1 . According to the Solar Energy Industry Association, the number of solar panels installed(安装)has grown rapidly in the past decade, and it has to grow even faster to meet climate goals. But all of that growth will take up a lot of space, and though more and more people accept the concept of solar energy, few like large solar panels to be installed near them.
Solar developers want to put up panels as quickly and cheaply as possible, so they haven’t given much thought to what they put under them. Often, they’ll end up filling the area with small stones and using chemicals to control weeds. The result is that many communities, especially in farming regions, see solar farms as destroyers of the soil.
“Solar projects need to be good neighbors,” says Jordan Macknick, the head of the Innovative Site Preparation and Impact Reductions on the Environment(InSPIRE)project. “They need to be protectors of the land and contribute to the agricultural economy.” InSPIRE is investigating practical approaches to “low-impact” solar development, which focuses on establishing and operating solar farms in a way that is kinder to the land. One of the easiest low-impact solar strategies is providing habitat for pollinators(传粉昆虫).
Habitat loss, pesticide use, and climate change have caused dramatic declines in pollinator populations over the past couple of decades, which has damaged the U.S. agricultural economy. Over 28 states have passed laws related to pollinator habitat protection and pesticide use. Conservation organizations put out pollinator-friendliness guidelines for home gardens, businesses, schools, cities—and now there are guidelines for solar farms.
Over the past few years, many solar farm developers have transformed the space under their solar panels into a shelter for various kinds of pollinators, resulting in soil improvement and carbon reduction. “These pollinator-friendly solar farms can have a valuable impact on everything that’s going on in the landscape,” says Macknick.
1. What do solar developers often ignore?| A．The decline in the demand for solar energy. |
| B．The negative impact of installing solar panels. |
| C．The rising labor cost of building solar farms. |
| D．The most recent advances in solar technology. |
| A．Improve the productivity of local farms. |
| B．Invent new methods for controlling weeds. |
| C．Make solar projects environmentally friendly. |
| D．Promote the use of solar energy in rural areas. |
| A．To conserve pollinators. | B．To restrict solar development. |
| C．To diversify the economy. | D．To ensure the supply of energy. |
| A．Pollinators: To Leave or to Stay | B．Solar Energy: Hope for the Future |
| C．InSPIRE: A Leader in Agriculture | D．Solar Farms: A New Development |
I've always loved the ocean. In the
I decided to do something
One day, I saw a commercial for a health-care company. People in the ad were using plastic straws （吸管）. I found the contact information of the company
I kept going. Whenever I heard of businesses using plastic, I'd send an email. One of the biggest companies I wrote to
Diets have changed in China — and so too has its top crop. Since 2011, the country
A taste for meat is
According to the World Bank, China accounts for about 30 percent of total
4 . Let's take a minute to think about the water we use. The human body is 60% water and we need to drink lots of water to be healthy. When we are thirsty we just go to the kitchen and fill a glass with clean water.
The truth is that we are lucky enough to have clean water whenever we want，but this is not the case for many people around the world.
| A．We use water indirectly too. |
| B．Every system in our body depends on water to function. |
| C．It is to inspire people to learn more about water-related problems |
| D．If children walk many hours a day to get water，they can't go to school. |
| E．Did you know that around 750 million people do not have clean water to drink？ |
| F．In 1993 the United Nations decided that March 22nd is the World Day for Water. |
| G．In this way，they know how it feels to walk a long distance carrying heavy bottles. |
China has formally made an announcement of its first five national parks of 230, 000 from Tibet to Hainan, focusing on
Giant Panda National Park will surely be
The intersection (交汇处) of Jilin and Heilongiang provinces is home to Northeast China Tiger and Leopard National Park, which
China’s best-preserved rainforest is in Hainan, the only place in the world
Unlike those three, Wuyishan National Park in Fujian Province and Sanjiangyuan National Park on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau focus
Now, with some tourist programs
6 . Sammie Vance approached her principal at Haley Elementary with the idea of installing “buddy benches” into her school playground to help others feel less lonely. The principal
Pretty soon, Sammie’s Buddy Bench Project began commanding the
This is, of course, not just a beautiful story about helping others. It’s also a major win for
| A．complained | B．allowed | C．approved | D．spoke |
| A．costly | B．heavy | C．productive | D．valueless |
| A．reviewed | B．recreated | C．removed | D．recycled |
| A．kept track of | B．reached out to | C．sang high praises for | D．got rid of |
| A．Unfortunately | B．Accordingly | C．Apparently | D．Eventually |
| A．born | B．promoted | C．obtained | D．commented |
| A．attraction | B．attention | C．acceptance | D．admission |
| A．campaigns | B．contests | C．assemblies | D．awards |
| A．nicknamed | B．introduced | C．defined | D．named |
| A．the other day | B．to date | C．by then | D．until recently |
| A．sustainability | B．changeability | C．adaptability | D．visibility |
| A．though | B．as | C．if | D．when |
| A．combined | B．mixed | C．involved | D．fitted |
| A．fields | B．walls | C．oceans | D．rains |
| A．explanations | B．questions | C．ways | D．causes |
7 . Don’t call Madison Stewart an environmentalist. She sees herself simply as an individual taking action in defense of something she loves that’s in need of protection.
Despite her youth, the 24-year-old is an undersea veteran (老手). She grew up sailing around the Great Barrier Reef on her parents’ boat and spent her early life free diving while patiently waiting for the day when she could get her scuba diving (水肺潜水) certification, aged 12. Already impressed by sharks, Madison was now pleased to be able to observe them in their own world. “I got to know the sharks...I could recognize them by sight,” Madison says. “Other people had dogs around them growing up. I had sharks.”
