1 . In a small, rough shipyard on the Pacific coast of Costa Rica, a small team is building what they say will be the world’s largest ocean-going clean cargo ship.
Ceiba is the first ship built by Sailcargo, a company trying to prove that zero-carbon shipping is possible, and commercially available. Made largely of wood, Ceiba combines both very old and very new technology: sailing masts stand alongside solar panels, a uniquely designed electric engine and batteries. Once on the water, she will be capable of crossing oceans entirely without the use of fossil fuels, which sets her apart.
“The thing that is striking is the fact that she’ll have one of the largest marine electric engines of her kind in the world,” Danielle Doggett said. The system also has the means to capture energy from underwater propellers (螺旋桨) as well as solar power, so electricity will be available for the engine when needed. “Really, the only limit on how long she can stay at sea is water and food on board for the crew.”
Despite some hold-ups due to the global disaster, the team hopes to get her on the water by the end of 2024 and operating by 2025, when she will begin transporting cargo between Costa Rica and Canada.
“There are actually loads of innovations happening that could transform shipping emissions, but few companies are willing to apply them to building ships like Ceiba.” says Lucy Gilliam. “So it’s not that we don’t have great ideas. The problem that we have is that fossil fuels are still too cheap. And we don’t have the rules to force people to take up the new technology.”
When it comes to promoting this kind of boat, it has to be said that Ceiba is small for a cargo ship — tiny in fact. She will carry around nine standard shipping containers. She is also relatively slow. Being a world-first, there are some aspects of Ceiba’s design that have yet to be proven at sea.
1. What is unique about Ceiba as a cargo ship?| A．It is the world’s largest. | B．It is environment-friendly. |
| C．It is wooden with old technology. | D．It is modern with unique equipment. |
| A．The size of the sail. | B．The weather of the ocean. |
| C．The power of the electric engine. | D．The quantity of the living supplies. |
| A．The rules are disobeyed. | B．The fuels are affordable. |
| C．The bigger ships are preferable. | D．The innovations are distrusted. |
| A．Objective. | B．Doubtful. | C．Critical. | D．Favorable. |
2 . Michele Gentile, an Italian bookseller, is offering free books to children in exchange for plastic bottles to recycle. Gentile owns Ex Libris Café in Polla, a small town in southern Italy. He said he thought of the recycling program, because he wanted to inspire children in the small town to read and pay attention to the environment.
“My goal is to spread the passion and love for books among those people in Italy who do not usually read while helping the environment,” Gentile explained.
The idea for the initiative came after Gentile cooperated with a nearby middle school on an aluminum recycling project. Working together, the schoolchildren and Gentile collected enough cans to buy books for an entire class. His new program took off from there and has already spread into northern Italy. Gentile hopes his work will continue to make the headlines and become a worldwide initiative.
The free books come from the customers in Gentile’s shop who have donated money to buy a “suspended” book. The idea comes from a World War Ⅱ practice in which customers would buy two coffees; one for themselves and the other for the next person in line. Gentile has been using the extra books as part of his recycling initiative. While Gentile’s program is a great way to recycle waste and get kids to read, it also brings attention to the growing problem of plastic waste. Single-use plastics make up around 26 percent of all the plastics in the world, only 14 percent of which are recycled. Plastics that end up in landfills take around 500 years to decompose (分解), which is a major concern for environmentalists.
Cutting down on plastic waste is important if we want to better the environment for future generations, and recycling programs like Gentile’s book giveaway are a great way to meet that goal.
1. What is the purpose of Gentile’s program?| A．To sell more books. | B．To attract more customers. |
| C．To encourage reading and recycling. | D．To collect money for a new project. |
| A．By donating books to a local school. |
| B．By seeing school kids dislike reading. |
| C．By working with a school to recycle cans. |
| D．By buying a “suspended” book for a child. |
| A．Some environmentalists. | B．Gentile himself. |
| C．The government. | D．His customers. |
| A．An Italian’s reading initiative. |
| B．A recycling program for kids. |
| C．Gentile’s way of doing business. |
| D．A new way to deal with plastic waste. |
3 . In order to meet growing food production and energy needs in low-and middle-income countries, solar-powered groundwater irrigation (灌溉) is rapidly gaining ground. More than 500,000 solar pumps (泵) have been set up in south Asia over the last few years and a major expansion is planned across sub-Saharan Africa.
