1 . LONDON—The U.K. recorded its highest-ever temperatures Tuesday with readings of over 104 degrees Fahrenheit, as a heat wave scorched the nation and caused fires around the capital.
During the day, at least 34 places across the country broke the previous record. Several blazes broke out across London—including a large fire in a residential area. London Mayor Sadiq Khan said on Twitter that the fire brigade was under “immense pressure,” and warned citizens to stay safe.
Tuesday has been the second successive day of extremely hot weather in the nation. The U.K. government has declared a national emergency, while the national meteorological (气象的) service, the Met Office, started its first-ever “red extreme heat warning” across England.
Nationwide, schools and summer camps have closed, hospitals have canceled routine visits and transport has been disrupted, with many railways and the London subway system urging customers to stay at home.
The heat warped (使变形) runways at U.K. airports on Monday, forcing Luton Airport to stop all flights until early evening. The Met office has warned against melting asphalt (沥青) on roads and has advised citizens not to travel.
“In this country we’re used to treating a hot spell as a chance to go and play in the sun,” said Penny Endersby, chief executive at the Met Office, in a press release. “This is not that sort of weather.”
Scientists have warned that climate change is likely to make weather of this severity more common. Dr. Friederike Otto, a climate scientist at Imperial College London, said, “It would have been almost impossible to see temperatures of 40 degrees in London without climate change.”
1. What do we know about the heat in U.K. according to the passage?| A．No more than 34 places broke the previous temperature record. |
| B．Tuesday was the first day of extremely hot weather in the country. |
| C．The highest temperature readings was over 104 degrees Celsius. |
| D．Some fires broke out in London because of the burning weather. |
| A．Because the heat damaged runways at U.K. airports. |
| B．Because of the first-ever red extreme heat warning. |
| C．Because the fire brigade was under big pressure. |
| D．Because the awful heat has melted asphalt on roads. |
| A．Londoners are used to play outside in the sun. |
| B．Climate has changed and caused burning weather. |
| C．This kind of climate is less likely to happen again. |
| D．This weather is not suitable to outdoors activities. |
| A．Flooded. | B．Blew. | C．Burned. | D．Warmed. |
2 . Within a few decades, global temperatures are expected to climb to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. And that’s going to be really bad for corals, according to the latest report out from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
So the recent IPCC report says that up to 1.5 we can expect 10 to 30 percent coral survivorship. And above that, it decreases sharply.
Andrea Grottoli is a distinguished professor at the Ohio State University. Amid the doom and gloom of the IPCC report, Grottoli has some rare good news. Corals may be more adaptable to future conditions than we thought.
Her team studied three species of coral from the island of Oahu, in Hawaii. They put them in tanks with either heat stress, more acidic water or both. And what really matters in this study is the one where both increases in temperature and ocean acidification, because that’s exactly what’s happening on reefs now.
Twenty-two months later, they assessed the winners and losers. They found that on average more than half the corals survived. Even after being punished with warmer, more acidic waters — the kind they’d face under two degrees of global warming, the corals survived. Two of the three species were actually physiologically performing normally. They were doing more than surviving. They were coping. They’d adapted. They were doing well.
The results appear in the journal Scientific Reports. Grottoli says the study provides hope. The world’s corals may be more resilient than we thought — especially since one of the Hawaiian species they studied is widespread around the planet.
But will this good news motivate world leaders to control warming? Well, corals may be able to wait just a little longer to find out.
