A. banned F. regularly | B. imperfect G. reusing | C. delivered H. throw | D. growing I. victim | E. embrace J. relatively | K. keep |
Tips for More Sustainable Living
Making some small changes to your routine can pay off big in various ways:helping the planet while saving your time, money, or both. You will be surprised by how big a difference you can make with
Give up throwing certain items. Your coffee grounds, and used tea leaves can be fertilizer (肥料) instead of being thrown in the trash. If you don’t have access to a fertilizer factory, you can hire a company to
Try to
Forget fast fashion. The average American throws away 82 pounds of fast fashion clothing each year. Thankfully, there’s a(n)
Don’t get cheated. Because of the consumer trend toward more eco-friendly products, many companies make exaggerated (夸张的) claims about their own efforts. For instance, a brand might boast that its products are free of a certain chemical, even though that chemical has been
A.The summers are even hotter in Hong Kong. |
B.He wishes that he were in Hong Kong last summer. |
C.It is difficult to compare the summers in different places. |
D.Hong Kong is the hottest place in the world. |
3 . This Halloween, scare off evil spirits while protecting the earth!
1. Create home-made costumes
Apart from the fact that they’re expensive, flammable and mostly unoriginal, shop bought Halloween outfits are a terrific burden on the environment. From the much-too-high amount of water that is used to create them to the seven million costumes that will be thrown straight into the bin, and the microfibres released into the water from the ones that do get washed there are PLENTY of reasons against shop buying.
And let’s be frank, home-made costumes are far more unique and fun to create. For the scariest costume we could possibly imagine, why not dress up as the earth on fire?
2. Be considerate with your pumpkins
Pumpkins are a wonderful Halloween tradition but can be more damaging to the environment than you’d originally think. Harmful pesticides and fertilizers are used during farming and the nature of their large-scale production means they can be transported over vast distances Similarly, how you dispose of them once you’re done determines how big an impact they have.
Don’t let their delicious innards go to waste and instead make a yummy pumpkin treat, even go so far as to save the pumpkin seeds either for you or the birds. Then, once your carved pumpkin is past it’s best, make sure to compost (制成堆肥) it rather than throwing it in the bin-this will prevent the release of methane as it breaks down.
3. Scare yourself silly at home
Rather than travelling to far-flung places, keep the frights closer to home.
Halloween party to get everyone together and encourage car-pooling or the use of public transport.
Read scary stories and create a Halloween hunt in your garden for children to run around and find treats.
4. Make your own trick-or-treating goodies
If you’ve taken on the American tradition of trick-or- treating, why not whip up a few Halloween treats of your own? Apart from being tastier and more fun to look at, they’ll also reduce your consumption of packaging and likely will have a lower carbon footprint. Suggest to any neighbours that they might do the same, and if you go trick-or-treating yourself, be sure to use a reusable carrier.
1. What can we do to help the environment during the Halloween according to the passage?A.Making use of the pumpkin innards to make fertilizers for your garden. |
B.Going to the local shop to buy some costumes and recycling them after using. |
C.Throwing a Halloween party with your friends out of town. |
D.Inviting your neighbors to taste your home-made treats. |
A.Harmful pesticides. | B.High carbon footprint. |
C.Damage to birds. | D.Harmful gas emission. |
A.What to do to celebrate the Halloween traditionally |
B.Why is it important to have an eco-friendly Halloween |
C.How to have a Halloween beneficial to the environment |
D.How to celebrate the Halloween to cheer yourself up |
A.medical B.relieve C.shelter D. growing E. alternative F. doubled G.fantastic H.marketing I. present J. conducts K.practically |
More and more cats and dogs are getting the human treatment. There are pet spas, pet therapists and pet clothes. And the latest trend is pet hospices(临终关怀医院)。
Around the United States, a growing number of vets are offering hospice care and
It’s part of a vet’s job to
“They’re in their own environment, not only the pets but the owners as well,” said Dr. Gardner, co-founder of Lap of Love, one of the leaders in this small but
Dr. Michele Price, a vet in Northern Virginia whose in-home hospice care business has
5 . Happiness of dolphins
For those of us who’ve ever been to a marine(海洋的) park, the best part was probably seeing the beautiful and friendly dolphins.
And the luckier people among us may have even had the chance to swim with these amazing creatures.
At the same time, however, we can’t help but think that these animals would be happier in the wild, rather than be forced to perform for humans in captivity(囚禁).
According to a recent study though, we needn’t think like that.
The study, which was published in the journal Applied Animal Behavior Science, was led by scientist Isabella Clegg, who carried out her research at a dolphinarium(海豚馆) in France.
As the first of its kind, the study’s aim was to look at captivity from the animals’ point of view, according to BBC News.
Over the course of three years, Clegg and her team put together a series of experiments to figure out how captive dolphins felt about their lives.
“We wanted to find out what activities in captivity they like most,” she told BBC news.
There were three kinds of experiment: one in which the dolphins were left alone, one in which toys were added to their pool, and one in which a human played with the dolphins.
