1 . When Chui-Lian Lee and Valentina Gomez started on their academic journeys as textile (织物) developing and marketing majors at the Fashion Institute of Technology, they were eager to learn more about the clothing industry. Some of the things they ended up learning shocked them. They found out that roughly 11 million tons of textile waste end up in landfill each year, and the chemicals and gases that emerge during decomposition pollute the earth.
Every single class that they joined, they’d go through the impacts and it’d be like, “Okay, cotton has this large of a water footprint and people are turning to organic cotton, but that’s not really a solution because of these reasons.” Or “People are looking at recycled polyester (涤纶) but that’s not great because it still releases microplastics.” As every solution they learned about came with drawbacks, they both wound up feeling really frustrated.
It wasn’t until the two joined a class on the application of biotechnology to the manufacturing of clothing that they realized there could be a more environmentally friendly option for the fashion industry. Lee and Gomez learned that they could use specially engineered proteins to create a fiber that avoids plastics and degrades (分解) naturally, and then the idea for Werewool was born. “By changing how we are creating the fibers that make up our clothing, we can change the entire life cycle of our clothing and their end-of-life impacts on the environment, avoiding pollution from plastics,” Lee explains.
The early-stage biotech company focusing on developing biodegradable fibers for the textile industry initially started as a research project that involved many sleepless nights in the lab. After winning the H&M Global Change Award in 2020, the project launched into a company. Over four years and 4.5 million dollars in funding later, Werewool now has 12 employees and has begun working with brands to develop clothing out of their protein-based fibers, with the hope of launching products in 2025. By 2030, 125,000 tons of fiber is expected to enter the market, which is about 390 million shirts.
“Our goal has always been to make the fashion industry friendly to nature,” says Lee.
1. What surprised Lee and Gomez when they learned about the clothing industry?| A．A wide range of textiles are produced every year. |
| B．There are many poisonous chemicals in clothing. |
| C．Clothing industry brings harm to the environment. |
| D．The textile waste is quite difficult to break down. |
| A．To present features of organic clothing. |
| B．To introduce methods of recycling textile waste. |
| C．To show they’re not good options for sustainability. |
| D．To explain it is essential to reduce the water footprint. |
| A．It has a bright prospect. | B．It funds research on textile waste. |
| C．It proves to be highly profitable. | D．It pioneers in plastics decomposition. |
| A．Werewool Makes Fashion Green |
| B．Breakthroughs in Applied Biotechnology |
| C．Lee and Gomez’s Academic Journeys |
| D．New Protein-based Fibers Hit the Market |
2 . More than 45,000 years ago, by the shore of present-day Tasmania, a local person picked up a large piece of thick, dark brown seaweed. And he realized that this giant piece of seaweed could be used to make a watertight(不透水的) bag. And 45,000 years later on mainland Australia, people are again turning to seaweed to solve pressing problems. Today, it is used to address the world’s climate crisis.
Winberg, a marine ecologist, has spent decades studying seaweed. She believes seaweed’s fast growth rate and ability to absorb vast amounts of carbon dioxide can help fight climate change, clean the oceans, and change the way we farm, not just in the oceans but also on land.
Realizing seaweed’s potential as a climate solution, Winberg opened Australia’s first land-based, commercial seaweed farm in 2013. On her farm Winberg produces seaweed juices that are used in food, and medicines. Like plants on land, seaweed absorbs CO2 and grows biomass(生物量). Coastal marine systems can absorb carbon at rates up to 50 times greater than forests on land. Globally, seaweeds are thought to sequester nearly 200 million tons of CO2 every year — as much as New York States annual emissions. And when the seaweed dies, much of the carbon locked up in its tissues is transported to deep oceans.
The potential for seaweed doesn’t stop in the oceans. Winberg has found there are benefits on land, too. She believes that seaweed farming offers “huge potential” to not only address the climate crisis, but also feed a growing population in a sustainable way. According to Winberg, one hectare of a seaweed farm can produce more protein than the same amount of land used for cattle. “We’re sitting on undiscovered, renewable, sustainable resources,” she says.
In the thousands of years of human experimentation with seaweed, the scale of the challenges that seaweed can help solve has grown largely. But some things are still the same. To the Aboriginal Australians living in Tasmania who first discovered some of seaweed’s uses, it might have seemed like a wonder material as they made watertight bags out of it. To seaweed experts like Winberg today, this old idea is still ringing true.
