Microplastics: Out of Sight, Out of Mind?
People joke that someone suffering from paranoia (妄想症) sees danger everywhere, thinking someone is out to get him. In the case of microplastics, you don’t need to have paranoia to be worried about them being everywhere, because they basically are!
What exactly are microplastics? They are particles (颗粒) of any type of plastic that are less than 5 millimeters in diameter (直径). They have resulted from the plastic pollution widespread in the world today.
When plastic is exposed to environmental forces, it breaks down into these tiny particles, which, in turn, do not disappear but continue to exist for hundreds or even thousands of years. Every piece of plastic that has ever been made is still on Earth today, except for what has been burned. Often mistaken for food, plastics and microplastics in oceans and on beaches are often consumed by marine animals, which is harmful. Research has linked microplastics to cancer and other problems in animals.
Whatever you think about these particles, taking them in is easier than you think. When you heat food in a plastic dish in the microwave, microplastics get into your food. The water from a plastic water bottle contains the particles as well. After taking surveys of microplastics in air, water and seafood, scientists estimate that people may easily be eating 5 grams of plastic a week. Researchers don’t know yet if or how this will affect humans. Microplastics have been found in human tissue samples, and no one yet knows how long they stay in the human body or what problems may arise.
Not until the amount of plastic waste in the world is reduced will microplastics decrease. So, while the evidence is still missing of the effect microplastics have on people’s health, reusing and recycling plastic is a no-brainer.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________1. What does the passage mainly tell us?
A.Inequality still exist globally. | B.Pollution is severe in wealthy countries. |
C.The rich pollute the world more. | D.Governments are responsible for pollution. |
A.52%. | B.8.5%. | C.10%. | D.15%. |
A.By expecting a positive return from companies. |
B.By greenlighting companies’ business practices. |
C.By facilitating more investment in the stock market. |
D.By forcing companies to stop using traditional fuels. |
3 . More than three billion people rely on the ocean to make a living, most of whom are in developing countries. As the global population increases, the demand for seafood is expected to rise, too.
Although ocean ecosystems are stretched to the limit by climate change, overfishing and more, studies nevertheless suggest that seafood can be expanded sustainably to meet future food demands. Success will depend on small-scale fisheries. These fisheries can be remarkably efficient. Almost everything that hand-to-mouth fisheries catch is consumed. By contrast, around 20% of the fish caught by industrial ships is estimated to be wasted, mainly because of unwanted by-catch.
Small fishers rarely have the right resources to expand their operations, or even to survive. If they do scale up, they might lose some of their current advantages or engage in the same harmful practices as do large commercial fisheries. Managed with care, however, small fisheries could provide win-wins for livelihoods and the environment.
Most nations already have management policies for marine ecosystems that provide for small-scale fisheries. But small-scale fishers’ rights to access are often poorly defined, ineffectively enforced or unfairly distributed (分配). Government subsidies (补贴) also require reform. One estimate found that large-scale fishers receive about 3.5 times more subsidies than small-scale fishers do. Instead, subsidies and other funds should be directed towards small-scale fishers to let them expand their access to markets, while keeping them from adopting the negative practices of large-scale operations.
The total global loss and waste from fisheries is estimated at between 30% and 35% annually primarily due to a lack of technology, good manufacturing practices, and infrastructure such as decent roads and cold storage. Public and private investment in cold-storage facilities and processing equipment could help. One promising strategy is to pair international or national funding with direct contracts for feeding programmes linked to schools, hospitals and similar facilities. Such arrangements would provide small fisheries with large, consistent markets and storage infrastructure that boosts local consumption and does not incentivize (刺激) overfishing.
Moreover, simple incentive programmes could be conducted by funders, managers and local governments trying to promote sustainable fisheries. For example, local markets could display a rating system for individual fishers or small fisheries. This could include various elements of sustainability other than environmental ones — such as providing information on the type of fishing equipment, location of the catch and freshness. Promoting the rating as a social responsibility concept would inform consumers of the need to support sustainable fisheries.
Anyway, only joint problem-solving efforts can deliver seafood protein, sustainably, to a world that increasingly needs it.
