1 . Life today is much easier than it was hundreds of years ago, but it has brought new problems. One of the biggest is pollution. Pollution comes in many ways. We see it, smell it, drink it and even hear it.
Men have been polluting the earth. Many years ago, the pollution was not so serious because there were not so many people. When the land was used up or the river was dirty in one place, men moved to another place.
Air pollution is now the most serious. Air makes people sick. And lots of people now are trying to use something to clear the air. Water pollution kills our fish and pollutes our drinking water. Noise pollution makes us become angry more easily.
Many countries are making rules to fight air pollution. They stop people from burning coal in houses and factories in the city, and from putting dirty smoke into the air.
Pollution by SO2 is now the most dangerous kind of air pollution. It is caused by heavy traffic. It is true that if there are fewer people driving, there will be less air pollution.
Although most of the pollution is caused by us, we are the ones who can change the situation. The earth is our home. We must take care of it. And we must pay more attention to the information in pollution at the same time.
1. Why was the pollution in the past less serious?| A．Because life in the past was easier. | B．Because there were not so many people. |
| C．Because men stayed in one place. | D．Because people used less coal to make fire. |
| A．Air pollution. | B．Noise pollution. |
| C．Light pollution. | D．Water pollution. |
| A．Try to use something to clear the air. | B．Ask people to use public transport more. |
| C．Stop putting dirty smoke into the air. | D．Encourage people to move to another place. |
| A．To prove life is much easier today. | B．To call on us to take care of our earth. |
| C．To show the danger of pollution. | D．To introduce how to fight air pollution. |
2 . Without shiny black solar panels (太阳能板) on the roof, the residents in an apartment building in Illinois are enjoying the benefits of “community solar” — a program in which residents can buy electricity from nearby solar farms, reducing planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions (排放) and receiving discounts on their electric bills.
The solar energy in community solar doesn’t actually flow into your home, but flows into your area’s power grid (电网), providing electricity to homes and businesses in your region, and you get the benefits of government solar rewards in the form of lower electricity bills.
Among those signing up for the program is Dickerson, 73, of Oak Park, Illinois. “Try it; you’ll like it,” he said. “You’ll save money, and you’ll feel good about saving the planet — at least a little bit.” Proudly showing charts of their electricity costs in a recent interview, Dickerson and his fellow members of the community green committee, said they’re all paying less with community solar for their individual homes as well as the community’s common space.
Community solar was pioneered in the mid-2000s as a way to bring clean energy to the many American households without access to solar panels for various reasons. “Community solar is about to boost everywhere in terms of access,” said Nicole Steele, a senior advisor in the U. S. Department of Energy. “It’s just another way to be part of the clean energy transformation and see the actual benefits.”
Dickerson and his neighbour Johnson have been protecting the planet since childhood, such as leaving no litter in the forest and sorting recyclables. Therefore, they found it easy to accept community solar. Now, the building’s green newsletter, edited by Johnson, is trumpeting community solar savings. “As a parent and grandparent, it’s kind of like a heritage,” Johnson said of this work. “How could I do something that’s bad for the world in which my grandchildren are going to live?”
1. How does community solar work?| A．By directly transporting energy to households. |
| B．By equipping residents’ rooftops with panels. |
| C．By storing electricity in nearby solar farms. |
| D．By providing electricity through the power grid. |
| A．To prevent greenhouse gas emission. |
| B．To reduce cost and help save the planet. |
| C．To experience a more convenient energy. |
| D．To get rewards from the local government. |
| A．Doubtful. | B．Dismissive. | C．Conservative. | D．Approving. |
| A．Admitting shyly. | B．Stating critically. |
| C．Explaining secretly. | D．Announcing proudly. |
3 . Mariah Reading is an environmentalist, who grew up with an early appreciation for nature. While studying art at Bowdoin College, she saw the vast amounts of
After graduation, Mariah travelled throughout the country,
Over the years, she has painted more than 100 pieces of rubbish transformations
Mariah hopes people see themselves and their own habits
| A．paper | B．power | C．waste | D．work |
| A．artist | B．cleaner | C．journalist | D．mechanic |
| A．exploring | B．harming | C．forgetting | D．shaping |
| A．picking up | B．learning about | C．complaining of | D．taking out |
| A．hidden | B．lost | C．new | D．broken |
| A．medium | B．life | C．reason | D．idea |
| A．damage | B．connect | C．form | D．cross |
| A．protected | B．painted | C．changed | D．enjoyed |
| A．range | B．car | C．picture | D．road |
| A．outdated | B．ongoing | C．energy-consuming | D．self-centered |
| A．from | B．without | C．against | D．as |
| A．forcing | B．breathing | C．attracting | D．turning |
| A．ignores | B．replaces | C．integrates | D．highlights |
| A．surrounding | B．filling | C．combining | D．comparing |
| A．trapped | B．admitted | C．added | D．reflected |
4 . Most of us have heard of the 3Rs: reduce, reuse and recycle. It is the core principle of a sustainable (可持续的) life, but few of us can apply it in our own lives. Now, there’s a “lab” you can explore and discover a way toward living sustainably.
