1 . Darrell Blatchley, a marine biologist and environmentalist based in the Philippine city of Davao, received a call from the Philippines, Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (渔业与水产资源局) early Friday morning reporting a death of a young whale.
When the necropsy (尸检) was performed, Blatchley told NPR, he was not prepared for the amount of plastic they found in the whale’s stomach. “It was full of plastic nothing but nonstop plastic.” he said “It was filled to the point that its stomach was as hard as a baseball.” That means that this animal has been suffering not for days or weeks but for months or even a year or more,” Blatchley added.
Blatchley is the founder and owner of the D’Bone Collector Museum, a natural history museum in Davao. In the coming days, the museum will display all the items found in the whale’s system. Blatchley and his team work with the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources and other organizations to assist in rescue and recovery of marine animals.
“Within the last 10 years, we have recovered 61 whales and dolphins just within the Davao Gulf,” he said. “Of them, 57 have died due to man whether they took plastic or fishing nets or other waste, or gotten caught in pollution — and four were pregnant.”
Blatchley said he hoped that the latest incident would launch the issue of plastic pollution in the Philippines and across the globe. “If we keep going this way, it will be more uncommon to see an animal die of natural causes than it is to see an animal die of plastic,” he said.
1. What can be inferred from the second paragraph?| A．The whale was starved to death. |
| B．Blatchley was shocked at what he found. |
| C．The dead whale must have swallowed a baseball. |
| D．Blatchley didn’t make preparations for the necropsy. |
| A．Waste collected from the ocean. |
| B．The whole system of the whale. |
| C．Things found in the whale’s body. |
| D．Many different tools of whaling. |
| A．Uncommon. | B．Worrying. | C．Inspiring. | D．Mild. |
| A．A Whale Found Dead of Plastic |
| B．Stand Up for Protecting Whales |
| C．Plastic Threatening Our Existence |
| D．Natural Death or Merciless Murder |
2 . Not only does the use of plastic water bottles hurt your wallet, it also increases pollution and wastes energy and water. Only 23% of all plastic in America ends up in a recycling bin, meaning over $ 1 billion worth of plastic is treated as rubbish a year. Recently, Skipping Rocks Lab has invented a kind of water bottle called Ooho.
It is a convenient, clear water bottle that can either be drunken or eaten. To drink it, you can either peel off the membrane (薄膜) or tear a hole in the membrane with your teeth to pour the water into your mouth. To eat it, you simply put the whole bottle in your mouth. One problem the scientists have run into is how to ship large amounts of Ooho bubbles(水泡) without arriving with a very wet truck. However, they have attempted to package units of individual bubbles together inside a larger and thicker membrane. It is targeting large outdoor events, such as marathons, music festivals, and sporting events, where tons of plastic bottles are used, and frequently left behind as litter. And too much plastic is sure to do harm to the environment, which could account for their purpose of such a new invention.
The team has been working for the past two years to develop the technology and materials needed to produce Ooho; they have recently applied a patent for their new advancements. The price for an individual bubble or a unit of bubbles has not been set yet, but they cost about two cents to create a unit, which is cheaper than plastic bottles. It has appeared at events in London, San Francisco, Boston, at conferences, festivals, and so on.
Ooho is catching many people’s attention and has raised over $ 1 million and gained 1,000 investors in only three days. It is mostly being sold at events at the moment to keep the consumer’s interest while the production machine is getting up and running. It is quickly making a rise,so keep an eye out this year for these bottles of the future.
1. How is most plastic dealt with in America?| A．It’s sold. | B．It’s recycled. |
| C．It’s buried. | D．It’s wasted. |
| A．To make a profit for a company. | B．To protect the environtnent. |
| C．To make people eat as they drink. | D．To reduce the cost of plastic bottle. |
| A．It is easy and safe to ship it in large amounts. |
| B．It has become popular since it began to be sold. |
| C．It might be sold at a lower price than plastic bottles. |
| D．It cost the team a lot of money to develop the technology. |
| A．Ooho is to be a success in the future. |
| B．Ooho is being supported by smart people. |
| C．Ooho is taking the place of plastic bottles now. |
| D．Ooho is being produced to attract more investors. |
3 . The health of millions could be at risk because supplies of medicinal plants are being used up. These plants are used to make traditional medicine, including drugs to fight cancer. “The loss of medicinal plants is a quiet disaster,” says Sara Oldfield, secretary general of the NGO Botanic Gardens Conservation International.
Most people worldwide rely on herbal (药草制的) medicines which are got mostly from wild plants. But some 15,000 of the 50,000 medicinal species are under threat of dying out, according to report from the international conservation group Plantlife. Shortages have been reported in China, India, Kenya, Nepal, Tanzania and Uganda.
Over-harvesting does the most harm, though pollution and competition from invasive species (入侵物种) and habitat destruction all contribute. Businessmen generally harvest medicinal plants, not caring about sustainability (可持续性),” the Plantlife report says, “damage is serious partly because they have no idea about it, but it is mainly because such collection is unorganized”. Medicinal trees at risk include the Himalayan yew (紫衫) and the African cherry, which are used to treat some cancers.
The solution, says the report’s author, Alan Hamilton, is to encourage local people to protect these plants. Ten projects studied by Plantlife in India, Pakistan, China, Nepal, Uganda and Kenya showed this method can succeed. In Uganda, the project has kept a sustainable supply of low-cost cancer treatments, and in China a public-run medicinal plant project has been created for the first time.”
