Monarchs (黑脉金斑蝶) are the only butterflies known to make two-way migrations, as birds do. In the late summer and early fall, the butterflies typically leave southern Canada and northern and central
2 . The Best Eco-Friendly Gifts
For the eco-conscious, we’ve rounded up our favorite eco-friendly gifts to send to your love.
Reusable Produce Bags (Price: $ 33)
Website: Sears. com
This pack of seven teusable bags are plastic free and made from 100 percent biodegradable cotton. The set includes one cotton net bag, three produce bags, and three food bag. Double stitching and durable seams mean these bags are built to last, and they’re machine washable for easy cleaning.
Wood Bookmarks with Tassels (Price; $ 25)
Website: Etsy. com
Teachers often like to hand out small gifts to students at the end of the year, and this set of wooden bookmarks is a sustainable, affordable way to let students know you care. (Plus, they’re a great reminder to read over holiday breaks!) The bookmarks come with colorful tassels as well, making it easy to mark your place while reading.
Personalized Notebook (Price: $ 13)
Website: Journal. com
This customizable journal is a great gift to jot down notes, used as a daily thought journal, or as a place to keep travel memories or even grocery lists. The cover is made from eco-friendly heavy cotton paper. The pages are recycled cartridge paper that’s perfect for fountain pens and ink as well as other media.
Greener Bamboo Cutting Board (Price: $ 90)
Website: Amazon. com
This bamboo cutting board is naturally bacteria resistant and made from 100 percent Moso bamboo that’s grown in organic soil. One side of the board has a deep juice-catching groove that’s perfect for capturing juices as you cut. After cutting, simply flip the board to the other side for a beautiful presentation large enough for veggie arrangements, watermelon, and more.
1. What can remind you to read?| A．Reusable Produce Bags. | B．Personalized Notebook. |
| C．Wood Bookmarks with Tassels. | D．Greener Bamboo Cutting Board. |
| A．Etsy. com. | B．Sears. com. | C．Journal. com. | D．Amazon. com. |
| A．They all are expensive. | B．They are popular with students. |
| C．They are made of cotton paper. | D．They are sustainable and eco-friendly. |
3 . China published its official document on biodiversity conservation on Oct 8,2021. It said that China has achieved great results in biodiversity conservation.
In 2010, the China National Biodiversity Conservation Strategy and Action Plan (2011-2030) was published. Since then, China has been working for a better ecological environment through establishing and improving policies and laws, carrying out nationwide biodiversity surveys, and putting into place various programs and action plans for biodiversity conservation.
Protected areas
There are about 10,000 protected natural areas, covering 18 percent of total land area. The well-planned protected areas system has brought 90 percent of terrestrial (陆地的) ecosystem types and 71 percent of key state-protected wildlife species under effective protection.
Plants
China has contributed up to 10 percent of the new plant varieties identified worldwide in the past decade. In this period, the country identified about 200 new varieties of plants per year.
Wild animals
The habitats for wild animals in China have been expanding and their populations are growing. The population of giant pandas in the wild has grown from 1,114 to 1,864 over the past four decades. The crested ibis (朱鹮) population has increased from only seven to over 5,000.
Greenness
China was the largest contributor to the world’s gain in greenness between 2000 and 2017. The country contributed about 25 percent of global vegetation growth in the period and China’s forest coverage and forest reserve areas have both continued to expand for the last 30 years. The country has realized the largest growth in forest resources among all countries in the world.
1. In China’s efforts to protect biodiversity, the following elements are mentioned EXCEPT ________?| A．the habitats for wild animals |
| B．the accessible water resources |
| C．forest reserve areas and coverage |
| D．the well-planned protected areas system |
| A．China’s contribution to the world |
| B．Increasing protection for animals |
| C．China’s contribution to greenness |
| D．China’s efforts on biodiversity conservation |
| A．an academic paper | B．a student diary |
| C．China Daily | D．fashion magazine |
In hundreds of cities around the world, people can use a car
Car sharing works like this: people pay a fee
Car sharing works well for several reasons. Some people only need to drive from time to time. Usually, people only need a car for special reasons like moving things or
Members also don’t have to wait in line or fill out
Car sharing also
5 . Imagine your smartphone’s screen gets broken, or your favourite boots get a hole in them. What do you do? You could buy a replacement. Or you could join the worldwide trend of taking your broken stuff to a “repair café”.
The Bower Reuse and Repair Centre has just launched Australia’s first repair café, in Sydney’s inner west. The crowd-funded project will hold weekly repair sessions focusing on bikes, furniture and electrical items.
