1 . The last time Jack Hanson took an airplane, he was a junior at the University of Vermont. To return from a term abroad in Copenhagen, he flew from Denmark,
But the next term, one of his professors asked students to
He was
So Mr. Hanson decided to stop
And he has never found travel more
Go more
A.pulled | B.stopped | C.stayed | D.played |
A.judge | B.consider | C.calculate | D.reduce |
A.performance | B.research | C.experiment | D.math |
A.accounted for | B.called for | C.figured out | D.turned out |
A.listed | B.combined | C.separated | D.bought |
A.shocked | B.embarrassed | C.entertained | D.bored |
A.explain | B.make | C.refuse | D.manage |
A.pleasure | B.waste | C.money | D.pollution |
A.driving | B.heating | C.flying | D.lighting |
A.incidents | B.stories | C.disasters | D.conditions |
A.joyful | B.dangerous | C.upset | D.expensive |
A.tell | B.believe | C.prove | D.describe |
A.delightful | B.inflexible | C.effective | D.unreasonable |
A.carefully | B.wildly | C.slowly | D.actively |
A.cooking | B.resting | C.relaxing | D.traveling |
2 . There is a kind of climate pollution that we can’t see clearly. It isn’t in our rivers, lands or skies, it is in our minds. When climate disinformation goes unchecked, it spreads like wildfire, undermining the existence of climate change and the need for urgent action.
Like the biosphere that sustains us, the health of our information ecosystems is vital to our survival. As an artist, I feel a responsibility to create new ways of seeing the disinformation that has come to define the age of fake news.
Social media sites are honed to grab our attention. Using sophisticated algorithms, the corporations behind them decide what billions of people see around the world, dictated by what keeps you hooked, but also by what the companies paying social media sites choose to put in front of you.
Powerful corporate actors deploy clever influence campaigns via ads targeted at specific users based on what social media firms know about those people. Major oil and gas companies have spent billions of dollars over the years persuading consumers about their green proofs, when only 1 per cent of their expenditure in 2019 was on renewable energy. This is known as corporate greenwashing. Still, fossil fuel firms maintain that their climate policies are “responsible” and “in line with the science”.
To expose the scale of corporate greenwashing online, I was part of a team that recently launched Eco-Bot.Net. Co-created with artist Rob “3D” Del Naja of the band Massive Attack and Dale Vince, a green entrepreneur, Eco-Bot. Net’s AI-powered website ran throughout the COP26 climate summit, exposing climate change misinformation by releasing a series of data drops for heavily polluting sectors, including energy, agribusiness and aviation.
Academic definitions of climate disinformation and greenwashing were used to unearth posts across Facebook, Instagram and Twitter and visualize them on our website. Eco-Bot.Net then flagged greenwashing ads and posts on the original social media site with a public health warning.
By digging into our data, journalists have already revealed that companies are targeting specific demographics in order to influence public perceptions about climate change – and even alter government policy.
One data drop focused on the 100 biggest fossil fuel producers, companies that have been the source of 71 per cent of global carbon emissions. It found that 16 of these companies ran 1705 greenwashing and climate misinformation ads globally on Facebook and Instagram this year. In total, they spent more than £4 million creating influence campaigns that generated up to 155 million impressions.
Social media companies could end most of the harms from climate disinformation on their platforms if they wanted to. Flagging systems were swiftly introduced to warn users of posts containing disinformation about covid-19. The scientific consensus on human-caused global warming has been resolute for decades, so why can’t a similar flagging system be implemented for related disinformation?
It is true that Twitter and Facebook have both introduced climate science information hubs, but these are little more than PR exercises that fail to directly tackle climate disinformation on any kind of scale.
This epidemic of climate change disinformation on social media is eroding collective ideas of truth. In this post-truth age of disinformation, we hope that the public, the press and policy-makers will be able to use our data findings to see what is hidden by what we see online.
For the first time, we can witness the regional scale of corporate greenwashing. The era of climate denial and delay is largely over — except, as Eco-Bot.Net has revealed, on social media.
