1 . After five long years, it appears California’s drought is finally becoming less severe. _______ a recent string of storms, more than a third of the state has now welcomed healthy precipitation (降水量), and California’s snowpack—a(n) _______ source of water as the year progresses—has reached nearly twice its seasonal average in some parts of the Sierra Nevada. That’s a dramatic improvement over last summer, when literally every inch of the state _______ drought conditions. It’s also welcome news for Californians, who have faced a series of water _______ since Governor Jerry Brown declared a state of emergency in early 2014. Farmers have been forced to spend heavily to maintain production.

The state’s water struggles, _______, are far from over. For one, nobody knows for sure how long these rains will last. Although recent precipitation has been _______—in some places more than 80 inches—the accuracy of storm forecasting remains _______ beyond a week. Californians know this all too well: last year, experts projected a “Godzilla” El Niño that would bring record levels of precipitation. It never _______. “Will six weeks from now be wet?” asks Jeanine Jones, California’s interstate water-resources manager. “The skill in that kind of forecasting is just not there.”

_______, a storm slowdown is a very real possibility—and it could leave California without enough water to make it through the dry summer. ________, when that happens, the state has turned to groundwater stored in natural rock formations deep beneath the earth’s surface. But those ________ remain used up after years of drought; restoring them could take years in some places, says Jones.

The quick inrush of water has also created a(n) ________ balancing act for water managers. Keeping surface reservoirs (水库) filled to the edge protects against the possibility of a sudden dry spell, but it also

For now, though, Jones is focused on planning and ensuring the state’s water supply whatever may happen. “We’re halfway through our wettest season, and conditions have been encouraging,” she says. “I would say we’re ________ optimistic.”

2 . Sea levels along coastlines in the United States will rise about one foot by 2050, with larger increases on the East and Gulf coasts, according to a comprehensive new report by climate scientists.

Oceans have already risen about one foot in the last century, as climate change melts glaciers (冰川) and ice caps around the world. But the pace is ______ scientists warn, and the next 30 years will see the same amount of sea level rise as the previous 100.

The report gives the most concrete and certain sea level ______ ever published for the U.S. And advances in computer models and real-world information about rising seas make it possible to see the future more ______ than ever.

Sea level rise ______ dramatically for different parts of the U.S. coast. The ocean is not like a bucket of water that rises at the same time as more liquid is ______. Ocean ______ push more water into some areas than others. Ice in different regions melts at different rates. In many parts of the world, sea level rise is ______ because coastal land is sinking.

The new report adds up all those factors to give ______ estimates for different parts of the U.S. The authors predict about a foot and a half of sea level rise for the Gulf Coast by 2050, with particular hot spots from Texas to Mississippi, where exploitation of underground oil, gas and drinking water is causing the land to rapidly _____ into the rising ocean water. There are ______ hot spots in the Mid-Atlantic region, including Annapolis, Md. and Norfolk, Va. Overall, the East Coast is ______ to experience a little more than a foot of sea level rise in the next 30 years.

Sea level rise is happening more ______ on the West Coast, including much of southern and western Alaska, the report finds. The authors predict about six inches of sea level rise by 2050.

William Sweet, a sea level rise expert with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and one of the authors of the new report, says cities that are not yet flooded should ______ now. Quickening sea level rise may require that humans ______ where and how we build homes, offices, roads and anything else that is better dry than wet. Right now, development in flood-prone (易发洪水的) areas is increasing, despite climate change.

Beyond 2050, the report makes clear that humans have a ______: reduce greenhouse gas emissions and control sea level rise, or keep burning fossil fuels and face oceans that are two, three or even 10 feet higher than today.

What Can One City Do?

People around the world are concerned about global warming and are talking about ways to stop it. The city of Cambridge, Massachusetts, in the United States, is doing more than just talking. Cambridge wants to become a world leader in energy-efficient buildings.

Today, Naema Omar is improving her 80-year-old house in Cambridge. To keep the heat inside in the winter, she is filling the space inside the walls with insulation(绝缘). Insulation is usually made from chemicals, but in her house, she is using     1     new - insulation made from recycled blue jeans and other clothes. She has also put in a new type of light called an LED lamp    2     uses only a tiny amount of electricity. The light-bulbs in it last for 20 to 30 years before needing     3     (change).

