiency or improve resource productivity, we save money, improve profitability and enhance competitiveness. In fact, there are often huge “quick win” opportunities, thanks to years of neglect.
However, there is a considerable gap between leading-edge companies and the rest of the pack. There are far too many companies still delaying creating a lean and green business system, arguing that it will cost money or require sizable capital investments. They remain stuck in the “environment is cost” mentality. Being environmentally friendly does not have to cost money. In fact, going beyond compliance saves cost at the same time that it generates cash, provided that management adopts the new lean and green model.
Lean means doing more with less. Nonetheless, in most companies, economic and environmental continuous improvement is viewed as being in conflict with each other. This is one of the biggest opportunities missed across most industries. The size of the opportunity is enormous. The 3% Report recently published by World Wildlife Fund and CDP shows that the economic prize for curbing carbon emissions in the US economy is $780 billion between now and 2020. It suggests that one of the biggest levers for delivering this opportunity is “increased efficiency through management and behavioural change”-in other words, lean and green management.
Some 50 studies show that companies that commit to such aspirational goals as zero waste, zero harmful emissions, and zero use of non-renewable resources are financially outperforming their competitors. Conversely, it was found that climate disruption is already costing $1.2 trillion annually, cutting global GDP by 1.6%. Unaddressed, this will double by 2030.
1. What does the author say about some leading-edge companies?A.They operate in accordance with government policies. |
B.They take initiatives in handling environmental wastes. |
C.They are key drivers in their nations' economic growth |
D.They are major contributors to environmental problems. |
A.The goodness of their hearts. |
B.A strong sense of responsibility. |
C.The desire to generate profits |
D.Pressure from environmentalists. |
A.They are bent on making quick money |
B.They do not have the capital for the investment. |
C.They believe building such a system is too costly. |
D.They lack the incentive to change business practices. |
A.It helps businesses to save and gain at the same time |
B.It is affordable only for a few leading-edge companies. |
C.It is likely to start a new round of intense competition |
D.It will take a long time for all companies to embrace it. |
A.They have greatly enhanced their sense of social responsibility. |
B.They do much better than their counterparts in terms of revenues |
C.They have abandoned all the outdated equipment and technology. |
D.They make greater contributions to human progress than their rivals |
2 . Do Lobsters Feel Pain?
The traditional method for cooking a lobster — boiling it alive — raises the question of whether or not lobsters feel pain.
Until the 1980s, scientists were trained to ignore animal pain, based on the belief that the ability to feel pain was associated only with higher consciousness. However, today, scientists view humans as a species of animal. Still, scientists disagree over whether or not lobsters feel pain. Lobsters have a peripheral system (外围系统) like humans, but instead of a single brain, they possess segmented ganglia (分段神经节). Because of these differences, some researchers argue lobsters are too dissimilar to vertebrates (脊椎动物) to feel pain and that their reaction to negative stimuli is simply a reflex.
While we cannot know definitively whether or not lobsters feel pain, research indicates that it’s likely. So, if you want to enjoy a lobster dinner, how should you go about it? The most human e tool for cooking a lobster is the CrustaStun. This device kills a lobster by an electric shock, making it unconscious in less than half a second, after which it can be cut apart or boiled. In contrast, it takes about 2 minutes for a lobster to die from immersion in boiling water.
A.Nonetheless, lobsters do satisfy all of the criteria for a pain response |
B.This cooking technique is used in many restaurants to improve humans’ dining experience |
C.Due to growing evidence that the lobsters may feel pain, it is now becoming illegal to boil lobsters alive or keep them on ice |
D.This method is probably the most humane option for killing a lobster before cooking and eating it |
E.Evidence shows that many species like lobsters are capable of learning and possess some level of self-awareness |
F.Unfortunately, this technique is too expensive for most restaurants to afford |
For ages word has been going around that the dog is man’s best friend. I agree. A dog can be handy as a night watchman around the house, as a pointer on a hunting trip, as a guardian and playmate for the children. But I think that having a dog for a pet is so expensive and annoying that I can do
Providing for the dog’s needs is so expensive that the animal should be an income tax deduction. There’s the medical bill for shots to keep the animal healthy. Unless it’s kept in the house 24 hours a day, a female must be given “preventive maintenance,” a ten-to twenty-dollar investment. Otherwise,
A dog is so annoying that no one in his right mind would want to own one.
Dog lovers will, of course, claim my argument one-sided, even exaggerated. They might consider me as cruel as the Russians,
4 . About 50 years ago, the famous British band The Beatles sang that “money can’t buy me love”. Today, British economists are saying that it perhaps can’t buy you happiness cither. This is showed by the Happy Planet Index (HPI 快乐指数) published recently by the New Economics Foundation (NEF) in London.
The index is about how well countries are using their resources. It shows how well they provide people with better health and longer and happier lives, and at what cost to their environment.
