1 . 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 |
2 . In the midst of an already record-breaking heat wave, Phoenix, Arizona, set a particularly eye-popping record: the temperature only dropped to 97 degrees Fahrenheit overnight between Tuesday and Wednesday, setting an all-time record high for a nighttime low. When temperatures stay high overnight, they place a particularly heavy burden on the body, raising the risk of heat illness and death.
The U.S. —and the world—has seen a spate of extreme heat so far this year, including the planet’s hottest-ever June and hottest week on record during the first week of July. Rising global temperatures from burning fossil fuels are the main driver of more frequent and more intense heat waves. And an El Niño event is also boosting global temperatures this year.
A heat dome has been in place for weeks over the U.S. Southwest and Texas, and it has fueled many heat records. Phoenix has now seen 20 days in a row with a daytime high of 110 degrees F or higher, a record that is likely to continue for several more days. A heat dome is an area of high pressure that parks over a region. High-pressure ridges, as they are also called, feature sinking air, which compresses and heats up. These ridges’ typical clear skies also allow the sun’s rays to beat down on the ground, further raising temperatures.
Prolonged heat extremes pose a major public health threat because heat is the number-one weather-related killer in the U.S.; it causes more human deaths than hurricanes, tornadoes and floods combined. Heat can cause dehydration, which leads the blood to thicken and makes the heart pump harder. That organ and others can be damaged by too much exposure to heat.
The soaring, triple-digit high daily temperatures grab the headlines, and they definitely are a concern—but when temperatures only drop into the 80s and 90s at night, the body doesn’t get a chance to cool down. This is particularly a concern for those who lack air-conditioning, including unhoused populations. And heat is especially a health risk for the very young, the elderly and those with preexisting health conditions such as asthma and heart disease.
1. What can be inferred from the first two paragraphs?A.Extreme temperatures can cause damage to our hearts. |
B.Burning fossil fuels contributes to the hottest-ever June and July. |
C.El Nino is the dominant cause of soaring global temperature. |
D.The temperature at night has reached a record high in Phoenix, Arizona. |
A.It’s a weather phenomenon that contributes to high temperatures. |
B.It’s a peak that the low pressure should reach. |
C.It’s the damage caused by too much exposure to heat. |
D.It’s the extra heat trapped in the sinking air. |
A.It is the top one killer in America. | B.Exposure to heat contributes to heart diseases. |
C.Human organs might be impaired. | D.People accommodate to 80s and 90s Fahrenheit at night. |
A.Soaring temperatures are hitting the headlines. | B.Anew eye popping overnight low record is set. |
C.Hot overnight temperatures threaten human health. | D.Global heat waves are causing concerns. |
3 . Used electronics are piing up fast: they are filling up landfills with dangerous pieces of waste. Some e-waste is relatively large, such as air conditioners; other e-waste is more unnoticed, such as smart labels that contain disposable batteries and other equipment.
“It’s these small batteries that are big problems,” says University of California, Irvine, public health scientist Dele Ogunseitan, who is a green technology researcher and adviser for major tech companies and was not involved in developing the battery. “Nobody really pays attention to where they end up.” Researchers at the Cellulose & Wood Materials Laboratory at the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology are working to address this problem. Their new paper describes a water-activated paper battery developed from environmentally friendly materials that could eventually present a sustainable alternative to the more harmful batteries common in low-power devices.
The paper battery has the same key components as standard batteries but packages them differently. Like a typical chemical battery, it has a positively charged side and a negatively charged side. A traditional battery’s components are covered in plastic and metal; in the new battery, however, the positively and negatively charged sides are inks printed onto the front and back of a piece of paper. That paper is filled with salt, which dissolves (溶解) when the paper becomes wet. When the paper is dry, the battery is shelf-stable. Once the paper is wet, the battery starts working within 20 seconds. The new battery’s operating performance declines as the paper dries. When the scientists rewet the paper during testing, the battery regained function and lasted an hour before beginning to dry out again.
