1 . Several art projects are on show to warn people of the climate change happening around us.
Video on the walls
Photographer Camille Seaman has traveled to both the North Pole and the South Pole, where she has captured the disappearing ice in photographs and video. Camille Seaman made a video with some of her most powerful photos of melting ice for people in four coastal cities to display on their buildings. The video ends with a prediction that sea level will rise by 2050 without relative action.
Mural (壁画)changing color
Temperatures in Austin, Texas, are on the rise, and climate change will put the city at higher risk of extended drought, wildfires, intense rain and flooding. Artist Lope Gutiérrez-Ruiz designed a unique mural that changes color as it gets hotter. This art work calls for people to change the world and change climate change, underlining the importance of individual actions to the collective future.
Public billboard (广告牌)
Artist Christine Sun Kim released a public billboard on the 710 Freeway called The Sound of Temperature Rising. It points to the reality of climate disaster that has become all too clear on the West Coast and the need for significant change now. The illustration features a graph (图表) of music notes that get progressively longer and redder.
Anti-Extinction Library
Globally, species are disappearing at an unheard-of rate. In response, architect Mitchell Joachim created The Anti-Extinction Library in New York. The sculptural piece is not only beautiful but also functional. Their unique egg-shaped library has a special freezer storing test tubes with the frozen cells and DNA of rare animals and plants. It’s important for people to realize we must quickly work to protect the rights of different species in our area.
1. What is the key feature of the mural?A.It lights up at night. |
B.It moves with the wind. |
C.It plays music when it rains. |
D.It changes color with temperature. |
A.Camille Seaman’s. | B.Lope Gutiérrez-Ruiz’s. |
C.Christine Sun Kim's. | D.Mitchel l Joachim’s. |
A.To praise artists’ participation. |
B.To call for people to take action. |
C.To show the severe result of climate change. |
D.To facilitate the combination of art and climate. |
2 . Issues such as global warming and sustainability have become passionate concerns for many of the concert industry’s fans and increasingly for the musicians. Coldplay, a pop band whose members scored their first big hit in 2000 with a song called Yellow, announced in November that it wouldn’t go on tour to promote its latest album, Everyday Life, until it could find a way to make concerts more sustainable and greener to the environment.
It’s not always easy to walk the talk. A growing number of artists, including Peggy Gou, have environmental demands built into their contracts when they tour, such as bans on plastic tableware. But there’s almost no way of avoiding carbon emissions produced by a tour, which involves moving hundreds of people and tons of equipment across large distances.
Lisa Pomerantz, who books travel for acts says that real change will require action by venue owners, concert promoters, and the fans. Major acts like Coldplay can afford to stop touring while figuring out how to lessen their environmental impact. But lesser-known artists can’t stay off the road, since streaming earnings haven’t been able to compensate (弥补) for the collapse in CD and downloaded music sales. Even when concerts are aggressive about being more sustainable, the impact of audience travel can easily swamp (淹没) their efforts. For bigger acts, this can represent as much as 80% of the carbon footprint, according to a 2015 study. Another analysis showed that roughly a third of the tour’s carbon footprint came from a venue’s power consumption.
Still, even the most green-conscious bands must balance their desire to be more sustainable against the financial necessity of touring. “I absolutely think you can go on tour and have a concern about the environment. It’s a matter of just keeping our carbon footprint as low as possible,” says Flavian Graber, lead singer of We Invented Paris.
1. Why did Coldplay stop its promotion tour?A.Because it had already released a hit. | B.Because it wanted a more environmentally friendly concert. |
C.Because its latest album needed further improvement. | D.Because they could afford the money. |
A.Make it. | B.Talk it. | C.See it. | D.Appreciate it. |
A.Stopping bands’ promotion tours. |
B.Downloading music on the Internet. |
C.Cutting down venues’ water and electricity consumption. |
D.Combining efforts of bands, audiences and venue owners. |
A.Achievable. | B.Fruitless. | C.Challenging. | D.Controversial. |
3 . New research from the University of Portsmouth has shown a marked increase in shipping in the North East Atlantic. Scientists now warn that more monitoring is required to help protect sea life.
Researchers at the University of Ponsmouth have discovered that rates (率) of shipping in the North East Atlantic area rose by 34 per cent in a five-year period. The research is the first detailed survey of shipping activity in the North East Atlantic. Researchers used data from over 530 million vessel (船) positions recorded by Automatic Identification System(AIS). They looked at the change in shipping between 2013 and 2017 across ten different vessel types. In total the study area covered 1.1 million km², including waters off Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany,Iceland, Ireland, The Netherlands, Norway, Portugal. Spain, and the UK.