1. What does the word “undermine” in the first paragraph mean in the passage?A.Dig holes in the ground. | B.Make sth weaker at the base. |
C.Increase or further improve. | D.Put a stop to sth. |
A.give the readers a precise definition of corporate greenwashing |
B.show the dishonest claim by fossil fuel companies on their responsible climate policies |
C.demonstrate the huge investment the corporations made to exert powerful influence on the targeted social media users based on algorithm |
D.emphasize the tens of millions of dollars spent on renewable energy |
A.energy | B.agribusiness | C.aviation | D.social media |
A.They are willing to help but feel powerless to do so. |
B.They have the ability to make a change but refuse to do so as there are controversies over climate changes. |
C.They have the ability to make a change and have made some sincere but fruitless efforts on it. |
D.They lose their integrity in face of the money from the big corporations. |
3 . Two thirds of the ice in the glaciers (冰川) of the Alps is doomed! These glaciers will melt by the end of the century as global temperatures rise, according to a recent study.
Scientists claim that half the ice held in some 4,000 Alpine glaciers will disappear by 2050 due to global warming through the effect of past emissions. After that, even if carbon emissions drop to zero, two-thirds of the ice will still have melted by 2100. If emissions continue to rise at the current rate, the ice tongues will have all but disappeared from Alpine valleys by the end of the century. The most pessimistic prediction tells us that the Alps will be mostly ice-free by 2100. Only isolated ice patches would remain at high altitudes, representing five per cent, at most, of the ice volume seen today.
The researchers warn that the loss of these glaciers will mean much less water is available for farming and hydroelectricity, especially during droughts. It would also affect nature and tourism.
In February, a study found that a third of the huge ice fields in Asia’s towering mountain chains were also under threat for the same reasons. This will lead to serious consequences for almost two billion people who live downstream. Glaciers along the Hindu Kush and Himalayan range are at higher, colder altitudes. If global carbon emissions are not cut, however, two-thirds of their ice could be gone by 2100.
The latest research combined computer models with real-world data to forecast the fate of the glaciers. It used 2017 as its starting point. Unlike previous work, these models included how the glaciers move down the mountains. Applying this approach to other glaciated mountain chains could improve ice loss forecasts there.
Cutting the emissions from fossil-fuel burning, deforestation and other polluting activities is the biggest factor in minimizing the melting of the ice. The future of these glaciers is indeed at risk, but there is still a possibility of limiting their disappearance.
1. What does the underlined word “doomed” mean in paragraph 1?A.Polluted. | B.Discovered. | C.Endangered. | D.Abandoned. |
A.Emissions have much to do with the ice melting. |
B.The Alps is expected to lose all its ice by 2100. |
C.Ice loss will be avoided with emissions prevented. |
D.Large ice pieces will just exist at the mountain top. |
A.To explain how glacier melting came about. |
B.To imply pollution is a worldwide problem. |
C.To show what consequences ice melting will cause. |
D.To indicate the Alps is not alone to face ice melting. |
A.Objective. | B.Optimistic. | C.Critical. | D.Doubtful. |
Helen and her family moved to a new location in the city. Helen was excited because most of her friends lived in the same street.
It was the first morning in their new house. She woke up early that day and went out on her balcony (阳台). She was expecting wonderful, lovely birds and beautiful greenery with fresh air, but instead it was the complete opposite. There was garbage right outside their front gate. There were no trees and instead of the sweet chirping (鸟叫声) of birds, there were annoying g traffic noises. Helen was angry. “What is this? Why can’t someone do anything about it?” she thought. She went inside the living room. She sat at the dining table, thinking about what she could do about the pollution in her locality.
The next day at school, she went into her class and asked loudly, “Who’s fed up with stinking garbage?” This caught many students’ attention. “Who’s fed up with air pollution and the diseases spread by it?” This time many students answered, “Me!” Helen smiled and then said, “We must clean our surroundings. So help me get rid of the garbage. Help me pick it up! That’s the best thing we can do. We will all go to other classes and ask if they want to join us. I am sure as long as we work together, our community will become a better place!”
In the break time, they all went to other classes, and by the end of the school day, Helen had gathered almost 25 students ready to help her. The day before cleaning, the students took out their pocket money and bought garbage bags, masks and gloves.
