1 . Food accounts for one-third of greenhouse gas emissions(排放量), but it does not yet get the attention it deserves. With global meat consumption on the rise, the truth is, we need to break bad habits before they break us. Plant-based nutrition can deal with climate change in many ways.
Did you know that one of the most effective ways to lower your carbon footprint is to eat a plant-based diet? NASA climate scientist Peter Kalmus documented his own personal experiment in low-energy living in Being the Change: Live Well and Spark a Climate Revolution.
He was able to reduce his personal carbon footprint tenfold, from 20 to 2 tons per year, by some lifestyle changes. Kalmus is a vegan(纯素食者), bikes to work, doesn’t fly, is a keen gardener and hangs his clothes out to dry. He also found living mindfully made him feel happier and even halved his food bill. Kalmus says it’s possible for the average person to cut their emissions easily. The average meat-eater in the US emits 3, 000 kg CO2 per year compared to 1, 000kg for vegans.
Another way to deal with climate change is to grow your own food. “Some of the juiciest strawberries that satisfy my taste buds were grown at home last summer in hanging baskets using organic seeds.” Kalmus said. “As well as plenty of nutritious, cheap and delicious foods, growing my own food has allowed me to get to know my neighbors. We share seeds, wisdom, and tasty soup.” Besides, composting(制作堆肥) leftovers and yard waste diverts green matter from landfills that produce the greenhouse gas and instead can help build healthy soil.
Globally, our meat-and dairy-heavy diet uses around half of habitable land on Earth to produce food. Nevertheless, with plant-based diets, we could feed the world with one quarter of the land, allowing us to return vast areas of land to nature.
1. What is the purpose of eating a plant-based diet according to the author?| A．To handle climate change. | B．To reduce living costs. |
| C．To draw public attention. | D．To record carbon footprints. |
| A．It relieves him of mental stress. |
| B．It slightly cuts the carbon footprint. |
| C．It proves impossible for meat-eaters to follow. |
| D．It benefits individuals and the environment. |
| A．develops | B．redirects | C．sends | D．delivers |
| A．Self-grown food turns out to be of higher quality. |
| B．Producing food has taken up half of the land on Earth. |
| C．Growing food helps strengthen neighborhood relations. |
| D．Greenhouse gas emissions have little to do with food consumption. |
2 . Scientists have found a new way to break down a group of harmful chemicals very hard to get rid of. The discovery could help solve a dangerous and growing problem — how to clean up the pollution of “forever chemicals”.
The group of chemicals known as PFAS (全氟烷基物) are pretty amazing. They’re non-stick, waterproof, and oil proof. They don’t burn easily or dissolve (溶解) in water. So scientists got really excited when they were discovered. Businesses started putting PFAS in all sorts of products, from non-stick pans to waterproof clothes, and from fire-fighting spray to carpets that resist stains. Even things like food wrappers and floss for cleaning your teeth contain PFAS chemicals.
But after a while, scientists realized the same things that made the chemicals useful also caused a real problem — PFAS doesn’t break down in nature. It doesn’t dissolve in water or bum. Not even bacteria can break PFAS down. No wonder these chemicals are known as “forever chemicals”.
As a result, PFAS chemicals surge in the environment. The chemicals are found in air, water, and dirt around the world — and in animals and people. In the US, 97% of humans have PFAS in their blood.
Luckily, scientists in the US have now found a way to break down some PFAS chemicals. Their solution requires boiling PFAS with two other very common chemicals. These chemicals can be found in just about any laboratory.
Dr. Brittany Trang, one of the scientists involved, said she didn’t even want to test the idea at first. “I thought it was too simple,” she said. But the process worked.
The research involved 10 types of PFAS, including two of the most common kinds. That’s a big step. But there are over 12,000 different kinds of PFAS. It’s important to note that the new method can only break down PFAS chemicals that have already been collected. Figuring out how to remove PFAS chemicals from the environment and collect them remains a huge challenge.