“Improving health, earning an income and keeping cultural traditions are important in encouraging people to protect medicinal plants,” says Hamilton, “You have to pay attention to what people are interested in.”
Ghillean Prance, the former director of the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew in London, agrees that medicinal plants are in need of protection. “Not nearly enough is being done,” he told New Scientist. “We are destroying the very plants that are of most use to us.”
1. From the first two paragraphs, we can learn that ________.| A．millions of people are threatened with cancer |
| B．most countries see a shortage of herbal medicines |
| C．about two thirds of medicinal species will disappear |
| D．a number of medicinal species are in danger of extinction |
| A．over-harvesting | B．habitat destruction |
| C．pollution | D．invasive species |
| A．pollution | B．other species’ invasion |
| C．sustainability | D．over-harvesting |
| A．Protecting medicinal plants has a long way to go. |
| B．Local people don’t know how to protect medicinal plants. |
| C．Ghillean Prance is optimistic about medicinal plants’ future. |
| D．China has made great progress in protecting medicinal plants. |
4 . Colorado officials will stick to a plan to kill some mountain lions and bears to support the state’s dropping mule deer (长耳鹿) population.
Wednesday’s vote permits organizations to kill up to 25 black bears and 15 mountain lions per year in the central and western parts of the state. The project will run for three years, to be followed by a six-year study of how deer populations respond to fewer predators(捕食者).
The population of Colorado’s mule deer has suffered a puzzling, years-long drop to about 450,000, which state officials said was about 110,000 fewer than there should be. A 2014 state study tied it to seven causes, including predators, whose number has greatly increased in recent years.
Some experts, however, said the state should focus first on the human-led destruction(破坏) of mule deer habitat(栖息地). “The drop of the mule deer population is obviously not a simple problem with simple causes,” Brian Kurzel, director of the National Wildlife Federation, said. “By far, the greatest problem—the one that I think deserves the most attention in any science-based study—is habitat quantity and quality.”
Kurzel pointed out that the U.S Bureau of Land Management recently agreed to create 15,000 new oil and gas wells somewhere in western Cororado, which was often called “the mule-deer factory”. There, the number of mule deer has fallen to about 30,000 from more than 100,000 in the early 1980s. Though state officials have known oil and gas development affects the population of mule deer, they didn’t go against the plan.
Other causes like building highways, population growth and human activities are also curbing the mule deer population, according to the study.
State Parks and Wildlife officials don’t necessarily disagree. They started a $4.5 million program as a way to gather research for later decisions.
1. Why do Colorado officials want to have so many mountain lions and bears killed?| A．To stop them hurting people. |
| B．To leave more habitat for mule deer. |
| C．To stop the mule deer population from dropping. |
| D．To help researchers carry out a three-year-long study. |
| A．Protecting their habitat. | B．Providing enough food for them. |
| C．Reducing the number of their predators. | D．Asking the government to make an effort. |
| A．limiting. | B．ensuring. | C．increasing. | D．protecting. |
| A．Decisions will be made in one year. |
| B．Habitat loss is the main cause of the drop. |
| C．Human activities aren’t responsible for the drop. |
| D．It’s too early to say what exactly caused the drop. |
5 . It’s always been a rule in my family, spoken or unspoken, that you don’t waste food. With six children herself and having grown up in an even larger family through the Great Depression, my mother would never tolerate throwing out the amounts of food we see routinely these days in the dumpster. We were told simply to clean our plates, no matter whether we liked the taste or if we were not hungry or not. So this subject is deep in my genes and upbringing.
Estimates are that nearly one third of all food produced is wasted. USDA estimates 31% of food available at retail (零售)level is wasted. 12% of landfill material is food. 28% of agricultural land produces food which is wasted, says the FAO. 18% of vegetables, and 12% of the apple crop are lost at the farm level in the United States., say experts.
Luckily, there’s an “ugly food” movement picking up steam. “Ugly” foods are those that sellers and buyers often reject because of their appearance, like misshapen vegetables and bruised（擦伤的） fruits. Farmers dump them. Supermarkets and restaurants reject them. Now supermarkets and restaurants reject them. Consumers historically have avoided them. Now supermarkets feature the ugly. It’s fashionable. More artful terms are favored. A French supermarket chain is selling “inglorious” foods. The British chain ASDA uses “wonky（歪斜的）” (which to American ears might sound as bad as “ugly.”) Canada’s Loblaws uses “naturally imperfect.” Celebrity chef Jamie Oliver, who has cast himself as a promoter of the “good food movement,” has signed on with some British chains to support their efforts.
With the effort of Kretschmann Farm CSA’s we’ve taken the line that rather than throw away things which would be classified by others as ugly, inglorious, or imperfect, we would just give them to you and you could decide. Either we throw them away, or you can. Oftentimes this adds to the volume of the box, or makes it a little more urgent to consume (because sometimes those rejected foods are just very ripe!).
1. When the author was a kid, he .| A．often suffered from hunger |
| B．was not allowed to waste food |
| C．had to wash plates after a meal |
| D．didn’t like the taste of his food |
| A．Coming to an end. |
| B．Facing a challenge. |
| C．Making a selection. |
| D．Becoming more popular. |
| A．provides perfect food for customers |
| B．sells food mot of which is very ripe |
| C．tries to bring ugly food to customers |
| D．encourage the consumption of food |
