1 . Raising livestock (牲畜) is a big part of the carbon emission from agriculture. But it is hard to change people’s habits and get them to give up their hamburgers, especially since more than one-third of Americans eat fast food every day. We previously called for carbon labels on everything from buildings to burgers. Now, a new study from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health found that labels on fast food affected people's choices.
The study said shifting current dietary patterns to more sustainable diets with less red meat could reduce food-related greenhouse gas emissions by 55% and have health benefits.
The 5,000 participants in the study were shown fake menus. One group got menus with high climate impact labels on red meat items and another had low climate impact labels on fish or plant-based burgers. Both menus were effective in reducing the orders for red meat. But interestingly, the high-impact labels were far more effective, with 23% of the participants choosing a more environmentally sustainable selection, while menus listing low-impact choices encouraged only 10% participants to change.
“We found that labeling red meat items with high-climate impact labels was more effective in increasing sustainable selections than labeling non-red meat items with low-climate impact labels,” wrote the authors of the study.
Lead author, Julia Wolfson, said, “These results suggest that menu labeling, particularly labels warning that an item has high climate impact, can be an effective strategy for encouraging more sustainable food choices in a fast food setting.”
The study points out negative labels might be unpopular: “It is unlikely that the industry would voluntarily adopt a negative label approach; such an approach needs to be carried out via law. However, high climate impact labels may easily be adopted in settings like universities and hospitals.”
They have a point that this label is aggressively negative, more like a cigarette warning than a food label. In the study, the authors note that future research should test more label designs using qualitative and quantitative research on how people understand different climate impact labels.
1. What is paragraph 1 mainly about?| A．The impact of carbon emission. |
| B．The background of the new study. |
| C．The request of giving up carbon labels. |
| D．The difficulty in changing people's habits. |
| A．They liked them very much. |
| B．They stuck to their preferences. |
| C．Some of them stopped eating fast food. |
| D．Some of them changed their food choices. |
| A．It will be banned by law. |
| B．It will face some resistance. |
| C．It will produce bad results. |
| D．It will be accepted by all industries. |
| A．Raising livestock causes carbon emission |
| B．Fast food has a negative effect on climate |
| C．Researchers are focusing on climate impact |
| D．Labels on fast food help protect the environment |
2 . Most paper receipts (收据) are not recyclable, This is because they’re printed on thermal paper (热敏纸), which contains a chemical called BPA or BPS that cannot be easily removed from the paper during the recycling process. To avoid polluting other paper products in the recycling stream, the safest method is to throw receipts in the trash.
There are two kinds of paper receipts. One is the old-fashioned paper that’s printed with pale ink. The other is the shiny, soft thermal paper that comes out of newer cash registers. Scratch (划) the paper, and you’ll see a dark line appear if it contains BPA or BPS. Ordinary paper receipts are rarely seen these days, but they can be recycled if you happen to get some. Thermal paper is now ubiquitous and found in most retail locations, but it cannot be recycled because of the chemicals that are used to create it.
Thermal paper uses heat from a printer head to make letters and numbers appear; no ink is used. This process requires the addition of BPA or BPS in their “free form”, which means that the chemicals are not bound to the paper. According to Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families, “The chemicals can easily transfer (转移) to anything a receipt touches-your hand, or the groceries in your shopping bag.
BPA or BPS can affect brain development, and heart and lung health. They can be transferred from fingers to the mouth via food, or absorbed directly through the skin when held. If thermal paper were to be recycled, it would pollute other products in the recycling stream with BPA or BPS. Burning and composting (使成堆肥) are not a choice either, as they would release BPA or BPS into the atmosphere or soil.
The only safe place to throw thermal paper receipts is in the trash, followed by immediate hand washing. It’s not ideal, but it is the most effective way to separate BPA or BPS from the environment. The best solution is to ask for receipts to be emailed, rather than printed. Always refuse before you reduce, reuse and recycle.
1. What does the underlined word “ubiquitous” in paragraph 2 mean?| A．Unwanted. | B．Informal. | C．Effective. | D．Common. |
| A．How BPA or BPS is removed. |
| B．How a printer works without ink |
| C．How thermal paper receipts form. |
| D．How BPA and BPS coexist with thermal paper. |
| A．By exposing them to the sun. |
| B．By burning them in the open air. |
| C．By putting them in the shopping bag. |
| D．By throwing them into the dustbin in time. |
| A．The development of receipts. |
| B．Is it possible to get rid of paper receipts? |
| C．The right way to handle paper receipts. |
| D．Do all paper receipts contain BPA or BPS? |
3 . Armed with bowls and spoons, the youngsters at Berridale Public School headed into the school’s kitchen to bake biscuits. These treats were for endangered mountain pygmy possums (山袋貂). This small-sized animal lives only in the Australian regions of Victoria and New South Wales, and being active at night, is rarely seen in the wild. Up until the 1960s, when a small population of the possum was found in Victoria, the species was thought to be extinct.
