The first landmark to catch my eye is the splendid Qingshuihe Bridge, the    1    (long) bridge built over permafrost in the world. A group of Tibetan antelopes is moving under the bridge, some of    2    stop to eat grass at their leisure. Thirty-three passages have been built under the railway    3    (allow) the animals to move safely and freely in their natural habitat. Wild animals such as these Tibetan antelopes have now been using these passages for years. They seem totally unaware    4    we are speeding past at over 100 kilometres an hour.

A new report says that nearly half of the world’s bird population is going down.“We    1     (lose) over 160 kinds of birds in the last 500 years,” said Lucy Haskell, who is the lead author of the report. The report has also shown that more and more human activities in agriculture are responsible for the     2     (fall) population of birds. According to the report,    3    governments have to do now is to apply more environment friendly agricultural methods into practice so as to stop bird population    4    dropping any more.

8 . Alarming reports that the Antarctic ice sheet is becoming smaller misrepresent the facts. The ice sheet holds about 26.5 million gigatons(十亿吨)of water. If it were to melt(融化)completely, sea levels would rise 190 feet. Such a change is an issue for the far future, if it comes at all.

Much more modest ice loss is normal in Antarctica. Each year, some 2,200 gigatons of the ice is discharged(消融), while snowfall adds almost the same amount. The difference between the discharge and addition each year is the annual loss. That figure has been increasing, from 40 gigatons a year in the 1980s to 250 gigatons a year in the 2010s. But the increase is just a slight change in a complex process. If it continued at that rate, the sea level would be raised by 3 inches over 100 years.

Many fear that a warming globe could increase discharge and cause more rapid sea-level rise. Two recent studies focus on this issue. Researchers in the study of Thwaites Glacier(冰川)—an unusually broad and fast Antarctic glacier—infer that in the past it became smaller for half a year at more than twice the fastest rate ever observed. The cause of this specific event remains unknown, partly because the time of the rapid melting hasn’t yet been determined. But the media goes with this angle: “A ‘doomsday(末日)glacier’, the size of Florida, is breaking faster than thought.”

A second study tested the idea that the melted freshwater could be carried by currents to speed up the discharge of nearby glaciers. Researchers constructed a special model to prove their idea. If ocean currents can connect the discharges of distant glaciers, that would add to the complexity in the Antarctic ice sheet. To emphasize their idea, researchers used human influences almost three times larger. Even though that fact is stated in the paper, reporters rarely catch such nuance, and the media goes with headlines such as “a massive tsunami would drown New York City, killing millions.” A more accurate headline would read: “Ocean currents connecting Antarctic glaciers might quicken their melting.”

These two studies were conducted with clever methods to infer past conditions and advanced computer modeling to show possible situations. These papers describe the science with appropriate precision and caution, but it is a shame that the media misrepresents the research to raise alarm. That denies the public the right to make informed decisions about “climate action,” as well as the opportunity to be amazed at the science itself.

9 . The bald eagle was once a dying species in the United States. This is because the bird wasn’t always held with respect. At the National Book Festival, author Jack E. Davis detailed the bald eagle’s “great conservation success story”.

The bald eagle has faced extinction twice. The first occurred in the late 19th century. “It was then that a bald eagle seen was one to be shot,” he said. He explained that the bird had been regarded as a dangerous animal, and considered a threat. But such threat tended to be overstated. Throughout the early 20th century, thousands of bald eagles were shot down. Things began to change for the bird in 1940, when the government passed its legal protection — the Bald Eagle Protection Act.

However, only five years later, the bird faced its second near extinction when DDT, an environmentally harmful insecticide (杀虫剂), was introduced at the end of World War Ⅱ. In 1963, the bald eagle hit its lowest number — totaling less than 500 nesting pairs across the U.S. “At that time, only about one-third of the nation’s water was safe for swimming and fishing,” Davis said. “That was eagle habitat, but also our habitat.” “We stepped up.” He mentioned that this situation led a nonprofit organization, Fish and Wildlife, to launch “hugely successful” eagle protection projects.

By 2007, the bald eagle was removed from the list as the species regained its health, reaching nearly 11,000 nesting pairs nationwide, and today’s number is somewhere around 500,000.

For those looking to assist in the ongoing comeback of the bald eagle and other endangered animals, Davis said, almost every state has a center that accepts donations and welcomes visitors and volunteers.