1 . 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 |
2 . Invasive species cost the world at least $423 billion every year as they drive plant and animal extinction, threaten food security and worsen environmental catastrophes globally, as a new UN-backed report has found. Human activities — often travel or global trade — are spreading animals, plants and other organisms in new regions, with 200 new alien species being recorded every year.
An alien species becomes invasive when it establishes itself in a new area and creates a negative impact on the local biodiversity and ecosystems. Numerous examples include lionfish impacting local fisheries in the Caribbean, and the giant African land snail taking over villages on Christmas Island in the Indian Ocean.
Once an invasive species takes hold, the impacts can be disastrous. The dried-out non-native grasses and shrubs in Hawaii helped fuel the devastating Maui wildfire, one of the deadliest wildfires in modern US history. “Although the specific species that cause damages vary from place to place,” said Anibal Pauchard, co-author of the report, “there are risks and challenges faced by people in every country and in every community — even Antarctica is being affected.”
The climate crisis will only amplify the threat of invasive species, the report said. As well as flammable (易燃的) invasive plants sparking and spreading wildfires, climate change is enabling invasive species to move north — even to remote areas like high mountains and deserts.
But there’s hope. Preventing the arrival of new species into new regions is the best way to manage threats from invasive species. This includes strict import controls and early warning systems to detect and respond to alien species. For invasive species that have already taken hold, eradication (根除) is a useful tool, especially on islands, according to scientists.
1. What do we know about the spread of invasive species from the report?| A．It is a new trend. | B．It costs lots of food. |
| C．Its speed is fast. | D．Its process is complex. |
| A．Invasive species are sometimes deadly. |
| B．Invasive species are responsible for wildfires. |
| C．The damages caused by different species vary. |
| D．The impacts of invasive species can be extensive. |
| A．Increase. | B．Analyze. | C．Improve. | D．Apply. |
| A．Conservative. | B．Optimistic. | C．Worried. | D．Skeptical. |
1. According to the news, the town was hit by a severe earthquake.
2. About 3 thousand people died and more than 10 thousand people got injured in the earthquake.
3. They are going to donate money and also send relief supplies to the stricken area.
4. They decide to look for ways to offer help through the Internet.
5. The man feels upset about the disaster.
1.现存的一些环境问题；
2.倡议的具体行动；
3.合理的开头结尾。
注意：词数80左右。
Let’s go green!
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________1. 表示关心;
2. 介绍同学们可以提供给灾区的帮助;
3. 鼓励他振作起来重建家园
注意：
1. 词数80左右;
2. 可以适当增加细节，以使行文连贯。
Dear Smith,
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Yours,
Li Hua
1.世界地球日的意义。
2.你的具体行动（至少两条）。
参考词汇：世界地球日 World Earth Day
注意：1.词数 100 左右；
2.可以适当增加细节，以使行文连贯。
Dear Leslie,
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Yours,
Li Hua
When Zhou Longshan started filming birds 10 years ago at Baiyangdian Lake,
Then things snowballed. In the following years, the teacher became a bird watcher, a volunteer ranger at the lake, a photographer
“Sharing bird-protection knowledge with children can make them feel the
Growing up in a local village, Zhou,60, has fond childhood memories
“When I was a child, the water in Baiyangdian was limpid. The fish and aquatic plants in the water could be seen clearly,” he said. “I often caught fish with my friends, rowed boats and drank the lake water
Between the 1960s and 1980s,
When Zhou became a teacher in the 1990s, the stink from the lake could sometimes be smelled from his village. “The lake became stinking, the population and species of fish and birds decreased, and the locals were unwilling to go near the lake,” he recalled.
Since the Xiong’an New Area was established in 2017, Baiyangdian’s rehabilitation and protection activities
Zhou will retire in June. “I will continue patrolling the lake and photographing the birds, to contribute to the protection of birds in my hometown,” he said.
8 . Working at a bank in New York City in the mid-2010s, Anna Sacks was not living the life she wanted. Sure, she was happy. But she wanted to do something that felt important.
Some people seeking meaning might read a self-help book or perhaps volunteer a few hours a week. Sacks packed up her life and moved to Connecticut to participate in Adamah, a farming program that focuses on sustainable living and growing sustainable food. When she returned to New York, her life was with a new purpose and many new skills to make her dreams a reality.
