1 . On April 14th, 2010, my entire life changed in an instant. One moment I was joyfully riding through the sunshine. The next moment, metal, flesh and bone were spreading against the pavement in a thunderous crash. Another cyclist, biking carelessly, had cut me off and sent me supermanning toward oncoming traffic.

As if to symbolize the accident that had hit my life, another disaster also occurred on April 14th, 2010. It cost the airline industry $1.7 billion. Ten million travelers were stuck for days. Economies all over the world were disturbed. This was the eruption of Eyjafjallajokull, one of Iceland’s many volcanoes.

However, volcanoes are not all bad. In fact, they are necessary. They are responsible for the birth of new earth, and for the creation of rich soil. This eruption gave off 0.15 million tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere daily. But cancelling 48% of the world’s flight travel saved about 2.8 million tons of CO₂ from entering the atmosphere, temporarily decreasing our carbon footprint.

Similarly, the accident had badly affected my emotion but it also allowed me to look more closely inside myself and discover things about myself I never would have realized. I learned how not to judge myself for my new limitations.

In 1973, another Icelandic volcano, Eldfell, broke out. Icelanders decided to bomb it with cold water until it froze and chose a different path. After their plan worked, they used the geothermal (地热) energy for the next 15 years to heat their homes. A good example of life bringing lemons, and making lemonade! One must move on from misfortunes, focusing only on the present moment and being hopeful for the future.

I ran from April 14th, 2010, to every kind of escape. Eventually I ended up in university for a new-found love in Earth sciences.

3 . Scientists often compare coral reefs(珊瑚礁) to underwater rainforests, yet unlike the leafy plant base of a forest, corals are animals. The soft creatures are naturally half-transparent and get their brilliant color from algae(藻类) living inside them. When corals experience stress from hot temperatures or pollution, they halt the interdependent relationship with algae, typically pushing them out and turning white. Corals are still alive when they are white, but they're at risk and many eventually die, turning dark brown.

Scientists around the world are looking for means to protect and maybe increase corals. One common option is to create more protected areas — essentially national parks in the ocean. Beyond nature preserves, some conservationists are looking to more hands-on methods. One research center in the Florida Keys is exploring a form of natural selection to keep corals remaining. The reef system in the Keys has been hit hard by climate change and pollution, which is especially tough, because corals there help support fisheries worth $ 100 million every year.

To keep the wild ecosystem alive, Erinn Muller, the center's director, and her team are harvesting samples of the corals that survived the environmental stress naturally, keeping them to make them reproduce, and then reattaching them to the reef. They have 46,000 corals on plastic frames under the sea. So far, the center has regrown over 70,000 corals from five different species on damaged reefs.

In The Bahamas, Ross Cunning, a research biologist at Chicago's Shedd Aquarium, focuses on corals with genes that could make them natural candidates for restoration projects. He published a study of two Bahamian reefs, one that survived an extreme 2015 heat wave, and one that didn't. "We think their ability to deal with these higher temperatures is built into their genes," says Cunning. There's evidence of corals evolving more quickly to resist rapidly warming climate. The big question scientists need investigate, adds Gunning, is how much more heat corals can adapt to.

4 . More than two thirds of the world's polar bears will be wiped out by 2050, according to a shocking new study. By then, scientists say, global warming will have melted 42 percent of the Arctic sea ice. By 2100, only a very few of these important creatures will be left.

The report has been produced by the US Geological Survey. The scientists have publicized their findings in the hope of influencing US Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne, who has been asked to put polar bears on the US endangered species list.

Polar bears depend on floating sea ice as a platform for hunting seals, which are their main food. Without enough ice, polar bears would be forced to go onto the land, where they are poorly skilled hunters, and would be unlikely to adapt to the life on the land in time. Experts say few little bears would survive and the stress could make many females unable to get pregnant.

The team of American and Canadian scientists spent six months studying bears, on the ground, from spotter planes and in the lab, using computer models. Some team members fear the result is even worse for the bears than what their report says. They say the Arctic is warming faster than anywhere in the world and much faster than their computer had been forecasting. Satellite observations have showed that the ice has decreased to an all­time low.

However, not everyone in the scientific community believes that global warming is happening on such an alarming scale. Another investigation has found that polar bears are still being hunted by wealthy “sportsmen” who want their skins and heads. At least ten international companies offer bear­hunting trips.

When I was a child, I hoped to live in the city because I think I would be happy there. Now I am living in a city, but I miss my home in countryside. There the air is clean or the mountains are green. Unfortunately, on the development of industrialization, the environment has been polluted. Lots of studies have been shown that global warming has already become a very seriously problem. The airs around us is getting dirtier and dirtier. Much rare animals are dying out. We must found ways to protect your environment. If we fail to do so, we will regret it.

