1 . According to the World Food Program, one third of the food of the world is lost or wasted. It’s up to some 1.3 billion tons every year, worth about $1 trillion. Moreover, a report in 2021 Sugests that 8 to10 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions (排放) are associated with wasting food.
“For our parents and the older generations,‘clearing your plate’ is more about saving some food for a rainy day.”Liu Jichen, founder and CEO of Clear Plate, an anti-food wasting program, told us.
The idea for Clear Plate came to Liu after one dinner at a restaurant in late 2017. The customers who finished all the food they’d ordered would be given a card, and then they could exchange their cards for rewards. “Yet it was limited to one restaurant’s actions, so I thought, why not try it on a larger scale (规模)? And how?” Liu wondered. And then he teamed up with some of his friends,founded a startup and developed the Clear Plate applet.
“The Clear Plate team is trying to deal with the issue (问题) of food waste. After a meal, users of WeChat take photos of their clean plates, post these on WeChat, collect points, and then exchange their points for gifts or charity donations,” Liu explained.
Starting in 2018, Clear Plate has now more than 4.3 million users with about 45 million participations in anti-food wasting actions, reducing food waste by 1,700 tons and carbon emissions by 6,600 tons. Liu’s determination represents a small change of the Chinese lifestyle and more people are turning toward a healthier, greener and more low-carbon lifestyle.
1. How much food of the world is wasted every year according to the World Food Program?| A．About 1 billion tons. | B．About 1.3 billion tons. |
| C．About 8 billion tons. | D．About 10 billion tons. |
| A．A plate. | B．A point. | C．A photo. | D．A card. |
| A．In 2016. | B．In 2017. | C．In 2018. | D．In 2021. |
| A．The program Clear Plate. |
| B．The World Food Program. |
| C．The world food wasting. |
| D．An introduction to WeChat. |
注意：
1. 词数100左右。
Thoughts Upon the International Biodiversity Day
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There are thousands of endangered species in the world. If the rate
4 . Remember the 100 mile diet. That was so in 2007. English environmental activist Rosalind Readhead is doing something much tougher: a One Tonne Diet, where she gets her personal carbon footprint (碳足迹) from everything she does down to less than one tonne of carbon per year. Currently, the average American has a footprint of 28 tonnes, and the average UK citizen 15 tonnes. Her project inspires many people, and unavoidably, it’s questioned. “It’s virtually unattainable for an individual in the developed world to even get down to a threetonne lifestyle anytime soon,” says Eric, another enviromental activist.
“The aim is to attempt to live on one tonne of carbon per year from September 2019. I record everything that I consume in a journal. This includes food, drink, transport, entertainment, data, showers, heating etc” Readhead writes on her website. “Interestingly, this lowcarbon diet is also lowcalorie and less costly. I save money unexpectedly, and become healthier for avoiding highcalorie foods that could make us overweight easily, such as, a large cheeseburger, with a footprint of 2.5 kg CO2e”.
Much of her data comes from Professor Mike BernersLee’s book How Bad Are Bananas?: The Carbon Footprint of Everything. In the introduction, BernersLee says he has had firsthand experience of a ten tonne diet, and hopes the book motivates others to aim for that. So what is the point of such an exercise? BernersLee notes that “our impacts used to be local and visible. Today they are not”. Living his ten tonne diet makes them visible and comprehensible.
A onetonne lifestyle is a tough experiment, but we could all do better by thinking about how we live, by having a sense of scale and understanding the sources of our own footprints, and maybe even trying to achieve BernersLee’s tentonne lifestyle. Tell what is important and work our way down the list. Otherwise, read Rosalind Readhead’s posts and feel really guilty!
1. What does Eric think of Readhead’s onetonne lifestyle?| A．Impractical. | B．Inspiring. |
| C．Popular. | D．Useless. |
| A．Losing weight. | B．Cutting daily expenses. |
| C．Saving time. | D．Reducing her footprint. |
| A．To provide people with data on carbon footprints. |
| B．To share his experience of a ten tonne diet. |
| C．To encourage people to try a lowcarbon lifestyle. |
| D．To tell people how to calculate their footprint. |
| A．Go after the serious stuff first. |
| B．Read Readhead’s posts again. |
| C．Follow BernersLee’s example. |
| D．Get down to a onetonne lifestyle. |
5 . As a result of pollution, Lake Erie, on the borders of the USA and Canada, is now without any living things.