Lead author, James Robbins said: “This change is likely to put more pressure on the marine (海洋的) environment, and may influence the protection of at-risk species. Renewed monitoring effort is needed to make sure that protective measures are enough to save species under threat in a changing environment.”
Some of the greatest shipping increases were found in areas close to the Spanish coast. The Espacio Marino de la Costa da Morte saw a rise of 413 percent in vessel activity. It is an area used to protect seabirds.
Dr. Sarah Marley, Visiting Researcher at the University of Portsmouth, said: “Shipping is the most widespread human activity in our oceans, carrying a set of threats-from unnoticeable effects like underwater noise pollution to serious results when ships hit whales.”
Professor Alex Ford. from the University’s Institute of Marine Sciences, said: “Given the well-documented effects that shipping can have on the marine environment, it is necessary that this situation continues to be monitored-particularly in areas used to protect vulnerable (脆弱的) species which may already be under pressure.”
1. What can we say about the new research?A.It started in 2013. | B.It is the first of its kind. |
C.It was carried out by AIS. | D.It covers the whole Atlantic. |
A.Rapid population growth. |
B.Rising global temperatures. |
C.The huge increase in shipping. |
D.The disappearance of marine life. |
A.Shipping plays an important role in the local economy. |
B.Shipping can be a danger to the marine environment. |
C.Noise pollution is closely related to human activity. |
D.Marine areas should be monitored more carefully. |
A.New waterways across the Atlantic |
B.The shipping industry in the North East Atlantic |
C.New research opens windows into life under the water |
D.Sea life needs better protection from an increase in shipping |
Tangshan started to
5 . When Alex Lin was 11 years old, he read an alarming article in the newspaper about e-waste. The article said that people were throwing away their e-waste in places it should never go. This was dangerous, the article said, because e-waste contains poisonous chemicals and metals like lead. These harmful substances (物质) can leak into the environment, getting into crops, animals, water supplies — and people.
Alex showed the article to a few of his classmates. They were worried too. But what could they do about this problem with e-waste? How would they even start? “The first thing we did,” Alex says, “was to learn more about the problem.” Alex and his friends spent several weeks gathering information about the chemicals in e-waste and their effects on humans. They learned how to dispose (处理) of e-waste properly and how it could be recycled. “Then,” he says, “we had to find out what the situation was in our town. So we sent out a survey.”
What they found shocked them: Of the people who answered the survey, only one in eight even knew what e-waste was, let alone how to properly dispose of it. Alex and his friends went into action. They advertised in the local newspaper and distributed notices to students, asking residents to bring their unwanted electronics to the school parking lot. The drive lasted two days, and they collected over 21,000 pounds of e-waste.
The next step was to set up an e-waste drop-off center for the town and to find a responsible company to recycle the waste. That was when Alex and his friends learned another scary fact about e-waste — some irresponsible recycling companies don’t break down the e-waste and dispose of it safely themselves. Instead, they ship it overseas to countries such as China and Nigeria, where local environmental laws are not applied. “We checked carefully online to make sure the company we chose didn’t do this,” Alex says.
Because of the work of people like Alex and his team, more and more people are getting the message about safe disposal of e-waste. As Alex says, “Today’s technology should not become tomorrow’s poisonous trash.”
1. What can we learn about Alex from paragraph 1 and paragraph 2?A.He was curious about chemistry experiments. |
B.He possessed a strong sense of responsibility. |
C.He set out to solve the problem individually. |
D.He formed the habit of reading newspapers. |
A.Campaign. | B.Imagination. | C.Performance. | D.Technology. |
A.Lack of available space was the reason for shipping. |
B.Recycling was totally banned in their own country. |
C.They were running their companies on a tight budget. |
D.They were not charged with insecurely disposing it. |
A.Reusing School Computers | B.Recycling Electronic Waste |
C.Meeting a challenge | D.Doing Scientific Experiment |
1. What does the man suggest doing in an earthquake?
A.Going outside. | B.Protecting the pet. | C.Hiding under something. |
A.10 years ago. | B.20 years ago. | C.25 years ago. |
7 . Landscaping (人造景观) refers to man-made features of a landscape such as driveways, walls, steps, and other human-made structures. It has many sustainability benefits.
Replace Lawns (草坪)
Fertilizers and pesticides (化肥和杀虫剂) help establish a beautiful lawn.
Use Less Water
Use Locally-Produced Materials
Materials for landscaping are almost all produced locally, due to the high shipping cost.
Lower Garden Maintenance (维护)
Usually, Americans spend two hours per day on lawn and garden care.