1. What can we infer about PFAS chemicals from paragraph 2?| A．Scientists were so excited to invent them. |
| B．They were environmentally friendly at first. |
| C．They are really widely used in our daily life. |
| D．They have more advantages than disadvantages. |
| A．Increase fast. | B．Float everywhere. | C．Extend fully. | D．React quickly. |
| A．It’s already too late to get rid of them. |
| B．There’s still a long way to go about it. |
| C．The new method is too simple to work well. |
| D．It’s impossible to get them removed from the environment. |
| A．Say Goodbye to Forever Chemicals |
| B．PFAS Chemicals Are a Two-edged Sword |
| C．PFAS Chemicals Will Remain a Challenge for Long |
| D．Scientists Find a Way to Break down Forever Chemicals |
3 . Growing up in Kenya, Lesein Mutunkei, together with his family, always celebrated significant occasions by planting trees, which motivated him to protect the environment. It’s what the now 18-year-old soccer player treasures, especially since Kenya has an ongoing problem with deforestation.
Mutunkei follows in the footsteps of the late Kenyan Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangari Maathai who founded the Green Belt Movement in 1977. This initiative has resulted in the planting of over 51 million trees to date.
In 2018, Lesein decided to start a movement of his own. He started by planting one tree for every goal he scored during a football match. He called it Trees4Goals, and it has grown so much that he now plants 11 trees, one for each member of his team, every time he scores. Through this, he wants to inspire young people, specifically his fellow athletes, to follow in his footsteps, take nature conservation seriously, and promise to plant trees every time they score. As a result, some of them have adapted this practice for their sports. “Seeing that they’re taking that responsibility because of the project I started, for me, that is the biggest achievement,” he said.
The initiative has caught the attention of English football club Arsenal and Kenya’s Ministry of Environment and Forestry, which he now works with regularly and gets advice from.
Like Green Belt Movement, Trees4Goals, which has planted 5,500 trees so far, has made it. While Lesein has received some recognition for his initiative, he sets his sights on making it a worldwide phenomenon. “Football is a universal game, and climate change is a universal problem,” he explains. “It has the power to unite, educate and inspire my generation to create a safer and greener future.” This is why he wants to work with the world’s biggest football federation FIFA.
As for what others can do to fight deforestation or other environmental concerns, the teenager says it’s important to just get involved in some way, no matter how small.
1. What made Lesein get interested in environmental protection?| A．The influence of his family. |
| B．Wangari Maathai’s huge assistances. |
| C．The demand of the football team. |
| D．His fellow athletes’ encouragement. |
| A．To gain Kenya’s support. |
| B．To set an example for others. |
| C．To catch Arsenal’s attention. |
| D．To show his achievements. |
| A．Promoting football’s development. |
| B．Going global with the help of FIFA. |
| C．Beating climate change completely. |
| D．Getting beyond Green Belt Movement. |
| A．Fame is a great thirst of the young. |
| B．A youth is to be regarded with respect. |
| C．Positive thinking and action result in success. |
| D．Success means getting personal desires satisfied. |
4 . Sounds from human activity flood across the oceans, causing trouble to ocean creatures. And climate (气候) change may make some places even louder.
Researchers have expected the oceans to get noisier because of increasing human activity. “The more goods you buy, the more shipping you have, so the more noise you have.” says Luca Possenti, a scientist studying sound in the ocean at the Royal Netherlands Institute. But Possenti and his co-worker realized that climate change might also influence how sound travels through the water.
Human-caused climate change is changing ocean temperatures, salt levels and acidity (酸度). So Possenti’s team used computers to model how those factors (因素) influence noise levels across the world’s oceans.
When waters become more acidic, they can’t take in sound at some wavelengths as well, so those sounds can travel further, adding to the noise in some areas. This effect is relatively small. Other changes impact the sound level more, the researchers found. Changes to temperature and salt levels can change how well different layers (层) of the ocean mix, which, in turn, impacts how sound travels.
