1 . Julia Butterfly Hill worked at a restaurant. For many years, she was only interested in making money. Then one day she had a serious car accident, which changed her life. Hill said: “I realized I wanted to find a more powerful purpose for being here on this planet.”
As soon as she recovered, Hill traveled to California and she wanted to do something meaningful. There she saw ancient redwood trees, which are the largest trees in the whole world. The wood from redwood trunks is very hard. So the Pacific Lumber Company cut down many of the huge redwoods to use for construction. There are not many forests of these trees left. Many environmental activists want to protect the remaining trees. The redwoods are very important to the environment.
In 2012, Hill learned a group called Earth First was working to protect a particular group of trees. They decided to send someone up into a redwood tree, hoping this would stop the company from cutting the trees down. Julia Butterfly Hill volunteered.
Hill lived in the tree for over two years without ever coming down. Her home was a 6-by-8-foot tree house, 180 feet up. It is always cold and wet in a redwood tree. There were even very serious winter storms while Hill was in the tree. The wind and cold almost knocked Hill out of the tree. But she did not fall — she survived.
Finally, after years of arguing, the company decided to protect Luna, the tree Hill lived in. They signed an agreement to never cut down this huge redwood tree or the trees around it. When Hill put her feet on the earth again, she began to cry. But from that moment on Hill hasn’t stopped working to protect the environment.
1. What problem did Hill find in California?| A．The Pacific Lumber Company lost much money. |
| B．People could only use the redwoods for construction. |
| C．Environmental activists didn’t work together. |
| D．The redwoods were disappearing quickly. |
| A．Comfortable. | B．Tough. | C．Cool. | D．Satisfying. |
| A．She once lived in a redwood tree for over two years. |
| B．She had a sense of social responsibility. |
| C．She finally gave in to the Pacific Lumber Company. |
| D．She continued working to protect the environment. |
2 . With roaring ships, hammering oil drill, industrial fishing and coastal construction, humans have strongly influenced the underwater soundscape (声音景观) over the past couple of hundred years — in some cases posting a threat to whales, dolphins and other ocean creatures. Until recently, underwater sound pollution had not attracted the same attention. Now, a new paper published in the journal Science lays out the impacts, demonstrating that noise pollution can be just as harmful to the ocean environment as other kinds of pollution.
Even the cracking of glaciers and any drop of rain falling on the water’s surface can be heard deep under the sea. Sea life uses sound to study their habitat, and to keep in communication with each other. They also use sound by listening to know something about their environment.
“It’s a long-lasting problem that certainly weakens the animals all the way from individuals to populations,” says lead author Carlos M. Duarte, distinguished professor at Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), “We are hoping that this report will not only reveal elements of how humans impact the ocean through sound pollution, but that it will also bring the topic to the attention of policymakers who will be able to act based upon the very real solutions.”
Marine (海洋) ecologist Kirsten Thompson of the United Kingdom’s University of Exeter, who was not involved in the study, said the report could not have come at a better time. “It summarizes the fact that we are in this new phase of human-caused noise in our oceans that is having a dramatic impact on different species.” What matters most, she notes, is the fact that the paper “doesn’t just point at the problem, it shows how to solve it.”
Unlike plastic pollution or fertilizer runoff, noise pollution will not take years to fix. The moment we switch our noise off the impact disappears, Duarte says, pointing to marine life surveys conducted around April 5, 2020. Having the world use more renewable energy would lessen the need to drill for oil and gas. The international team of researchers also called for a global regulatory framework for measuring and managing ocean noise.
1. Which of the following threatens ocean creatures?| A．Travel industry. | B．Human activities. |
| C．Construction companies. | D．Sailing off the coast. |
| A．Ocean animals can’t fall asleep. | B．It causes the cracking of glaciers. |
| C．It’s a signal to the lower sea level. | D．It disrupts the behavior of sea life. |
| A．She is one of the paper’s co-authors. |
| B．The report does not come at the right time. |
| C．The solutions are already available. |
| D．The report has raised great attention from seamen. |
| A．Technical advances and regulation. |
| B．A policy to measure the depth of ocean. |
| C．A global ban on drilling for oil and gas. |
| D．Noise standards for cars and trucks. |
3 . It might be strange to wear clothes made out of plastic bottles, But in fact, some clothing companies are already making such clothes. Fashion brand JUMA recently showed its newest collection at a workshop in Shanghai. Eighteen clothing items from the collection, including jackets, shirts and dresses, were made from recycled plastic bottles. “We realized that billions of water bottles were being thrown into landfills and oceans every year and that these bottles take hundreds of years to break down.We thought we should use them to create our clothes and help the environment,” said Alia Juma, the company's design director.
Many other fashion companies are finding similar ways to save our planet these days. The process is rather simple. First, the plastic bottles are washed and cut into small pieces. Then they are melted and shaped into small balls. The balls are melted again to for thread. People can then use the thread to make different kinds of clothes.
According to Juma, it takes 67,000 bottles to create 1 ton of thread. This reduces carbon emissions(排放)by 4.2 tons and water use by 6.2 tons compared with the normal way of making thread.“Four bottles can make one pillowcase. Five can make a shirt, 10 a dress and 20 a short coat,”Juma said.
Some people might have doubts about wearing something made out of plastic bottles. But according to Causeartist, a website that focuses on innovation, clothes made from plastics could be even better than some clothing-making materials.Plastic thread can be made into different textures(手感),such as cotton, silk or even wool. “The more we learn about recycled fabrics, the more we realize that they work just like other fabrics.You can get a heavier cotton feeling or a silky feeling by weaving the yarns(纱)into different textures and using different wash methods. There's actually a lot you can do with this fabric.” Juma said.
Currently, the price for the clothes in the new collection ranges from 500 to 3,000 yuan, However, Juma is optimistic that prices will decline when more companies follow the sustainability path taken by her business.
1. What caused Juma to create the clothes made from plastic bottles?| A．They are light to carry. | B．They are easy to wash. |
| C．They are simple to make. | D．They are environmentally friendly. |
| A．By analyzing causes. | B．By presenting figures. |
| C．By giving live shows. | D．By quoting others' words. |
| A．The emergence of a new fashion in clothing. |
| B．The advantages of clothes made from plastics. |
| C．The procedure of making clothes out of plastic bottles. |
| D．The reduction of carbon emission when making plastic thread. |
| A．The price will go up year by year. |
| B．The price will range from 500 to 3,000 yuan. |
| C．The price will fall if more companies participate. |
| D．The price won't change a lot. |
