1 . As the world struggles to deal with the climate crisis, some companies are working to remove polluting carbon dioxide (CO2) from the air.
Scientists say large amounts of CO2 must be removed from the atmosphere and stored.
That means humans need to come up with ways of removing carbon from the air and storing it. This is called Direct Air Capture (DAC). The science of removing carbon from the air is challenging, and it’s still pretty new. Most DAC processes require a large amount of energy,
A company called Heirloom has just opened the first DAC plant in the United States. The company heats up the limestone (石灰岩)to separate out the CO2, which is then locked away in concrete (混凝土). The process is extremely expensive.
A.It’s a huge and challenging goal |
B.Plants and trees can do this naturally |
C.Everyone is not excited about carbon removal |
D.The new plant can remove 1,000 tons of CO2 year |
E.Graphyte is another US company working on DAC |
F.and CO2 is just a small part of the gasses that make up air |
G.so one puzzle for these companies is how to remove carbon without creating more pollution |
2 . “For thousands of years, humans have raced to be the first to climb a peak, cross a frontier, or document a new species or landscape. Now in some cases, we’re racing to be the last,” said New York Times’ Paige McClanahan.
In recent years, a growing industry has been stimulated by climate change — last-chance tourism. According to Eco Sustainable Solutions, a UK-based organic recycling and waste processing company last-chance tourism is a kind of tourism geared toward seeing the last of something due to climate change. As temperatures and water levels rise, this could mean seizing the last chance to see the Great Barrier Reef, an Arctic glacier and a remote island that is sinking.
As millions of tourists rush to imperiled destinations, some are taking advantage of the increasing demand to spread environmental awareness. One tourist spot, the Sea of Ice in France, opened an exhibit in 2021 to educate visitors on glaciers and climate change. This educational push seems to be having an impact, as a 2023 survey showed that 80% of the visitors would try to learn more about the environment and how to protect it while 77% said that they would reduce their water and energy use.
However, the last-chance tourism industry may become kind of our concern. As more and more people flood into these areas in a panic to see them before they are gone, they in fact contribute to the increased greenhouse gas emissions and over tourism, leading to their destruction. Just as many scholars put it, last-chance tourism is a paradox (悖论).
Although tourists may acknowledge the broader risks and importance of climate change, it’s even more important to connect the responsibility of the individual tourism to the future of our planet. It’s not just about understanding the need to stop climate change; it’s even more important to avoid making it worse.
1. What does the author intend to do by quoting Paige McClanahan’s words?A.To highlight the value of New York Times. |
B.To recall and memorize the good old days. |
C.To channel readers’ awareness to climate change. |
D.To introduce the subject of last-chance tourism. |
A.Visiting the Confucius Temple in China. |
B.Taking an adventurous trip to the depths of the ocean. |
C.Climbing the snow-covered mountain of Kilimanjaro. |
D.Admiring the unique Spanish architecture at Cusco, Peru. |
A.Popular. | B.Remote. | C.Endangered. | D.Preserved. |
A.It’s a double-edged sword. | B.It’s a stone to kill two birds. |
C.It’s a life jacket in the stormy sea. | D.It’s a dream that will never come true. |
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A.Putting up notices. | B.Placing more bins. | C.Picking up the rubbish. |
5 . Look, let’s be honest-there’s no such thing as a “green” vacation. You’ll leave a carbon footprint, no matter what.
Is it a B Corp?
B Corps are businesses that meet a strict set of standards by the nonprofit B Lab. They include requirements for governance, workers, customers, community and the environment.
Does the company have any other environmental certifications?
Third-party certifications from Green Key, LEED and WELL can be signs that a travel company means business about the environment. Transportation companies may also offer verified certifications from organizations like Terrapass or the Gold Standard Foundation.
If the company claims to be green, don’t just take its word for it. Listen to what it says. If you see nothing but models on its Instagram channel or ads for online discounts on its site, perhaps it’s a shade of fake green. “A company’s social media strategy is generally a reflection of its current ethos and goals,” explained Julia Carter, founder of Craft Travel.
How deep is its commitment to the environment?
A.But your trip can be green-ish. |
B.What’s the company saying to everyone? |
C.How can we find a reliable company online? |
D.Don’t trust anything the company says to the public. |
E.These certifications aren’t a guarantee the company is green. |
F.Look for reliable reports on sustainability from a travel company. |
G.You can search the directory of these forward-looking companies online. |
6 . Aviation is a big polluter. Cutting the sector’s impact on global warming is high on the agenda. Although many governments are regulating emissions from cars and trucks, air transportation is technologically rooted in old patterns.
