1 . Heavy traffic doesn’t stop big mammals like bears from crossing highways — nor does it keep smaller creatures from being squished (压扁) by cars. In just two years along one highway in Utah, more than 100 animals were killed in traffic accidents. In the United States, there are 21 endangered species whose survival is threatened by traffic accidents.
However, there’s one way to reduce crashes between cars and animals crossing the road: wildlife under and overpasses. Looking much like a regular overpass for cars, but decorated with native plants, they aren’t particularly noticeable unless you know what you’re looking for. The drivers may not be able to see the under crossings. But they’re helping countless species to pass the highways, from gold monkeys in Brazil to water voles in London.
Washington State is one of the latest to join in. Building its first wildlife bridge began in 2015 over Interstate 90(1-90), which runs from Seattle to Boston. Though it’s just a bare set of arches now, with native plants to be planted next year, deer and wolves are already using it. Along with six underpasses built since 2013, these crossings are the first in a set of 20 along a 15-mile stretch of highway on I-90. These passes will allow black bears and mountain lions to pass through what was once an impenetrable road.
These wildlife crossings aren’t just about saving individual animals —they’re about species survival, too. I-90 is an economically important east-west lifeline in the state. But many of the animals mostly want to move from north to south. Those animals on the south of the highway got trapped in an island. Inbreeding (近亲繁殖) became a potential problem. Localized extinction happens if they don’t have genetic variability (变化). The Snoqualmie overpass helps reconnect these isolated (隔绝的) populations. I-90’s underpasses are important in connecting waterways and species.
1. Why does the author talk about the heavy traffic in Paragraph 1?| A．To show the results of wildlife protection. |
| B．To indicate its serious threat of over speeding. |
| C．To raise people’s awareness of the behavior of wildlife. |
| D．To introduce the following way to protect wild animals. |
| A．Letting drivers see highways. | B．Building highway crossing for animals. |
| C．Decorating busy roads with native plants. | D．Noticing under and overpasses while driving. |
| A．Unavoidable. | B．Untouchable. | C．Undesirable. | D．Uncrossable. |
| A．Isolated Wildlife: A Potential Problem |
| B．Highway Accidents: A Killer of Wild Animals |
| C．Wildlife Bridges: A Solution to Wildlife Protection |
| D．Wildlife Crossing: A Regular Overpass for Wildlife |
2 . “It is necessary for us to go to places that still look like the ocean as it was 500 years ago,” says Enric Sala, former professor at Scripps Institute of Oceanography. However, in most parts of the world, marine conservation is stymied by opposition from fishing, oil, and mining interests. A mere 7 percent of the world’s ocean has protection—mostly weak rules, and only 2.5 percent is highly protected. Outside of these zones, the ocean’s story is a continuing failure.
A few remaining parts of the ocean are the last wild places of the sea—the marine equivalent of the remotest old-growth forest in the Amazon—still unaffected by overfishing, pollution and climate change. Enric is working with the National Geographic Society and together launched the Pristine Seas project in 2008. Over the past 14 years, Pristine Seas has helped create 28 marine reserves, making up two-thirds of the world’s fully protected marine areas—covering more than two million square miles in all.
Now Sala and his team have set an even more ambitious goal: to see more than a third of the world’s ocean conserved for the purpose not just of sustaining biodiversity but also of replenishing(补充)fish stocks and storing carbon.
Pristine Seas worked with native Palauans(帕劳人)to give an ancient conservation tradition a modern change. For centuries, Palauans have used what they all “buls”, a Palauan word which means closure, to preserve and rebuild their reef fish stocks. Over the years they have created 35 reserves to protect marine life around their islands, some of which ban fishing permanently.
Sala and his team calculate that a 14-fold expansion of the fully protected part of the ocean, from 2.5 percent to 35 percent, would provide 64 percent of the biodiversity benefits while increasing the global fish catch by almost 10 million metric tons. Even that may sound impossible, but the alternative is awful. For now, we still get to choose.
1. What does the underlined word “stymied” in Paragraph 1 probably mean?| A．Frustrated. | B．Supported. |
| C．Accelerated. | D．Overestimated. |
| A．Protecting the ocean influences mining most. |
| B．Ocean protection has achieved great progress. |
| C．Few oceans have been properly protected so far. |
| D．Current rules have been enough for ocean protection. |
| A．It has protected two-thirds of the world’s ocean. |
| B．It sets unrealistic goals when protecting the ocean. |
| C．It asks to prohibit fishing in the 35 created reserves. |
| D．It has made some advances in maintaining biodiversity. |
| A．www.newsflash.com. |
| B．www.worldissues.com. |
| C．www.scienceforkds.com. |
| D．www.eco-conservation.com. |
3 . For every goal that Lesein Mutunkei scores, trees get planted. It’s a simple yet effective message that appeals, and leads to a satisfying way of motivating us to promote environmentalism in our own way.
Born in Nairobi, Lesein is in his late teens, and his Trees4Goals is the means with which he intends to make the world greener. It unites two of his passions in life: love of the outdoors and love of football. Lesein enjoyed walking in the forest. He recognised his country was experiencing a serious loss of tree cover. Between 2001 and 2020, Kenya lost an estimated 11% of trees, releasing 176 million tons of CO2.