1. What effects does warming have on corals?| A．It helps corals increase. | B．It’s beneficial to corals. |
| C．I helps corals survive. | D．It does harm to corals. |
| A．Expecting things to go well. | B．Feelings of being hopeless and pessimistic. |
| C．Almost total darkness. | D．An idea of what will happen in the future. |
| A．All the three species were performing normally. |
| B．The corals could hardly stand the test conditions. |
| C．The results of the experiment were not significant. |
| D．Temperature rise and ocean acidification go hand in hand. |
| A．Cautious. | B．Ambiguous. | C．Optimistic. | D．Concerned. |
3 . “A lot of the time when climate change is discussed in mainstream media, people are asking ‘can humans overcome this?’, or ‘what technology can solve this?’. It’s high time we recognized that animals also have to adapt to various changes. We know some animals change their skin colors to escape from natural enemies or due to environment pollution,” says Ryding. “The climate change that we have created is putting a lot of pressure on them, and some species try to adapt by shapeshifting (变形). ”
Strong shapeshifting has particularly been reported in birds. Several species of Australian parrot have shown, on average, a 4%—10% increase in beak (鸟喙) size since 1871, and this is positively linked with the summer temperature each year. North American dark-eyed juncos, a type of small songbird, had a link between increased beak size and short-term temperature extremes in cold environments. There have also been reported changes in mammalian species. Researchers have reported tail length increases in wood mice and leg size increases in masked shrews (鼩鼱).
“The increases in some body parts size we see so far are quite small—less than 10%—so the changes are unlikely to be immediately noticeable,” says Ryding. “However, some body parts such as ears are predicted to increase.”
Ryding intends to investigate shapeshifting in Australian birds firsthand by 3D scanning museum bird specimens from the past 100 years. It will give her team a better understanding of which birds are changing their body parts and why. “Shapeshifting does not mean that animals are coping with climate change and that all is ‘fine’,” says Ryding. “It just means they are adapting to survive it—but we’re not sure what the other ecological consequences of these changes are, or indeed that all species are capable of changing and surviving. ”
1. What may cause animals’ shapeshifting according to Ryding?| A．Human hunting. | B．Climate change. |
| C．Natural enemies. | D．Polluted surroundings. |
| A．Giving examples. | B．Cause-effect analysis. |
| C．Making comparison. | D．Process analysis. |
| A．Animals can well adapt to changes and survive. |
| B．Influence of animals’ shapeshifting is uncertain. |
| C．Rdying will research into bird museums in Australia. |
| D．All adaptations of animals to climate change are beneficial. |
| A．Technology. | B．Health care. | C．Environment. | D．Education. |
4 . In the last 100 years, the global temperature has gone up by around 0. 75’℃. This may not sound like much, but an increase of 2 ℃ in global temperatures could result in extinction for 30% of the world’s land species.
On account of the changing climate, the world’s ecosystems are also changing faster. More than one-third of the world’s mangroves (红树林)and around 20％ of the world’s coral reefs(珊瑚礁)have been destroyed in the last few decades. Due to the higher temperatures and higher levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, plants are producing more pollen(花 粉), which could lead to more cases of asthma, a medical condition which makes it hard to breathe.
What is causing climate change? It seems that the main cause is the huge amount of greenhouse gases, such as CH4 and CO2, but the real reason for this is that the world’s population increases and more land is needed to provide food and energy. Burning fossil fuels for heating, lighting, transport, electricity or manufacturing produces CO2. By cutting down trees, we are increasing the amount of Co2 and reducing the amount of oxygen. As a result of human activities, CO2 levels are now at their highest in 800, 000 years.
The biggest challenge we all face is to prevent further environmental disasters. We must do something before it is too late. We need to reduce the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. We need to stop burning fossil fuels and start using renewable energy. We can get enough energy from renewable fuels, such as solar energy or wind power to stop using fossil fuels completely.
1. What is the author’s main purpose in writing this article?| A．To predict the effects of global warming. |
| B．To describe the changes in nature. |
| C．To urge the use of renewable energy. |
| D．To warn people of natural disasters. |
| A．Ecology is badly affected. |
| B．30% of species will die out. |
| C．The amount of CO: is growing. |
| D．More people die of asthma. |
| A．Cutting down trees. |
| B．Increasing population |
| C．Burning fossil fuels. |
| D．Greenhouse gases. |
| A．What’s done can not be undone. |
| B．Man will surely defeat nature. |
| C．Humans are nothing in face of nature. |
| D．Actions are needed to resolve problems. |
Owing to global warming, sea levels are rising and rain forests are dying. It’s clear that humans
Global warming is causing a set of changes to the earth’s climate
Climate change includes not only rising average temperatures but also extreme weather events and a range of other
What shall we do and what can we do
6 . Climate change and habitat loss from big agriculture are combining to decrease global insect populations, with each problem making the other worse, a new study finds.
