An unusually heavy monsoon(季风) has caused a disaster in South Asia this year. In May and June it hit Bangladesh and north-eastern India,     1     (kill) hundreds. Over the past few weeks, it     2     (hit) Pakistan, where more than 1,100 people have died and at least half a million have lost     3     (they) homes. A third of the country is under water.

    4     (actual), these countries have spent years developing methods to contain the damage. People     5     live near the coasts and in regions farther inland have been encouraged to make their houses stronger, and have received money to do so. Shelters have been put in place on raised ground, and repaired to include women-only facilities and take animals, making people more willing     6     (use) them. As for early warning, researchers gather weather data down to village level to predict flood days     7     advance.

With climate conditions growing more terrible round the world, they are likely to produce more political instability. As climate change leaves their cities and villages uninhabitable(不适宜居住的),     8     amazingly large number of people may     9     (force) to leave their homes in the coming decades. All the     10     (prepare) in the world are not enough to control the result.

3 . John “Charlie” Veron-widely known as “the Godfather of Coral Reef (珊瑚礁)”-is a celebrated expert who has personally discovered nearly a quarter of the world’s coral species and has spent the past 45 years diving Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. But now the 73-year-old is raising the alarm about its future. The Great Barrier Reef, one of the natural wonders, is 2, 300 kilometers long and is the only living organism that can be seen from space. It is considered a World Treasure Site due to its biodiversity (生物多样性)with 30 species of whales, dolphins and sharks. Within the reef itself, there are also a number of tiny organisms and fishes.

However, its health is threatened. After the recent mass bleaching (白化)events, Veron dived in many areas of the Great Barrier Reef to see the damage for himself. “I was seeing and feeling it and it was absolutely shocking, ” he says.

Veron says the mass bleaching events in the past few years-and the possibility of losing one of nature’s greatest treasures-were a wake-up call for the world in the wider battle against climate change, which, together with the rising sea temperature, is considered the greatest threats to the reef.

Fortunately, earlier this year, the Australian government announced nearly 400 million dollars in new funding towards scientific projects designed to help the reef.

There has been criticism in Australia about the slow process for the funding. “It won’t be wasted, though,”Veron says. “As scientists will be able to create a sort of seed bank to protect the species until the climate is good enough to rebuild the reef. What the scientists hope to do is to help nature along a bit after the big carbon dioxide increase is over and it starts to come down.”

Antarctica's Thwaites Glacier has been in the spotlight in recent years, as scientists have undertaken a multi-part international project to study the vast glacier from all angles. The urgency comes from observations and analyses showing that the amount of ice flowing from Thwaites — and contributing to sea level rise — has doubled in the past three decades. Scientists think the glacier could witness even more dramatic changes in the near future.

This image pair demonstrates the changes that have occurred since the start of this century. The first image shows the glacier's floating ice tongue on December 2,2001. The second image shows the glacier on December 28, 2019. Both images show the glacier where it exits the land in West Antarctica and stretches over the Amundsen Sea as thick floating ice. Ice that originates on land can raise sea level if it is delivered to the ocean at a faster rate than it is being replaced inland by snowfall. The flow speed of Thwaites has been increasing, while inland snowfall has not changed significantly.

In the past ten years, the tongue has continued to break and separate from the Thwaites Eastern Ice Shelf. By the time the 2019 image was acquired, the main tongue had declined greatly, and the ocean in front of Thwaites had become filled with floating ice.

Thwaites pours about 50 billion tons of ice into the ocean each year. That amount is nothing to sneeze at. But for the time being, it's “still a relatively small amount of sea-level rise,” said Ted Scambos, a scientist at the University of Colorado. “What the satellites are showing us is a glacier coming apart," said Ted Scambos.” Every few years a new area seems to be letting go and speeding. Like taffy being stretched out, this glacier is being drawn into the ocean.”

6 . Hunger and malnutrition still exist in the world. Luckily, there are exciting, creative solutions to solving the extra food coming from restaurants, grocery stores, and farmers.     1    

On June 7, 2022, Spain adopted a draft bill on leftovers. Food businesses will have to submit their plans to reduce food waste.     2     Restaurants will soon be required to provide containers for customers to take home their leftovers. Although this may seem like normal practice, in Spain, this is not the custom. With this upcoming law, diners can request their leftovers to be wrapped in recycled packaging for no extra cost.     3     Supermarkets will also be asked to donate their unsold food to food banks and neighborhood organizations.

