1 . 6 QUESTOINS FOR VANESSA NAKATE
Vanessa Nakate is a climate activist from Uganda, and a goodwill ambassador for UNICEF, the United Nations Children’s Fund.
Q1: What does it mean
I get to meet people on the front lines of the climate crisis. I see my role as
Q2: You’ve given speeches about the impact
One that has been very powerful for me was when I spoke at the 26th United Nations Climate Change Conference, in Glasgow, Scotland. I
Q3: What’s the hardest part of being an activist?
One of the hardest things is having to see the consequences of climate change. For example, the drought in the Horn of Africa, the flooding in Pakistan, or the recent hurricanes in the United States. It’s very sad to see all those events
Q4: What keeps you motivated to fight climate change?
You’re interviewing me, and I think that’s so
Q5: What’s the most recent climate-related project you’ve worked on?
In 2019, I launched a project,
Q6:Climate change can feel frustrating and scary for some kids. What advice do you have for them?
To address this big issue, just find one thing you can do,
2 . The world’s forests may hold more secrets than previously thought: a new global estimate of tree biodiversity suggests that there are about 9,200 tree species remaining undocumented. Most are likely in the tropics, according to the new research.
The new research drew on the efforts of hundreds of contributors, who have categorized trees in two huge data sets: One, the Global Forest Biodiversity Initiative, records every species found in extensively documented forest plots worldwide. The other, TREECHANGE, puts together sightings of individual species. Together they suggest there are approximately 64,100 recorded tree species on the planet — up from previous estimates of around 60,000.
The researchers reached their estimate of an additional 9,200 yet undocumented species on the basis of the number of rare ones already in the databases. Most unknown species are likely to be defined as rare, found in limited numbers in small geographical areas, says the quantitative forest ecologist Jingjing Liang. The team’s result is “a rather conservative estimate,” Liang says, “because scientists know less about the preponderance of uncommon trees in places such as the Amazon, where out-of-the-way spots could host pockets of unusual species found nowhere else.” “If we can focus the resources on those rain forests in the Amazon,” Liang adds, “then we would be able to estimate it with higher confidence.”
Silman, a conservation biologist, who was not involved in the new study agrees that the study result is likely an underestimate. His and his colleagues’ local surveys suggest there are at least 3,000 and possibly more than 6,000 unknown tree species in the Amazon basin alone. Tree species often get grouped together based on appearance, he notes, so new genetic analysis techniques will likely lead to the discovery of even more biodiversity. Sliman wonders how many species will go extinct before scientists describe them. “How many are already known to native peoples in the Amazon — or were known to peoples or cultures who have themselves been made extinct through colonization, disease, or absorption? How many “species” already have dried samples sitting in a cabinet?” he says.
Searching for the new species will inform not only conservation but the basic evolutionary science of how and why species diversify and die out, Silman says. “Just the fact that there are thousands of species of something as common as trees out there that are still left to be discovered,” he adds, “I find pretty inspirational.”
1. What is the finding of the new research?| A．About nine thousand new tree species have been identified. |
| B．Thousands of tree species remain unknown to science. |
| C．Maintaining tree diversity has become a global challenge. |
| D．Human activities have led to the reduced number of trees. |
| A．The researchers adopted quality method to analyze data. |
| B．The researchers did extensive field study in out-of-the-way spots. |
| C．Inferring from the existing dada is the main research method. |
| D．Doing surveys and interviews is the main research method. |
| A．majority | B．evolution | C．cultivation | D．capability |
| A．genetic analysis technique failed to produce accurate information |
| B．trees of similar sizes in the Amazon basin are grouped together |
| C．too many rare trees were made into dried samples before being documented |
| D．the local peoples or the local cultures are not fully aware of the tree species. |
Over-dried Earth
The south-west of the United States, together with some parts of Mexico across the Rio Grande, is one of the driest parts of the North American continent. But, over the past two decades, even that expected dryness
Dr Williams studies the annual growth rings of 1,586 ancient trees, in order to reconstruct soil-moisture patterns going back to 800 A.D. During warm, wet years trees grow fast, producing wide rings. During cold, dry
In a world
Climate models are able to re-run the past with and
4 . Beast from the East Causes Chaos
Anyone expecting the arrival of spring was bitterly disappointed last week, as freezing temperatures and disruptive (破坏性的)snow swept across the UK.