It would seem to be common sense that people in richer countries live happier lives, while those in developing countries are having a harder time. But the results are surprising, even shocking. The numbers show that some of the so-called developed countries are performing very badly. The United States, for example, ranks number 150th. On the other hand, some little-known developing countries are doing a much better job. A tiny island in the Pacific, Vanuatu, comes in first. There are 178 countries and areas in the index. China ranks number 31.
Countries are graded on the basis of information supplied in response to the following questions. How do people feel about their lives? How long does an average person live? How greatly does a country need to use its natural resources to maintain its living standards? This is what the index calls the “ecological footprint”.
The NEF found that the people of island nations enjoy the highest HPI rankings. Their populations live happier and longer lives, and use fewer resources.
The results also seem to show that it is possible to live longer, happier lives with a much smaller environment impact. The index points out that people in the US and Germany enjoy similar lives.
“However, Germany’s ecological footprint is only about half that of the US. This means that Germany is around twice as efficient as the US at producing happy lives,” says Nic Marks, head of NEF’s Center for well-being.
So the Happy Planet Index (HPI) tells us a brand-new concept of understanding “being happy”. HPI figures out different countries or individuals’ HPI through their “Ecological Footprint” and “Life Satisfaction Level” or “Life Expectancy”. Clearly, people’s HPI is related to their consumption of the resources on the earth.
You can find out your own HPI by visiting http: //www, happyplanetindex.org.
1. The passage is mainly about __________.A.in which country people feel the happiest |
B.why money can’t buy you happiness |
C.what index can influence people’s happiness |
D.what Happy Planet Index is |
A.the richness of natural resources |
B.the efficiency of energy consumption |
C.the development of economy |
D.the life expectancy of the people |
A.The happiest countries listed in the index are quite different from those expected. |
B.Developing countries are having & hard time reaching the top of the index. |
C.Countries that have high HPI rankings have a greater impact on the environment. |
D.The less happy countries depend on the developed countries’ resources. |
A.some developed countries are performing badly ecologically |
B.it is possible to live a happy life with fewer resources |
C.not all the people in developed countries enjoy happy lives |
D.history and culture play an important role in people’s lives |
5 . Just before Italy’s second lockdown in November 2020, the banks of Milan’s Grand Canal were busy with people. Bargain hunters picked their way through market stalls.
This is a familiar scene in Milan’s Navigli district on the last Sunday of every month. Located in the city’s south-west corner, the Navigli district remains one of the last true connections the Milanese have with water. The Grand Canal (Naviglio Grande) itself dates back to 1177.
Although not widely known, Milan’s centre was once traced with waterways, like those of Venice.
Most of the last traces of this network can be seen in Navigli. The rest fell victim to modernisation during the mid-20th century. As automobiles and trains replaced boats, the Inner Ring was buried under concrete (混凝土). For the most part, the canals are still there, covered over by new roads and buildings.
Today, the Darsena provides a vital lung to one of Europe’s most polluted cities. Every day, people walk along its banks or sit with a takeaway drink from the many bars which are located nearby. Old men teach their grandkids the patient art of fishing, while runners trace loops around the boardwalk.
Currently, designs are being drafted for an underground tunnel to allow the water to pass through the city’s centre. It is hoped that the project will be completed by 2026 when Milan is set to co-host the Winter Olympics.
A.It will help the Milanese to live better lives. |
B.We have to see the re-opening as a big project for redeveloping the city. |
C.Think of almost any major inland city and there’s a big river to go with it. |
D.Others sat in cafes, sipping coffee while gazing out at the city’s shoppers. |
E.In more recent years, there has been a new energy around Navigli, which flows from the Darsena (meaning “dock”). |
F.Its ongoing popularity long after the Expo has led to an ambitious project to completely re-open Milan’s Inner Ring. |
6 . Back in 2015 my colleague Adam Frank of the University of Rochester and I were having lunch near Columbia University's campus in New York City. As at Fermi's lunch 65 years earlier, the conversation was about the nature of spacefaring species. And inspired by Fermi's mental calculation, we were trying to craft an investigative strategy that made the fewest possible unsubstantiated assumptions and that could be somehow tested or constrained with real data. At the center of this exercise was the simple thought that waves of exploration or settlement could come and go across the galaxy, with humans happening to come into being in one of the lonely periods.
This idea relates to Hart's original fact: that there is no evidence here on Earth today of extraterrestrial(外星的)explorers. But it goes further by asking whether we can obtain meaningful limits on galactic(星系的)life by constraining the exact length of time over which Earth might have gone unvisited. Perhaps long, long ago extraterrestrial explorers came and went. A number of scientists have, over the years, discussed the possibility of looking for artifacts that might have been left behind after such visitations of our solar system. The necessary scope of a complete search is hard to predict, but the situation on Earth alone turns out to be a bit more manageable. In 2018 another of my colleagues, Gavin Schmidt of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, together with Adam Frank, produced a critical assessment of whether we could even tell if there had been an earlier industrial civilization on our planet.