注意:1. 续写词数应为120左右;
2. 请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
The big day came and the students gathered at the school gate.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Soon the headmaster knew what the students did.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________1. 保护环境的重要性;
2. 如何低碳生活;
3. 发出倡议。
注意:
1. 词数80左右;
2. 可适当增加细节,以使行文连贯。
Dear fellow students,
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
In downtown Xiamen, Fujian Province, a 6-meter-high mound(土堆) that stretches for 60 to 70 meters stands in contrast to the high-rise
The blue-tailed bee-eater, or Merops philippinus, is known for its colorful plumage and on the Chinese mainland it
In recent years, with improved environmental conditions in Xiamen and the city government’s commitment
In 2015, the center
The birds,
The 13-year experience of preserving blue-tailed bee-eaters has given the center a grasp of their habits and made the Wuyuanwan Nature Reserve a stable home for them.
7 . Bioluminescence (生物发光) is a natural phenomenon wherein a chemical reaction within an organism’s body produces light. It can be found in many places in nature — fireflies, some mushrooms — but mostly in the deep sea.
Recently, Rambouillet, a small historic French town, has teamed up with a company called Glowee to turn the city into a full-scale bioluminescence laboratory. The goal is to change the way in which cities use light. The company uses marine (海的) bacteria harvested from the coast of France. It makes some of the town’s public light up in the cool blue of bioluminescence.
These bioluminescent bacteria are stored in a seawater filled tube, giving the bacteria room to float around and light up. The light provided by the bacteria is part of their natural metabolism, so producing the light requires no energy other than that which is needed to feed the organisms. This makes it much more environmentally friendly and sustainable than electric light, which consumes a huge amount of non-renewable energy.
“On the way to lighting up the world with bioluminescence, you have to feed the bacteria and add water as they grow. That’s not so easy. The phenomenon will be very temperature-dependent and I doubt that it will work in the winter. Also, bioluminescence is not very bright compared to electrical lighting, though they have improved the light intensity,” Carl Johnson, a professor from Vanderbilt University said.
One potential solution to these issues — and one that Glowee is looking into — is to remove the biological aspect of the whole process. Theoretically, luciferase (荧光素酶) can be removed from the bacteria and used to create light instead of the bacteria itself. Because luciferase is non-living, it doesn’t need to be fed. Creating new means of sustainable lighting is a way of being environmentally friendly without plunging the earth back into darkness.
1. What do we know about Glowee?A.It is an ancient laboratory in France. |
B.It solves power shortages in coastal cities. |
C.It adopts bioluminescence as a light source. |
D.It feeds marine organisms to produce chemicals. |
A.The reasons for energy waste. |
B.The advantages of the marine bacteria as light. |
C.The living conditions of the bioluminescent bacteria. |
D.The difficulties of storing bioluminescent organisms. |
A.The bacteria work more efficiently under low temperatures. |
B.It will cost too much to improve the luminescence intensity. |
C.The application of bioluminescence enjoys a bright prospect. |
D.The development of bioluminescence faces many challenges. |
A.A Historic Town Lit up by Nature |
B.The First Zero-carbon City in the World |
C.A Reform of Producing Electricity in Cities |
D.The Discovery of Luciferase in Marine Bacteria |
Polar bears are undergoing hunger in a world
Polar bears live in the environment too cold for most animals. For most of the year, they live and hunt on Arctic sea ice. Nature has prepared
Polar bears’ world is melting. Studies show that polar ice
9 . Chaudhary weaves (编织) together lengths of rope and grass collected from the nearby riverbank in her village, skillfully shaping the materials into a gift box while instructing a group of women to follow suit.
The ropes being used were once the lifeline for mountain climbers tackling Nepal’s mountains and were then cast away. Diverse measures to remove such discarded materials have rocketed since 2019, when the government launched Clean Mountain Campaign.Around 140,000 tons of waste were collected on Mt. Everest alone, which were handled accordingly, either securely buried or recycled.