Pygmy possums live on a diet of bogong moths (布冈夜蛾) and seeds. Yet in recent years, the once vast number of bogong moths that migrate each spring to the Snowy Mountains has severely fallen. Dr Linda Broome heads a team that has been tracking the region’s community of mountain pygmy possums for more than 30 years. “An estimated 330 adults were counted in the Cabramurra region in 2016, with 200 counted in 2018-19,” says Broome. The animals are also affected by extreme weather.
That’s when Broome started baking “bogong” biscuits, using a specially developed recipe that replicates (仿制) the nutritional value of the moths. But with vast quantities of the nutritional biscuits needed weekly to feed all the hungry mouths, she needed help.
The children at Berridale Public School wanted to know how they could help the region recover. The school, under the leadership of current principal Tracey Southam, contacted Broome. The kids were more than happy to put down their pencils and pick up spoons instead. It wasn’t long before all the primary school students across the Snowy Mountains region were busy baking the treats. Each bake-off took around 4.5 hours to produce sixty 200-gram bags of biscuits. Altogether, this resulted in an impressive 660 bags of bogong biscuits.
“While it is difficult to estimate the number of babies that have survived with the help of the biscuits, a field count in March resulted in 32 babies, which is a number similar to good seasons,” Broome says. Although the figures are still small, the results are pleasing and everyone is hopeful that their numbers can recover.
1. What is a feature of mountain pygmy possums?| A．They are globally distributed. |
| B．They like to hang out after dark. |
| C．They prefer biscuits to bogong moths. |
| D．They are frequent visitors to Australian kitchens. |
| A．The disastrous effect of climate change. |
| B．The worrying condition of pygmy possums. |
| C．The disappointing recovery of bogong moths. |
| D．The changing habitat requirement of pygmy possums. |
| A．They were environmentally aware. |
| B．They led the feeding programme. |
| C．They dragged their feet over baking biscuits. |
| D．They created the unique recipe for pygmy possums. |
| A．Doubtful. | B．Tolerant. | C．Optimistic. | D．Confused. |
4 . Picking up litter is a fun, simple, and free activity that can have instant results for your child and your community.
What you’ll needPlastic bag to collect trash (垃圾)
Gloves—especially important as we practice COVID-19 safety measures
Optional: pick-up stick, a separate bag for recyclables
Instructions1. Assign gloves and a trash bag to each family member.
2. Clear out litter from an area of a park, beach or your own neighborhood. Take all necessary precautions (防范措施), including wearing sturdy (结实的) gloves, being careful on river banks or near roads, having adults handle dangerous items, and supervising children closely.
3. Properly dispose of all litter.
ReflectionsWhy is it important to pick up litter?
How can you inspire others to help keep the neighborhood clean?
ResourcesColonel Trash Truck by Kathleen Crawley
The colonel is on a mission to protect the beauty of the earth by cleaning up litter-and convincing others to do the same.
Here Comes the Garbage Barge ! by Jonah Winter
This story is sure to inspire your whole family to be mindful of your environmental impact.
Take it furtherTake a few digital photos of what you’ve picked up. Then send an essay about your experience along with your favorite photos, your name and address to mail@ wildernessproject.org. Your essay will be published on the Nicodemus Wilderness Project website, and you’ll get an official certificate. For tips on conducting the clean-up and writing the story, as well as essays and photos from other people, visit the website.
1. What are a must for the event?| A．Pick-up sticks and cameras |
| B．Books about cleaning up. |
| C．Plastic bags and gloves. |
| D．Bags for recyclables. |
| A．Keep an eye on children. |
| B．Leave dangerous items alone. |
| C．Keep away from the riverside |
| D．Stay in your own neighborhood. |
| A．By inviting others to clean up their neighborhood. |
| B．By sharing a list of environmental books on the website. |
| C．By writing a review of other participants’ stories online. |
| D．By emailing an essay with photos about their clean up experiences. |
5 . Astronomers have traced a repeating radio signal back to a rocky, Earth-sized exoplanet that appears to have one of the crucial factors that make a world habitable: a magnetic field. The planet is known as YZ Ceti b, and it’s orbiting a small red Dwarf star located around 12 light-years from Earth.
“The search for potentially habitable or life-bearing worlds in other solar systems depends in part on being able to determine if rocky, Earth-like exoplanets actually have magnetic fields,” said Joe Pesce, the program director of the US National Science Foundation’s National Radio Astronomy Observatory, which supported the work. “This research shows not only that this particular rocky exoplanet likely has a magnetic field but provides a promising method to find more.”
