1 . How can a large city find water for 10 million people if it is in the desert? Fog-catching nets on hills around the city of Lima, the capital of Peru, could solve the city’s water shortages for good. A twenty-meter high net tower will soon be displayed in the city as a solution to the problem.
Peru’s capital city has just one inch of rain a year. The city sees high annual temperatures and water consumption rates. Located in a desert, the city’s temperatures are higher than world averages. However, a unique feature of Lima’s weather offers a way of meeting some of this demand. Located on the coast, Lima’s surrounding hills are constantly bathed in waves of fog coming off the Pacific Ocean, and the moisture (湿气) taken in by plants ensures they stay green year-round.
Inspired by fog nets placed by rural communities across the continent, Alberto Fernandez, a Chilean architect currently studying for a Ph.D. from University College London, has designed a series of towers and fog-catching nets. They can collect as much as 1,000 liters of water per day, amounting to 3.6 million liters per year, if enough are put into use. Their towering structure allows them to get into the clouds, collecting more vital water vapor (蒸气), and their unique shape means that no matter the direction of the wind, the moisture-rich fog will strike some part of the structure directly.
The water will largely be used for agriculture — as the water would require filtering (过滤) before consumption — helping free up resources for city residents. Cheaper than filtering water from the Rimac River, these towers and nets, which Fernandez says could be built up to 200 meters high, are part of a series of designs for the Lima 2035 project. It aims to change current desertification and create a new place for sustainable and human-centered food systems that promote healthy diets and improve incomes in the driest city on Earth.
1. What makes plants in Lima stay green year-round?A.The heavy rainfall. | B.The high temperature. |
C.The net tower. | D.The unique location. |
A.The direction of the wind. | B.The moisture-rich fog. |
C.The height of the tower. | D.The fog-catching net. |
A.Supply drinking water. | B.Turn desert into rich soil. |
C.Increase food production. | D.Develop healthy lifestyles. |
A.Fog-catching towers help solve water shortage |
B.The driest city on Earth faces a serious problem |
C.Fernandez designed the first fog-catching net |
D.Water plays a role in a sustainable food system |
2 . Nanako Hama gets a lot of mail, mostly from strangers who live in her home city of Tokyo. In light envelopes, they send locks of their hair, hoping to recycle it.
People generate a huge amount of hair waste. Nearly all of that waste ends up in landfill, where it can release harmful greenhouse gases that contribute to climate change.
But hair possesses useful qualities that it’s a shame to simply throw it away. That’s why people all around the world, like Hama, have been collecting hair and finding innovative ways to recycle it, including making mats (垫子)out of it for removing oil leaks.
Hama is part of the nonprofit Matter of Trust (MoT) members working at more than 60 centers dotted across 17 countries, using machines to make hair donated from local salons and individuals into square mats, which are then used to clean up the floating oil.
Hair is particularly well-suited for this, says MoT co-founder Lisa Gautier. “That’s because its rough sort of outer layer lets oil stick to it.” MoT’s mats have been used in major oil leaks. including the 2010 Deepwater Horizon and 2007 Cosco Busan incidents.
In a 2018 study, Murray, an environmental scientist at the University of Technology Sydney, in Australia found that mats made of recycled human hair could absorb 0.84 grams of oil onto its surface for every gram of hair—significantly more than polypropylene (聚丙烯), a type of plastic that’s typically used to clean up floating oil.
Besides, hair is also useful as fertilizer (化肥). Hair contains a relatively high nitrogen (氮), a chemical element crucial for plant growth, and each lock of hair is made of roughly 16 percent of this essential nutrient. Last year, more than 560 gallons of liquid fertilizer made from human hair was sold to farmers in northern Tanzania and the feedback from the farmers has been very encouraging.
“It’s just a great way to use hair in a productive way. Hair is an answer literally hanging in front of our eyes—for oil and soil,” Hama says.
1. How does the author introduce the topic in paragraph 1?A.By detailing the background. | B.By presenting a scene. |
C.By describing the feedback. | D.By supporting evidences. |
A.Fertilize the soil. | B.Prevent oil leaks. |
C.Clear the sea of oil. | D.Take in harmful gas. |
A.Its color and strength. |
B.Its length and amount. |
C.Its weight and flexibility. |
D.Its structure and component. |
A.Debatable. | B.Applicable. |
C.Irreplaceable. | D.Uncontrollable. |
3 . The California sea otter (海獭), once hunted to the edge of extinction, has staged a thrilling comeback in the last century. Now, scientists have discovered that the otters’ success story has led to something just as remarkable: the restoration of their declining coastal marsh (沼泽) habitat.