Facing the reality that the sector will keep emitting a lot, ICAO has established an international carbon-trading plan—Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation, or CORSIA. This encourages wide use of offsets (抵消) : aviation companies can buy emissions credits or invest in sectors that store carbon, such as forestry, to allow them to carry on as normal. CORSIA aims to keep CO2 emissions at 2019 levels through such purchases for emissions over that year’s baseline. ICAO predicts that increasing demand might reach 1. 7 billion tons by 2035, potentially making aviation the largest offset market in the world.
Yet offsetting faces a fundamental challenge: the size of the offset requires estimating flows of warming pollution that would have occurred if the carbon-removal project hadn’t existed, and comparing them against flows with the project in place. The former — a baseline that is unobservable — is a hotbed for shady accounting.
The vast majority of offsets today and in the expected future come from forest-protection and regrowth projects. The track record of reliable accounting in these industries is poor, because they lack convincing baselines. Even with oversight, forest projects are often troubled by wild assumptions, for example that trees would disappear completely from these areas in the absence of those projects, even when there are other forest protections in place. Such assumptions drive up baselines and flood the market with huge volumes of offsets. They make it easier for accountants to claim a net reduction in emissions even though the atmosphere sees little or no benefit. These problems are essentially unfixable. Evidence is mounting that offsetting as a strategy for reaching net zero is a dead end.
In our view, this approach could prove dangerously narrow. Removing aviation’s impact on global warming means upending the industry. The longer that reality is overlooked, the harder it will be to find effective solutions.
1. What does aviation refer to in the passage?A.A project which needs revising. | B.A resource which needs trading. |
C.A market which needs expanding. | D.An industry which needs reforming. |
A.To support the development of forestry. | B.To earn the largest profit in offset market. |
C.To keep the levels of emission unchanged. | D.To make up for emissions over the baseline. |
A.Too many offsets are filling the market now. |
B.Some projects may cheat to create more offsets. |
C.Offsetting contributes a lot to reducing emissions. |
D.Trees would totally disappear without the projects. |
A.Disapproving. | B.Confused. | C.Favorable. | D.Unconcerned. |
7 . The Great Barrier Reef is the world’s longest reef, measuring 2,027 km. Running parallel (平行的) to the coast of Queensland, Australia, the reef is home to many species of fish.
The Great Barrier Reef took thousands of years to form, and has existed for thousands of years, but in just a few short decades we humans have made remarkable progress in killing it. The balance of this ecosystem is being destroyed. Poisonous coastal pollution, overfishing and unsustainable tourism all contribute to the damage done. However, the biggest threat of all is climate change, which causes coral bleaching (珊瑚白化) and other problems.
Coral bleaching is a process that causes coral to turn white in color when exposed to certain stressors, such as changes in temperature or light. As water temperatures rise due to climate change, the algae (海藻) living inside coral becomes poisonous and is expelled from the coral, causing it to lose its color and a major source of food. Not only do the algae produce coral’s color, they also provide 90%of the coral’s energy. Thus, without the algae, most corals will die.
Unfortunately, coral bleaching events are now occurring at an alarming rate. Mass coral bleaching events in the Great Barrier Reef have been recorded in 1998, 2002, 2006, 2016, 2017 and 2020, and they are now expected to become an annual occurrence. The Great Barrier Reef is believed to have lost over 50% of its corals since 1995 and as global warming continues, this number will continue to increase rapidly.
In 2015, the Australian government formed a plan for the protection and preservation of the Great Barrier Reef until 2050. While the plan contains many great aims to improve water quality and restore the reef, there are no measures to deal with the root cause of the issue-climate change.
Solving the most important problem of our generation will require many solutions, such as supporting the use of renewable energy, keeping fossil fuels in the ground, protecting forests, reducing plastic production and preventing unsustainable business practices.
Repairing the damage done to the Great Barrier Reef — and other ecosystems around the world — will be no easy job, but we believe that individuals, businesses and governments will make a change and then there will be hope in the future.
1. What can we know about the Great Barrier Reef?A.It is a lifeless coral reef structure. |
B.It has the most preserved ecosystem. |
C.It is a threat to the survival of human. |
D.It has been affected by various factors. |
A.Taken out. | B.Given away. | C.Driven out. | D.Washed away. |
A.Coral reefs are experiencing growth. |
B.The loss of corals is expected to decrease. |
C.Coral bleaching takes place more frequently. |
D.The government has taken steps to stop coral bleaching. |
A.Positive. | B.Negative. | C.Doubtful. | D.Indifferent. |
8 . A small car around the size of a Mini Cooper, the Seagull is a fast-charging electric vehicle (车辆) (EV) produced by BYD. It’s hardly a luxury car but it’s well-equipped, with a power driver’s seat and cruise control. The best part? Its base model costs about $10,700 in China. That’s about a third of the cost of the cheapest EV you can buy in the US. In 2018, Trump put, and Biden has since continued, a special 25 percent tax on Chinese-made cars, on top of the ordinary 2.5 percent tax on foreign-made cars, which perfectly shows that however motivated the Biden government might be by climate concerns, it is much more motivated by a desire to help American carmakers.