Reduce Ice Build-up
Sustainable landscape allows stormwater to drain (流) into the soil.
A.Landscaping is a form of landscaping. |
B.This means lower carbon emissions for transportation. |
C.Yet little maintenance is needed for a landscaped area. |
D.The water landscaping uses mainly comes from nature. |
E.There are ways to lower your impact on the environment. |
F.So there is often less ice formation on landscaping in cold winters. |
G.But they can run into the water system and harm both humans and wildlife. |
1. How many acres (英亩) of rainforest did Tom and his friend buy?
A.One. | B.Two. | C.Three. |
A.A geography teacher. |
B.The owner of an organization. |
C.An environmental lawyer. |
9 . The human population of Sri Lanka is now believed to be over 20 million. As a result, large areas of trees are being turned into farmland, highways are being built, and elephants are being driven out of their habitats. This change causes turmoil, resulting in an increased number of uncontrollable events between elephants and humans.
The good news is that there is one place called the Elephant Transit Home (ETH) in Udawalawe National Park, the main purpose of which is to protect and care for baby elephants. A day at the ETH begins early in the morning when the baby elephants are given their first feeding of milk. During the course of the day, each baby will drink an average of 13 gallons of milk. Older elephants are fed mostly coconut leaves as well as other native plants. Then the elephants are set free to wander in the park.
The ETH spends almost $ 125 ,000 each year on powdered milk for these baby animals. To help pay for food and medical supplies, the ETH has a foster (领养) parent programme. Anyone, even schoolchildren, can help a lot by giving money to care for a baby elephant. Foster parents can name their elephants, take photographs of them, and even help send them back into the wild.
Now visitors are not encouraged to get close to the elephants. The goal of the ETH is for the elephants to return to the wild in the end. It usually takes three years for a baby elephant to be sent back into its natural habitat. This programme helps them return to the wild as members of a herd that will communicate with each other and take care of each other.
1. What does the underlined word “turmoil” in Paragraph 1 probably mean?A.Confusion. | B.Disorder. | C.Pollution. | D.Harmony. |
A.They mainly live on coconut leaves. |
B.They are fed separately all the time. |
C.They are taken care of by different means. |
D.They don’t get along well with other animals. |
A.You can play games with the elephant. |
B.You can give the elephant you care for a name. |
C.You can take the elephant home for better care. |
D.You can visit Udawalawe National Park free of charge. |
A.The future of the elephants. |
B.The life of the baby elephants. |
C.The process of raising a young elephant. |
D.The requirements for being a foster parent. |
10 . As a shift in the polar vortex(极地涡旋)swept across much of the US, many people in the country were hit with a sudden snap of cold. Heavy ice and snow coupled with fallen trees caused the outages in major cities, with companies unable to tell their customers when power will be restored.
Polar vortexes were noticed long ago. But the first known use of the term “polar vortex” was in a magazine in 1853. Polar vortexes are present year-round, but we don’t hear about them until they cause problems. They maintain freezing temperatures at the North and South poles by moving in tight counter-clockwise patterns. Polar vortexes grow stronger in winter and weaken in summer. They are kept in place at the poles by another atmospheric current called the jet stream. However, when the jet streams weaken, the cold winds of the polar vortex are pushed southwards and it is during this time that people begin to pay attention!
In Texas, roads froze over, causing six traffic deaths, and many schools were shut-down. People are not the only Earthlings to struggle with the cold. Crops and animals are also freezing. This could have major consequences, especially if herds of cattle die. If snow blocks cattle, the animals can’t reach basic necessities like food and fresh water.
On a brighter note, some Texas cities were more prepared than others. For instance, Amarillo, which is located in North Texas, so they are more accustomed to colder temperatures. Amarillo is notable because the city was redesigned to stand up to severe winter storms. Officials have spread out fire stations to increase coverage of first responders, employed modified dump trucks for clearing ice, and upgraded civic centers to provide shelter during storms. Hopefully, other Texas cities will follow the good example set by Amarillo!
1. What does the underlined word “outages” refer to?A.Traffic jams. | B.Possessions losses. |
C.Power cuts. | D.Traffic accidents. |
A.They grow stronger in summer. | B.They are affected by jet streams. |
C.They were first observed in 1853. | D.They move in a clockwise direction. |
A.Pleased. | B.Worried. |
C.Indifferent. | D.Doubtful. |
A.Because it is located in the north of Texas. |
B.Because it has been upgraded and modernized. |
C.Because it has been regarded as an example to other cities. |
D.Because it has taken effective measures to resist winter storms. |