“One of the things that really stuck with me from Adamah was how little waste they produced and how they handled the waste they did have, primarily through composting (堆肥),” she says. The Adamah program opened Sacks’ eyes to the damage consumer culture is doing on a local, national, and global level, and the need to find solutions. So in 2017, she began what she calls “trash walking”.
During tours around her community, Sacks picks through garbage to look for reusable items. Soon, her “trash walking” expanded to include corporate trash along with residential trash. Surprisingly, she discovered a wide range of really great stuff-like clothing, decorations, and food -all of which she documents on TikTok.
Under the name The Trash Walker, Sacks quickly gained popularity for her videos that highlight the problems with consumerism. “The root issue is overproduction, which leads to overconsumption, which leads to a large amount of waste,” she says.
The fact is, companies often choose to trash items rather than give them away to people who might need them. A big reason for this waste is the way our current tax laws are structured, Sacks says. Sellers who destroy goods can claim the cost as a loss on their taxes and be refunded. If they give away goods, they can claim only a small amount as a charitable reduction on their taxes.
Sacks’ main focus is simply getting people to pay attention to how many unnecessary things they buy and then throw away. “Once you become aware of the way you consume, you can see ways you improve, ”she says.
1. Why did Anna Sacks leave New York?| A．To learn how to grow food. | B．To pursue a more meaningful life. |
| C．To realize her dream as a volunteer. | D．To accept the invitation from a program. |
| A．The significance of trash walking. | B．The hard truth of consumer culture. |
| C．The sustainable food people produced. | D．The way people there dealt with the waste. |
| A．The tax refund. | B．The tax reduction. |
| C．The overproduction. | D．The poor quality of goods. |
| A．Consumer culture accounts for wasting. | B．Corporate trash outweighs residential trash. |
| C．Turning to farming leads to sustainable living. | D．Trash walking is the key to becoming wealthy. |
1. How many people died in a landslide in 2003?
| A．About two hundred. | B．Over one thousand. | C．About two thousand. |
| A．Growing grass. | B．Cutting down trees. | C．Growing population. |
| A．Growing more forests. |
| B．Chopping down the old forests. |
| C．Getting busy in protecting our country. |
10 . People have come to understand the enormous impacts-beneficial as well as harmful- plastics have on human lives and the environment. As polymer (聚合物) scientists committed to inventing sustainable solutions for real-world problems, we set out to tackle the issue of plastic waste by rethinking the way polymers are designed so we could make plastics with recyclability built right in.
Everyday items including milk jug, grocery bags, and takeout containers are made from a class of polymers called polyolefins. These plastics are really durable (耐用的) because the chemical bonds in those polymers are extremely stable. In a world set up for disposable (一次性的) items, durability is no longer a design feature but rather a design drawback. Imagine if half the plastics used today were recyclable through twice as many processes as they are now. Also conventional recycling requires careful sorting of all the collected materials, which can be challenging with so many different plastics. For example, separating paper from metal doesn’t require complex technology, but sorting a container from a milk jug of a different polyolefin is difficult to do without the occasional mistake.
In a study published in Science in October 2023, we described a series of polymers with only two building blocks-one soft polymer and one hard polymer-that behave like polyolefins but could be chemically recycled. Connecting two different polymers multiple times until they form a single, long molecule (分子) creates what’s called a multiblock polymer. By changing how much of each polymer type goes into the multiblock polymer, our team produced a wide range of materials with properties that covered all polyolefin types.
Using the same strategy but by adding hydrogen, we could disconnect the polymers back into their building blocks and easily separate them to use again. When we made new polymers out of these recycled plastics, they performed just as well as the original materials even after several rounds of chemical recycling. So we were able to create materials with similar properties of the plastics the world relies on. We believe this work is a step toward more sustainable plastics.
1. What is paragraph 2 mainly about concerning plastics?| A．Their multiple uses. | B．Their chemical properties. |
| C．Their recycling challenges. | D．Their classification criteria. |
| A．mixing building blocks with long molecules |
| B．integrating chemicals into the two polymers |
| C．combining two different multiblock polymers |
| D．adjusting the percentage of the two polymers |
| A．They are made from sustainable materials. |
| B．They can be recycled by adding hydrogen. |
| C．Their reliability outperforms traditional plastics. |
| D．Their properties change with rounds of recycling. |
| A．Designing for Recycling | B．Classifying Plastic Waste |
| C．Replace Plastics with Polymers | D．Technology Creates the Future |