That future may not be so far off. It is hard to predict a time line for manufacturing such items at scale, but the head of the study says he is in contact with potential industry partners and believes these batteries could make their way into products within the next two to five years.
1. Why is e-waste mentioned in paragraph 1?A.To introduce the topic. | B.To give people warning. |
C.To show the seriousness of it. | D.To call on people to take action. |
A.Objective. | B.Carefree. | C.Indifferent. | D.Concerned. |
A.The difference between the paper battery and the traditional battery. |
B.The working principle of the paper battery. |
C.The problem of the paper battery. |
D.The advantage of the paper battery. |
A.Paper battery: Is it far off? |
B.Paper can work wonders. |
C.Paper battery: A creative way to reduce e-waste. |
D.Let’s work together to fight e-waste. |
4 . Have you heard of the save soil movement? It was
The efforts of Sadhguru have
The movement aims to
The main motive of the campaign was to bring together people from all around the world to protect the soil’s health. Sadhguru has become
Sadhguru is also the author of the New York Times bestseller Inner Engineering: A Yogi’s Guide to Joy. He has been a(n)
A.launched | B.sponsored | C.experienced | D.commanded |
A.resulted in | B.originated from | C.paid back | D.reacted to |
A.airports | B.companies | C.conferences | D.locations |
A.abilities | B.struggles | C.characters | D.requests |
A.transform | B.address | C.drag | D.confirm |
A.messages | B.responses | C.proposals | D.positions |
A.exhausted | B.ambitious | C.successful | D.confident |
A.improvement | B.awareness | C.imagination | D.standard |
A.locally | B.individually | C.nationally | D.globally |
A.urging | B.requiring | C.cheering | D.permitting |
A.stable | B.ongoing | C.favorable | D.temporary |
A.However | B.Besides | C.Therefore | D.Meanwhile |
A.ensure | B.bring | C.affect | D.define |
A.strong | B.pleasant | C.determined | D.influential |
A.circumstance | B.lifestyle | C.atmosphere | D.soil |
5 . Commercial aviation (航空) alone contributes around three percent of total global carbon emissions (排放). But the industry is actively looking for green solutions in the form of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF). In a study released this week, a team of researchers from the U. S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) details a method of transforming food waste into SAF that can be used in existing engines. Making SAF is a more complicated process—it’s got to be very similar to the petrol-based aviation fuel we use today in commercial flights.
The researchers use volatile fatty acids (挥发性脂肪酸)(VFAs) from smelly food waste and transform it into simple paraffin molecules (石蜡分子) that can be used in fuel and really aren’t all that chemically different from traditional emissions-heavy fuels. There are other renewable biofuels that have been made from biomass (生物质), specifically oil and fat from vegetables and animals, but using the ever-mounting pile of food waste to fuel flights broadens those possibilities.
Derek Vardon, a senior research engineer at NREL, says major companies are eager to get involved in SAF because some sustainable solutions, such as battery-operated commercial flights, just aren’t possible yet with current battery technology. A battery-powered plane would be too heavy to fly long distances—“So using SAF that works in the same way as the fuel we have is a simpler way to trade out traditional emissions-heavy fuels.” Vardon also says that “because the wet waste would normally go to a landfill and break down to release greenhouse gases, the process of making and using SAF could actually have a negative carbon footprint when it is dramatically used.”
A major question as the researchers move forward with this type of research is if it is possible to run an airplane engine on fully renewable biofuel. Rolls-Royce recently did a test on one of their engines with 100 percent SAF and it worked. “This fuel is not crazy and we can solve these problems,” Vardon says.