But eco-friendly insulation and lighting are much more expensive than the usual kind     4     many people in Cambridge can’t afford them. A group called Cambridge Energy Alliance (CEA)     5     (work) to solve this problem. They want to help every resident and business in the city conserve energy. People can ask the group to come and look at     6     they can make their house or office building eco-friendly. The CEA then makes them a plan to save 15 to 30 percent on heating, gas, water, and electricity. Then the group help people borrow money to pay for the improvements. The money that people save by being     7     (efficient) should be enough to pay back the loan.

It was ten years ago that the city of Cambridge decided to try to reduce its carbon emissions. More than 80 percent of the carbon dioxide     8     (produce) in Cambridge comes from buildings - not from cars     9     successful, the program will not only save a lot of energy but also make new jobs for local people. Workers    10     (need) to put in insulation, install better doors and windows, and make other energy improvements on buildings. The CEA hopes that their program will be an example for other cities.

4 . Last week came solid evidence that living in toxic Britain can seriously harm your health. Cardiologists at Queen Mary University of London found that even "safe" levels of air pollution are linked to heart abnormalities similar to those seen during the early stages of heart failure. Their study of almost 4,000 people was backed up by a major US study which showed that higher exposure to fine particles and nitrogen oxides is linked to an acceleration in the hardening of the arteries (动脉).

We have long known that air pollution leads to coughing, shortness of breath and irritation in the eyes, nose and throat. It is also clearly linked to respiratory diseases such as asthma and bronchitis, as well as diabetes and some cancers. It is now beyond doubt that children's health is greatly affected, and links have been made between it and Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, dementia and congenital birth defects.

The statistics are alarming. In the UK, more than 2 million people suffer from cardiovascular (心血管的) diseases, and nearly one in seven men and one in 12 women will go on to die from them. Heart disease costs the UK economy nearly £30 bn a year to treat, as much as the state spends on secondary education. It is one of the greatest single drains on the public purse. Britain, however, rejects common sense, and shows little sign that it wants to seriously address pollution any time soon.

Despite the mounting evidence of air pollution's costs and health impact, Britain has had to be dragged screaming through the courts to make it comply with minimal clean air guidelines and laws. Successive governments have continually tried to evade their legal responsibilities, spending millions of pounds fighting in the courts and lobbying the EU to be allowed to continue to pollute.

The government now has a new draft clean air strategy our for consultation until 14 August and claims to be acting faster to tackle air pollution than almost every other major developed economy. It pledges to halve the number of people living in places that do not meet World Health Organization pollution guidelines, and it propose to end the sale of new diesel and petrol cars and vans by 2040.

But intending to cut the air pollution bill by around 12.5% in 12 years and waiting 20 years to be rid of the worst vehicles seems criminally weak. Meanwhile, government is knowingly forging ahead with infrastructure plans that will inevitably increase air pollution. The effect will inevitably be to massively increase air pollution and health costs for millions of Britons.

So could the car-clogged streets of Sunder-land, Birmingham and London, where I lived for many years, have contributed to my disease and those of millions of others? Probably. Could the oil companies be responsible for far more than climate change? Certainly. Could Britain's monstrous and mounting bill for heart disease be partly due to the highly polluting diesel cars that governments so scandalously encouraged us to drive? Quite possibly.

What is certain is that air pollution is now an international scandal, and the cause of a health emergency that governments and industry have failed to address. It undoubtedly threatens life more than any war or disaster. When there are clear alternatives to burning fossil fuels then politicians who do not act to prevent it must stand accused not just of failing to act, but of condoning the mass poisoning of their people.

The Mega-City Environment

Mega-cities suffer from a catalog of environmental ills. A World Health Organization(WHO)/United Nations Environment Program(UNEP)study found that seven of the cities-Mexico City, Beijing, Cairo, Jakarta, Los Angeles, Sao Paulo and Moscow-had three or more pollutants that    1     the WHO health protection guidelines. All 20 of the cities studied by WHO/UNEP had at least one major pollutant that went beyond    2     health limits.

According to the World Resources Institute, “Millions of children living in the world’s largest cities, particularly in developing countries, are    3     to life-threatening air pollution two to eight times above the maximum based on WHO guidelines. Indeed, more than 80 percent of all deaths in developing countries    4     to air pollution-induced lung infections are among children under five.” In the big Asian mega-cities such as New Delhi, Beijing and Jakarta, approximately 20 to 30 percent of all respiratory diseases    5     from air pollution.