A magnetic field is what stops a planet’s atmosphere from being driven away by powerful stellar(星球的) winds. Mars, for example, used to have an atmosphere and was a warm and wet planet before it lost its magnetic field and, without its protection, its atmosphere was gradually ruined by plasma(等离子气体) from our Sun. Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune still have magnetic fields in our Solar System. And in the past, astronomers have found evidence of larger exoplanets with their own magnetic fields. But up until now we’ve not been able to identify magnetic fields on smaller, rocky worlds outside our Solar System. In fact, we’ve not even had a reliable way to even look for them.
It turns out, the repeating radio signal may be the clue we need. The team believes it’s being caused by the planet’s magnetic field interacting with YZ Ceti, the star it orbits. The rocky exoplanet is situated so close to YZ Ceti that its orbit is just two days. But if the planet’s magnetic field is confirmed with further observations, it means we’ll finally have a way to detect more life-friendly worlds like it in future, which is incredibly exciting in the search for habitable planets.
1. What’s the significance of the discovery about YZ Ceti b from Joe Pesce?| A．It can be surely de lined as a life-bearing world. |
| B．People make great progress in identifying exoplanets. |
| C．People can easily locale its exact position in space. |
| D．We can get more discoveries besides its habitability. |
| A．Advanced. | B．Effective. | C．Untrustworthy. | D．Notable. |
| A．The finding about YZ Ceti b is a good start. |
| B．Magnetic fields are confirmed in YZ Ceti b. |
| C．We find more magnetic fields in smaller stars. |
| D．More habitable planets have been confirmed. |
| A．More Habitable World In Exoplanet Are Needed |
| B．Another Habitable World Is Likely To Be Found |
| C．Magnetic Fields Are Crucial For A Habitable World |
| D．People Need More Evidence For A Habitable World |
6 . How do oceans affect you? If you live far from the coast, you might think they don’t. But life on this planet depends on the ocean. It covers almost three-quarters of the planet and holds 97 percent of Earth’s water. The phytoplankton (浮游植物)that live on the oceans’ surface produce half of the oxygen in the atmosphere. Oceans are a vital source of food and other resources and an economic engine for many communities.
For all the ocean provides us, we haven’t always been so responsible in our administration. “The ocean was thought of as a dumping (倾倒的) ground for so long,” says Caitlyn Toropova of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). “There was a sense that there was no way we could harm it because it is so vast.”
But human activities are having a negative impact on many of the world’s oceans, jeopardizing marine life, habitats, and ecosystems. These threats include overfishing or destructive fishing, coastal development, pollution and runoff, and the introduction of non-native species. Climate change is also having a big effect by causing warming seas and ocean acidification.
The realization that something needs to be done to prevent the damage has led to the creation of marine protected areas (MPAs), Specifics differ around the globe, but the United States defines a marine protected area as “any area of the marine environment that has been preserved to prov d eating protection for part or all of the natural and cultural resources.”
There are approximately 5,000 designated (命名) MPAs around the word but many more that are not officially recognized, says Toropova, the conservation group’s officer for marine protected areas. That may sound like a lot, but less than one percent of the world’s oceans is protected. Countries around the world have committed to protecting 10 percent, Toropova say, But “even though there’s been an increase in the past 10 years, at the current rate it would take 100 years to reach that goal,” she says.
1. What does the author intend to emphasize in paragraph 1?| A．Oceans are crucial for humans’ survival. | B．Oceans affect little to people far from them. |
| C．The phytoplankton needs many sea resources. | D．Seas should make more room for our land. |
| A．It covers so much and holds so much of Earth’s water. |
| B．They thought everyday wastes had little effect on it. |
| C．Its floor is just as irregular as the surface of the land. |
| D．People have acknowledged quite little about the sea. |
| A．Feeding. | B．Replacing. | C．Harming. | D．Protecting. |
| A．Marine protected areas aren’t necessary. | B．We still need contribute more to the sea. |
| C．MPAs have shown great effects on the sea. | D．Most of world’s oceans are being protected. |
7 . In the three decades since Darah Lady’s grandmother first arrived in this distant area of northern Brazil, clearing the forest by hand to build a house for her 14 children, the family has pushed deeper and deeper into the Amazon. It has been driven by a saying that good fortune comes when nature gives in to human control.
Yet their growing community there could ruin not only their children’s future but also that of the entire planet. More global pandemics are on the way, scientists say, and the next one is likely to crop up from a community like Darah Lady’s, where people are taking up more and more space of the natural world and erasing the buffer zone between themselves and habitats that existed long. As people cut down forest, they not only speed up the global warming but also greatly increase their risk of exposure to disease.
Scientists also say disease hot zones are expanding from Africa to South America, and that deforestation has already led to a rise in spreading disease. Zoologists have found that a third of all known disease outbreaks around the world were due to rapid land use change.