It was found that of the three types of experiment, the dolphins seemed to enjoy playing with humans the most.
“Their leaping(跳跃) from the water during training, and their curious approaches to the edge(边沿) of the pool appeared to be enthusiastic(热情的).” wrote BBC News science correspondents Victoria Gill.
However, this doesn’t necessarily mean dolphins are happier in captivity than they are in the wild.
According to wildlife and nature platform One Green Planet, being raised in captivity could actually be harmful for dolphins.
“By being born into captivity, they will never learn the skills necessary to survive in the wild. This means that any animal that is born in captivity can never be sent back into the wild,” it wrote on its website.
But while this may be true, at least it seems that captive dolphins still enjoy happy moments with humans.
1. What can we learn about the study on captive dolphins?A.It was carried out in a dolphinarium in the UK. |
B.It was the first study on captivity’s influence on animals. |
C.It compared the behavior of captive dolphins and wild dolphins. |
D.It studied the feelings of captive dolphins. |
A.with toys. | B.with humans. |
C.by themselves. | D.with other sea animals. |
A.They may not be able to survive in the wild. |
B.They may be less healthy than wild dolphins. |
C.They may live an unhappy and lonely life among humans. |
D.They might be unwilling to return to the wild. |
6 . Eradajere Oleita thinks she may have a partial solution for two of American’s persistent problems: garbage and poverty. It’s called the Chip Bag Project. The 26-year-old student and environmentalist from Detroit is asking a favor of local snack lovers: Rather than toss your empty chip bags into the trash, donate them so she can turn them into sleeping bags for the homeless.
Chip eaters drop off their empty bags from Doritos, Lay’s, and other favorites at two locations in Detroit: a print shop and a clothing store, where Oleita and her volunteer helpers collect them. After they sanitize the chip bags in soapy hot water, they slice them open, lay them flat, and iron them together. They use padding and liners from old coats to line the insides.
It takes about four hours to sew a sleeping bag, and each takes around 150 to 300 chip bags, depending on whether they’re single-serve or family size. The result is a sleeping bag that is “waterproof, lightweight, and easy to carry around,” Oleita told the Detroit News.
Since its start in 2020, the Chip Bag Project has collected more than 800,000 chip bags and, as of last December, created 110 sleeping bags. Sure, it would be simpler to raise the money to buy new sleeping bags. But that’s only half the goal for Oleita — whose family moved to the United States from Nigeria a decade ago with the hope of attaining a better life — and her fellow volunteers. “They are dedicated to making an impact not only socially, but environmentally,” she says.
And, of course, there’s the symbolism of salvaging bags that would otherwise land in the trash and using them to help the homeless. It’s a powerful reminder that environmental injustice and poverty often go hand in hand. As Oleita told the media: “I think it’s time to show connections between all of these issues.”
1. What does the Chip Bag Project call on people to do?A.To throw empty chip bags into dustbins |
B.To bring empty chip bags to appointed locations |
C.To donate them to those homeless |
D.To sanitize empty chip bags for recycle |
A.charge | B.protect | C.load | D.fill |
A.To lead a better life with her immigrated family in U.S.A |
B.To launch a charity project with other volunteers in school time. |
C.To make a difference both socially and environmentally. |
D.To help those homeless by giving them handmade sleeping bags. |
A.adaptable and extroverted |
B.creative and warm-hearted |
C.aggressive and capable |
D.modest and generous |
7 . When Carolyn Kurle first visited Alaska’s Hawadax Island, then known as Rat Island, she immediately noticed the silence. “When you’re on an island that’s never had rats, it’s just like birds everywhere — it’s really loud,” she says. “So when you get to an island that does have rats, you really notice because it’s cacophony versus quiet.”
Nowadays Hawadax is once again a noisy place. Roughly a decade after a successful effort to rid the island of its predatory rodents (捕食性啮齿动物), a mass of seabirds has returned. And the benefits have extended across the island’s entire seashore ecosystem, which is again full of diverse life. These findings, published in Scientific Reports, show that certain ecosystems can recover with surprising speed if given the chance.
“This study is an example of something positive that can happen when we humans take action to clean up after ourselves,” says Kurle, who is lead author of the study and a conservation ecologist at the University of California, San Diego. “It also highlights how everything is interlinked, especially in coastal systems.”
The greedy rodents colonized Hawadax after a Japanese shipwreck in the 1780s, and they quickly wiped out seabird communities. Kurle’s first findings, published in 2008, showed that the rats affected not just birds but the entire food chain — all the way down to algae (藻类). Without birds to eat seashore invertebrates (无脊椎动物), populations of snails and other species feeding on plants exploded and consumed much of the marine kelp (巨藻), which provides crucial habitat for other organisms. “Certain invasive species can have impacts beyond those that are most obvious,” Kurle says.
Those early findings inspired the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, in partnership with The Nature Conservancy and Island Conservation, to wipe out the rats by dropping poison on Hawadax. Kurle and her colleagues secured funding to survey the island 5 and 11 years after taking the action. They found that its ecosystem had steadily recovered and now resembles that of other Aleutian Islands that were never invaded by rats, with significantly fewer marine invertebrates and much more kelp cover.