Some waste is now finding fresh life, transformed by skilled hands like Chaudhary’s into items to sell, thanks to an initiative led by Acharya, an owner of a waste processing business and an advocate for sustainable waste management. She has been working with the cleaning campaign, aiming at mountains like Mt. Everest.
“Metal waste goes through the recycling process, but we weren’t capable of recycling these ropes and cooking gas cans,” Acharya says. It didn’t occur to her that the waste which couldn’t be recycled could be reused until she met Rai at an art exhibition and a solution emerged.
Rai, a businessman dealing in craftworks, helped connect Acharya with Chaudhary and her team of craftswomen in hopes of unlocking the economic value of the mountain waste. With flexible hours, the project gives the craftswomen an opportunity to earn money even as they maintain their household responsibilities.
“While this seems insignificant compared to waste in the mountains, it’s a start. We can’t supply sufficient raw material with waste sorting and cleaning processes taking plenty of time and money,” Acharya says, desperate to expand the program to involve more women and treat more waste. But progress has been slow. “We need investment to mechanize the cleaning and processing of waste in the initial phase to provide the crafting team with enough materials to meet their demand,” she adds.
1. What were the ropes mentioned in paragraph 2 initially intended as?A.Tools for tying up weeds. | B.Villagers’ basic necessities of life. |
C.Raw materials tor unique artworks. | D.Life-saving devices for mountaineers. |
A.A journey to the rural area. | B.An encounter with a trader. |
C.Information from a product launch. | D.Attendance at an academic conference. |
A.Train more senior technicians. | B.Obtain a better reputation. |
C.Drop waste washing procedures. | D.Bring in advanced equipment. |
A.Chaudhary: An Eco-Minded Folk Artist |
B.Nepali Women Are Turning Garbage into Crafts |
C.Clean Mountain Campaign Has Already Taken Effect |
D.A Headache: Mt. Everest Is Heavily Littered with Waste |
10 . Sri Nihal Tammana, age 13, of Edison, New Jersey, was named a winner of the 2022 Gloria Barron Prize for Young Heroes. The Barron Prize annually honors 25 outstanding young leaders who have made a significant positive impact on people, their communities, and the environment.
Nihal founded Recycle My Battery to promote and facilitate the recycling of used batteries. His nonprofit places free battery recycling bins(箱子)and educates young people and adults about battery recycling. In just three years he has built a team of more than 250 student volunteers across the globe who have recycled nearly 200,000 batteries and educated millions of people. Nihal learned at age 10 that 15 billion batteries are thrown away each year and that most end up in landfills(垃圾填埋地)where they pollute groundwater, harm the ecosystem, and can cause catastrophic fires. Inspired to tackle the problem, he began collecting used batteries from his community. He put them in free recycling bins at stores like Staples until he was told he was bringing too many and had to stop.
Undeterred, he reached out for help from Call2Recycle, the largest battery recycling nonprofit in North America. Call2Recycle agreed to assist and provided recycling bins for free, which were placed in schools, libraries, and other public places. Nihal’s organization now operates across the U.S. and is expanding to other countries including Canada, Switzerland, and India. “Earth gives us so much — oxygen, food, water — everything! So it’s important that we give something back when we can,” says Nihal.
The Barron Prize was founded in 2001 by author T. A. Barron. “Nothing is more inspiring than stories about heroic people who have truly made a difference to the world,” says T. A. Barron. “And we need our heroes today more than ever. Not celebrities, but heroes — people whose character can inspire us all. That is the purpose of the Barron Prize: to shine the spotlight on these amazing young people so that their stories will inspire others.”
1. What does Recycle My Battery intend to do?A.Protect the earth from used batteries. | B.Promote used batteries across the globe. |
C.Make money by collecting used batteries. | D.Stop people throwing used batteries away. |
A.Undiscouraged. | B.Unprepared. | C.Unsurprised. | D.Uninterested. |
A.By making it go global. | B.By offering free recycling bins. |
C.By providing financial support. | D.By buying more used batteries. |
A.The importance of recycling batteries. |
B.The impact of batteries on the environment. |
C.The achievements of the Barron Prize winners. |
D.The inspiring story of a young environmentalist. |