1. Which of the following is TRUE about SAF?A.It can be used to reduce carbon emissions globally. |
B.It’s less functional than the petrol-based aviation fuel. |
C.It’s composed of VFAs and simple paraffin molecules. |
D.It is virtually impossible to be made from biomass like oil and fat. |
A.The benefits of food rubbish-generated SAF. | B.The environmental impacts of the wet waste. |
C.The simple process of making and using SAF. | D.The future of battery-operated commercial flights. |
A.To promote its production. | B.To confirm the potential of SAF. |
C.To show off its powerful airplane engines. | D.To express doubt about the research. |
A.Natural emergence of renewable biofuels | B.Green alternative to emissions-heavy fuels |
C.Unavoidable decline of commercial aviation | D.Gradual reduction in greenhouse gas emissions |
6 . To understand the effect of ice melting (融化) around the world we first have to understand what an ice sheet actually is. Covering 5.4 million square miles in Antarctica (南极洲) and 656,000 square miles in Greenland, an ice sheet is actually a huge land of ice from the Ice Age. These sheets form in areas where snow that falls in winter does not melt entirely over the summer. This ice, home to different species of animals, is now melting at a rate that cannot support the life it currently holds.
Many of these creatures rely on ice sheets as land for resting, hunting and protection, yet as the size decreases, they are forced out of their homeland in search of other land on which to live. Often this means journeys to search for food and an imbalanced ecosystem happens when different species are forced together onto the coast.
Since the 1990s, the deer population has dropped by 56 per cent—climate change has caused warmer temperatures over winter setting off rainfall instead of snow, which freezes more quickly underfoot and makes it harder to walk and search for food. In the summer, frozen layers of land melts and releases trapped diseases which bring death to animals. A similar situation has fallen on the polar bears who suffered a 40 per cent population loss between 2001—2010.
Quite apart from these problems, the threat of sea levels rising if the ice caps were to disappear is approaching. If the Greenland Ice Sheet melted, the sea level would rise around six meters, and if the Antarctic Ice Sheet melted, sea levels would rise by around 20 feet. As a matter of fact, sea levels have risen about eight inches since 1880, three of which we’ve gained over the last 25 years. This seemingly small amount has already caused dangerous flooding, loss of farmland and more deadly storms.
While we’re still a long way from losing the ice sheets all together, we’ve already lost too much and if we don’t take climate change seriously now, we will certainly hit the point of no return.
1. What is an ice sheet according to the passage?A.It is an area where ice never melts in summer. |
B.It is a land of ice that covers all Greenland. |
C.It is a large area of ice that exists for centuries. |
D.It is an ice world for animals to live on. |
A.It makes it easier to travel to other land. |
B.It increases the population of sea animals. |
C.It makes their surroundings more comfortable. |
D.It causes hunger and illness among animals. |
A.Ice sheet will soon disappear from the Earth. |
B.Sea levels are rising faster in recent years. |
C.Greenland will be the first to lose all its ice. |
D.All natural disasters happen due to sea level rise. |
A.Effect of Melting Ice Sheets | B.Ice, Sea and Animals |
C.Greenland and Antarctica | D.Changes of Sea Levels |
7 . With the outbreak of the COVID-19, multiple kinds of protective medical equipment, such as disposable(一次性的)masks, have been consumed. Market research indicates a sharp increase rate of 53% in the mask market alone. People often use these types of protective equipment and then throw them without thinking of the consequences, both on the ecosystem and human beings.
Disposable surgical masks are severely affecting the ecosystem. When improperly-handled masks enter the water system, they break up into smaller pieces. Complete masks can trap marine animals, resulting in their impaired mobility and even death. Meanwhile, the poisonous plastic particles will cause marine animals to be poisoned to death or weakness when they consume plastic. Furthermore, these harmful pollutants can severely affect reproduction, growth, and the development of the young. Just like their effects on marine animals, these pollutants can also contribute to severe harm in human bodies, especially in the neuron system. Exposure to micro plastics may cause particle poisoning, cellular damage and neuro-degenerative (神经退化的) diseases like Alzheimer’s disease(阿尔茨海默症).