The team predicted (预测) models of the world in about 70 years if climate change continues. And then they compared them with models of the world now. In the North Atlantic, they saw an increase in sound levels in the upper 125 meters of the ocean. This was caused mostly by ice melting (融化) off of Greenland, forming a cold layer of water near the ocean’s surface. Sound traveling through water tends to go toward the coldest area. As a result, sound waves tended to get stuck in the cold top layer-spreading further out across the water, instead of traveling deeper. That increased the noisiness at this depth in the North Atlantic. The models suggested that a single ship could sound about five times as loud underwater because of this. Considering all the ship traffic between Europe and North America, that may stress animals, many of which communicate, and catch food with sound.
1. How is paragraph 2 developed?| A．By quoting an expert. | B．By using examples. |
| C．By making comparisons. | D．By presenting research findings. |
| A．Effects of temperature changes. | B．Some risk factors for a nosier sea. |
| C．Impacts of acidity on wavelengths. | D．Ways oceans mix and sound travels. |
| A．Sea animals will be protected from noises. |
| B．Added meltwater does more harm than good. |
| C．Greenland is hit the hardest by climate change. |
| D．The result of the research is based on prediction. |
| A．Increase in salt levels. | B．Failure of acidity control. |
| C．Change in the ocean depths. | D．Formation of a cold water layer. |
Under the influence of the recent EL Nino,
6 . Humans have moved species of plants and animals around, introducing them to new habitats, for as long as we’ve been on Earth. Many of these introduced species have been beneficial, such as European honeybees that have proved to be excellent pollinators (传粉者) in the US. But that’s not the case for European beachgrass introduced to sand dunes (堆) on the coast of California. Beachgrass was planted to stabilize the ever-shifting dunes and it worked well. But the beachgrass is usually the only species living on dunes where there once were a large variety of native grasses and wildflowers.
It’s true that not all non-native species become invasive, but those that do adapt to the local environment, spread rapidly and outcompete native wildlife, often due to the absence of natural enemies that can keep their population in check. The spread of invasive species leads to the extinction and biodiversity loss on Earth, causing financial and ecological damage, according to the leading scientists.
Some campaigns have been launched to eradicate invasive species, including pesticides spray, manual removal and biological controls. Interestingly, a growing number of chefs and conservationists even have a far simpler idea: Eat them to beat them. Apart from providing favorable habitats for local species, perhaps the best way to fight invasive species is to prevent them from occurring in the first place. When boating, clean the boat thoroughly before transporting it to a different body of water. Don’t “pack a pest” when travelling, for fruit and vegetables, plants, insects and animals can carry pests or become invasive themselves. If you plan to own an alien pet, do your research and plan ahead to make sure you can commit to looking after it instead of releasing it into the wild. When you transfer an organism, you can also transfer its neighbors. Think before you move an animal or plant around!
1. What phenomenon does the author describe in paragraph 1?| A．Introduced species may cause unexpected results. |
| B．The beachgrass led to the biodiversity on the dunes. |
| C．Humans have a long history of working with nature. |
| D．The honeybees were forced out of Europe by humans. |
| A．The balanced ecosystem. | B．The competitive native wildlife. |
| C．The absence of natural enemies. | D．The extinction of invasive species. |
| A．Increase. | B．Introduce. | C．Wipe out. | D．Take over. |
| A．Release organisms into the wild. | B．Provide favorable habitats for them. |
| C．Mind the acts of transferring species. | D．Keep the wildlife population in check. |
7 . On September 7, 1991, the costliest hailstorm (雹暴) in Canadian history hit Calgary’s southern suburbs. As a result, since 1996 a group of insurance companies have spent about $2 million per year on the Alberta Hail Suppression Project. Airplanes seed threatening storm cells with a chemical to make small ice crystals fall as rain before they can grow into dangerous hailstones. But farmers in east-central Alberta — downwind of the hail project flights — worry that precious moisture (水分) is being stolen from their thirsty land by the cloud seeding.