7 . Imagine an area 34 times the size of Manhattan. Now imagine it covered ankle-deep in plastic waste. That’s a total of about 19 billion pounds of ______. And according to the estimates available, that’s how much plastic waste ______ in our oceans every year.

“We’re being ______ by our waste,” said Jenna Jambeck, an/a ______ engineer who led the 2015 study that announced this shocking number. According to Jambeck’s research, this ______ will double by 2025 unless something is done, ______ and at a global scale, to stop the tide of garbage.

Plastic has in many ways been helpful to us, used in all walks of ______ from medical equipment to parts of airplanes. ______ some of the very traits (特性) that have made plastics so popular have also made them a ______ problem in our landfills   and oceans. Today, plastics are the No. 1 type of trash found in the sea. Ocean Conservancy, a nonprofit environmental group that organizes a yearly ______ cleanup event in more than 150 countries worldwide, said plastic pieces ______ around 85 percent of all the garbage collected from beaches, waterways and oceans — and that’s just the stuff we can ______.

Ocean Conservancy says plastics are believed to ______ at least 600 different wildlife ______. One in three leatherback turtles, which often ______ plastic bags for jellyfish, have been found with plastic in their bellies (肚子). In 2017, a ______ whale beached on Norway’s coast had 30 plastic bags in its ______. Ninety percent of seabirds are now eating ______ on a regular basis. By 2050, that figure is expected to rise to 100 percent.

And it’s not ______ wildlife that’s threatened by the plastics in our seas. A growing body of evidence suggests humans are consuming plastics through the seafood we eat.

With this in mind，experts say that all of us have a ______ role to play in relieving the issue — in ways both big and small.

8 . Plants: we eat them, juice them-and now it seems we can mine them too!

After a successful experiment on the island of Borneo, the botany professor Alan Baker and a group of researchers want to introduce phytomining (harvesting minerals from plants) as a better, partial substitute for traditional mining.

Phytomining, also known as agromining, means collecting metals from live plants. However, this can only be done with a group of plants known as "hyperaccumulators". There are around 700 identified types worldwide, and what makes these hyperaccumulators special is that they naturally attract and absorb minerals through their roots-metals poisonous to other plants-and then store huge, pure concentrations of these minerals in their bodies. The metals can then be extracted from the plants' sap(汁;液), oil, or sometimes even live tissue.

Baker and his colleagues see a lot of potential in phytomining. Not only can it help meet the growing global demand for metals, but is a way of undoing some of that damage to the environment by traditional mining.

One of the biggest problems with traditional mining is that it pollutes the surrounding area. Phytomining can extract metal waste, plus planting the hyperaccumulators would regrow the deforested areas caused by mining operations. Aside from this, if phytomining is able to replace part of traditional mining, then there would be fewer instances of bad mining practices like abandoned mines, which pollute the nearby waters. Also, since phytomining provides metals that are already naturally pure, there is no need to use huge amounts of energy to purify the ore(矿石).

Phytomining has its drawbacks. Harvesting plants on a large scale is expensive today, compared to traditional mining. Besides, plants can be wiped out by diseases or unexpected weather conditions.

However, there are many reasons to consider phytomining. After all, we need to make sure that our planet can keep up and sustainable practices like phytomining give us the hope that our advancement doesn't mean sacrificing Mother Earth.

10 . One of the tallest wooden buildings in Europe, a 98m timber (木材)mixture skyscraper, is to rise in Berlin.

The 29-storey WoHo tower, to be designed by a firm of Norwegian architects, is intended to be a “light-house project” for low-carbon construction, towering over Potsdamer Platz and the Landwehr Canal.

Its core, including lifts and a staircase, is to be built around concrete structure but the rest of the building, including flats, offices, cafes and a kindergarten, will be fashioned down wooden beams (横梁)and panels.

“As Norwegians, we are used to working a lot with timber,” Nicolai Riise, CEO of the Mad Architects' Practice said.

“The thing about timber is that its carbon footprint is close to zero and that it's a fantastic material to build with. If you look at this in a broader way, it's one of the ways we are going to be able to beat the climate crisis.”

Wooden skyscrapers, once regarded as a pipe dream, have become realistic with the coming of cross-laminated (交叉叠合)building techniques and more flexible planning laws. Because these structures' parts are fit with care, they can be far lighter than their concrete equivalents (同等物)and are thought to be relatively resistant to fire. A cubic meter of wood can also take an estimated ton of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere.

Larger wooden structures are planned elsewhere. London is examining blueprints for a 300-meter Oakwood Tower. A project in Tokyo could rise to 350m.