Normally, most people would be expecting to see signs of spring blossoming in the first week of March. Incredibly, in spite of the cold weather and official warnings, spring has actually sprung in Cornwall. The head gardeners of six major gardens in the county have reported blooms on their magnolia trees--a sign that the season is changing-even if it doesn’t feel like it.
| A．A red weather warning--the most extreme-was issued as conditions became dangerous. |
| B．It was all thanks to the so-called Beast from the East. |
| C．There is further heavy snow forecast overnight for the north east and eastern parts of England and isolated showers elsewhere. |
| D．For everyone else, however, the Beast from the East means winter won't be loosening its grip for at least a few days yet. |
| E．Hundreds of trains and dozens of flights were cancelled as London’s transport services were thrown into total confusion. |
| F．There, a rise in air temperature weakened the jet stream (喷射气流), which is a band of strong wind that moves weather around the planet. |
| A. down B. across C. make D. pull E. set out F. terrible G. explorer H. strategies I. carried J. ran out of K. determined L. expedition M. achievement N. disappointed O. a pair of |
The race to the South Pole is a famous story. Captain Scott and a Norwegian
On 17 January 1912, Scott’s team reached the Pole and came
In Scott’s Hut, there is still
6 . In the Pacific Northwest, no tree is as crucial as the Douglas fir, which dominates the region’s rainforests. It was the basis of the traditional economy and is still an important source of timber (木材) in plantations around the world. But research now suggests the tree may be threatened with disease and decline, fuelled by a warming climate.
The cause is Swiss needle cast (SNC), a fungus (真菌) that grows only on Douglas firs. SNC can live on the tree kindly. Under certain environmental conditions, however, its activity intensifies, causing a yellowing and falling of needles that slows growth. In severe cases, it kills the tree.
Because our understanding of infection patterns is limited, researchers from the US Environmental Protection Agency and Oregon State University came together to reconstruct the conditions leading to outbreaks. In doing so, they found that the increasingly mild conditions expected with climate change will drive an increase in SNC disease.
The team took tree core (核心) samples from mature Douglas firs in different forests in Oregon’s Coast and Cascade mountain ranges. The growth rings in each core provided years of information, with sharp reductions in growth rate indicating SNC impacts. By combining the information collected from tree rings with information on climatic changes, the team found ties between climatic events and the intensity of outbreaks.
Periods with mild winters and more summer rain led to some of the most extreme SNC impacts. Similar climatic conditions are expected to become more frequent due to climate change.
Traditionally, SNC outbreaks have been more common in the mild, coastal fog zone than in the high Cascade peaks, but warming of these inland elevations will invite major outbreaks.
The effects of climate change are likely to extend beyond the trees, as they are vital to many animals, such as spotted owls, says David Shaw, a forest biologist at Oregon State University and director of the Swiss Needle Cast Cooperative. These threatened birds nest in bigger mature trees like Douglas firs. Slow growth from SNC may reduce nesting opportunities.
If, as feared, SNC outbreaks worsen and Douglas fir growth declines, Shaw expects broad and fundamental changes to Pacific Nothwest forests, including declining carbon fixation and lower timber harvests.
1. Under which of the following conditions will SNC’s activity intensify?| A．When Douglas firs’ needles fall down. |
| B．When it’s warm in winter and damp in summer. |
| C．When the temperature varies greatly in a day. |
| D．When the fungi living on Douglas firs gets infected. |
| A．Douglas firs’ slow growth |
| B．Douglas firs’ getting mature. |
| C．Douglas firs’ decreasing rings. |
| D．Douglas firs’ change in colour. |
| A．Their influence took a long time to appear. |
| B．They used to be ignored by some biologists |
| C．Their frequency had nothing to do with other creatures. |
| D．They used to be less common in the high Cascade peaks. |
| A．possible chain reactions due to SNC outbreaks |
| B．future changes in the climate all over the world |
| C．ways to deal with the threats caused by global warming |
| D．animals that may be affected by declining nesting opportunities |
Joaquin Phoenix took home the best-actor Oscar on Sunday night for his role in “Joker.” In the following lengthy and wide-ranging speech, the actor, 45, tackled issues of equality and nature preservation.
I’m full of so much gratitude right now. And I do not feel elevated above any of my fellow nominees (被提名者) or anyone in this room
But I think the greatest gift it’s given me, and many of us in this room,
I’ve been thinking a lot about some of the
I think that we’ve become very disconnected from the natural world, and
And I think we fear the idea of personal change because we think that we have to sacrifice something, but human beings, at our best, are so inventive and creative and original. And I think that when we use love and compassion as our guiding principles, we can create, and implement systems of change
Now, I have been, I have been a villain in my life. I’ve been selfish. I’ve been cruel at times, hard to work with, and I’m grateful that I
8 . Volcanoes in Indonesia
“The hardest bit of the job is having enough sleep,” admits Martanto, a 29-year-old geophysicist at the monitoring centre for Agung, a volcano in Bali which started erupting(爆发) on November 25th. For the past two weeks he and half a dozen others have relocated from Bandung, in West Java, to keep watch on Agung every hour of the day, occasionally in continuous 32-hour shifts.