As fantastic as it may seem, Schmidt and Frank argue—as do most planetary scientists—that it is actually very easy for time to erase essentially all signs of technological life on Earth. The only real evidence after a million or more years would boil down to isotopic or chemical stratigraphic anomalies—odd features such as synthetic molecules, plastics or radioactive fallout. Fossil remains and other paleontological markers are so rare that they might not tell us anything in this case.
Indeed, modern human urbanization covers only on order of about 1 percent of the planetary surface, providing a very small target area for any paleontologists(古生物学家)in the distant future. Schmidt and Frank also conclude that nobody has yet performed the necessary experiments to look exhaustively for such non-natural signatures on Earth. The bottom line is, if an industrial civilization on the scale of our own had existed a few million years ago, we might not know about it. That absolutely does not mean one existed; it indicates only that the possibility cannot be completely eliminated.
1. The word “unsubstantiated”(in paragraph 1)is closest in meaning to ________.A.unconscious | B.unknown | C.unnatural | D.unsupported |
A.No other species have ever settled on Earth except human beings. |
B.Extraterrestrial explorers come and go at increasingly short intervals. |
C.No spacefaring species have visited the Earth since humans emerged. |
D.Extraterrestrial explorers once built an industrial civilization on Earth. |
A.turn to isotopic or chemical stratigraphic anomalies |
B.find as many signs of technological life as possible |
C.unearth more fossil remains than we do now |
D.leave behind synthetic things like plastics |
A.Human urbanization should be expanded for the sake of research. |
B.We cannot say for sure that no civilization existed before ours. |
C.Non-natural signatures on Earth have been studied exhaustively. |
D.An industrial civilization came into being a few million years ago. |
Using renewables seems to cut carbon more than nuclear. Nations that embraced renewable forms of energy have significantly cut their carbon emissions, but
Nuclear and renewables are seen as two key ways for governments to decarbonize(去碳), but the question of whether one is more effective for dealing with climate change
To find out, Benjamin Sovacool at the University of Sussex and his colleagues looked at carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and GDP over 25 years. They found that in 117 countries that had been using renewables, CO2 emissions per capita(人均地)dropped from 0.69 tonnes(公吨)on average between 1990 and 2004 to 0.61 tonnes between 2000 and 2014 and
During the same periods, however, the 30 countries that had been using nuclear power largely stayed flat, shifting from an average 0.52 tonnes of Co2 emissions per capita to 0.51. The two groups of countries overlap because some fall into both. Renewables included wind, solar, hydroelectric, and biomass energy. “If you’re focusing on
The reason
Wood Houses
In the fairy tale Three Little Pigs, the second little pig built his house from sticks. Unluckily, it
In 2015 world leaders
9 . How to save planet earth
Have you ever held a product in your hands and considered the existential weight of your purchase? Beyond each price tag hides a ripple effect. It expands from soil to water ways, grocery aisle to kitchen plates, factories to fulfillment centers and mail slots to landfills. This global impact has become less hidden in the past decade, and ignoring the people downstream from us has grown increasingly difficult.
We’re more aware than ever of the mark our consumption leaves on planet Earth, which now sustains nearly 8 billion people. Somehow, humans are still pumping more than 30 gig a tons of carbon dioxide(CO2)per year into the atmosphere, despite the mountain of evidence that CO2 is the top contributor to greenhouse gases causing global warming.
Climate journalist and author Tatiana Schlossberg says even a simple trip to the supermarket can feel paralyzing in 2021. “I want to buy the local thing, but it’s not organic. Or, maybe it’s in a plastic box,” she says. In her 2019 book Inconspicuous Consumption, she ventures way beyond the store aisle and into the web of less apparent ways that humans are damaging Earth. For example, your internet use is tied to extensive carbon emissions and energy consumption.
In fact, being a good citizen on planet Earth with climate concerns, you’ve likely asked or agonized over this question: What should I do?
One of their most consistent insights may surprise you: Consumer responsibility misses the mark. “One of the major failings of the environmental movement is having everyone focus on these small things that everyone can do.” says Ayana Elizabeth Johnson-a marine biologist and co-host of the podcast How to Save a Planet.
“Individuals join together to collectively have far more power changing the system than they can as individuals,” says Anthony Leiserowitz, director of the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication.
A.That doesn’t mean it’s none of your business. |
B.these experts propose other key steps that every human can take toward a better future. |
C.Similar challenge apply to use of plastics and consumption of meat and other goods. |
D.Part of the challenge with the environmental movement is the astonishing list of things we need to change. |
E.The solution to this problem, however, is not for you to stop using the internet, according to Schlossberg. |
F.It’s easy to get lost in the storm of supposed answers around social media, the latest data sets and “ego-friendly” marketing campaigns. |
On Horseback Among the Eagle Hunters
A. bond B. covered C. outwardly D. demanding E. famed F. currently G. deserted H. traditionally I. accessing J. extent K. tending |
Nine-year-old Dastan, the son of a Kazakh (哈萨克族) eagle hunter, rode his pony alongside mine, running effortlessly without a saddle (马鞍) and giggling at my attempts to show my pony some affection. Surrounding us was the vast,
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