Elkhorn Slough, a coastal marsh within Monterey Bay, had been experiencing severe damage. The root cause was a growing population of shore crabs, which fed heavily on the marsh plants, weakening the structural integrity of the habitat. Coastal marshes like these are not only natural defenses against storm waves but also serve as important carbon storage areas and water-cleaning systems.
The conservation-driven comeback of the sea otter has been crucial. California’s coastlines were once alive with sea otters. Sadly, they were nearly wiped out at the hands of fur traders. In the 1980s, conservation efforts aided these otters in re-occupying large areas of their former range. Now, Elkhorn Slough has the highest concentration of sea otters in California, with a population of about 100. By naturally feasting on crabs, the otters have helped a significant regrowth of plant life. Brent Hughes, a scientist working alongside Angelini, led a three-year study. Their findings were clear: in areas with sea otters, crab numbers fell markedly. This led to a resurgence in plant growth, which in turn stabilized the soil and lowered the rate of soil washing away.
As the sea otter population continues to restore, their positive impact on coastal ecosystems is likely to increase. It not only showcases the sea otter as a central species—a species that has a significant effect on its natural environment—but also highlights the essential nature of top predators (捕食者) in preserving ecological harmony. “My honest reaction was—this could become a classic in the literature,” says scientist Lekelia Jenkins. She reveals marsh restoration also helps people by reducing flooding. “Suddenly, sea otters go from just cute things we like to something that can protect our livelihoods and our properties.”
1. What change did the disappearance of sea otters bring about?A.Fewer predatory crabs. | B.More coastal plant life. |
C.Better water-cleaning effect. | D.Worse coastal ecological balance. |
A.Barrier. | B.Advancement. | C.Expansion. | D.Revival. |
A.To highlight the importance of coastal marshes. |
B.To introduce a new research study on sea otters. |
C.To demonstrate the practical benefits of sea otters. |
D.To emphasize the need for increased conservation efforts. |
A.The necessity for controlled hunting. |
B.The interconnectedness of the ecosystem. |
C.The drawbacks of wildlife reintroduction. |
D.The need for human intervention in nature. |
4 . You’ll need to take a deep breath before hearing this news. An astonishing 93% of kids around the world live in environments with air pollution levels that are damaging their health, according to a new report by World Health Organization(WHO)
Air pollution is to blame for the deaths of 543,000 kids under 5 in 2016,with more than on in four deaths of children under five-year-old being related to environmental problems. Exposure to air pollution can damage the health of kids in a variety of ways, either causing or being associated with everything from low birth weight to childhood obesity(肥胖) and so on.
“The diseases and deaths shown by these new data should result in an urgent call to action for the global community—especially for those concerning health.” WHO stated. “Strong action to reduce exposure to air pollution offers a chance to protect the health of children.” The report stressed that health expert should communicate with families, communities and policy-makers about the serious risks of air pollution exposure. “Although more researches into how air pollution affects children’s health will continue to be valuable, there is already evidence to justify(证明……有理) strong and swift action to prevent the damage it clearly produces,”WHO added.
Disease caused by dirty air is more common in low and middle-income countries, especially those in Africa, Southeast Asia, and Western Pacific. Poor countries in these areas have the highest levels of exposure to household air pollution due to the use of polluting fuels and technologies for basic needs like cooking, heating and lighting.
Advised approaches to dealing with air pollution include cleaner transport, cleaner cooking and heating fuels and technologies, energy-efficient housing and urban planning, safer industrial technologies and better waste management.
1. What is the second paragraph mainly about?A.The varieties of illnesses most children are living with. |
B.The serous results of widespread environmental problems. |
C.The harmful influence of air pollution on children’s health. |
D.The health problems from birth resulting from air pollution. |
A.It needs to be cut down. | B.It is truly out of control. |
C.Its risks require proving. | D.Its damage is poorly known. |
A.Old and outdated publish transport. | B.Unclean cooking and heating fuels. |
C.Money-saving waste management. | D.Inexpensive industrial technologies. |
A.Lifestyle. | B.Environment. |
C.Medicine. | D.Science. |
5 . A recent global study, which surveyed 10,000 young people from 10 countries, showed that nearly 60 percent of them were extremely worried about the future state of the planet. The report also showed that nearly half of the respondents (受访者) said that such distress affected them daily, and three-quarters agreed with the statement that “the future is frightening.” This, and many other studies, show clearly that climate change is not just a threat to the environment. It also poses a very real threat to our mental health.
Psychologists have classified these feelings of sadness, distress, and worry about the current climate emergency as eco-anxiety. According to the Climate Psychology Alliance, eco-anxiety is defined as the “intense physical and mental discomfort in response to dangerous changes in the climate system.”