Dustin Garrick, professor in the School of Environment, Resources and Sustainability, along with an international team, examined the trend toward solar pumps as a clear opportunity for boosting agricultural yields and reducing poverty, but the opportunity comes with risks.
While replacing electric or gas pumps with solar-powered irrigation holds the promise of reducing carbon emissions (排放), it is not guaranteed. Farmers who have access to these pumps may expand production of crops or diversify into other activities, which are not emissions neutral. Solar pumps will increase groundwater pumping efficiency, which may be desirable in regions that support such increases, but this could worsen groundwater lessening in regions that are already stressed. The cheap clean energy of solar pumps may lead to increased groundwater development, without necessarily decreasing overall emissions.
Despite these challenges, the clean-energy boost can serve as a stimulus for positive change in water and energy management but will require enhanced regulation and planning in both low-and high-income settings. Garrick and his team advocate for improved data collection initiatives, with a shift from separated to integrated approaches. They suggest using technology to measure water pumping and collecting remotely sensed data to monitor land use changes. As well, regulatory improvements are crucial, with mounting limits for carbon emissions and groundwater lessening established at various levels.
With groundwater management already a difficult challenge, we must act fast to understand the implications of the clean energy boost and poverty reduction acts to avoid these gains being won away by wells running dry. The rapid adoption of solar irrigation intensifies the urgency, demanding adaptation from governments and institutions to sail through these complexities.
1. According to paragraph 3, there is a conflict between ________.| A．poor farmers and solar-powered irrigation | B．human consumption and clean energy limits |
| C．crop diversity and crop production expansion | D．pumping efficiency and groundwater exhaustion |
| A．Integrating data collection and regulation. | B．Improving carbon emission monitoring. |
| C．Separating data for land use changes. | D．Establishing groundwater levels. |
| A．Perform as the authorities suggest. | B．Act based on further understanding. |
| C．Quicken the adoption of solar irrigation. | D．Challenge the groundwater management. |
| A．The Complexities of Adopting Solar Pumps |
| B．Solar-Powered Irrigation: Farmers’ New Future |
| C．The Promise and Risks of Solar-Powered Irrigation |
| D．Balancing Clean Energy Boost and Poverty Reduction |
4 . The world’s most famous tire (轮胎) graveyard (坟地) of 42 million tires in the sands of Kuwait is finally being cleaned up and recycled. This news in itself would be a major relief to locals who have to suffer from the clouds of black smoke arising during fires. But the government isn’t stopping there. They are aiming to create a green city of 25,000 homes in line with a post-oil Persian Gulf, with a focus on sustainability and tourism.
The first step is to clear the ground. The Salmiya area, nicknamed “Rubber (橡胶) Mountain”, is formed from hundreds of small mountains of spent tires — a reaction from the one million cars which were added to Kuwait’s roads over the decade.
EPSCO Global General Trading recycling company has opened a recycling plant for the tires, where they’ve been collected, sorted, cut up, and pressed into other materials like rubbery coloured flooring tiles (铺地砖). The plant opened in January of 2021, and can recycle up to 3 million tires a year. The recycled material is then exported out to nearby gulf neighbours and Asia. In the place of the tires will be South Saad Al-Abdullah City, a green city characterizing a new era in the Middle-Eastern country.
Spent tires are a major environmental problem worldwide due to the room they take up and the chemicals they can release.
“We have moved from a difficult stage that was characterized by great environmental risk,” says Oil Minister Mohammed al-Fares. “Today the area is becoming clean and all tires are being removed to begin the launch of the project of Saad Al-Abdullah city.”
Expected to cost €3.3 billion and require 30 years to complete, the city hopes to feature green technology, probably like the kind one can see in other cities on the Persian Gulf, both existing and not. Saudi Arabia is planning to build a zero-emissions, car-less future city that’s centered around access to big data rather than water or crops.