While insects may bother people at times, they also are key in pollinating (授花粉) plants to feed people, making soil more fertile. Scientists have noticed a dramatic drop both in total insect numbers and diversity of insect species due to harmful chemicals and high pollution.
Big single-crop agriculture that leaves less habitat and leafy food for insects plus higher temperatures from climate change are huge problems for insect number drop, but a new study in the journal Nature based on more than 750,000 samples of 18,000 different species of insects says it’s not just those two threats acting on their own. The interaction between habitat loss and climate change does smash insect populations.
“In his case, the habitat loss and climate change can often be worse than if they were acting on their own, as one can make the impact of the other worse and vice versa (反之亦然). We’re missing part of the picture if we are only looking at these things individually,” said Outhwaite, an ecologist at University College London. For example, single-crop agriculture often reduces tree shading, making it hotter in a given spot. On top of that comes climate change. Then insects that need heat relief or need to move north for cooler climates can run into problems with lack of proper habitat because of large farms.
What makes this study important is that it’s the first to link climate change and industrialized agriculture together in explaining harm to insects. The study used so many different samples and species around the world, which gives its findings more credibility.
1. What contributes to the drop in insect numbers?| A．Leafy plants and fertile soil. | B．Less pollinated plants. |
| C．Habitat loss and climate change. | D．Diverse chemicals. |
| A．Soar. | B．Decrease. | C．Damage. | D．Increase. |
| A．To offer a comparison. | B．To explain a theory. |
| C．To draw a conclusion. | D．To make a prediction. |
| A．Its complex data. | B．Its strict process. |
| C．Its special value. | D．Its new application. |
7 . Most people are aware that our climate is changing and recognize that global warming is an obvious truth. Scientists around the world are now largely in agreement that we need to change our ways quickly if we’re to avoid an incoming climate disaster and cut down the damage we’ve done to our planet.
Human activity has caused the greatest increase in temperature. While global temperature waves in the past have often been caused by natural events, since 1950 humans have been to blame for a warming world. Through burning fossil fuels, increasing farming and agriculture and destroying forests, we have increased emissions(排放). Our thirst for power and resources seems unending and we will only slow down the damaging changes we’ve made if we take action quickly.
We all have a part to play in reducing consumption (消耗). Even seemingly small acts like auditing your company’s tap water use and wastage(损耗) could, when taken as a whole, make a huge difference to the pressures we are all putting on our planet.
Temperatures have risen by around a degree over the last 100 years: a one-degree increase in temperature might not sound like a lot but, in climatic terms, it’s a huge milestone. In the Paris Agreement of 2015, 196 nations around the world committed to controlling global temperature increases to below two degrees-and closer to 1.5 degrees. Mass extinction is another unwanted challenge facing us through a changing climate. More sadly, scientists now warn that if the situation doesn’t improve, we may well lose between 30 % and 50 % of the total species currently on Earth.
Climate change is a real and present danger facing the world. If we stand together and make small differences to our lifestyles and habits, we still have time to repair the damage we’ve done to our planet.