The basic environmental argument for electric cars is simple: Burning petrol in internal combustion enginest (内燃机) produces CO2. Electric cars emit (排放) less per mile traveled both because some electricity is generated through clean sources like wind, solar, and because electric motors are far more efficient than petrol engines. EVs are slightly more carbon-intensive (密集) to produce in the first place, but most estimates suggest the lower per-mile emissions of EVs quickly make up for the extra emissions involved in their creation.
But is this still true for Chinese EVs? China still gets more than 60 percent of its electricity from coal, compared to less than 20 percent in the US. So, does this mean that BYD’s cheap EVs are bad for the environment? Hardly. Close to 90 percent of the emissions of a fossil fuel vehicle (化石燃料汽车) are from the combustion of the fuel. Besides, EVs of whatever origin are getting cleaner over time as the electrical grid (电网) gets cleaner. That means EVs will do even more for the environment as the years go on.
The biggest factor for China is that they control all the upstream material supply chain for lithium batteries (锂电池). Even if your EV’s battery is made by a plant of Panasonic in the US, the raw materials for that are processed in China first. “Part of why they’re so successful is they’ve been thinking outside the box on cost reduction for a long time,” an expert says.
1. What can be inferred from the first paragraph?A.Chinese EVs are a threat to American electric cars. |
B.American government has placed a ban on Chinese EVs. |
C.The seagull provides luxury experience at a reasonable price. |
D.Climate concerns are the only driver of EV development in the US. |
A.They are no better than typical gas vehicles. |
B.Their power is generated in green ways. |
C.They are eco-friendly in the long run. |
D.Their production causes no pollution. |
A.Lower carbon emission. | B.The advanced technology. |
C.The low budget marketing. | D.The control of raw materials for batteries. |
A.EVs: opportunity and challenge. | B.Chinese EVs: powering ahead. |
C.Green cars: a long way to go. | D.Petrol vehicles: faded glory. |
9 . One long gray ship at the Port of Los Angeles is doing its part to combat climate change. On the ship, which belongs to Captura, a Los Angeles-based startup, is a system that takes into seawater and sucks out CO2, which can be used for various purposes or buried. The decarbonated (不含二氧化碳的) seawater is returned to the ocean, where it absorbs more CO2 from the atmosphere, in a small strike against the massive rise of the greenhouse gas.
After a yearlong experiment, Captura is planning to open a 1000-ton-per-year facility that will bury the captured CO2 in rock formations under the North Sea. Equatic, another Los Angeles-based startup, is launching an even larger 3650-ton-per-year ocean CO2 capture plant this year in Singapore.
Supporters say capturing CO2 from the ocean should be easier and cheaper than a seemingly more direct approach: extracting it directly from the air. Direct air capture, which relies on fans to sweep air past absorbent chemicals, currently costs between $600 to $1000 per ton of CO2 removed, largely because atmospheric CO2 is so thin, making up less than 0.05% of the air. Earth’s oceans, in contrast, hold the gas at a concentration nearly 150 times higher, and absorb roughly 30% of all CO2 emissions each year. Companies say they should ultimately be able to capture CO2 at $100 per ton, or less.
Ocean capture advocates are seeking government support. In the US, direct air capture plants earn a $180 tax credit per ton of removed CO2, but Ocean efforts currently don’t qualify. “A similar tax incentive (激励政策) for water-based CO2 removal is absolutely needed,” says Ruben Brands, CEO of Equatic.
Even if the technology takes off, it will have to scale up massively to make a meaning contribution in offsetting (抵消) global emissions. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, by 2050 we will need to remove some 5 billion tons of CO2 every year to limit the global temperature increase to 1.5℃. So far, the ocean capture companies are pulling out only thousands of tons. Matthew Eisaman, a chief scientist at Captura, says, “We have an enormous challenge ahead of us.”
1. How does the system in para. 1 work?A.It converts seawater into CO2. |
B.It releases CO2 into the atmosphere. |
C.It absorbs seawater and extracts CO2. |
D.It stores decarbonated seawater on the ship. |
A.CO2 in seawater is more absorbent. |
B.CO2 is stored in solid form in seawater. |
C.CO2 in the ocean is more readily accessible. |
D.CO2 is naturally more concentrated in seawater. |
A.Doubtful. | B.Objective. | C.Supportive. | D.Indifferent. |
A.Combining Ocean CO2 Capture with Air Capture |
B.Setting a New Example of Climate Change Solution |
C.Analyzing Ocean CO2 Capture against Climate Change |
D.Exploring Oceanic Solutions for Reducing CO2 Emissions |
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1. 词数80左右;
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Dear Dr. Carpenter,
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Yours sincerely,
Li hua