2 . Open an app at your smart phone and scan the code bar on the garbage can. When you throw garbage into the garbage can, it will show the weight of the garbage and the points you can get from doing so.     1     It will become more popular in the future. Yes, we are talking about the smart garbage can.

    2     The environmental problems have become constant headaches in the development of those cities. Encouraging garbage classification has become an effective way.

In some cities, a variety of multifunctional smart garbage cans are being put into use. In Beijing, for example, a smart garbage can is equipped with an LED screen, which not only shows national policies on garbage classification but also shows the correct steps for garbage sorting. It can also calculate the weight of the garbage and the accumulated points one can get. They can be traded for some articles of daily use.     3     Its body is actually a screen. It is equipped with some Internal sensors. When people throw garbage into it, the internal sensors can automatically tell the types of the garbage. Meanwhile, people can see how to deal with them.     4    

Garbage disposal is a small issue that involves everybody each day. However, it is also a big issue.    5     With smart garbage cans in our daily life, the idea of garbage sorting will become more established. Our dream of building a greener and more beautiful China will come true so long as we start to make small changes right now.

3 . A future where insects make up a large part of the world’s diet is on the horizon. Despite the unpleasant nature of such cuisine, insects have been considered a delicacy in some parts of world for centuries. Their being low-fat and high-protein makes them a perfect choice for reducing hunger.     1    

Animal protein from livestock (家畜), such as cows, chicken and pigs, takes up 80 percent of the entire world’s farmland, despite only making up less than one-fifth of calories consumed globally.    2    Thus it would support a variety of biodiversity as nature intended.

Insects such as grasshoppers, meal worms and crickets are packed full of protein with much higher vitamin levels than pork or beef.    3    Greenhouse gas emissions through this process are also very little, with insect waste making excellent fertilizer (肥料) for agricultural soil.

It seems that insects are an ideal solution for many issues the world today is faced with.    4    Urban areas of Asia, Europe and North America are most likely to associate insects with dirt instead of as a tasty meal.

Times are changing. The European Union last year declared that meal worms were safe for human consumption. Cricket protein powder is also increasing greatly in popularity, with Canada rapidly becoming the largest market for the product.

    5    As we explore our solar system, efficient means of producing animal based-proteins will become vital. None are more efficient space-wise than insects. And the colonies of the future could well find themselves enjoying fried crickets with a pint of beer while watching the Martian sunset.

4 . This past summer I set out on a journey to Canada’s Arctic. When I left I was wrapped in a blanket of uncertainty and ______.

But when I first met the group members, I knew I didn’t have anything to ______. The group was amazingly ______ and I was soon part of a big family boarding on an amazing ______!

Approaching the Arctic, I was repeatedly ______ with its unusual largeness and its beauty. There I flew over vast glaciers (冰河) and stood on the frozen Arctic Ocean, ______   polar bears walk in search of seal holes, and _______ wait for a meal.

However, I also learned the pollutants carried by ocean from far away have a negative ______ on all Arctic inhabitants. And global warming has put polar bears at ______ because a warmer climate means that they have a shorter time to ______ seals on the ice.

During the journey, I talked with some ______ scientists about the ruins of homes once ______ by the ancient Thule people. I made good friends with people from different parts of world.

The Arctic is a land of incredible beauty which ______ to be preserved. I’ve learned why it is so important to ______ it. This journey has made me more determined to try to ______ that I do not leave negative or harmful footprints on either Earth or its people.

6 . [1] What do North Carolina’s red wolves, the Eurasian beaver and Przewalski’s horse have in common?

[2] All of them went extinct in the wild — and all of them came back, thanks to reintroduction programs.

[3] Conservation scientists use translocation and captive breeding (圈养繁殖) to re-establish animal populations that have died out in the wild — either entirely or in certain areas. Reintroducing extinct-in-the-wild animals to their native territories can be a double win: helping to restore damaged ecosystems, as well as increasing population numbers.

[4] But setting a species loose in the wild is a risky balancing act. Reintroductions often take years and involve multiple stages. Before bringing back a species, conservationists have to evaluate the threat level — both to and from the animal — and the role it played in the ecosystem. In places where wild populations have died out more recently, there’s a better chance of success. The less time that has passed, the more likely that environment is the same as when the species went extinct. But scientists still need to address the reason why it went extinct in that environment to begin with.

[5] Reintroduced animals can have a positive impact on the landscape, but how fast this happens depends on the type of animal and how damaged the environment is. Herbivores (食草动物) can make a significant change relatively quickly, while predators tend to be reintroduced slowly and carefully. Although they can be useful for managing pest species, conservationists have to ensure they don’t overhunt or threaten other vulnerable animals.