    4     It can help reduce greenhouse gasses, ensure there is more food for the hungry, and save money in an economic depression. It may also heal nature as there’ll be less demand to destroy forest to grow crops and raise livestock. This, in turn, could reduce the usage of water and decrease pollution in the agricultural sector.

Along with France and Italy, Spain is paving the way for other countries to address this global issue. Spain hopes to enforce these new laws by 2023 and is also developing an awareness program to educate the consumer. Much food waste also comes from within the household.     5     Hence, teaching children about food waste is a big step towards making the world a better, less hungry place.

8 . Earth Day is April 22. Every year, people around the world observe the day by helping to care for the environment. They carry out all kinds of activities in an effort to better the planet’s heath.

One way to support this goal is to grow plants native to your area. This helps wildlife like birds and insects that evolved alongside native plants. For many of these animals, plant pollen (花粉) is their food. Native pollinators often cannot recognize non-native plants as food. This means they do not collect the pollen or spread plants’ seeds. Planting non-native species creates so-called “food deserts” for pollinators including bees, birds, bats, butterflies and more.

Doug Taamy is a professor of entomology at the University of Delaware. Entomology is the study of insects. He found that non-native plant species can harm the natural food chain, which can lead to a collapse of the environment. “Plant choice matters,” he said. “The plants we choose to landscape our properties should be determined by how much life can live there.”

Humans depend strongly on insects. Without them, we would have no flowering plants, which would harm the food web that supports important animals. Birds, for example, depend on plants for food and spread their seeds while keeping the populations of harmful insects down.

Insects support plants that provide oxygen, clean our water, capture carbon and add nutrients to the soil. That builds topsoil and prevents flooding. Without insects, the biosphere — the living parts of the Earth — would rot because of the loss of insect decomposers. Humans simply could not survive that, Tallamy said.

In addition to providing food and habitat for insects and other wildlife, native plants are able to grow easily and do not require much care. That means less watering and less fertilizing. The situation is a win-win for gardeners and pollinators.

9 . Leila Taheri used to go to the Welsh Harp wetland as a schoolgirl. At that time, the 160-hectare nature ______ was home to various birds, also Taheri’s perfect playground. She ______ played baseball there, forgetting to go home.

In August, 2020, 37-year-old Taheri ______ the wetland and the kind of dump-like (垃圾场般的) surroundings ______ Taheri. Because of pollution, birds populations had been ______. To make things worse, the nearby residents paid little attention to the wetland.

A strong ______ to do something controlled her. Taheri decided to begin with a litter pick. She ______ her neighbors to join in. In one month, they ______ 70 bags of rubbish. Then, Taheri expanded the work into more general environmental activism. ______ monthly litter picks, they also worked with some bird protection organizations. Currently, they are trying to ______ a planned bridge across the wetland, for it will destroy birds’ habitat despite the advantage of ______ the locals a few minutes’ walk.

Taheri’s efforts ______. More and more locals are now more environmentally ______, more involved, and have come to see the value of her work. She makes a real ______ not only to the Welsh Harp, and but for the wider community. Just as Taheri says,“Don’t stand______, do something about it.”

10 . A tsunami is a series of huge waves that can kill many people and destroy a whole country. A terrible tsunami disaster happened on December 26, 2004.     1     It is said that it might not be the worst and a future tsunami in the Indian Ocean could affect Singapore, Somalia, Western Australia, and many other places.

The word “tsunami” comes from Japanese words. A tsunami can be caused by natural phenomenon such as landslides, volcanic eruptions, large asteroid impacts (小行星撞击地球), and earthquakes occurring underwater or close to a body of water.     2    

A tsunami usually cannot be seen while it travels through deep water.     3     On December 26, 2004, some people saw the sea suddenly disappeared just before the waves came and knew that something was wrong. Some people managed to run fast from it and survived, but many people, who did not see any signs or did not run fast enough, died.

    4     If you are in a coastal area where the water suddenly draws back, the only chance of survival is to run for high ground or for the high floors of high-rise buildings. But because it moves too fast for people to run from it, only those who are lucky manage to survive.

Since the tsunami of 2004, many people know more about tsunami.     5