The first repair café was set up in Amsterdam in 2009, and the Repair Cafe Foundation says there are now more than 400 around the world. A repair café is a free face-to-face meeting of skilled volunteers and local residents who want things fixed. Visitors bring broken items from home and watch, learn or help as the repairs get done. Some things are fixed during the event, while for more challenging items people might be referred to local speciality repair shops.
Last year, according to the ABS, Australians sent more than half a million tons of leather to landfill—more than ten times the amount that was reused or recycled. Mending represents an attempt to resist the throwaway culture. Repair cafés get people talking and give them the chance to network and learn about the local resources available. And, perhaps most surprisingly for anyone who considers mending to be some kind of drudgery, repair cafés can be fun and creative.
“In a circular economy, repair cafés fit right in”, says the organiser Martine Postma. In rejecting buy-use-throw, the circular economy aims to keep resources moving around in the economy, rather than moving them through it to a dead end, where they cannot be put into valuable use.
It might be quicker and easier to throw stuff in the bin, but it’s more expensive and less fun too.
1. What can we know about the repair café in Sydney?| A．It’s financed by the government. | B．Its visitors are involved in the fixing. |
| C．It’s the first repair café in the world. | D．All items are fixed during the event. |
| A．To stress the difficulty of landfill. | B．To indicate the urgency of reusing. |
| C．To support the throwaway culture. | D．To show the influence of repair cafés. |
| A．Special network. | B．Weekly meetings. |
| C．Unpleasant work. | D．Interesting games. |
| A．Places to Meet Up and Drink |
| B．Repair and Share Every Month |
| C．Repair Cafes Continue the Art of Mending |
| D．Repair Cafes Fix Things- Including the Economy |
6 . Don't worry about why the chicken crossed the road—the bigger question is whether it'll make it at all.
When officials began issuing stay-at-home orders to slow the spread of COVID-19, Shilling and his colleagues quickly realized they were witnessing a novel experiment:
The answer is a lot of things, including fewer accidents and lower greenhouse gas emissions from cars. In their latest report, the researchers found that driving less has also led to a dramatic decrease in roadkills.
"
The team documented about a third fewer kills in the four weeks following shutdowns. If such a slowdown persisted for a year, 27.000 large animals would be saved in just those three states.
People are now returning to the roads as stay-at-home orders are lifted.
| A．What happens when we all start driving way less? |
| B．But Shilling hopes some of the lessons might stick. |
| C．It's a good idea to stay knowledgeable about the risks. |
| D．The idea is that most of the animals died a senseless death. |
| E．It's actually the largest protection action that the U.S. has ever taken. |
| F．In California, the researchers also looked specifically at mountain lions. |
| G．Every year, millions of animals get killed by vehicles in the U.S. |
7 . The United States Fish and Wildlife Service has identified 23 species it says are now extinct. Most of the species had been found in states in the southeastern U.S. Eleven species lived in Hawaii or Guam.
Perhaps the best-known species on the list is the ivory-billed woodpecker. There had been unconfirmed sightings of the bird over the past 20 years. That led to search operations in parts of Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Florida. But none of the woodpeckers were found.
Other species on the list had only been identified in the wild a few times and never seen again. One example is the flat pigtoe found in Alabama and Mississippi. In such cases, the species likely started disappearing shortly after being discovered.
In declaring a species extinct, the Fish and Wildlife Service removes it from its Endangered Species Act (ESA). The purpose of the ESA is to call attention to species with the greatest need for protection.
All 23 species were thought to have at least a small chance of survival when added to the ESA list. Only 11 species have been previously removed because of extinction in the nearly half-century since the ESA was signed into law.
The Fish and Wildlife Service warned that climate change, combined with other environmental pressures, could make such disappearances more common. As an example, it said nearly 3 billion birds have been lost in North America since 1970.
Cornell University bird biologist John Fitzpatrick is a leading figure in the hunt for the ivory-billed woodpecker. He told The Associated Press he thinks it was too early to declare the birds extinct. “Little is gained and much is lost,” he said of the declaration process.
Fitzpatrick led a 2005 study that claimed the woodpecker had been rediscovered in eastern Arkansas. He said removing a species from the ESA reduces public attention that is needed to help continue environmental protection efforts.