Darah Lady’s community of Maruaga is filled with risks for the spread of viruses. Their family has already battled zoonotic illnesses— the term used to describe diseases spread between animals and humans.
When 40% of a land area has been destroyed, according to Tom Gillespie, a university researcher, the region hits a sort of tipping point: Wild animals are pushed closer to humans for food, and viruses begin to spread.
Darah Lady seemed to notice the slight difference of deforestation. “I get kind of sad,” Darah Lady said, “Because the forest is something I’ve loved since I was little. And they are deforesting, right? It’s destroying nature.”
1. What do you know about Darah Lady?| A．She built a house for her 14 children. | B．She made a big fortune in Amazon. |
| C．Her family cut down trees for growing crops. | D．Her family lived in Amazon for decades. |
| A．The loss of the buffer zone. | B．The effect of global warming. |
| C．The lack of species variety. | D．The expansion of wildlife habitats. |
| A．A possible treatment for diseases. |
| B．A real example of the prevention of diseases. |
| C．A further ex planation of the spread of diseases. |
| D．A supporting evidence for the danger of diseases. |
| A．Entertainment. | B．Literature. | C．Health. | D．Environment. |
8 . Cities are the planet’s largest sources of greenhouse gas emissions (排放), so they offer the greatest opportunity to tackle climate change. Hitting net zero emissions by 2050, a target set at the COP26 summit, could be achieved more quickly using city digital twins-working virtual replicas (复制品) that help track, manage and reduce environmental damage rapidly.
The United Nations says cities, the most suitable subjects, which occupy less than two percent of the Earth’s surface, are major contributors to climate change, consuming almost 80 percent of the world’s energy and producing more than 60 percent of greenhouse gas emissions. Urban areas are forecast to grow by another 2.5 billion people by 2050.
Digital twins look and behave identically in their real-world physical environments. Similar technologies have been in use since NASA’s Apollo moon mission in 1969, where computers and machine replicas were used to test and monitor spacecraft. Virtual 3D city models link to networks of sensors that collect data from buildings, transport, air quality and energy use, to see where emissions can be cut and efficiency improved.
The UK is planning a kind of national digital twins that will connect digital replicas managing buildings, factories, and the other infrastructure nationwide. And that could lead to entire virtual world online, part of a virtual reality space proposed by tech companies.
Research shows that digital twins can save cities more than $280 billion globally by 2030 through more efficient urban planning. A provider of digital twins, City zenith, believes that net zero deadlines could be achieved 15 years early if the world’s 100 biggest cities use the technology to remove carbon. “They are the perfect tool for managing and accelerating the energy transition,” said CEO Michael Jansen. “We could get to net zero emissions globally by 2035.”
In the US, the Digital Twin Consortium is working to standardize how digital twins are built and share data. Big tech companies around the world have developed software for replicating cities, including a district of Berlin, the island nation of Singapore, and the entire city of Shanghai in China.
1. What are city digital twins used to do?| A．Decorate cities. |
| B．Change cities’ climate. |
| C．Reduce urban greenhouse gas emissions. |
| D．Popularize urban technology. |
| A．They occupy most of the Earth’s surface. |
| B．They contribute most to the greenhouse effect. |
| C．They produce little of solid waste pollution. |
| D．They consume little of the world’s energy. |
| A．To prove the accuracy of network data. |
| B．To explain the application of digital twins. |
| C．To tell us the importance of space tasks. |
| D．To show the difficulty of urban construction. |
| A．They are practical and promising. |
| B．They have reached a standard level. |
| C．They lack research funding. |
| D．They are complex and unrecognizable. |
| A．Go shopping. | B．Drive home. | C．Eat out. |
10 . Anuar Abdullah is a 61-year-old diving instructor in Malaysia. When he isn’t
Now, as climate change becomes an
Abdullah has no degree in marine biology or
In 2017, Thailand’s government asked Abdullah to
In 2021, after Typhoon Rai, the island of Cebu in the Philippines asked Abdullah to save what was
| A．reporting | B．diving | C．swimming | D．teaching |
| A．picking | B．judging | C．describing | D．observing |
| A．early | B．apparent | C．artificial | D．uncertain |
| A．help | B．money | C．power | D．honor |
| A．temporary | B．formal | C．natural | D．complex |
| A．approached | B．led | C．backed | D．turned |
| A．evaluated | B．highlighted | C．demanded | D．restored |
| A．carry out | B．give up | C．recover from | D．drop off |
| A．regained | B．increased | C．lost | D．removed |
| A．Visitors | B．Researchers | C．Volunteers | D．Officials |
| A．guarding | B．decorating | C．planting | D．maintaining |
| A．hidden | B．left | C．preserved | D．ruined |
| A．contest | B．presentation | C．course | D．topic |
| A．witnesses | B．records | C．schedules | D．hates |
| A．interviews | B．trips | C．work | D．trade |