Pollution in water is not simply a matter of “poisons” killing large numbers of fish overnight. Very often the effects of pollution are not noticed for many months or years because the first organisms (生物体) to be affected are either plants or plankton. But these organisms are the food of fish and birds and other creatures. When this food disappears, the fish and birds die too. In this way a whole food chain can be wiped out, and it’s not until dead fish and water birds are seen at the river’s edge or on the seashore that people realize what is happening.
Where do the substances which pollute the water come from? There are two main sources—sewage (污水) and industrial waste. As more detergent (洗涤剂) is used in the home, so more of it is finally put into our rivers, lakes and seas. Detergents harm water birds, dissolving the natural substances which keep their feathers waterproof. Sewage itself, if not properly treated, makes the water dirty and prevents all forms of life in rivers and the sea from receiving the oxygen they need. Industrial waste is even more harmful as there are many highly poisonous things in it, such as copper and lead (铅).
So, if we want to stop this pollution, the answer is simple: sewage and industrial waste must be made clear before flowing into the water. It may already be too late to save some rivers and lakes, but others can still be saved if the correct action is taken at once.
1. When do the people notice the pollution of water according to Paragraph 2?| A．The first organisms are affected. | B．A good many fish and birds die. |
| C．Poisonous things are poured into water. | D．The balance of nature is destroyed. |
| A．There is no water. | B．There is no fish. |
| C．There is no poison. | D．There is no oxygen. |
| A．Organisms. |
| B．Plants and plankton in the water. |
| C．Waste water from cities. |
| D．Industrial waste made clear before flowing into the water. |
| A．To realize the serious situation clearly. |
| B．To put oxygen into the river. |
| C．To make the waste material harmless before flowing into the water. |
| D．To make special room in the sea for our rubbish. |
6 . An environmental group in Colombia is leading a project to save wild areas in the San Lucas Mountains with the help of coffee growers.
Since 2016, San Lucas areas have been threatened by mining and coca (古柯) planting Gold miners and coca growers make more money than coffee farms. Now the group WebConserva helps link coffee farmers with coffee processors from around the country in order that they can earn more. At the same time coffee farms can serve as boarders around the forests to protect the biodiversity within.
To date, the project includes 10 families who farm 400 hectares of coffee plants. WebConserva said it hopes, in time, 200 families will be included. At that level. 20,000 hectares of untouched forest could be protected. The families promise not to cut down trees to expand their crops or to hunt wild animals. In return, they receive $300 for 125 kilograms of coffee.
Arcadio Barajas is among those taking part. His coffee farm sets up a barrier between cattle farms and forests where wild animals live, thus reducing the possibility of conflict between cattle farmers and wild animals. “Cutting down the forest to plant coca and killing wildlife were against my faith, and now I feel that growing coffee lets me be a good guard of the land,” he said.
Amnobis Romero is a former coca grower and miner. “Many families depended on illegal activities to support their children years ago. Now, we feel it a duty to look after this biodiversity and leave it for future generations,” he said. Activists want San Lucas to be protected as a national park, but the process has been slow. Carlos Valderrama, director of Webconserva, hopes the project can build production system that will last far into the future. “It protects forests, biodiversity and ecosystems at the same time as improving coffee growers’ quality of life,” he said.
1. What does the underlined word “they” in Paragraph 2 refer to?| A．Coffee farmers. |
| B．WebConserva members. |
| C．Gold miners. |
| D．Coca growers. |
| A．By increasing cattle farms. |
| B．By setting up a barrier. |
| C．Ry developing gold mining. |
| D．By encouraging coffee farming. |
| A．Families have enough money for their kids. |
| B．Coffee planting will last for several generations. |
| C．Coffee farming changed the former coca growers’ lives. |
| D．The project benefit the forests more than the local farmers. |
| A．Families protecting wildlife will get very rich. |
| B．WebConserva benefits ecosystems and local people’s life. |
| C．Gold mining and coca farming have been replaced rapidly. |
| D．San Lucas will develop into a national park in the near future. |
7 . The survival of about one fifth of the world’s vertebrates — animals with a backbone — is considered threatened, according to new research published in the journal Science. That’s a large fraction of Earth’s animals, but this new study held some good news too. Conservation efforts by humans have slowed the loss of many species of amphibians (两栖动物), birds, and mammals. Losses in these groups would have been about 20 percent greater had it not been for recent action of protection.
Among the animalconservation success stories is one about birds called Mauritius kestrels (红隼)．In the 1970s, just four of these birds were left in the world. Through a special breeding program, scientists were able to increase their number to about 1, 000 and release them into the wild.