1. What is mainly introduced about seaweed in Paragraph 1?| A．It’s history. | B．It’s origin. | C．It’s use. | D．It’s appearance. |
| A．Unclear | B．Critical | C．Doubtful | D．Favorable |
| A．By comparison. | B．By argumentation. | C．By example. | D．By simile. |
| A．People can only feel the seaweed’s benefits from the sea. |
| B．Seaweed can solve an increasing number of difficulties. |
| C．The seaweed today has no more advantages than before. |
| D．The potential for seaweed does not apply to the land. |
3 . If you’re looking for something fun to do, pack a picnic dinner and take your family or friends to a beautiful place to eat. However, there’s a wrong trend to view picnics as an excuse to transport food in single-use plastic containers. Sure, it means the cleanup is easy at the moment, but it just puts it off to a later point, when it takes the form of volunteer cleanups and landfill management.
●Use food containers smartly
Using reusable containers is the easiest way to reduce waste.
●Choose real cutlery (餐具)
Using washable dishes and cutlery for a picnic does not require much more work than single-use ones.
You’d have to carry the waste out anyway in a trash bag, so why not pack your dirty plates and cutlery into a bag and put them in the dishwasher at home?
●Think about the drinks
Forget the single-use, single-serve drink bottles.
●Put cloth bags to good use
Cloth bags are amazing. I use them for so much more than just buying food at the store. They’re perfect for packing sandwiches, dried or whole fruit, and other snack foods. You can use them to pack glasses or plates to prevent breaking. They can also work as a napkin, tea towel, or trash bag if needed.
| A．Be sure to add a few to your picnic basket. |
| B．There are some healthy dishes you can make or buy. |
| C．To avoid this, a plastic-free picnic can be a brilliant idea. |
| D．If you’re worried about breaking, take some light camping plates. |
| E．Instead, just bring along a cloth tablecloth to spread on the ground. |
| F．These create a huge amount of waste, which can be easily avoided. |
| G．In addition, keep in mind that you don’t have to pre-pack everything. |
4 . From Dec 7 to 19, delegates from around the world met at the 15th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (also known as COP15), in Montreal, Canada. After two weeks of intense debate at COP15, delegates agreed on Dec 19 to adopt a landmark plan to halt and reverse biodiversity loss by 2030. “Finally, we reached our destiny. We adopted the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework,” Huang Runqiu, COP15 president and China’s minister of ecology and environment, announced on Dec 19.
The new framework is a commitment by 196 parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity to conserve at least 30 percent of the Earth’s land and ocean area by the next decade. It also will increase the expected annual financial assistance from developed countries through 2030 to help developing nations with biodiversity protection.
The aim of COP15 is to ensure biodiversity loss is changed by 2030, and that humans are able to live in harmony with nature by 2050.To realize these objectives can be very challenging. At COP10 in Nagoya, Japan in 2010, the parties agreed on the 20 Aichi Biodiversity Targets (爱知生物多样性目标). But, as of now, none of the 20 objectives has been fully realized.
It is important to turn consensus into effective actions. Yet, as recent talks have shown, an aspect of effective international action on stopping climate change is the cooperation of developed countries. Developed countries, however, have fallen short of their responsibility as they have failed to fulfill the obligations according to the COP convention to provide funding and technology to poorer nations who lack the means to combat climate change.
To solve this problem, the framework creates a new biodiversity fund within the UN’s existing Global Environment Facility. This came about as a compromise between developing nations, which wanted a new fund, and developed countries, which did not. In addition, a global youth initiative (倡议) was also released, hoping young people to be leaders and advocates for biodiversity conservation.
1. What is the aim of COP15?| A．To save at least 30 percent of the Earth’s land and ocean area by next decade. |
| B．To stop biodiversity loss and promote harmony between man and nature. |
| C．To strengthen the cooperation between developed and developing countries |
| D．To provide funding and technology to poorer nations to fight climate change. |
| A．To show the parties didn’t fulfill the obligation |
| B．To show the objectives were too high to realize |
| C．To show it is difficult to realize the objectives of COP 15 |
| D．To show Japan didn’t hold the meeting successfully. |
| A．Statistic. | B．Emotion. | C．Intervention. | D．Agreement. |
| A．International cooperation is important. |
| B．A new framework is made in the COP15. |
| C．Joint efforts are needed to fight climate change. |
| D．Historic COP 15 deals are released on biodiversity. |
5 . In the summer of 2021, an unseasonal event took place. More than 100 miles of Florida’s coast around Tampa Bay became an oxygen-depleted (缺氧的) zone containing dead fish along the nearby shoreline.