Despite the potential harm to the ocean system and human neuron system, improperly-handled disposable masks will likely become a dangerous public health threat under the environment of a global pandemic. Instead of helping us fight against the COVID-19, to some extent, micro plastic pollution also causes the potential risk of speeding up the spread of the virus. Micro plastic particles in the ocean can be mixed up with water vapour to form aerosols in the atmosphere because they are small enough to enter the water cycle, where they are transferred from the marine system to the atmosphere in vast amounts and become a source for the disease COVID-19. thus causing the virus to speed up the spread of the global pandemic.
Humans will eventually suffer from the wrongdoing in the ocean systems because humans are nothing but temporary residents of the planet. Just like what the famous English anthropologist, Jane Goodall, has said, “Every individual matters. Every individual makes a difference.”
1. The underlined word “impaired” in paragraph 2 probably means“_________”.A.strengthened | B.damaged |
C.completed | D.influenced |
A.the impact on marine lives’ reproduction, growth and weakness |
B.the destruction to human’s neuron system, cellular system |
C.the huge economic loss for people living near the sea |
D.the great burden of micro plastic particles on ecosystem |
A.to describe the negative effects of disposed masks on nature and human beings. |
B.to advise readers to deal with the improperly-handled masks. |
C.how the improperly-handled masks help spread the virus. |
D.how to deal with the virus. |
A.To explain a serious phenomenon caused by the virus. |
B.To advocate a proper solution to solving the disposable masks. |
C.To compare the sufferings between marine animals and human beings. |
D.To analyze the harmful results of the improperly-handled masks. |
8 . You’ve heard that plastic is polluting the oceans — between 4.8 and 12.7 million tonnes enter ocean ecosystems every year. But does one plastic straw or cup really make a difference? Artist Benjamin Von Wong wants you to know that it does. He builds massive sculptures out of plastic garbage, forcing viewers to re-examine their relationship to single-use plastic products.
At the beginning of the year, the artist built a piece called “Strawpocalypse,” a pair of 10-foot-tall plastic waves, frozen mid-crash. Made of 168,000 plastic straws collected from several volunteer beach cleanups, the sculpture made its first appearance at the Estella Place shopping center in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.
Just 9% of global plastic waste is recycled. Plastic straws are by no means the biggest source (来源) of plastic pollution, but they’ve recently come under fire because most people don’t need them to drink with and, because of their small size and weight, they cannot be recycled. Every straw that’s part of Von Wong’s artwork likely came from a drink that someone used for only a few minutes. Once the drink is gone, the straw will take centuries to disappear.
In a piece from 2018, Von Wong wanted to illustrate (说明) a specific statistic: Every 60 seconds, a truckload’s worth of plastic enters the ocean. For this work, titled “Truckload of Plastic,” Von Wong and a group of volunteers collected more than 10,000 pieces of plastic, which were then tied together to look like they’d been dumped (倾倒) from a truck all at once.
Von Wong hopes that his work will also help pressure big companies to reduce their plastic footprint.
1. What are Von Wong’s artworks intended for?A.Beautifying the city he lives in. | B.Introducing eco-friendly products. |
C.Drawing public attention to plastic waste. | D.Reducing garbage on the beach. |
A.To show the difficulty of their recycling. |
B.To explain why they are useful. |
C.To voice his views on modern art. |
D.To find a substitute for them. |
A.Calming. | B.Disturbing. |
C.Refreshing. | D.Challenging. |
A.Artists’ Opinions on Plastic Safety |
B.Media Interest in Contemporary Art |
C.Responsibility Demanded of Big Companies |
D.Ocean Plastics Transformed into Sculptures |
9 . As the effects of climate change become more disastrous, well-known research institutions and government agencies are focusing new money and attention on an idea: artificially cooling the planet, in the hopes of buying humanity more time to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
That strategy, called solar climate intervention (干预) or solar geoengineering, involves reflecting more of the sun’s energy back into space — abruptly reducing global temperatures in a way that imitates the effects of ash clouds flowing out from the volcanic eruptions. The idea has been considered as a dangerous and fancied solution, one that would encourage people to keep burning fossil fuels while exposing the planet to unexpected and potentially threatening side effects, producing more destructive hurricanes, wildfires floods and other disasters.