1. What do we know about global warming?| A．Global warming is hardly admitted by most people. |
| B．Some scientists agreed global warming could be avoided. |
| C．All global warming is not mainly caused by natural events. |
| D．Global warming in the 1890s was caused by human activities. |
| A．Checking. | B．Saving. | C．Recycling. | D．Removing. |
| A．To analyze the temperature data in climatic terms. |
| B．To make readers feel sorry for species extinction. |
| C．To reduce scientists’ anxiety caused by global warming. |
| D．To stress the serious impacts of climate situation. |
| A．Global Warming and Its Effects. |
| B．Climate Change Calls for Actions. |
| C．Climate Change Causes Species Extinction. |
| D．Human Activities and Global Warming. |
There is little doubt
Then what is causing the increase in the global average surface temperature? Climate scientists think the climate process “greenhouse effect” makes it possible for Earth
The rise in temperature has led to an increase in extreme weather and natural
China has detailed measures to boost its climate change monitoring and risk prevention capabilities, marking a significant step forward in the country’s efforts
The country will seek to build a climate-resilient society
The first time China
As the global climate
10 . At Cleveland Bridge, in Bath, a long line of traffic is building up. Although the Georgian structure was praised for its handsome Greek Revival style by Nikolaus Pevsner, an architectural master, it was built for horses, not cars. Repairs will close the bridge for several months, causing bigger jams and more pollution in a city where air quality is already a cause of concern.
Bath is an extreme example of a tradeoff faced by much of the country. Britain has the oldest housing stock in Europe, with one in five homes more than 100 years old. Period features are prized and often protected by law. Yet as efforts to cut carbon emissions intensify, they are clashing with attempts to preserve heritage. It is a “delicate balance” says Wera Hobhouse, Bath’s MP “What is the public benefit of dealing with the climate emergency, versus protecting a heritage asset?”
Two years ago, Bath was among the first British cities to declare a “climate emergency” when it also promised to go carbon-neutral by 2030. Yet Bath also wants-and is legally required to preserve its heritage. With Roman remains and Georgian streets that spread across the Avon Valley in shades of honey and butter, the city is designated a world heritage site by UNESCO. About 60% of it is further protected by the government as a conservation area, more than 5.000 of Bath’s buildings-nearly 10% of the total-are listed as being of special architectural or historical interest, making it a criminal offence to alter them without permission.
Many of the features that make Bath’s Georgian buildings so delicate also make them leaky. Buildings of traditional construction make up 30% of Bath’s housing stock but account for 40% of domestic carbon emissions, according to the Centre for Sustainable Energy, a charity. British homes are rated for energy efficiency on a scale from A to G; most traditional buildings in the city are an F or G.
Transport is another area where climate and heritage clash. Bath’s 17t-century streets lack room for bike lanes. Joanna Wright was recently booted out of her role as Bath’s climate chief after proposing that North Road, which leads to the university, should be closed to traffic. In two years she was unable to install any on-street electric-vehicle charging points, partly because of the “nightmare" of getting permission to dig up old pavements.
All this means going carbon neutral by 2030 looks hard, but the city is at least beginning to make compromises. In March it launched the first “clean-air zone” outside London, charging drivers to enter central Bath. A trial has made 160 electric motoreycles available to hire. And local opinion seems to be shifting in favour of sustainability. “The discussion has moved dramatically towards considering the climate emergency,” says Ms. Hobhouse.
1. What problem does Bath face?| A．It is getting more and more crowded due to the repairs that are under way. |
| B．Its historical significance makes it hard to reform it into an eco-friendly city. |
| C．It refuses to admit that the climate emergency is already a cause of concern. |
| D．Its promise to go carbon-neutral by 2030 wins no support from the city residents. |
| A．question the validity of the A-G scale |
| B．highlight the long history of Bath’s buildings |
| C．emphasize the buildings are not energy efficient |
| D．illustrate the features that Bath’s buildings share |
| A．failed to perform her duties well |
| B．managed to dig up some old pavements |
| C．succeeded in building bike lanes in Bath |
| D．removed charging points from Bath’s streets |
| A．Wera Hobhouse doesn’t care much about the public benefit. |
| B．Traditional buildings in Bath are not accessible to tourists now. |
| C．Local people in Bath used to favour heritage over sustainability. |
| D．Bath has been leading the way in constructing a carbon-neutral city. |