1. Why is the Salmiya area called “Rubber Mountain”?| A．It is rich in rubber. | B．It has too many waste tires. |
| C．It used to be a mountain. | D．It has been a tradition. |
| A．A recycling company. | B．The purpose for removing tires. |
| C．How to build a green city. | D．What is done with the spent tires. |
| A．To make a prediction. | B．To explain an idea. | C．To present a fact. | D．To analyze a cause. |
| A．The Transformation of a Huge Landfill | B．Spent Tires, a Big Threat to the Environment |
| C．The Salmiya Area’s Measures to Kick Pollution | D．Kuwait Tire Mountain to Be into a Green City |
1.外卖垃圾的现状；
2.原因分析；
3.建议和号召。
注意：
1.写作词数应为80左右；
2.可适当增加细节，以使行文连贯。
参考词汇：外卖food delivery
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Spotted lanternflies (斑点灯笼蝇) are an invasive species. Since 2014, they have been seen all across the eastern United States. The insects are harmful to many plants, and can disturb entire ecosystems. State officials have urged people to kill spotted lanternflies wherever they see them.
When Joy saw the pests in her school courtyard, she thought she had to do something. “I’ve always wanted to take environmental action,” she says, “and show people that no one is ever too small to make a difference.”
So she started a club called Squash (压扁). Its mission is to kill spotted lanternflies around the school. More than 20 students have joined. At first, they trapped the pests in empty water bottles and then squashed them. In a single day, the club managed to kill more than a hundred spotted lanternflies.
Joy wanted to do more. With research, she discovered a plant called milkweed. It’s nutritious for pollinators (传粉昆虫) such as monarch butterflies but poisonous to spotted lanternflies. Joy thought that using milkweed along with the traps made specifically for spotted lanternflies would be a better way to kill them. The issue was that they didn’t have enough money to buy milkweed and the traps.
The kids were hoping to raise money for their school to address the big problem. Their goal was to raise $200, the cost of the equipment needed to kill spotted lanternflies around their school. They got part of the way there, with about $75. They decided to attract more fundraisers. “We discovered that if you find your voice,” Joy says, “you can do much more.”
In May, Joy and other students from Squash gathered in Columbus Park, in New York City. They set up a table with lemonade, cookies, and origami figures for sale. The money will be used to buy milkweed and the traps.
注意：1. 续写词数应为150左右;
2. 请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
To attract more attention, the students divided their work into various roles.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________As the day progressed, the students’ efforts paid off.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________7 . More than one-third of the world’s food is wasted or thrown away, most of which ends up in landfills, producing very large amounts of planet-warming greenhouse gases. Now, many studies show that it is becoming harder to grow enough food to feed an increasing population due to climate change and soil degradation.
But one of the most promising and simplest solutions lies in the problem itself: this wasted food — if composted (堆肥) — could slow climate change and improve soil quality. Higher-quality soil also continues to absorb more carbon from the atmosphere, helping to improve plants and contributing further to fighting climate change. Returning one ton of organic matter to each hectare of soil would increase the production of cereal crops each year in Africa, Asia and South America by millions of tons.
While it is true that people can compost in their yards, community gardens, or even on their kitchen counters, larger-scale efforts, including infrastructure (基础设施) and incentives (激励) for consumers, would take it to the next level. Imagine if consumers could just leave unwanted food in a roadside bin for pickup, or drop it off at a local store, earning a few cents a bucket, just like what has been offered for recycling bottles or newspapers.
Moreover, in the case of composting, the payment incentive system would be sustainable because the end-product of compost can be sold to farmers, making it an economically workable model, something that is often lacking in recycling, especially for certain materials, like many types of plastics.
Eventually, more widespread composting of food would pave the way for solutions to additional waste challenges, such as the disposal of packaging and clothing. This will have other positive effects as well; if more consumers compost, companies will be more inspired to make and use compostable packaging, clothing, and other products. While more compostable items are starting to emerge today, additional composting will further drive demand and innovation, and offer a game-changing solution for the planet.
