The African penguin is expected to go extinct in the wild in just over a decade, given its current population decline. The main reason is a lack of food caused by disturbance to ocean conditions from global heating and
2 . 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. |
3 . From the lush green hill you can see Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia, in the distance. Populations of deer, rabbits and turtle live here. The air is stinky and the only signs that we are standing above a 24-metre (79 feet) deep landfill are the methane gas pipes rising from the grass.
Ljubljana is the first European capital to commit to going zero-waste. But fifteen years ago, all of its refuse went straight to landfill. “And that is expensive,” says Nina Sankovic of Voka Snaga, the city’s waste management company. “It takes up space and you’ re throwing away resources.”
So the city decided to change course.
It began in 2002 with separate collection of paper, glass and packaging in Roadside container stands. Four years later the city began collecting biodegradable waste door to door; separate collection of biowaste is set to become mandatory across Europe in 2023, but Ljubljana was nearly two decades ahead of the curve.
In 2013, every doorstep in the city received bins for packaging and paper waste. And, most controversially, scheduled collections of the residual waste were cut by half-forcing people to separate their rubbish more efficiently.
The results have been impressive. In 2008, the city recycled only 29.3% of its waste and was lagging behind the rest of Europe. Today that figure is 68%, and its landfill receives almost 80% less rubbish, putting it at the top of there cycling leader board of EU capitals. The Slovenian capital now produces only 115kg of residual waste per capital annually(the European city with the lowest figure is the much smaller Treviso, Italy, at 59kg).
1. What is the usage of the pipe rising from the grass?| A．A sign to show there is a deep landfill. | B．To emit gas rising from the grass. |
| C．To discharge methane from the deep landfill. | D．A water pipe to water grass. |
| A．Compulsory. | B．Typical. | C．Normal. | D．Reasonable. |
| A．Favorable. | B．Intolerant. | C．Doubtful. | D．Unclear. |
| A．Society. | B．Geography education. | C．Tourism. | D．Environmental protection. |
4 . Lithium (锂) is called “white gold” for good reason. The metal’s value has been growing rapidly over the last several years, mainly because it is an essential material of lithium-ion batteries, which play an important part in several key sustainable technologies, e. g. electric cars.
As ocean waves, wind and solar power have grown into major players in the energy industry, lithium has also become key to building a future free of petrol. But getting lithium comes at a huge cost. As with most metals, its mining is damaging. It often works like this: Briny water, containing lithium and other metals, is pumped to the surface from underground. Then it sits in pools to allow the water to evaporate, leaving the rest behind as poisonous matter. Workers use chemical reactions to remove the lithium from that, making it into powder which is then packaged and shipped to the buyers around the world. Any accident that releases mine matter into surrounding communities or the groundwater supply could have damaging long-term impacts.
Indigenous (原住民) communities often bear the result of the damage, and political leaders have paid little attention to their concerns. In Arizona, for example, an expanding lithium mine is threatening the Hualapai Tribe’s historical sites. And for politicians who have promised to work with native peoples to deal with it, mining lithium and other precious metals is putting them into a dilemma: How do you ensure the availability of materials which are essential to the future while protecting indigenous people’ rights?
Mining of the metal is expected to increase greatly in coming years. Over time, that will make electric cars inexpensive and, therefore, more popular.
As environmentally conscious consumers buy electric cars in ever-greater numbers, it’s important to be aware of the dirty process that powers those clean air vehicles.
1. What do we know about Lithium in paragraph 1 and paragraph 2?| A．It’s a kind of battery. | B．It will be widely used in the future. |
| C．Only Lithium can replace fossil fuels. | D．It is the same with wind and solar power. |
| A．It’s easily done. | B．It does harm to the environment. |
| C．It costs much money. | D．The workers benefit a lot from it. |
| A．The shortage of Lithium. |
| B．The prices of electric cars. |
| C．Their people will no longer support them. |
| D．The balance between it and environment protection. |
| A．Supportive. | B．Indifferent. | C．Worried. | D．Optimistic. |
It was a lovely spring morning in the mountains of my home. Here was full of natural atmosphere. The sky was blue, the sun was warm, and the air was fresh. As driving along the winding road, I could see thousands of wild flowers in bloom. When I turned round, I slowed down as I saw some volunteers picking up garbage along the side of the road. I just smiled as I saw them doing some cleaning in spring for Mother Earth and my mind suddenly floated back in time to another spring morning long ago.