Almost all of the mega-cities face major fresh water challenges. Johannesburg, South Africa, is forced to draw water from highlands 370 miles away. In Bangkok, saltwater is invading aquifers(地下蓄水层). Mexico City has a serious    6     problem because of excessive groundwater withdrawal.

More than a billion people, 20 percent of the world’s population, live without regular    7     to clean running water. While poor people are forced to pay high fees for private water, many cities squander their resources through leakages and illegal    8    . “With the population of cities expected to increase to five billion by 2025,” says Klaus Toepfer, executive director of the UNEP, “the urban demand for water is set to increase rapidly. This means that any solution to the water crisis is closely linked to the governance of cities.“

Mega-city residents, crowded into unsanitary slums, are also subject to serious disease outbreaks. Lima, Peru(with population estimated at 9.4 million by 2015)suffered a cholera outbreak in the late 1990s partly because, as the New York Times reported, ”rural people new to Lima...live in houses without running water and use the outhouses(屋外厕所)that    9     the hillsides above.“

It’s worth looking at some of these    10     mega-cities in detail, because daily life there is likely to be the pattern for a majority of the world’s population. Most are already experiencing severe environmental problems that will only be worsened by rapid population increases.

7 . Brazil’s election offers hope for the rainforest

A presidential election in 2022 will offer a chance for Brazil’s government to reverse policies that have________to global climate change. The country is home to 60% of the Amazon rainforest, which has historically been an important carbon________. But a worrying study published in 2021 in Nature found that over the past decade it has________become a carbon source. The culprits: forest fires and deforestation, which has soared by more than 40% since President Jair Bolsonaro________in 2019.

On his watch, environmental enforcement and fines dropped to record lows. Activists say this has encouraged________logging, mining, and land-grabbing. In June the environment minister, Ricardo Salles, resigned after federal police began investigating him for alleged________in timber trafficking.

A greener president would try to crack down on such crimes. Polls________that Mr Bolsonaro is likely to lose the election. His successor could convince Germany and Norway to unfreeze the Amazon Fund, a pot of money for enforcement and________development that was withdrawn in 2019 amid concerns about Mr Bolsonaro’s policies. A new president could also revive talks with President Joe Biden, who has offered to________a $20bn fund for the rainforest once Brazil starts showing results.

But even an enlightened president will have to battle a________Congress, which is considering a number of laws that threaten the rainforest and its inhabitants. These include a land-regularisation bill nicknamed the “land-grabbing law” and a bill that would________wildcat mining on indigenous territories. In August thousands of indigenous people camped out in the capital as the supreme court debated a case that would restrict their territories to land that was________when a new constitution was passed in 1988. The court postponed its________, but Congress is considering a law that would have the________effect.

Better leadership in Brazil could jump-start regional efforts to boost enforcement and find sustainable________to deforestation for the rainforest’s inhabitants. But if Mr Bolsonaro wins again, his determination to fill the forest with roads, dams and mines could cause destruction far beyond the borders of Brazil.

8 . The cultivation of plants by ants is more widespread than previously realized, and has evolved on at least 15 separate occasions.

There are more than 200 species of ant in the Americas that farm fungi (真菌) for food, but this trait evolved just once sometime between 45 million and 65 million years ago. Biologists regard the cultivation of fungi by ants as true agriculture appearing earlier than human agriculture because it meets four criteria: the ants plant the fungus, care for it, harvest it and depend on it for food.

By contrast, while thousands of ant species are known to have a wide variety of interdependent relationships with plants, none were regarded as true agriculture. But in 2016, Guillaume Chomicki and Susanne Renner at the University of Munich, Germany, discovered that an ant in Fungi cultivates several plants in a way that meets the four criteria for true agriculture.

The ants collect the seeds of the plants and place them in cracks in the bark of trees. As the plants grow, they form hollow structures called domain that the ants nest in. The ants defecate (排便) at designated absorptive places in these domain, providing nutrients for the plant. In return, as well as shelter, the plant provides food in the form of fruit juice.