1. The passage mainly tells us that ________.A.small fisheries can help the world if managed with care |
B.the global demand for seafood is increasing dramatically |
C.small-scale fisheries need to be commercialised urgently |
D.people in developing countries are more reliable on fishing |
A.what they catch is hardly wasted | B.their by-catch accounts for a larger share |
C.they catch fish by industrial means | D.their operation is limited within a small area |
A.They gain no support from governments. | B.They are expanding to meet local demands. |
C.They have little access to good resources. | D.They impact marine ecosystems negatively. |
A.To initiate a rating system for small fishers to evaluate the local markets. |
B.To provide technology for small fisheries to boost their fishing efficiency. |
C.To inspire a sense of social responsibility in large-scale fishers and consumers. |
D.To facilitate direct cooperation between small fisheries and feeding programmes. |
A. applications | B. connections | C. emotions | D. identify | E. intervene | F. notifications |
G. sacred | H. shared | I. specialize | J. stressed | K. technological |
Animal Communication
Many pet owners long to talk with their animals. After all, if pets were able to talk, people could take care of them more easily and have closer emotional
One such app is called MeowTalk. Using voice recognition software, this app recognizes different sounds a cat makes and offers English translations of them. For example, one type of sound might mean “feed me” while another could be translated “let me outside.” The app can use machine learning to assess its translations and improve at recognizing one particular cat’s voice. In other words, it can
In the future, MeowTalk could connect to a smart collar that would hear the cat meow and play the translation out loud. Perhaps if the cat is outside and needs to be let in, it could even send
For dogs, a Japanese company called Inupathy has developed a harness (保护带) with a heart rate monitor and an app. The heart rate monitor is used to assess a dog’s
The most obvious use of this technology is to help pet owners
There are other
Anyone who interacts regularly with animals could benefit from understanding their animals better. Thus these
5 . The water off the coast of northwest Greenland is a glass-like calm, but the puddles (水坑) on the region’s icebergs are a sign that a transformation is underway higher on the ice sheet.
Several days of unusually warm weather in northern Greenland have caused rapid melting, made visible by the rivers of meltwater rushing into the ocean. Temperatures have been running around 60 degrees Fahrenheit — 10 degrees warmer than normal for this time of year, scientists said.
The amount of ice that melted in Greenland between July 15 and 17 this year alone — 6 billion tons of water per day — would be enough to fill 7.2 million Olympic-sized swimming pools, according to data from the US National Snow and Ice Data Center.
Each summer, scientists worry that they will see a repeat of the record melting that occurred in 2019, when 532 billion tons of ice flowed out into the sea. An unexpectedly hot spring and a July heat wave that year caused almost the entire ice sheet’s surface to melt. Global sea level rose permanently by 1.5 millimeters as a result.
Greenland holds enough ice — if it all melted — to lift sea level by 7.5 meters around the world. The latest research points to a more and more threatening situation on the Northern Hemisphere’s iciest island.
“Unprecedented (史无前例的)” rates of melting have been observed at the bottom of the Greenland ice sheet, a study published in February found, caused by huge quantities of meltwater flowing down from the surface. This water is particularly concerning because it can destabilize the sheet above it and could lead to a massive, rapid loss of ice.
And in 2020, scientists found that Greenland’s ice sheet had melted beyond the point of no return. The rate of melting in recent years exceeds anything Greenland has experienced in the last 12,000 years, another study found — and enough to cause measurable change in the gravitational field over Greenland.
At the East Greenland Ice-core Project — or EastGRIP — research camp in northwest Greenland, the work of scientists to understand the impact of climate change is being affected by climate change itself.
Aslak Grinsted, a climate scientist at the University of Copenhagen’s Niels Bohr Institute, said that they have been trying to get flights into the camp but the warmth is destabilizing the landing site.
Before human-caused climate change kicked in, temperatures near 32 degrees Fahrenheit there were unheard of. But since the 1980s, this region has warmed by around 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit per decade — four times faster than the global pace — making it all the more likely that temperatures will cross the melting point.
1. The passage is mainly written to ________.A.alert people to the rapid melting of Greenland’s ice sheet |
B.arouse people’s awareness of protecting the environment |
C.inform people of the large amount of ice Greenland holds |
D.reveal to people the cause and effect of the rise in sea level |
A.Climate change. | B.A rise in sea level. |
C.Global warming. | D.The melting of ice. |
A.It repeated a record melting of the ice sheet several years ago. |
B.Its amount was the largest ever and lifted sea level permanently. |
C.It was enough to fill 7.2 million Olympic-sized swimming pools. |
D.Its melting rate was so rapid as to result in an unexpectedly hot spring. |
A.climate change is a result of human activities |
B.the study of climate change is being made easier |
C.the melting of Greenland’s ice sheet is reversible |
D.temperatures increase 1.5°F or so each decade globally |
6 . U.N. Report Warns Nature Crisis
A new U.N. report focuses on the negative effects of human activity on nature. It says one million plant and animal species on land, in the seas and in the sky are now in danger of extinction.