But. as global warming continues, producing more destructive hurricanes, wildfires floods and other disasters, some researchers and policy experts say that concerns about geoengineering should be outweighed by the imperative to better understand it, in case the consequence of climate change become so terrible that the world can’t wait for better solutions.
One way to cool the earth is by injecting aerosols (气溶胶) into the upper layer of the atmosphere. where those particles reflect sunlight away from the earth. That process works, according to Douglas MacMartin, a researcher at Cornell University.
“We know with 100% certainty that we can cool the planet,” he said in an interview. What’s still unclear, he added, is what happens next. Temperature, MacMartin said, is an indicator for a lot of climate effects. “What does it do to the strength of hurricanes?” he asked, “What does it do to agriculture production? What does it do to the risk of forest fires?”
Another institution funded by the National Science Foundation will analyze hundreds of simulations of aerosol injection, testing the effects on weather extremes around the world. One goal of the research is to look for a sweet spot: the amount of artificial cooling that can reduce extreme weather events without causing broader changes in regional rainfall patterns or similar impacts.
1. Why do researchers and government agencies work on cooling the earth?A.To prevent natural disasters. | B.To win more time to reduce gas emissions. |
C.To imitate volcanic eruptions. | D.To encourage more people to bur fossil fuels. |
A.More volcanoes will throw out. |
B.More solar energy will go into space. |
C.More disasters will endanger the future of the world. |
D.People will keep burning fossil fuels to keep warm. |
A.He thinks more research remains to be done. |
B.He is optimistic about the effect of cooling the earth. |
C.He is concerned about the reduction in agriculture production. |
D.He disapproves of the practice of solar climate intervention. |
A.The rainfall pattern of a region. |
B.The modest drop in temperature. |
C.The number of extreme weather events. |
D.The injection amount of aerosol. |
10 . In the 1960s and 1970s, the greatest fear was that the human race, and possibly all advanced life forms on the planet, could be wiped out by nuclear missiles. Today, however, environmental problems have taken over as the greatest risk to life on Earth. Scientists are thinking of ways to lower this risk, such as replacing coal and oil with forms of renewable energy. But they are also preparing for the worst: what can we do if the terrifying scenes in films such as The Day After Tomorrow happen in real life? What is our plan B for Earth?
One option is to explore other planets to see if we could live on them. The most likely choice is Mars, which is relatively close to Earth and has an environment less hostile than that of other planets. Mars has fascinated people since ancient times, and today our interest in Martian exploration is greater than ever before. Besides, more governments are making efforts to educate the public on the Red Planet.
There is no doubt that humankind is drawn towards Mars. However, sending people there will require all the skill, courage and intelligence. While the Moon can be reached within days, it would take months to reach Mars, travelling through dangerous solar radiation. And even if the first settlers do reach Mars safely, they may not be able to return to Earth — ever. Staying alive will be a daily challenge, but as proved by the Biosphere 2 experiment, not impossible. As early as the 1980s, scientists were building Biosphere 2 in the Arizona desert, consisting of a closed space in which people, animals and plants could live together. Although the two-year experiment was not a success, it did provide us with a better understanding of how humans might be able to live on another planet.
For now, human settlement of Mars is still decades away. Until we are finally able to live on another planet, we need to take much better care of our own. Right now, it's the only one we have!
1. What was the biggest threat to humans in the 1960s and 1970s?A.Human race themselves. | B.All advanced life forms. |
C.Nuclear missiles. | D.Environmental problems. |
A.It's closest to the earth. |
B.It has relatively appropriate living conditions. |
C.It has drawn the public's attention in recent years. |
D.It has a more hostile environment. |
A.Humans have visited Mars. |
B.The Biosphere 2 experiment proved to be valueless. |
C.Humans will have to go and live on another planet. |
D.Our Plan A includes developing renewable energy resources. |
A.The Traveler. | B.Environmental Concerns. |
C.All About Space. | D.Biology for Fun, |