Eco-anxiety doesn’t just affect young people. It also affects researchers who work in climate and ecological science, burdened by the reality discovered in their findings, and it affects the poor people across the globe, who hopelessly bear the harmful impacts of climate breakdown.
In recent years, we’ve seen wildfires tear through Canada and Greece, and summer floods destroy regions in Pakistan that are home to nearly 33 million people. Studies have shown that those impacted by air pollution and rising temperatures are more likely to experience mental distress.
The cause of this mental distress is absolutely external. According to Caroline Hickman, a researcher on eco-anxiety from the University of Bath, anyone experiencing these emotions is displaying entirely natural and rational reactions to the climate crisis. Her suggestion? Take eco-anxiety as a tool for good—as an emotion that can urge people to act in protection of our planet.
This is why, in 2024, we will also see more people around the world join the fight for climate justice and apply for jobs that seek sustainable development. Eco-anxiety is not something we will defeat with therapy—we will solve it by taking action.
1. What does the underlined word “distress” in paragraph1 mean?A.Shock. | B.Anxiety. | C.Fear. | D.Anger. |
A.It is a strong reaction to the natural disasters. |
B.It is a kind of mental disease for the young people. |
C.It is a physical and mental discomfort when we meet difficulties. |
D.It is a strong physical and mental discomfort for the dangerous climate changes. |
A.The process of eco-anxiety. | B.The impact of eco-anxiety. |
C.The causes of eco-anxiety. | D.The benefits of eco-anxiety. |
A.Defeat it with a therapy. |
B.Just wait for a good solution. |
C.Join the fight for climate justice. |
D.Use it to urge people to protect our earth. |
6 . My husband and I always wanted to go to the Caribbean but didn’t know much about the islands or how we were going to afford it. By chance, a friend of ours in Australia mentioned “pet sitting” and that it is something you can do all over the world.
We quickly created an account on a pet sitting website and began searching for options. There were only a couple of sits available in that part of the world, but we tried our luck, sent a request, and to our surprise landed a three-month job in Grenada, so our year was going to be taken up with Caribbean pet sits.
Inspired by a Canadian couple, we decided to start our own travel blog. We began by writing about the Virgin Islands, highlighting the beautiful beaches. However, for every photo album of a beautiful beach, there were 10 photos of trash. It was hard to ignore the plastic pollution issue, especially on such primitive and remote beaches. So, we began to share photos of the trash we saw and how much we could pick up on our daily dog walks.
The more we looked into plastic pollution, the more we realized the severity of the global plastic pollution. From that point, we used our platform to create awareness and highlight ways to say no to plastic and travel plastic-free. We changed our daily routines, our way of living, and even our diets to accommodate more organic foods and little to no plastic packaging.
It’s been over three years now and we continue to do what we can. This journey has led us to some amazing places, working with great brands and even organizing a country-wide beach clean-up campaign in Grenada.
Our aim now is to keep on going. We love connecting with like-minded people. It’s been amazing few years that was sparked by a conversation about pet sitting. Who would have guessed?
1. Why did the author do pet sitting?A.To raise fund. | B.To protect the environment. |
C.To cover travel expenses. | D.To shoot beautiful beaches. |
A.Pet sitting is a new type of occupation. |
B.The Caribbean is an ideal travel destination. |
C.Travel blog is a superb way to gain popularity. |
D.Action should be taken to fight plastic pollution. |
A.Challenging. | B.Significant. |
C.Adventurous. | D.Romantic. |
A.Changing Lifestyles by Doing Pet Sitting |
B.Unexpected Gains from Pet Sitting Travel |
C.Dealing with Global Environment Pollution |
D.The Availability of Pet Sitting in the Caribbean |
7 . About 12% of the total global energy demand comes from heating and cooling homes and businesses. A new study suggests that using underground water to maintain comfortable temperatures could reduce consumption of natural gas and electricity in this section by 40% in the US. The approach is called ATES, short for aquifer thermal energy storage (含水层热能储存).
“We need storage to absorb energy from the sun and wind. It’s crucial to creating affordable, reliable, and deeply environmental-friendly electricity systems. Most people are interested in batteries and other kinds of electrical storage. But we were wondering whether there was any opportunity to use geothermal (地热的) energy storage,” said first author A.T.D Perera. “With ATES, energy can be stored for a long period of time, without adding an additional burden to the grid (输电网).”
ATES is a pleasantly simple concept that takes advantage of the heat-absorbing property of water and the natural geological features of the planet. You simply pull existing underground water up and heat it at the surface in the summer with environmental heat or energy. Then you send it back down. It stays fairly hot because the Earth is a good insulator (绝热体).