The problem can be fixed, the report says.
Professor Eduardo Brondizio of Indiana University is an author of the report. He says, “We all know what needs to be done. The knowledge is there.
A.However, this requires considerable changes. |
B.Over 120 wildlife species are facing extinction. |
C.The 1,800-page report took three years to finish. |
D.The report listed several causes for the situation. |
E.There just needs to be a greater will to take action. |
F.The report also finds that global goals for protecting nature cannot be met. |
7 . A recent study published in the journal Science Advances has revealed that the United States ranks as high as third among countries contributing to coastal plastic pollution. The new research challenges the once-held assumption that the US is adequately “managing” its plastic waste. A previous study using 2010 data that did not account for plastic waste exports had ranked the US 20th, globally, in its contribution to ocean plastic pollution.
Using plastic waste generation (产生) data from 2016 — the latest available global numbers — scientists calculated that more than half of all plastics collected for recycling (1.99 million tons of 3.91 million tons collected) in the US were shipped abroad. Of this, 88% of exports went to countries struggling to effectively manage plastics; and between 15-25% was low-value or contaminated (受污染的). It means it was unrecyclable. Taking these factors into account, the researchers estimated that up to 1 million tons of US-generated plastic waste ended up polluting the environment beyond its own borders.
Using 2016 data, the paper also estimated that between 0.91 and 1.25 million tons of plastic waste generated in the US was either littered or illegally dumped into the environment domestically. Combined with waste exports, this means the US contributed up to 2.25 million tons of plastics into the environment. Of this, up to 1.5 million tons of plastics ended up in coastal environments. This ranks the US as high as third globally in contributing to coastal plastic pollution.
“The US generates the most plastic waste of any other country in the world, but rather than looking the problem in the eye, we have outsourced it to developing countries,” said Nick Mallos, senior director of Ocean Conservancy’s Trash Free Seas program and a co-author of the study. “The solution has to start at home. We need to create less, by cutting out unnecessary single-use plastics; we need to create better, by developing innovative new ways to package and deliver goods; and where plastics are inevitable, we need to greatly improve our recycling rates.”
“Previous research has provided global values for plastic input into the environment and coastal areas, but detailed analyses like this one are important for individual countries to further assess their contributions,” said Dr. Jenna Jambeck, Distinguished Professor at the University of Georgia’s College of Engineering and a co-author of the study. “In the case of the United States, it is critically important that we examine our own backyard and take responsibility for our global plastic footprint.”
1. Compared with the previous study, the new one ________.A.covers data more comprehensively |
B.excludes plastic waste shipped abroad |
C.is contrary to the latest global numbers |
D.challenges the recycling way of plastics |
A.Over half of it ended up polluting the environment outside the US. |
B.Most of its exported plastic waste wasn’t worth recycling. |
C.Less than half of it was actually recycled domestically. |
D.More of it is littered or illegally dumped than exported. |
A.plastic pollution in developing countries is more serious |
B.US has been irresponsible in dealing with its plastic waste |
C.US should cooperate with others to handle its plastic waste |
D.innovative means are needed to eliminate single-use plastics |
A.Plastic Pollution Great Risk to Marine Life |
B.US Top Contributor to Coastal Plastic Pollution |
C.Plastic Waste Major Source of Coastal Pollution |
D.Recycling Effective Way to Address Plastic Waste |
Artists Show Concern for Environment at Smithsonian Craft Show
The United Nations says more than one million plant and animal species are likely to die out because of human activity. That threat
The Smithsonian Committee is made up of volunteers from the Washington, D.C. area. Joann Symons is the group’s president. “In recent years, we’ve noticed that the artists in our shows have been working with more renewable materials and methods
At the show last month, 120 artists from across the United States presented works of art in 12 different materials. Twenty-one artists met the requirements for sustainability. By doing so, they won the right
Mary Jaeger creates her works of art in a nearly 100-year-old factory building in Brooklyn, New York. She makes artworks that
Fran Dubrowski