1 . Getting rid of(丢弃) old tyres(轮胎) has long been a problem. Every year many tyres are thrown. Some of the ways might be better than getting rid of them, but they are not especially green.

Energy recovery(回收利用) is one common way. This includes burning tyres to produce electricity, or as a way to provide heat for other industrial processes. But that produces planet-warming pollution. Tyres can be whole or broken in construction projects, such as repairing roads. There are, however, worries about chemicals from the tyres coming out and polluting the ground.

So some companies have begun exploring another pleasing idea. Since tyres are mostly made from hydrocarbons(碳氢化合物), it should be possible in principle to turn old tyres into environmentally friendly materials which can be used to run some cars they came from. One of the most thoughtful companies is based in Oslo, Norway. Later this year the company will start building a huge tyre-reused factory in Sunderland in northeastern England. In a couple of years, when the factory is fully operational, it will be able to turn 8 million old tyres into new products.

The process works by dividing a tyre into its three main parts. One is steel, which is used to support the structure of a tyre and which can be easily reused. The second is powder used to improve the continuous use of the tyre. The third is rubber. Some of that will be natural rubber from the rubber trees. The carbon black can be reused to make new tyres. That is of interest to tyre makers because it helps efforts to become carbon neutral(碳中和).

Taklimkan Desert,    1    (locate) in the middle of Tarim Basin in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, is China’s largest desert. It is also known as the world’s second largest shifting-sand desert    2     (cover) an area of over 337,000 square kilometers.

Sand dunes (沙丘) in    3    large desert are usually over 100 meters in height and some are even    4    (high). Because of the wind, the sand dunes are always moving forward, enveloping farms and villages, which    5    (serious) threatens the existence of oases (绿洲)    6    the survival of the local people. Over the past few decades, efforts    7    (make) to fight against desertification. Windbreaks and sand fixation forest belts have been built to improve the ecological environment. Local people have planted poplars and rose willows with the help of experts. There are some places    8    people can even grow corn now. A cross-desert highway has also been constructed to link Luntai and Minfeng counties. Thanks to these efforts, the place has witnessed a(n)    9    (improve) in the living conditions of the local people. Now it’s home to many species of birds, and    10    (it) rainfall is increasing as well.

6 . Edward Davis was a professor who worked on ocean research. However, bored with writing death records of ocean species, he quit his job in 2007. Rather than spend any more of his life recording the dying. Edward decided to try to protect the living creatures in the few remaining areas of the ocean.

These areas are the last wild places of the sea still undamaged by overfishing, pollution and climate change. “It is necessary for us to go to places that still look like the ocean as it was 500 years ago.” Edward says. “These areas, like Palau, are the examples of sustainable (可持续的) development. Maybe we can’t bring all of the ocean back to this state, but these places show us what the potential is.” Beneath the surface of a stormy sea off Palau in the western Pacific live various lively corals. The tiny island nation has protected 80 percent of its waters as a no-fishing area—the largest percentage of protected ocean area in the world. The remaining 20 percent can be fished only by Palauans.

To protect these places, Edward and his team started a project on ocean protection in 2008. Over the past years, the project has helped create 22 ocean reserves. These make up two-thirds of the world’s fully protected ocean areas. Now Edward and his team have set an even bigger goal—to protect more than a third of the world’s oceans for the purpose of keeping biological diversity.

For Edward, one of the most satisfying aspects of his job is working with local communities in the places he and his team are seeking to protect. The team worked closely with about 50 local people on the island. “We showed them an underwater world they had never seen,” Edward recalls. “Huge schools of fish will surely swim in some of the clearest waters ever measured in the Pacific.”

7 . Carbon dioxide emissions from transportation are now thought as the top source of green—house gases. One of the most effective ways to reduce your carbon footprint is to reconsider how much, and how often, you travel.

Going car free for a year could save about 2.6 tons of carbon dioxide, according to a study from the University of British Columbia. How can you stop using a car? Try taking a train, bus or better yet, riding a bike.

But let’s be realistic. You will likely need to use a car this year. So, when you do, here are some tips to make your trip more climate—friendly. Driving efficiently can help to reduce emissions. Go easy on the gas and brakes and drive like you have an egg under your foot. Regularly service your car to keep it more efficient. Keeping your tires pumped correctly can reduce emissions. Low tire pressure will hurt your fuel economy. Air conditioning and frequent city driving can make emissions go up So cut down on these as often as possible. Use cruise control(定速巡航)on long drives—in most cases, this can help to save gas. Don’t weigh your car down with extra things that you don’t need on your trip.

Fly often? Taking one fewer long round—trip flight could reduce your personal carbon footprint significantly. If you use public transportation often and fly less, your carbon foot print might still be relatively sustainable, but if you drive and fly a lot, your emissions will be higher. If you can’t avoid flying, you can offset them by donating money to sustainable projects, such as supplying efficient stoves to rural homes, or projects which help farmers deal with crop waste environmentally.

8 . These days, there’s a green version of just about everything. There are cars that run on electricity and alternative fuels, houses that are powered by solar energy and wind farms seemingly popping up on every open space from California to coastal Japan. Even drones (无人机) ate getting in on the action. The unmanned air vehicles are also being put to environmental uses around the globe.

The eye in the sky that they provide helps researchers better understand what’s going on with the natural world in which we live. For environmentalists and earth scientists, the flying machines can be sent way up in the air to record sweeping footage of a large area to track the impact of things like climate change, migration and the acts of cutting down and burning forest trees, which can be done without having to buy a helicopter, rent a plane or tape a video camera to a bird.

Sure, there’s plenty of satellite footage already out there, but drones let researchers accurately position the data set that they want to get a quicker, closer look at the area that they’re looking to monitor. In 2013, for example, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) sent a drone into the Turrialba Volcano in Costa Rica to gather data about its emissions. The temperature, ash height and gas concentration information collected during the mission helped earth scientists determine which way the volcanic and potentially poisonous gas erupting from the volcano was moving and take steps to limit its environmental impact.

Similarly, Arctic researchers are using drones to help study temperature change and the melting of glaciers. They use drones equipped with infrared (红外线的) cameras to sweep into places that they may otherwise not be able to reach to monitor and collect data on the melting ice. The same flying machines may also eventually be used to transport other data collection tools into the wild.

Those who haven’t been to the Mu Us may not have an opportunity to do so. The desert is disappearing from    1     map as it has been turned into an oasis(绿洲)!

The Mu Us     2     (stretch) over 42,200 square km between Shaan Xi and inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, lying north of the Great Wall. In Mongolian, “Mu Us” means barren land     3     nothing can grow.

However, the area was no desert in ancient times. It used to be grazing land     4     (sufficient) supplying grass and water for sheep and cattle. Since the Tang Dynasty, it began to degrade because of excessive farming and overgrazing and     5     (year) of war.

In modern times, the Mu Us, the fourth     6     (large) desert in China, began to move southward and passed the Great Wall,     7     (attack) Yulin (Shaan Xi province). Local pastures(牧场) faced serious desertification, salinization and degradation, and the villagers had to move as the desert advanced. By the time People’s Republic of China     8     (found), Yulin had only 0.9 percent of forest cover. It became an urgent task     9     (block) the sands.

Thanks to greening, the desert is poised to disappear. The feat(丰绩) wouldn’t have been achieved     10     national anti-desertification policies and the efforts of generations of eco-warriors.