But within a couple of years, she saw a great reduction in shark numbers on the reef. “One day I went in the water and couldn’t find my sharks anywhere, sharks I’d spent my childhood with,” she says. “They’d been caught and killed.” It was a great moment for Madison.
She left school at 14 to be homeschooled so she could spend more time in the ocean. She taught herself to shoot underwater video to document sharks in their own world and share her sense of wonder with others. She launched a YouTube channel and built a huge following for her documentaries where she focuses on issues like inadequate protection for some shark species and the global shark fin (鳍) industry.
In 2014 Madison was the subject of the encouraging documentary Shark Girl, which introduced her to a global audience. In 2017 she appeared as an “Ocean Guardian” in the documentary Blue that explored a lot of threats to the world’s marine environments, including the damaging effect of the global shark fishery. The film encourages viewers to get involved and includes practical steps to guide them to do so. It shows Madison’s philosophy that the power of the individual to make a difference by their own direct action should never be underestimated.
1. What did Madison do before getting her scuba diving certification?| A．She went sailing often. | B．She went boating alone. |
| C．She practised free diving. | D．She protected the Great Barrier Reef. |
| A．To record sharks’ world of wonder. | B．To popularize her photography works. |
| C．To raise awareness of shark conservation. | D．To spare more time to accompany sharks. |
| A．Many hands make light work. | B．Action speaks louder than words. |
| C．Together we can make a difference. | D．Personal influence can’t be ignored. |
| A．To introduce an influential conservationist. |
| B．To advertise some encouraging documentaries. |
| C．To inspire people to protect whatever they love. |
| D．To inform people how to preserve marine wildlife. |
1. 简述学校内存在的环境问题;
2. 可以采取的措施;(至少写出两点措施或建议)
3. 提出倡议。
注意：词数 100 左右;可适当增加细节,以使行文连贯。
What Can We Do for the Environment in Our School
Hello, everyone.
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Thank you for your listening.
9 . Back in 2007, Uruguay had a serious problem with no obvious answer: The economy was growing very fast, but there wasn’t enough energy to power the rapid
Then Ramón Méndez Galain, a physicist, started
Méndez Galain’s plan was built around two simple
To solve the problem of how to pay for all those wind farms, Méndez Galain came up with a variation on a(n)
The strategy worked
| A．decline | B．growth | C．consumption | D．program |
| A．building | B．blocking | C．repairing | D．seeking |
| A．rely on | B．find out | C．refer to | D．give up |
| A．risk | B．power | C．pollution | D．benefit |
| A．facts | B．theories | C．answers | D．principles |
| A．water | B．light | C．wind | D．ice |
| A．tended | B．undeveloped | C．protected | D．limited |
| A．break | B．put | C．send | D．turn |
| A．tool | B．software | C．image | D．approach |
| A．responsible | B．weak | C．private | D．profitable |
| A．public | B．opposite | C．rich | D．powerful |
| A．managing | B．selling | C．abandoning | D．starting |
| A．hardly | B．relatively | C．unexpectedly | D．rarely |
| A．forgotten | B．achieved | C．apologized | D．approved |
| A．income | B．food | C．supply | D．electricity |
10 . The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released a report. It stated that the world is quickly running out of time to keep global warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius, the level widely agreed to be the conservative, safety-first goal to prevent serious climate harm. To get there, the world would have to cut current emissions (排放物) by 45 percent by 2030. That sounds absurdly unlikely.
But before we give in to despair, we should remember that the technology to address climate change is going along at high speed. The largest source of US carbon emissions is transportation, and a Green New Deal program for motor vehicles would be quite straightforward.
The reason is simple: With some subsidies (补贴), electric cars and buses are cost- competitive with fossil-fuel vehicles. Electric buses have gone into the market at the greatest speed, because they are a logical choice for electrification. At the end of 2018, electric vehicles were displacing about 280,000 barrels of oil demand per day. That’s more than the whole consumption of Greece.
And the electric car market is also reaching maturity, with appealing designs, longer range, and a quickly-expanding rapid charging network in many countries. It’s worth emphasizing that most of the basic systems necessary to recharge electric vehicles already exist. People often tend to assume that we would need to replace every gas station, but virtually all homes and businesses already have an electrical connection which can be easily improved for fast charging. All that is needed to go fully electric is enough battery capacity and fast charging stations to deal with long trips.
Now America would have to repair its electricity production, rails, shipping, and so on to fully decarbonize (脱碳) the transportation sector. It will be considerably more difficult than simply rooting out fossil fuel vehicles from the market.
But greening America’s vehicles would be straightforward, relatively cheap, and a huge step forward on climate. The politics of climate change are so fearful that despair can seem logical, but the first step in achieving a tough goal is the firm belief that it can be done. And this particular step wouldn’t even be that tough.
1. What can we infer from the IPCC’s report?| A．The world is suffering serious climate harm. |
| B．Global warming is growing out of our control. |
| C．We are too conservative to deal with global warming. |
| D．Cutting emissions is the easiest way to stop climate change. |
| A．By running at the greatest speed. |
| B．By changing the way of transportation. |
| C．By making consumers have logical choices. |
| D．By getting financial support from governments. |
| A．They aren’t so efficient in reducing emissions. |
| B．There’s still much room for designing new ones. |
| C．There aren’t enough fast charging stations for them. |
| D．Home electrical connection can be used for charging them. |
| A．Doubtful. | B．Critical. | C．Positive. | D．Uncaring. |