3R Lab is located in Xuhui district, Shanghai. It offers exhibitions, activities and goods that showcase the 3R principle. The key to a sustainable life, according to Vincent T. M. Fong, the 32-year-old from Hong Kong who created the lab, is to make it a long-term promise. “A sustainable life should be sustainable itself in the first place. You can’t lead a sustainable life on a whim. Small and comfortable changes are exactly what you need,” Fong said.
The lab regularly hosts ugly fruit markets, offering these strange fruits which are often thrown away by traditional markets and consumers at a quite attractive price. “They’re thrown away simply because of their appearance. Buying fruit regardless of how they look reduces food waste significantly in our daily life,” Fong commented.
A water tank with two types of straws is another equipment in the lab. “One type is made from normal plastics widely used in our daily life while the other is from PHA, a new replacement for plastics, and the water is sourced from the Suzhou River,” explained Ni Li, an employee of the lab. Visitors can see how the PHA straws degrade (降解) into a thin layer in just one month, while the others remain unchanged.
“Leading a sustainable life does not necessarily mean sacrifice,” said Fong. Consuming ugly fruit and using degradable plastics are small changes that are good for the environment and easy to stick to. Only in this way can the 3R principle become part of our lives, he added.
After working there for six months, Ni, who wasn’t mindful of the 3R principle before arriving at the lab, now uses her cup every time she buys a coffee. “The job has reshaped my life,” Ni said.
1. What does the-underlined phrase “on a whim” in the second paragraph probably mean?| A．In a rush. | B．On a regular basis. |
| C．Without any reason. | D．As a common practice. |
| A．To reduce food waste. | B．To promote healthy eating. |
| C．To sell new kinds of fruit. | D．To provide more affordable fruit, |
| A．The water pollution caused by plastics. | B．The degradation of PHA straws. |
| C．The interaction between two types of straws. | D．The disappearance of normal plastic straws. |
| A．She avoids going to traditional markets. | B．She has devoted less time to her hobbies. |
| C．She has got rid of a few bad habits. | D．She is leading a low carbon life now. |
Plastic production is energy intensive (能源密集型) and consumes fossil fuels. When burnt, waste plastic gives off heat-trapping gases and other pollutants. Once such emissions (排放) reach a certain level, it results
China’s efforts
Over the past decade, China
China has also made great
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How to Have a Low-carbon Spring Festival
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7 . As AI becomes popular, researchers have noticed its influence on the environment. Training an AI system requires huge computing power and electricity, and the resulting CO2 emissions (排放) are one way AI affects the environment. But its environmental effect is more than its carbon (碳)footprint.
Jesse Dodge, a scientist at the Allen Institute, says, "The influence of Al systems is going to be from their applications, not the cost of training them." David Rolnick, a computer scientist at McGill University, compares AI to a hammer (锤子) “The main effect of a hammer is what is being hammered,” he says, "not what is in the hammer." Just like a hammer which can either destroy things or build a house, Al can hurt or help the environment.
In 2019, ExxonMobil, an oil company, said it would use Microsoft’s app Azure. With the Al technology, it would increase its production and create billions of dollars. This means Microsoft's AI is directly contributing to greenhouse gas emissions. This is not the only AI application that could be environmentally harmful. AI behind the ads that jump out on Instagram or Facebook pages pushes customers to spend more on products like clothes. This in turn causes more emissions through more production and delivery.
But on the other side of the coin, there are AI applications that can help deal with environmental problems, such as the destruction caused by hurricanes. One such application is xView2, a program started by a U. S. organization. It can recognize buildings damaged and people trapped in natural disasters, reducing danger and saving time for rescuers.