Norman Stienwand, who farms in that area, has been addressing public meetings on this issue for years. “Basically, the provincial government is letting the insurance companies protect the Calgary-Edmonton urban area from hail,” Mr. Stienwand says, “but they’re increasing drought risk as far east as Saskatchewan.”
The Alberta hail project is managed by Terry Krauss, a cloud physicist who works for Weather Modification Inc. of Fargo, North Dakota. “We affect only a very small percentage of the total moisture in the air, so we cannot be causing drought.” Dr. Krauss says. “In fact, we may be helping increase the moisture downwind by creating wetter ground.”
One doubter about the safety of cloud seeding is Chuck Doswell, a research scientist who just retired from the University of Oklahoma. “In 1999, I personally saw significant tornadoes form from a seeded storm cell in Kansas,” Dr. Doswell says. “Does cloud seeding create killer storms or reduce moisture downwind? No one really knows, of course, but the seeding goes on.”
Given the degree of doubt, Mr. Stienwand suggests, “It would be wise to stop cloud seeding.” In practice, doubt has had the opposite effect. Due to the lack of scientific proof concerning their impacts, no one has succeeded in winning a lawsuit against cloud-seeding companies. Hence, private climate engineering can proceed in relative legal safety.
1. What does the project aim to do?| A．Conserve moisture in the soil. | B．Forecast disastrous hailstorms. |
| C．Prevent the formation of hailstones. | D．Investigate chemical use in farming. |
| A．Managers of insurance companies. | B．Farmers in east-central Alberta. |
| C．Provincial government officials. | D．Residents of Calgary and Edmonton. |
| A．To compare different kinds of seeding methods. | B．To illustrate the development of big hailstorms. |
| C．To show the link between storms and moisture. | D．To indicate a possible danger of cloud seeding. |
| A．Scientific studies have proved Stienwand right. | B．Cloud-seeding companies will continue to exist. |
| C．The doubt about cloud seeding has disappeared. | D．Private climate engineering is illegal in Canada. |
8 . A lot of manufactured glass today made from sand and sodium carbonate(碳酸钠) can be reused or melted down and recycled into new items, but it doesn’t break down in the environment and will sit in landfills for thousands of years. A team of Chinese scientists aimed to deal with this environmental concern by developing an eco-conscious alternative.
In a study published recently in the journal Science Advances, a team at the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Process Engineering describe how they engineered biodegradable glass made from amino acids(氨基酸). That glass would have a smaller impact on the environment and can break down in a few weeks or in several months.
In a test, glass beads(玻璃珠) made out of amino acids were placed under the skin of mice, and the breakdown of the bead and the skin healing process were observed for 30days. A diagram from the study shows how the mice’s bodies broke down the beads. In that month, the glass implant degraded beneath the skin, the wound site healed, and fur grew back. “Throughout the experimental period, no mice exhibited any pain-related behavior that may have been caused by the glass implantation, and none of them experienced obvious weight loss,” the researchers wrote in their paper.
Although amino acids do degrade over time in the environment, this biodegradable glass is not as durable as traditional glass, because amino acids can break down quickly in heat. In order to overcome this hurdle, the researchers chemically modified the amino acids using the heating-cooling procedure applied in glass manufacturing. This is when materials for the glass are heated to become soft and then rapidly cooled so as to make the glass tougher.
“It’s important to point out that this biodegradable glass is currently in the lab stage, and far from large-scale commercialization,” emphasized Yan Xuehai, a professor involved in the study, in a press release.