Much of the conversation around our climate crisis highlights the emission of greenhouse gases and their effect on warming, sea-level rise and ocean acidification (海洋酸化). We hear little about the effect of climate change on oxygen levels, particularly in oceans and lakes. But water without adequate oxygen cannot support life. For the three billion people who depend on coastal fisheries for income, declining ocean oxygen levels are devastating.
As ocean and atmospheric scientists focus on climate, we believe that oceanic oxygen levels are the next big victim of global warming. To stop the situation from worsening, we need to expand our attention to include the dangerous state of oceanic oxygen levels — the life-support system of our planet. We need to accelerate ocean-based climate solutions that boost oxygen. Examples include nature-based solutions such as those discussed at the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) held in Glasgow.
Enhanced monitoring of oxygen and the establishment of an oxygen-accounting system are a must. Putting oxygen into the climate story motivates us to do the work to understand the deep systemic changes happening in our complex atmospheric and oceanic systems. We celebrated the return of humpback whales in recent years to an increasingly clean New York Harbor and Hudson River. However, dead fish blocked the Hudson in the summer as warmer waters carried less oxygen.
Ecosystem changes connected to physical and chemical system-level data may point the way to new approaches to climate solutions. It includes an enhanced understanding of the life-support system of our planet. Roughly 40 percent of the world’s people depend on the ocean for their livelihoods. If we do not save marine life from oxygen starvation, we starve ourselves.
1. What is the result of less ocean oxygen according to the text?| A．A rise in the coastal fisheries. | B．The warming of the atmosphere. |
| C．The emission of greenhouse gases. | D．An increase in deaths of sea animals. |
| A．Attention to oceans is necessary. | B．Global warming effects are serious. |
| C．Oceanic oxygen levels are dangerous. | D．Ways to boost oceanic oxygen are urgent. |
| A．To bring in an oxygen-accounting system in climate. |
| B．To explain the urgency of oxygen levels in atmosphere. |
| C．To call for more attention to oxygen starvation in waters. |
| D．To show the achievements in reducing air pollution. |
| A．Save Marine Life. | B．Make Oceans Safe. |
| C．Let Oceans Breathe. | D．Keep Marine System. |
6 . Working at an investment bank in New York City in the mid-2010s. Anna Sacks was living the life—just not the life she wanted. Sure, she was happy. But she wanted to do something that felt important and was fulfilling on a deeper level.
Sacks packed up her life and moved to Connecticut for three months to participate in Adamah, a Jewish farming program that focuses on sustainable living and growing sustainable food. The Adamah program opened Sacks’s eyes to the damage consumer culture is doing on a local, national, and global level, and the need to find solutions. From then on, she began what she calls “trash (垃圾) walking.”
While walking around her neighborhood, Sacks, 31, picked through rubbish to look for reusable items. Soon, her trash walks expanded to include company rubbish along with residential trash. Surprisingly, she discovered a wide range of really great stuff—like clothing, dinnerware, and food—all of which she documents on Instagram and TikTok.
Under the name The Trash Walker, Sacks quickly gained popularity for her educational, funny, and surprising videos that highlight the problems with consumerism and share information about how to live a more sustainable life. “The root issue is overproduction, which leads to overconsumption, which leads to a large amount of waste,” she says. Sacks’s videos have gone viral many times, causing shockwaves through the industries she calls out.
Trash walking has given Sacks a nearly endless supply and she shares much of her “treasure” with others. She tries giving them informally to family, friends, or individuals she knows may need a specific item. Then she takes the remaining items to free stores so other New Yorkers can benefit from her treasure-hunting.
Sacks’s main focus is simply getting people to pay attention to how many unnecessary things they buy and then throw away. “Once you become aware of the way you consume, you can see ways you improve,” she says.