When my children were younger, I used to walk along a small route around the lake near my home. It was also on a spring morning that I noticed much garbage lying along the route. The next day, I brought a big garbage bag and started to slowly pick up the garbage along my way. All kinds of deserted objects lay all over the floor. There were pop cans, plastic water bottles, wrappers for candy bars, empty chip bags, pieces of broken fishing line and even an old shoe. Every time I stopped, I picked up a piece of garbage. And I even fished some garbage out of the edge of the water. By the time I circled the lake, the garbage bag had been nearly full.
Tired but happy, I put the bag in an empty garbage can. I stopped before I headed home and took one last look at the lake as the sun set. It looked more beautiful than ever and I felt like the angels were looking down upon it with me and sharing my smiles.
I always think that at times this world’s problems can seem overwhelming and you may wonder what you can do to make a difference. But the truth is that every good thing you do matters a lot! I do believe every time I stop to pick up a single piece of garbage, I can make a difference. As my children are adults now, I decide to spend more time protecting the environment.
注意：1.续写词数应为150左右；
2.请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
I begin to encourage others to develop the environmental awareness.
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Many days have passed, and the surroundings have improved a lot.
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March 12th is China's annually National Tree-planting Day. On this day, millions of Chinese, from all walks of life, will put their works at hands aside for
First
China's Tree-planting Day could date back
In February 1979, the 5th National People's Congress of People Republic of China made a
7 . Elephant lover Sun Xiao wrote a children’s book Samburu, I’m Back, which is a way for Sun to explain knowledge about the elephants themselves. The book was published last year and became bestsellers.
Sun says he has loved animals since childhood.
Sun is a witness to the story told in his book Samburu, I'm Back. He was, at the time, in Kenya working for Save the Elephants, a UK-registered charity based in Nairobi. In Kenya, he and his peers found two baby elephants heading toward the dangerous area where their mother was killed.
Sun stayed in Kenya with the STE for three months to watch elephants closely for his research.
| A．Sun has devoted himself to help elephants. |
| B．Sun even created a blind elephant in the story. |
| C．They tried to change their course but failed many times. |
| D．Every day he would go to the wild to observe the elephants. |
| E．His connection with elephants started on a late night in 2011. |
| F．It’s a long-term project and a lifelong career he will never quit. |
| G．Sun has received a great deal of positive feedback from his readers. |
8 . Since the rise in car ownership in the 1950s, the US has started building roads in cities and across the country to provide enough room for automobiles. Houston, like many cities, is turning back the clock to make room for passers-by, cyclists and parks.
Memorial Park in Houston, Texas was halved by the Memorial Drive Highway in the1950s. It has now been reunited. The highway is still there, but the road goes underneath the 1,500-acre park.
The restoration (修复) of Memorial Park is part of a larger plan that was made after the city suffered from a serious drought. It was thought that 80 percent of the forested canopy (树冠) was dead. One of the ways to fight that was to reintroduce native plants and animals.
The city hired the landscape architectural company, Nelson Byrd Woltz Landscape Architects, to work with the Houston parks and the Memorial Parks Conservancy. The architects, led by Woltz, were inspired by wildlife crossings in the Northwest US and explored the possibility of using this idea in Memorial Park. Over the years, the park was cut into 20 pieces that were divided by highways, roads and parking lots. The only crossing was a 12-foot bridge.
After 10 years of planning and constructing, the Kinder Land Bridge officially opened in early February, 2023. The bridge consists of 100 acres of greenery, and while designed for people, has reconnected wildlife corridors (廊道). The reconstruction added 45 acres of native Gulf Coast prairie (草原) that’ll increase biodiversity in the park. “This project is not just about creating a passage or a bridge. This project is about ecology, it’s about biodiversity and water management. This project is a bridge into Houston’s future.” said Shellye Arnold, president of the Memorial Park Conservancy.
1. What led to the restoration of the Memorial Park?| A．A company’s suggestion. | B．A terrible natural disaster. |
| C．The demand from the public. | D．The recovery of native plants. |
| A．They knew how to restore the Memorial Park. |
| B．They got the inspiration for rescuing animals. |
| C．They gained a sense of achievement for working. |
| D．They developed a new way to protect the landscape. |
| A．It is about 12 feet in length. | B．Its aim is to save water. |
| C．It benefits the wild animals. | D．Its birth is a short process. |
| A．A Highway Connects a Park in Houston |
| B．The Importance of Building Land Bridges |
| C．Efforts to Restore Parks in American Cities |
| D．Houston Creates a Creative Way to Restore Nature |
9 . Time is running out for coral reefs as the climate gets hotter. So scientists are searching the globe for corals that are better at enduring heat, Now, new research shows how those “super corals” can survive: less roommate drama.