[6] A 2020 study highlighted species reintroduction as one of the most effective ways to save endangered animals. The study estimates that conservation action between 1993 and 2020 saved up to 48 species of birds and mammals from extinction, and that the rate of extinction would have been three to four times higher, during that period, without those efforts.

7 . When glaciers melt, they leave behind infertile (贫瘠的) landscapes. But a new study found that within just three years, such exposed land was restored by llamas (美洲驼), whose activity enriched the soil and promoted plant growth. By the foot of Peru’s melting Uruashraju glacier, researchers partnered with local farmers to farm llamas on four specific plots. For three days a month from 2019 to 2022, the llamas grazed (吃青草) the plots, fertilizing them with waste and spreading seeds from droppings.

As is the case worldwide, glaciers are disappearing in Peru’s Cordillera Blanca mountains at an alarming rate. And as the ice melts, nearby ecosystems wither: They lose access to summertime supplies of freshwater and sometimes encounter harmful acidic minerals in rocks once covered by the glaciers.

Llamas may help count er some of these effects. Their transformation of the land, as seen in the new study, could reduce rock weathering and help the soil hold onto more dampness, thus limiting the acidic runoff that can poison farmers’ crops. Such pollution is one reason why local farmers partnered with the researchers. The animals’ behavior could one day even generate new grasslands as soil quality improves.

The idea that animal grazing may positively impact a landscape is not new. Nor is rewilding, the push to bring key species back to their native ecosystems, unique to the Cordillera Blanca mountains. In Finland, for example, the Indigenous Sami are working to reintroduce reindeer in deforested land, potentially restoring it. But the size and speed of the changes the llamas helped bring about surprised the researchers. From 2021 to 2022, the average amount of plant cover in the llama plots grew from about 9 percent to nearly 14 percent—faster than it did in four control plots. The research underscores the valuable roles animals play in shaping landscapes, says ecologist Kelsey Reider of James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Va., “The animals themselves are doing a lot.”

World Wetlands Day, celebrated annually on February 2^nd, aims to raise global awareness about the important role of wetlands for people and our planet.

World Wetlands Day     1     (adopt) by the United Nations in 2021. It makes efforts     2     (realize) the long Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and deal with global issues related to climate and biodiversity (生物多样性) challenges. Now with seven years left for the SDGs, the UN is calling again to restore wetlands.

This year’s theme is “Time for Wetland Restoration,”     3     brings to attention the rapid loss of wetland systems worldwide. In just 50 years, 35% of the world’s wetlands     4     (lose) since 1970. Wetlands are disappearing three times     5     (fast) than forests and are Earth’s most     6     (threaten) ecosystem. Human activities that lead to loss of wetlands include construction, pollution, overfishing and so on. It is     7     opportunity for us to rethink and change how humans impact the environment.

While wetlands cover just 6% of the earth’s surface, they are home     8     about 40% of the world’s plant and animal species. Wetlands provide people with food and water, offering natural protection and     9     (serve) many other important functions.

Huge changes are needed to solve the climate and biodiversity crisis, yet there are small things we can all do to keep our wetlands and our wildlife     10     (health).

10 . Five years ago, we cut nearly every single tree across 19 acres here, piled and burned the branches and left the trunks where they lay. The goal was to restore one of the Ozarks’ rarest ecosystems, a type of dry and rocky grassland.

Logging down trees to bring back grass may seem puzzling in a time of climate change, as forest conservation and tree planting have become popular ways to keep carbon out of the atmosphere. But it is exactly what we should do in some parts of the Southeast. The climate and biodiversity crises are problems to be solved together. We can’t afford to rob biodiversity to pay for the climate. And grasslands are surprisingly good at pulling carbon out of the atmosphere. A single sunflower might not be the carbon grab that an oak tree is, but grass’s deep root systems store the element deep underground, where it can take hundreds or thousands of years to return to the atmosphere.

For the past century, the commonly held belief was that forests once covered most of the region from the Atlantic Ocean to the Mississippi River. But we now know that’s not true. Much of the Southeast was a string of large and small grassland ecosystems with enormous biodiversity. All of these unique grasslands are under threat, but not all by tree invasion. The few remaining grasslands in Arkansas are being converted to grow rice, Virginia grasslands are being flattened by housing developers, and low-lying coastal grassy plain is facing sea-level rise. Because grasslands are so easily navigated (导航) and settled, they may be the most threatened ecosystems in the world.

And it’s obvious that everywhere, grasslands remain undervalued. Many conservation organizations working in the Southeast are still focused on tree planting and preserving existing forests. The Nature Conservancy’s Cumberland Forest Project covers 253, 000 acres of land in Kentucky, Tennessee and Virginia, part of an effort to store carbon and create continuous habitats for species migration during climate change. In fact, recent laws are beginning to lead us in the right direction.