“Very few rat-eradication projects have focused on the impact on marine ecosystems, so the Hawadax Island case is really noteworthy,” says University of Tennessee, Knoxville, ecologist Daniel Simberloff, who was not involved in the study. “This is a very cool, elegant result from an academic ecology standpoint and, of course, is important in terms of conservation.”
1. What does “cacophony” in paragraph 1 most probably mean?A.Silent night. | B.Messy beach. |
C.Limited space. | D.Disagreeable sounds. |
A.Greedy rodents. | B.Marine kelp. |
C.Seashore invertebrates. | D.Invasive species. |
A.setting traps and catching rats |
B.raising money for follow-up study |
C.joining hands with conservation groups |
D.comparing Hawadax with other rat-free islands |
A.Birds and rats cannot co-exist. |
B.Rats are invasive species that must be rooted out. |
C.Ecosystem is too delicate to restore itself once disturbed. |
D.Removing invaders on land can benefit marine populations. |
A. species | B. informed | C. awareness | D. indicate |
E. additional | F. figures | G. advanced | H. sticking |
I. state | J. reliance | K. based |
Sensors for Houseplants
Over the past two years Jasmin Moeller, a 38-year-old in Germany, has been buying more houseplants, making her feel more comfortable.
Actually, the fact that people have spent much more time
Yet it is one thing to buy a houseplant and quite another to successfully look after it. Luckily, some
A sensor made by German firm Greensens has approximately 5000 plant
Another app released by German business Fyta tells users how their plants are by analyzing the uploaded pictures of the plants. It also includes
However, Botanist Silver Spence is worried that
Back in Germany, Ms Moeller says she is sure that the sensors are helping her improve gardening skills.
Norway is Teaching Travelers to Travel
After 15 people died during Easter in 1967, the Norwegian Trekking Association and the Red Cross announced their campaign ‘Welcome to the mountains, but be responsible’. Fjellvettreglene, the ‘mountain code’
Nationally, Norway
Wolves have a certain undeserved reputation: fierce, dangerous, good for hunting down deer and farmers’ livestock. However, wolves have a softer, more social side, one that has been embraced by a heart-warming new initiative.
In a bid to save some of Europe’s last wolves, scientists have explored the willingness of these supposedly fierce creatures to help others of their kind. Female wolves, the scientists have discovered, make excellent foster parents to wolf cubs that are not their own. The study, published in Zoo Biology, suggests that captive-bred wolf cubs(幼兽) could be placed with wild wolf families, boosting the wild population.
The gray wolf was once the world’s most widely distributed mammal, but it became extinct as a result of widespread habitat destruction and the deliberate killing of wolves suspected of preying on livestock. Fear and hatred of the wolf have since become culturally rooted, fuelled by myths, fables and stories.
In Scandinavia, the gray wolf is endangered, the remaining population found by just five animals. As a result, European wolves are severely inbred and have little genetic variability(变异性), making them vulnerable to threats, such as outbreaks of disease that they can’t adapt to quickly. So Inger Scharis and Mats Amundin of Linkoping University, in Sweden, started Europe’s first gray wolf-fostering program. They worked with wolves kept at seven zoos across Scandinavia. Eight wolf cubs between four and six days old were removed from their natural parents and placed with other wolf packs in other zoos. The foster mothers accepted the new cubs placed in their midst.
The welfare of the foster cubs and the wolves’ natural behavior were monitored using a system of surveillance cameras. The foster cubs had a similar growth rate as their step siblings in the recipient litter, as well as their biological siblings in the source litter. The foster cubs had a better overall survival rate, with 73% surviving until 33 weeks, than their biological siblings left behind, of which 63% survived. That rate of survival is similar to that seen in wild wolf cubs. Scientists believe that wolves can recognize their young, but this study suggests they can only do so once cubs are somewhere between three to seven weeks of age.
If captive-bred cubs can be placed with wild-living families, which already have cubs of a similar age, not only will they have a good chance of survival, but they could help dramatically increase the diversity of the wild population, say the researchers. Just like the wild wolves they would join, these foster cubs would need protection from hunting. Their arrival could help preserve the future of one of nature’s most iconic and polarizing animals.
1. What’s the theme of the passage?A.Giving wolf cubs a new life | B.Foster wolf parents and foster cubs |
C.The fate of wild wolves | D.Changing diversity of wild wolves |
A. | B. |
C. | D. |
A.Female wolves are willing to raise wolf cubs of 3 to 7 weeks old. |
B.Foster cubs are accepted by foster parents and are well bred. |
C.Man’s hostile attitude towards wolves roots in myths, fables and stories. |
D.Foster cubs and their biological siblings have similar growth rate and survival rate. |
A.To help wolves survive various threats |
B.To improve wolves’ habitat and stop deliberate killing |
C.To save endangered wolves by increasing their population |
D.To raise man’s awareness of protecting wolves |