1. What is an advantage of the new glass?| A．It takes less time to break down. |
| B．It can be recycled at a low cost. |
| C．It is produced without pollution. |
| D．It has a wide range of applications. |
| A．To assess whether the glass is biologically harmless. |
| B．To investigate why amino acids are medically useful. |
| C．To explore how long it takes for the glass to degrade. |
| D．To observe if the glass can be melt down in mice’s stomach. |
| A．The challenge of improving the heating-cooling procedure. |
| B．Environmental problems caused by traditional glass. |
| C．The difficulty of selecting materials for the glass. |
| D．The instability of amino acids. |
| A．Amin o Acids Make Glass Tougher |
| B．Amin o Acids Cast New Light on Science |
| C．Biodegradable Glass: Closer to Sustainability |
| D．Biodegradable Glass: Ready to Hit the Market |
9 . Wildlife Preservation Volunteer Programs
Elephant Preservation Volunteer Program in Nepal
This program is suitable for active volunteers who love animals and want to care for the well-being of elephants. No experience is needed as you’ll be working closely with placement staff. The elephant shelter takes in elephants that have medical issues and require care.
Volunteers are accommodated in a local hotel. You should expect to share a room with one other volunteer.
Marine (海洋的) Preservation Volunteer Program in Croatia
This program is suitable for physically fit volunteers who are experienced divers (潜水员). You will use your diving skills to collect marine waste from the bottom of the seabed. You will work within a team on sorting waste out and handing it to the recycling centre.
Volunteers will be accommodated in a hotel. Local workers will clean the accommodation throughout the week.
Victoria Falls Wildlife Volunteering in Zimbabwe
This program is suitable for animal-loving volunteers who want to contribute to protecting amazing creatures and their habitats. Activities include animal tracking, camping out on the reserve and supporting other partner organizations.
Volunteers are accommodated within private rooms at the preservation centre. The accommodation has an open-air area where volunteers can socialize.
Amazon Jungle Preservation Volunteer Program in Peru
This program is suitable for volunteers who care about the environment, like working hard and don’t mind getting their hands dirty. It’s a great opportunity if you’re looking to reset your life by getting out of your comfort zone. You’ll also be developing personally and professionally.
Volunteers are accommodated in local people’s houses. There are running showers but you can expect water to he cold.
1. What do the programs in Nepal and Zimbabwe have in common?| A．They need experienced volunteers. |
| B．They are suitable for animal lovers. |
| C．They include dirty work in the field. |
| D．They require camping out on the reserve. |
| A．They work on the seabed all the time. |
| B．They help to keep the environment clean. |
| C．They are taught diving skills after arrival. |
| D．They lead a team to explore the marine creatures. |
| A．Elephant Preservation Volunteer Program. |
| B．Marine Preservation Volunteer Program. |
| C．Victoria Falls Wildlife Volunteering. |
| D．Amazon Jungle Preservation Volunteer Program. |
10 . For many young Canadians, planting trees is more than just a job. It’s a way of
Planting trees is not easy work, according to Leslie. Not only is it
So far, Leslie has planted a total of 372,290 trees in the past few years.
“I think every parent in Canada should
| A．appointment | B．impression | C．recreation | D．life |
| A．investment | B．liberation | C．video | D．story |
| A．negative | B．speedy | C．respective | D．influential |
| A．rewarding | B．massive | C．original | D．diverse |
| A．barely | B．permanently | C．gradually | D．physically |
| A．heavy | B．sunny | C．severe | D．obvious |
| A．expect | B．organize | C．prefer | D．recover |
| A．scream | B．action | C．push | D．wave |
| A．potential | B．sudden | C．tough | D．flexible |
| A．Moreover | B．However | C．Besides | D．Therefore |
| A．turns to | B．relates to | C．belongs to | D．subscribes to |
| A．admit | B．warn | C．whisper | D．recommend |
| A．send | B．celebrate | C．understand | D．decide |
| A．imagined | B．argued | C．explained | D．responded |
| A．version | B．concept | C．responsibility | D．qualification |