Reefs depend on a crucial partnership between the corals and the algae (海藻) that live in the corals’ tissue, The algae make food for the corals using sunlight and in exchange, get a nice spot to live. But when oceans heat up, that relationship goes bad, and the corals kick the algae out, Without their roommates, corals can die, turning a ghostly white, bleached (白化) color.
Still, some corals seem to resist bleaching better than others, A new study shows that those corals depend on algae that are better at tolerating heat. Researchers hope that pinpointing these abilities will help develop new conservation tools to preserve the world’s reefs as temperatures rise. About 1/4 of all marine life rely on coral reefs in some way, along with half 1 billion people around the world also depend on reefs for their food and livelihoods.
“Heat stress can kill a lot of corals really fast,” says Kate Quigley, a research scientist at James Cook University and the Minderoo Foundation in Australia. “I hope that nature does have some mechanisms to get us through the next few years while we get our act together.”
While the hope is that those algae could also aid in reef conservation in the future, researcher Patrick Buerger says it’s likely that it wouldn’t help all coral species. And even the toughest corals can only endure so much. Currently, the world is on track for just under 3degrees Celsius of warming by 2100, a level that would wipe out nearly all coral reefs.
“The action has to be on climate change,” he says. “This is a short-term solution that might buy some time for corals to adapt. But the main focus has to be on climate. There’s not a silver bullet to the problem.”
1. What is the feature of super corals?| A．Sun-loving. | B．Long-living. | C．Good-looking. | D．Heat-bearing. |
| A．Habitat. | B．Food. | C．Sunlight. | D．Friendship. |
| A．The population of marine life. | B．The importance of coral reefs. |
| C．The seriousness of global warming. | D．The living conditions of coral reefs. |
| A．It is useless | B．It is the last hope. | C．It is temporary. | D．It is the silver bullet. |
10 . The Twenty-three-year-old Mumbai girl Vidhi Bubna is offering India’s first and only diving grant to explore the marine ecosystem.
Vidhi’s first diving experience turned out to be a heartbreaking one. While she expected a lot of colors underwater as she had seen on TV, Vidhi came across all white corals (珊瑚), which means they are almost dead from being bleached (褪色).
“It was very sad and I just started crying after coming out of the water,” she says.
Vidhi, an economics graduate from Ashoka University, did not enjoy working with numbers and turned to writing about social issues, including women’s rights and minority issues.
As an adventure lover, Vidhi went diving to explore the underwater beauty last year. Her disappointment at seeing dying corals led to the start of Coral Warriors, anon-profit organization that aims to raise awareness of marine protection and climate change.
“Nobody knows about climate change till they see it,” Vidhi says. The Mumbai-based organisation offers India’s first and only diving grant. The grant sponsors level-one scuba diving education in any location of their choice in India. While there is no specific standard, Vidhi says the selection process is strict, choosing candidates who are passionate about climate change and seeing that they do something of their choice. Four candidates have been awarded the grant so far and the organisation hopes to find at least five people every year.
“After the candidates return, we expect them to work on a climate change project of their choice, create communities, and work to create awareness and drive action-centric projects,” she explains.
Prior to starting coral warriors, Vidhi was hosting free online workshops to spread awareness of marine biodiversity and climate change, and has reached about 5, 000 people through them.
As a next step, Vidhi is planning to work on documentaries with high-quality underwater images and videos, considering not many can afford or have the courage to go diving to see what is happening underwater.
1. How did Vidhi feel on her first diving?| A．Excited. | B．Upset. | C．Awesome. | D．Awkward. |
| A．To focus more attention on social issues. |
| B．To further explore the underwater beauty. |
| C．To fuel people’s enthusiasm for adventure. |
| D．To make an appeal for marine conservation. |
| A．To help promote people’s sense of community. |
| B．To choose whatever they are passionate about. |
| C．To meet specific and strict selection standards. |
| D．To undertake activities relevant to climate change. |
| A．Ahoot documentaries. | B．Tackle climate change. |
| C．Encourage people to dive. | D．Host free online workshops. |