“Unlike above-ground tank-based water or ice storage systems, ATES will not need space. It’s also more efficient and can support larger communities in cooling or heating than traditional geothermal heat pump systems that rely on heat moving with the underground soil,” added co-author Hong Tianzhen.
A major beneft of ATES is that it will become more efficient as weather becomes more extreme in the coming years due to climate change. The hotter summers and severer winters could increase the amount of free thermal energy that can be stored with ATES. “It’s very much a realistic thing to do and this work is really about showing its value,” said Perera. “This technology is ready to go, so to speak. We just need to do it.”
1. What do we know about ATES?A.It is technologically demanding. |
B.It is aimed at replacing natural energy. |
C.It mainly relies on batteries to function. |
D.It helps achieve an environmentally friendly society |
A.By giving examples. | B.By discussing results. |
C.By making comparisons. | D.By analyzing principles. |
A.Temperature variations. | B.Insulated materials. |
C.The duration of storage. | D.The category of energy. |
A.A Turning Point in Energy Usage |
B.A Solution to Green Cooling and Heating |
C.A Transformation in the US Electricity System |
D.A Discovery About Geothermal Energy Storage |
8 . Nanako Hama was holding a light envelop. When she tore it open with care, locks of hair emerged. Many strangers send Hama locks of their hair, hoping to recycle it.
People generate a huge amount of hair waste. Nearly all of that waste ends up in landfill, where it can release harmful greenhouse gases that contribute to climate change. But hair possesses useful qualities that it’s a shame to simply throw it away. That’s why people all around the world, like Hama, have been collecting hair and finding innovative ways to recycle it, including making mats (垫子) out of it for removing oil leaks in the ocean.
Hama is part of the nonprofit Matter of Trust (MoT) members working at more than 60 centers dotted across 17 countries, using machines to make hair donated from local salons and individuals into square mat, which are then used to clean up the floating oil. “Hair is particularly well-suited for this,” says MoT co-founder Lisa Gautier. “That’s because its rough sort of outer layer lets oil stick to it.” MoT’s mats have been used in major oil leaks, including the 2010 Deepwater Horizon and 2007 Cosco Busan incidents.
In a 2018 study, Murray, an environmental scientist at the University of Technology Sydney, in Australia found that mats made of recycled human hair could absorb 0.84 grams of oil onto its surface for every gram of hair—significantly more than polypropylene (聚丙烯),a type of plastic that’s typically used to clean up floating oil. Besides, hair is also useful as fertilizer (化肥). Hair contains a relatively high nitrogen (氮), a chemical element crucial for plant growth, and each lock of hair is made of roughly 16 percent of this essential nutrient. Last year, more than 560 gallons of liquid fertilizer made from human hair was sold to farmers in northern Tanzania and the feedback from the farmers has been very encouraging.
“It’s just a great way to use hair in a productive way. Hair is an answer literally hanging in front of our eyes—for oil and soil,” Hama says.
1. How does the author introduce the topic?A.By presenting a scene. | B.By detailing the background. |
C.By describing the usage of hair. | D.By praising an environmentalist. |
A.Improve soil. | B.Prevent oil leaks. | C.Take in harmful gas. | D.Clear the sea of oil. |
A.Its color and strength. | B.Its length and amount. |
C.Its weight and flexibility. | D.Its structure and component. |
A.Uncertain. | B.Promising. | C.Doubtful. | D.Worrying. |
1. 目前的海洋污染情况;
2. 保护海洋的重要性及具体措施;
3. 发出倡议。
注意: 1. 词数80左右;
2. 可适当增加细节,以使行文连贯。
Dear schoolmates,
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
The Students’ Union
10 . Recycling is one of the most popular ways to reduce solid waste.
The best way to eventually minimize (使……最小化) trash is to avoid waste coming from our hand.
Other people who choose to have a zero-waste lifestyle learn to make their own products. Some even make their own make-up and perfumes to further reduce their solid waste. Growing your own foods like fruit and vegetables is a huge help not just in minimizing waste.
There are many ways to achieve a zero-waste lifestyle especially if you are determined.
A.It can be challenging in the beginning. |
B.This is where a zero-waste lifestyle comes. |
C.However, it isn’t enough to deal with large amounts of garbage. |
D.It is obvious that we cannot adapt to the changing conditions easily. |
E.It is also very convenient as you can pick them fresh from your yard. |
F.A good way to start is buying groceries without unnecessary packaging. |
G.We should try to minimize the trash in the environment and save the earth. |