This discovery prompted Chomicki and others to review the literature on ant-plant relationships to see if there are other examples of plant cultivation that have been overlooked. “They have never really been looked at in the framework of agriculture,” says Chomicki, who is now at the University of Sheffield in the UK. “It’s definitely widespread.”

The team identified 37 examples of tree-living ants that cultivate plants that grow on trees, known as epiphytes (附生植物). By looking at the family trees of the ant species, the team was able to determine on how many occasions plant cultivation evolved and roughly when. Fifteen is a conservative estimate, says Campbell. All the systems evolved relatively recently, around 1million to 3 million years ago, she says.

Whether the 37 examples of plant cultivation identified by the team count as true agriculture depends on the definitions used. Not all of the species get food from the plants, but they do rely on them for shelter, which is crucial for ants living in trees, says Campbell. So the team thinks the definition of true agriculture should include shelter as well as food.

9 . The UN this week launched a report urging companies to stop issuing false net-zero targets that amount to greenwashing.

Greenwashing is a term used to describe situations where companies mislead consumers by claiming to be eco-friendly or sustainable as a marketing plan rather than as a core principle of their business model. Often, these industries spend more money making themselves appear sustainable than they do taking actual sustainable measures into their company.

Cities, financial institutions, and scores of companies have announced plans to reduce their emissions to zero, which, in principle, should help the fight against climate change.

“The problem is that the criteria for these net-zero commitments have varying levels of precision and loopholes (漏洞),” said UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres during the launch of the report.

Many net-zero plans contain far-away or unclear targets and often call for the use of unproved technologies like carbon capture and tree planting, which effectively allow companies to continue polluting the atmosphere. Studies show that most of these net-zero plans will do little to stop temperatures from rising. For example, many oil majors have announced plans to reduce emissions from their operations to zero by 2050 that do not take into account the carbon emitted by the fossil fuels they sell, which would allow them to increase production. Far from decreasing, fossil fuel production is going strong.

To close these net-zero loopholes, the UN this week released a report that includes 10 recommendations to ensure that companies, cities, regions, and other non-state actors issue credible and accountable net zero commitments. “Their plans cannot rely on cheap carbon credits instead of immediately cutting their own emissions,” Guterres said.

Financial institutions need to cut down emissions from all their investments and businesses need to bring down the carbon footprint of their supply chain, the report said. The report’s lead author, Catherine McKenna, urged companies to release new net-zero targets within a year. The updated targets must contain concrete actionable details.

10 . Many people learn at an early age to associate the color red with danger. So might it make sense to print medication   ________ in red ink? And since the color blue is known to call to mind the freedom of open skies, might it help artists to   ________ in a studio painted in that color? According to new research into how the brain reacts to ________ , the answer to both of these questions is yes. The study revealed that the color red seems to improve a subject’s attention to ________ , while blue appears to stimulate creativity—all without the subject realizing that his or her brain is being influenced.

“People are not ________ this effect at all,” marveled the study’s lead researcher Juliet Zhu, who studies the effects of environmental cues on behavior. To study the brain’s response to specific colors, Zhu’s team administered a series of   ________ tests to college students. For most of the tests, the students were placed in front of a computer screen that was colored either red or blue.

The researchers found that when the screen was red, subjects performed better on detail-oriented tasks. In one test,   ________ , students were asked to memorize a list of words. Zhu found that students who studied the list displayed on a red screen were able to recall more words than students who studied the list on a ________ screen.

In other tests, creative abilities seemed to be ________ by looking at the color blue. For instance, the students were asked to brainstorm potential uses for bricks. Students sitting in front of blue screens tended to come up with ideas that were   ________ , such as “make a paperweight” and “build a pet scratching post.” Students sitting in front of a red screen, on the other hand, were more likely to list ________ uses for bricks, such as “build a house.”

Researchers concluded from the tests that seeing red causes people to take the extra time to think ________ when performing detail-oriented tasks, such as ________ , proofreading— and, of course, reading those all-important warning labels. ________ most people learn early in their development that red signifies potential danger, Zhu said, seeing red perhaps helps people to slow down in order to perform at their best in a potentially risky situation. Seeing blue, on the other hand, produces images of the sky, freedom and peace. Perhaps these images, researchers supposed, ________ feelings. “It’s really this learned association with these colors that drives these different motivations,” Zhu said.