Humpback whales (座头鲸) have benefited greatly from recent conservation efforts as well. They were once on the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) list of species threatened with extinction. But the species is now in less danger, thanks to laws that ban whale hunting. The IUCN even moved the humpback into “species of the least concern”．
Over the past 100 years, the white rhino (犀牛) of South Africa has also made an amazing recovery because of habitat protection. The breed multiplied from just 50 animals to about 17, 000. Their home has been turned into a protected area, safe from poachers (people who hunt animals illegally) and other threats.
Stuart Butchart, one of the authors of the new study in Science, is encouraged by the positive effects of conservation. But he says, “Biodiversity (生物多样化) of species is in a frightening state. Its situation is getting worse. But our results show we can turn the situation around.”
New conservation policies hopefully are on the way. One hundred ninetythree countries recently met in Japan at the Convention on Biological Diversity to set goals for preserving threatened wildlife and their habitats. Only 1 percent of ocean and 12 percent of land areas were protected under earlier agreements. Two new goals set by the group are to designate (指定) 10 percent of the world’s ocean and 17 percent of land environments as protected areas to help increase endangeredanimal population.
1. Which of the following is not mentioned in people’s conservation efforts?| A．Habitat protection. |
| B．Breeding programs. |
| C．Laws of banning whale hunting. |
| D．Creation of studying organizations. |
| A．conservation works |
| B．man conquers nature |
| C．animals are more important |
| D．law is fair |
| A．protect ocean habitats |
| B．build land environments |
| C．increase the population of endangered animals |
| D．control animal population |
| A．Though there was a special breeding program, the number of Mauritius kestrels didn’t increase. |
| B．Conservation efforts should not only be made by human beings. |
| C．Humpback whales are not on the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s list now. |
| D．Because many groups are working to protect wildlife, natural habitats are in good condition. |
Earth Day is an event
In1962, Rachel Carson’s bestselling book “Silent Spring” created an
In the fall of 1969, Nelson announced it and appealed to the entire country to get involved. Consequently, telegrams, letters and telephone calls
Today, Earth Day is celebrated around the world every April 22. Sometimes numerous communities celebrate Earth Week, an entire week of
9 . When she first started learning about the climate change from one of her elders,Fawn Sharp was invited on a helicopter flight over the Olympic Mountains to survey the Mount Anderson glacier.But the glacier was gone,melted by the warming climate.Sharp had a deep sense of loss when she discovered the glacier wasn’t there anymore.
Loss is a growing issue for people working and living on the front lines of climate change.And that gave Jennifer Wren Atkinson,a full-time lecturer at the University of Washington Bothell,US,an idea for a class.
This term,she taught students on the Bothell campus about the emotional burdens of environmental studies.She used the experiences of Native American tribes(部落),scientists and activists,and asked her 24 students to face the reality that there is no easy fix—that “this is such an intractable problem that they’re going to be dealing with it for the rest of their lives”.
Student Cody Dillon used to be a climate science skeptic(怀疑论者).Then he did his own reading and research,and changed his mind.
Dillon wasn’t going into environmental work—he was a computer-science major.Yet,the potential for a worldwide environmental catastrophe seemed so real to him five years ago that he quit his job and became a full-time volunteer for an environmental group that worked on restoration(恢复) projects.
Six months into the work,he decided that Atkinson’s class was just what he was looking for—a place where he could discuss his concerns about a changing climate.
Atkinson said she hoped the class helped her students prepare themselves for the amount of environmental loss that will happen over their lifetimes.
“We are already changing the planet—so many species are going to be lost,displaced or massively impacted,” she said.“The future isn’t going to be what they imagined.”
1. Why did the author mention the case of Fawn Sharp?| A．To lay a basis for Fawn Sharp’s further research. |
| B．To prove Fawn Sharp’s work is similar to Atkinson’s. |
| C．To lead into the issue of loss caused by climate change. |
| D．To show scientists’ concern about the Mount Anderson glacier. |
| A．Simple. | B．Difficult. |
| C．Common. | D．Interesting. |
| A．To explore how different people deal with climate change. |
| B．To get students more concerned about the environmental issue. |
| C．To find solutions to the environmental issue of Olympic Mountains. |
| D．To teach students how to conduct research about environment. |
| A．It made him work as a part-time volunteer for restoration projects. |
| B．It made him realize a planet-wide climate disaster would happen. |
| C．It encouraged him to be more involved in environmental protection. |
| D．It discouraged him to work on restoration projects for the environment. |
1.节约与环保的关系；
2.举例说明，中学生该如何厉行节约；
3.倡导环保的优良传统。
注意：1.词数80左右；
2.可以适当增加细节，以使行文连贯。
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