1. What do we know about the search operations in the four states?| A．They had been working in the past 20 years. |
| B．They were conducted in the southeastern U.S. |
| C．They had found 23 species in Hawaii or Guam. |
| D．They had never found any ivory-billed woodpeckers. |
| A．It is a mistake to add it to the list. | B．The species has been out of danger. |
| C．The species has been declared extinct. | D．It has been lost for nearly half a century. |
| A．Climate change. | B．Serious air pollution. |
| C．Humans’ hunting for meat. | D．Breakdown of food chains. |
| A．Indifferent. | B．Opposing. | C．Supportive. | D．Ambiguous. |
8 . Commercial fishing is taking away life from our oceans. More than a third of global fish stocks were classified as over fished in 2020, and the European Union (EU) is hoping that investing in technology can help fix the problem in its waters. It is funding a project called Smart Fish H2021, led by Norwegian company SINTEF Ocean, to design equipment to reduce the industry's impact on sea life.
Among the innovations it is testing is a new kind of fishing net called Smart Gear. It makes sounds and uses LED lights of different colors and intensities to attract only target species to the net, encouraging other fish to swim away. “We want to make life easier for the fishers, ” Rachel Tiller, a senior research scientist at SINTEF Ocean, says. “The problem is that we don't have data. We don't know how many fish are in the ocean and we need to find this information.”
Another technology being trialed is Catch Scanner. It produces a 3D color image of the fish, which is analyzed using AI to estimate the weight and identify the species. Catch Scanner can also help tackle rule - breaking; some fishing boats catch more fish than EU quotas (限额) allow, as well as fish of the wrong size and species. Catch Scanner can prevent this by automatically collecting catch information in a database and making it available to authorities such as national coast - guard agencies.
The EU cannot force member states to adopt the Smart Fish innovations, and their success will depend on market demand. However, Tiller says that many fishing companies across Europe have shown interest. “Some of these technologies can be very expensive, ” she says. “So in order for the fishers to want to have them on board, they need to see the benefit.”
Fisherman Aitor Larranaga will soon test Smart Gear off the coast of Spain. He's enthusiastic about smart tech and believes the fishing industry needs to innovate to become more sustainable. “The world moves on, ” he says. “We can't work like we did 200 years ago.”
1. What function can Catch Scanner serve?| A．It can direct fishers to waters full of fish | B．It can identify wrong sized fishing boats |
| C．It can report fishers' unruly behavior | D．It can catch only target fish species |
| A．The innovations are affordable for them | B．The EU forces them to adopt the innovations |
| C．Fishing companies ask them to go green | D．The innovations help them make money |
| A．Uncertain | B．Supportive | C．Doubtful | D．Uncaring. |
| A．Science and nature | B．Diet and health | C．Fashion and entertainment | D．Education and culture |
Sanjiangyuan, literally meaning the “source of three rivers”, is home to the headwaters of the Yangtze, Yellow and Lancang rivers. The pilot national park, with a total area of 123,100 square km
For a long time, there were too many local herdsmen and animals
10 . The idea of turning recycled plastic bottles into clothing is not new.During the last five years, a large number of clothing companies, businesses and environmental organizations have started turning plastics into fabric to deal with plastic pollution.But there's a problem with this method.Research now shows that microfibers could be the biggest source of plastic in the sea.
Dr.Mark Browne in Santa Barbara, California, has been studying plastic pollution and micro-fibers for 10 years now.He explains that every time synthetic (合成的) clothes go into a washing machine, a large number of plastic fibers fall off.Most washing machines can't collect these microfibers.So every time the water gets out of a washing machine, microfibers are entering the sewers and finally end up in the sea.
In 2011, Browne wrote a paper stating that a single piece of synthetic clothing can produce more than l, 900 fibers per wash.Browne collected samples from seawater and freshwater sites around the world, and used a special way to examine each sample.He discovered that every single water sample contained microfibers.
This is bad news for a number of reasons.Plastic can cause harm to sea life when eaten.Studies have also shown that plastic can absorb other pollutants.
Based on this evidence, it may seem surprising that companies and organizations have chosen to turn plastic waste into clothing as an environmental “solution”.Even though the science has been around for a while, Browne explains that he's had a difficult time getting companies to listen.When he asked well-known clothing companies to support Benign by Design—his research project that seeks to get clothes that have a bad effect on humans and the environment out of the market, Browne didn't get a satisfying answer.Only one women's clothing company, Eileen Fisher, offered Browne funding.
1. What has happened during the past five years?| A．Fabric has become much stronger. | B．Plastic pollution has been less serious. |
| C．Microfibers have been greatly improved. | D．Many plastic bottles have been reused. |
| A．It is worsening environmental problems. | B．It is adding microfibers to the clothes. |
| C．It is making synthetic clothes last longer. | D．It is doing great damage to washing machines. |
| A．It has achieved great success. | B．It hasn't got anything done. |
| C．It is facing some difficulties. | D．It is known to very few people. |
| A．A novel. | B．A magazine. | C．A diary. | D．A guidebook. |