1. What inspired Sacks to begin her “trash walking”?| A．Her desire to live a richer life. | B．The great need for household stuff. |
| C．Her involvement in a project. | D．The wish to be an Internet star. |
| A．Funny stories. | B．Views on consumption. |
| C．Educational courses. | D．Solutions to problems. |
| A．She donates all to the charity. | B．She keeps most for her family. |
| C．She gives away much to others. | D．She sells some to individuals. |
| A．Trash Walker: Find Treasure in Trash. |
| B．Trash Walking: A Tough Journey. |
| C．Trash Walker: Live in the Moment. |
| D．Trash Walking: A New Career. |
Leonora, a 51-year-old from the Philippines,
In Asia, there is plenty of waste material for Leonora to apply. Most of the world’s ocean waste
“The dresses are really
Most of her dresses are used in the beauty
To observe Tibetan antelopes, we made a trip to Tibet. There we made out
To protect them, the Changtang National Nature Reserve was set up,
In the 1980s and 1990s, the population dropped badly because of being shot to make profits and the loss of
9 . How did Cape Town, South Africa, get into a Day Zero situation—when the city’s taps would go dry because its reservoirs (水库)would become dangerously low on water? The city gets its water from six reservoirs in Western Cape province, which usually
Cape Town is not
In the U.S., the situation is somewhat better, but many urban centers still
| A．take over | B．fill up | C．make off | D．set out |
| A．decreased | B．rose | C．remained | D．drowned |
| A．likelihood | B．proportion | C．demand | D．efficiency |
| A．architecture | B．agriculture | C．economy | D．conservation |
| A．policy | B．growth | C．crisis | D．change |
| A．enough | B．possible | C．difficult | D．alone |
| A．making up for | B．resulting from | C．taking advantage of | D．looking into |
| A．In a word | B．By comparison | C．What’s worse | D．For example |
| A．avoid | B．solve | C．discuss | D．face |
| A．passive | B．purposeful | C．adaptable | D．reliable |
| A．Similarly | B．Fortunately | C．Initially | D．Alternatively |
| A．questionable | B．memorable | C．effective | D．confusing |
| A．daily | B．legal | C．maximum | D．normal |
| A．neglect | B．lack | C．provide | D．find |
| A．drink | B．pour | C．place | D．record |
10 . Roads and railways have made it easy for people to travel around the UK, but have had the precisely opposite effect for insects. Alongside housing developments, transport infrastructure (基础设施) has separated insect habitats, leaving many pollinators (传粉昆虫) stuck on decreasing islands of biodiversity.
A new conservation project aims to address that by creating a network of wildflower superhighways across the UK. The B-Lines network aims to join the dots between meadow habitats, enabling pollinators and other wildlife to move freely between them. Ten years in the making, the B-Lines initiative was launched by the insect charity Buglife on Tuesday and has already generated interest from unexpected quarters. “After the launch, some house builders rang up asking how they could include the network into house building, so it could have a really positive effect,” said Buglife’s Paul Hetherington.
Buglife has spent the last decade mapping potential routes for the insect superhighway. Hetherington said the proposed highway could give the UK’s weak insects a boost and a route out of habitats that become too hot due to the climate crisis and it can make a huge difference in easing declines. “The things that have really hammered pollinators are habitat loss, loss of connectivity of habitat, climate change and pesticides—this deals with everything except pesticides,” said Hetherington.
The B-lines network is not just a concept. Pilot sections have already been completed, including the South Wales B-Lines near Cardiff. “Since that was done, there have been recordings of one of our rarest bees in Cardiff town centre, which shows this connectivity can work,” said Hetherington. And in Norwich, Buglife has been working with Network Rail to plant wildflowers along the track. Anyone living along the proposed route can get involved in the project. All they need to do is let their lawns grow, or even just create a small herb garden, which Hetherington likened to creating a “motorway service station for bees”.
1. What can we learn about the B-Lines network from paragraph 2?| A．It will separate insect habitats. | B．It can help insects to pollinate. |
| C．It is still being planned now. | D．It hasn’t caused any attention. |
| A．The last decade. | B．The superhighway. | C．The climate crisis. | D．The decline. |
| A．By recording the tracks of bees. | B．By cooperating with Network Rail. |
| C．By planting herbs in their own gardens. | D．By creating a motorway service station. |
| A．Roads and railways have caused bad effect on insects. |
| B．Transport infrastructure prevents housing developments. |
| C．Pollinators are stuck on decreasing islands of biodiversity. |
| D．Conservationists are creating “superhighways” for insects. |