Eruptions, in short, are hard to predict with precision. Sinabung, on the island of Sumatra, erupted suddenly in 2010 and then again in 2013 and 2016.
Even when volcanoes are known to be active, and there are enough monitoring data, it is not easy to judge how destructive an eruption might be.
| A．Mr. Syahbana’s colleagues have divided the country’s volcanoes into three categories. |
| B．But before that it had not erupted for more than 400 years. |
| C．Technology helps with the monitoring too. |
| D．“Such decisions”, says Matthew Watson of the University of Bristol, “require a good deal of expert judgment under great uncertainty”. |
| E．Late on October 24th 2010 he decided that an eruption was at hand and called for an evacuation. |
| F．Indonesia is the country with the most volcanoes in the world, with 127 active ones. |
| A. processing B. matters C. equivalent D. packaging E. essential F. producing G. changes H. supporting I. reward J. average K. special |
Eat Green: Our Everyday Food Choices Affect Global Warming and the Environment
What we eat
1. Choose Climate-Friendly Food
Food that comes from high on the food chain or arrives to your plate after extensive
2. Buy Organic and Other Sustainable Certifications
Eco—labels like USDA Organic and others give us a way to
3. Watch Your Waste
The USDA estimates that an astonishing 27 percent of all food produced for people in the United States is either thrown away or is used for a lower—value purpose, like animal food. A recent study estimated that the average household wastes 14 percent of its food purchases—a loss of significant value for most families. In addition to the water, energy, pesticides, and global warming pollution that went into producing.
4. Eat Locally
A typical American meal contains ingredients from five foreign countries, and even domestically grown produce travels a(n)
10 . The largest genetic study of mosquitoes has found their ability to resist insecticides(杀虫剂) is evolving rapidly and spreading across Africa, putting millions of people at higher risk of contracting malaria（疟疾）.
British scientists who led the work said mosquitoes’ growing resistance to control tools such as insecticide-treated bed nets and insecticide spraying, which have helped cut malaria cases since 2000, now threatens “to disturb malaria control” in Africa.
“Our study highlights the severe challenges facing public efforts to control mosquitoes and tomanage and limit insecticide resistance,” said Martin Donnelly of the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, who worked on the study with a team from Britain’s Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute.
Latest World Health Organization (WHO) data show that 216 million people were infected last year with the malaria parasite（寄生虫）, which is transmitted by blood-sucking Anopheles mosquitoes. The disease killed 445,000 people in 2016, and the majority of them were children in sub-Saharan Africa.
To understand how mosquitoes are evolving, the researchers sequenced the DNA of 765 wild Anopheles mosquitoes taken from 15 locations across eight African countries. Their work, published in the journal Nature on Wednesday, created the largest data resource on natural genetic variation for any species of insect.
Analyzing the data, the scientists found that the Anopheles gamblae mosquitoes（冈比亚疟蚊）were extremely genetically diverse compared with most other animal species. This high genetic diversity enables rapid evolution, they said, and helps to explain how mosquitoes develop insecticide resistance so quickly.
The data also showed the rapid evolution of insecticide resistance appeared to be due to many previously unknown genetic variants（变体）within certain genes. The scientists said these genetic variants for insecticide resistance were not only emerging independently in different parts of Africa, but were also being spread across the continent by mosquito migration.
Michael Chew, an expert at Britain’s Wellcome Trust global health charity which helped fund the research, said the finds underlined the importance of pushing scientific research ahead to control malaria.
Global efforts to control malaria through effective vaccine, insecticides and the best drug combinations require urgent, united action by scientists, drug companies, governments and the WHO.
1. Which of the following is scientists’ headache?| A．The number of mosquitoes in Africa is growing rapidly. |
| B．Some genetic variants of mosquitoes are still unknown. |
| C．The existing insecticides aren’t as effective as they used to be. |
| D．Millions of African people have resistance to medicines for malaria. |
| A．threatening drug companies | B．spraying insecticides |
| C．limiting blood donation | D．transmitting data |
| A．Children are more likely to be bit by mosquitoes. |
| B．Many previously unknown variants are found in the study. |
| C．The mosquito migration contributes to the spread of variants. |
| D．Anopheles mosquitoes have great genetic diversity. |
| A．It created the largest data on natural genetic variation for any insect species. |
| B．It found the possible causes for the rapid evolution of insecticide resistance. |
| C．It discovered where the genetic variants emerged and how they were spread. |
| D．It highlighted the public efforts and appealed to limit the use of insecticides. |