AI could be a valuable tool in the fight against climate change—if the Al industry can reduce its harmful climate effects. "Both AI and climate rules have roles to play." Rolnick says. When creating Al rules, he suggests considering its applications, emissions, and other production costs. Further, Dodge adds that those AI professionals should help set up some value systems to limit the technology's use.
1. Where does the effect of AI systems on the environment come from according to Dodge?| A．The popularity of AI. | B．The emissions of CO2. |
| C．The way of applying AI. | D．The cost of AI training. |
| A．By listing numbers. | B．By giving examples. |
| C．By comparing facts. | D．By explaining details. |
| A．Rules for AI can be helpful. | B．Al's advance should be limited. |
| C．Production costs will be lower. | D．AI plays a role in making rules. |
| A．AI applications are environmentally harmful. |
| B．AI affects the environment by CO2 emissions. |
| C．AI is effective in solving environmental problems. |
| D．AI's environmental effect goes beyond its emissions. |
8 . For the past two months, Mandy Chen, a second-year student at Beijing University of Technology, has been posting photos of herself to Taobao, posing with a reusable cup, climbing stairs and switching off lights.
After seven days of posting her photos, Chen exchanged the points for a dozen of biodegradable rubbish bags from Taobao. Everyone can get an endless supply of free trash bags if they keep going, according to Chen.
Chen uses Carbon88, a platform launched last August by Alibaba Group Holding, to help the more than 800 million users on Taobao adopt a sustainable lifestyle. The platform rewards users for over 70 low-carbon behaviours.
| A．It encourages them to reduce their carbon footprint. |
| B．And her efforts to save electricity prevented 65.50 grams. |
| C．It’s a valuable addition to current carbon-reduction policies. |
| D．Carbon reduction has helped increase Chen’s environmental awareness. |
| E．Within minutes, she receives a dozen points from the app as a reward. |
| F．They range from taking public transport to shopping of second-hand items. |
| G．She is now saving points for something better, like snacks and water bottles. |
Home to the headwaters of the Yangtze, Yellow and Lancang rivers, the Sanjiangyuan area on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau (高原), is known as “China’s water tower.” It is a
Decades ago, serious environmental degradation (恶化) in Sanjiangyuan,
Over the past decade, the ecological environment of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau
The
Today, as people wander on the vast land of Sanjiangyuan, looking at the expansive mountains, glaciers, lakes and pastures,
10 . A recent study has found that using wood for construction instead of concrete and steel can reduce emissions. But Tim Searchinger at Princeton University says many of these studies are based on the false foundation that harvesting wood is carbon neutral (碳中和). “Only a small percentage of the wood gets into a timber (木料) product, and a part of that gets into a timber product that can replace concrete and steel in a building,” he says. Efficiencies vary in different countries, but large amounts of a harvested tree are left to be divided into parts, used in short-lived products like paper or burned for energy, all of which generate emissions.
In a report for the World Resources Institute, Searchinger and his colleagues have modelled how using more wood for construction would affect emissions between 2010 and 2050, accounting for the emissions from harvesting the wood. They considered various types of forests and parts of wood going towards construction. They also factored in the emissions savings from replacing concrete and steel.
Under some circumstances, the researchers found significant emissions reductions. But each case required what they considered an unrealistically high portion (一部分) of the wood going towards construction, as well as rapid growth only seen in warmer places, like Brazil. In general, they found a large increase in global demand for wood would probably lead to rising emissions for decades. Accounting for emissions in this way, the researchers reported in a related paper that increasing forest s between 2010 and 2050 would add emissions equal to roughly 10 percent of total annual emissions.
Ali Amiri at Aalto University in Finland says the report’s conclusions about emissions from rising demand are probably correct, but the story is different for wood we already harvest. “Boosting the efficiency of current harvests and using more wood for longer-lived purposes than paper would cut emissions,” he says. “We cannot just say we should stop using wood.”
1. What is wrong with previous researches according to Searchinger?| A．They got wrong statistics. | B．They were applied in limited countries. |
| C．They included too many factors. | D．They used an incorrect concept. |
| A．The process of the new research. | B．The background of the new study. |
| C．The challenge of the new research. | D．The achievements of the new study. |
| A．When the rising global demand for wood is completely met. |
| B．When the increasing forest harvests are widely restricted. |
| C．When a high portion of wood is used for global construction. |
| D．When wood is fully efficiently employed for lasting purpose. |
| A．Favorable. | B．Doubtful. | C．Objective. | D．Critical. |