1. What is paragraph 1 mainly about?| A．The uneven distribution of food around the world. |
| B．The burden of population growth on the planet. |
| C．The urgency of properly dealing with wasted food. |
| D．The great impact of climate change on food. |
| A．A good system is needed to carry out it effectively. |
| B．It would take a long term to have an effect. |
| C．It is only workable on a small scale. |
| D．It may raise people’s awareness of reducing food waste. |
| A．It is highly profitable. |
| B．It is easy to carry out. |
| C．It is a sustainable economic cycle pattern. |
| D．It is more effective than other recycling systems. |
| A．How Wasted Food Could Be Reduced |
| B．How Wasted Food Could Save the Planet |
| C．How Wasted Food Could Impact Humans |
| D．How Wasted Food Could Become a Business |
8 . Geothermal (地热的) power generation is one of our most stable renewable energy resources. Heat generated below the Earth’s surface can provide an almost unlimited supply to power and heat homes. And while geothermal electricity only accounts for around one percent of global generation, that is set to at least triple by 2050.
The Geysers in California is the world’s largest geothermal electricity complex. It produces enough electricity from its 18 power plants for 725,000 homes, totaling 20 percent of the state’s renewable energy. Superheated “dry steam” is channeled from a large sandstone reservoir heated by a large magma chamber (岩浆房) more than four miles beneath the surface.
Heat is captured from its passage through the rock and the heated water converts into electricity. Cooled water is then recycled and pumped back to gather more heat. EGS (enhanced geothermal systems) technologies will open up many more sites for geothermal energy. “You can effectively put a power plant anywhere,” said Will Pettit, director of the Geothermal Resources Council. “All you have to do is drill deep enough and you will find hot rock.”
Most geothermal plants actually use a flash steam technique, where hot water (at 360F or 180C) is drawn up, passed into lower pressure tanks and flashed into steam to power a turbine (涡轮机) . Binary cycle (双元循环) plants are the growth technology because they can operate at lower water temperatures and more diverse geographical locations. They use moderately hot water to heat a secondary fluid with a lower boiling point—as low as 135F—to drive turbines.
Geothermal plants already emit 11 times less carbon dioxide per unit of electricity than the average US coal power plant. They can also operate 24 hours a day to provide a solid base load for homes and businesses.
There are drawbacks too. Seismic activity around drilling wells is a factor. High investment costs are another. But the US government is backing the sector with multi-million dollar funds to push forward advanced EGS research. Geothermal energy is set to play a big part in the low-carbon electricity future.
1. What is the significance of EGS (enhanced geothermal systems) technologies?| A．They have made geothermal energy less sustainable. |
| B．They allow for more efficient use of geothermal resources. |
| C．They have greatly reduced the need for drilling in geothermal sites. |
| D．They have opened up new methods of generating electricity from water. |
| A．Power plants are not affected by water. |
| B．Hot water is used to power a turbine directly. |
| C．Binary cycle plants are less restricted to locations. |
| D．A flash steam technique is a must in geothermal plants. |
| A．Indifferent | B．Ambiguous. | C．Concerned. | D．Optimistic. |
| A．Geothermal power is likely to be a great chance to sustainable power. |
| B．Traditional power has been replaced by geothermal power in America. |
| C．Businesses have been competing to gain an advantage in geothermal power. |
| D．EGS technologies have come into widespread application around the world. |
9 . It’s now, more than ever, crucial to adopting a low-impact lifestyle since all kinds of waste, including that of the fashion industry, are piling up in landfills with astonishing speed.
·Buy fewer clothes overall.
·Shop for high-quality clothing. High-quality clothes can cost more at first but save you money in the long run.
·
·Donate your unwanted fashion items. Do a quick online search for your local options to donate clothes that are still in good condition. Be sure to contact organizations first and ask them what type of clothes they accept. You can donate clothing to for-profit companies or to homeless shelters and family service agencies.
| A．Repurpose your old clothes. |
| B．Upcycle everyday household objects. |
| C．Limit your fashion consumption in the first place. |
| D．Thrown clothes have had a disastrous impact on the planet. |
| E．They are more likely to stay in good condition for a long time. |
| F．Heavy coats and sweaters can go to animal shelters in your local area. |
| G．Reducing clothing waste is necessary for making fashion more sustainable. |
10 . What concerns the man about the oil company?
| A．It causes water pollution. |
| B．It makes locals lose their jobs. |
| C．It results in a fight on social media. |