In a blog post for WWF Kenya, Lesein revealed that, once he started the Trees4Goals initiative, he originally planned to plant one tree per goal. In 2020, he wanted to take his efforts even further. What started as one tree planted per goal mushroomed into 11 trees planted per goal. Explaining the reason behind expanding the tree-planting, he said, “It represents team efforts in football and the contribution by my team. I have planted over 1,000 trees in the last two years.”
While it’s something of an own goal to destroy the forests and jungles providing enormous biodiversity, initiatives like Trees4Goals are an assured way to score an environmentalist hat-trick. Sports such as football are popular with the booming Kenyan population and have the ability to cut through cultural barriers regardless of the countries they are played in. Sports have the power to unify and excite large audiences. Lesein Mutunkei has taken this strategy and scored a winning goal of his own.
Like a seed, best ideas start small and change into something that can become far larger than anticipated. While Lesein continues planting 11 trees per goal, the Kenyan government is aiming to plant 1.8 billion trees to reach a point where 10 per cent of the country is covered by trees. The science behind is clear; a report in 2019 claimed that if 900 million hectares were devoted to additional tree planting of half a trillion trees, the world could offset (抵消) half of all carbon emissions produced since 1960.
1. What gave Lesein the idea of launching the project?| A．Release of too much CO2. | B．His dream of motivating others. |
| C．His passion for sports and nature. | D．Habit of exercising in the woods. |
| A．He created a blog for WWF. | B．He set a higher aim. |
| C．He planted one tree for each goal. | D．He extended his work to other teams. |
| A．The aim that is intended to achieve. | B．Action that harms one’s own interests. |
| C．Pursuit of one’s personal success. | D．The goal that is scored for the opposing team. |
| A．United, we win. | B．No pains, no gains. |
| C．Love me, love my dog. | D．Small deeds, big difference. |
China is emerging as a global leader in aviation (航空) decarbonization (脱碳), according to industry experts. This development is
“As the world’s second-largest economy, China
“We believe that this will lead to an expansion of SAF production,
Despite current challenges in raw material supplies, technology and policies, China’s SAF industry faces significant opportunities and
It will make important
5 . Located in the Indian Ocean,the Maldives(马尔代夫) are among the most beautiful islands in the world,with white sandy beaches,clear water,and amazing coral reefs(珊瑚礁).The country depends on tourism,fishing,and shipping.But the rising sea level and the carbon pollution causing warming oceans are threatening(威胁) their existence.
The Maldives have asked for international help.They are a tiny country.The World Bank,the United States,the European Union,and many other groups have offered money to develop safeguards against climate change.
To protect the islands,the Maldives have built sea walls and increased the elevation(海拔) of important buildings and services such as the two international airports,which lie just 165 feet from the coastline.
They’re also building up islands such as the Hulhumale.The new island is surrounded by 9-foot sea walls.More than 40,000 people live there.The plan is to house 240,000,providing new opportunities for jobs.The goal is an excellent planned community with sustainable housing and buildings sensitive to the environment and needs of the people.
The government will move people living on smaller,lower-lying islands to the new built-up islands.The new islands offer free houses,new schools,health hospitals,fresh water,and waste treatment.Depending on tourism,the country hopes to build 50 more tourist islands.
“Climate change is happening,but we are not leaving the Maldives to the sea,” said Environment Minister Thoriq Ibrahim.The Maldives will protect their islands,people and tourism with new islands and ongoing island development against the rising sea level.
1. What do we fail to learn according to the passage?| A．The Maldives are a small country. |
| B．Many groups have helped the Maldives. |
| C．240,000 people live on the Hulhumale now. |
| D．The Hulhumale is surrounded by 9-foot sea walls. |
| A．The Maldives will be protected. |
| B．The Maldivians will leave all the islands. |
| C．The Maldives should give up tourism. |
| D．The Maldives will sink to the sea. |
| A．The Maldives and Their Tourism |
| B．The Maldives and Their Rising Sea Level |
| C．The Maldives and Their Climate Change |
| D．The Maldives and Their Fight Against the Rising Sea Level |
| A．Their tourism,fishing and shipping. |
| B．Their rising sea level and carbon pollution. |
| C．Their sandy white beaches and coral reefs. |
| D．Their distant islands and warming oceans. |
6 . Ask someone what they have done to help the environment recently and they will almost certainly mention recycling. Recycling in the home is very important of course. However, being forced to recycle often means we already have more material than we need. We are dealing with the results of that over-consumption in the greenest way possible, but it would be far better if we did not bring so much material home in the first place.
The total amount of packaging increased by 12% between 1999 and 2005. It now makes up a third of a typical household’s waste in the UK. In many supermarkets nowadays food items are packaged twice with plastic and cardboard.
Too much packaging is doing serious damage to the environment. The UK, for example, is running out of it for carrying this unnecessary waste. If such packaging is burnt, it gives off greenhouse gases which go on to cause the greenhouse effect. Recycling helps, but the process itself uses energy. The solution is not to produce such items in the first place. Food waste is a serious problem, too. Too many supermarkets encourage customers to buy more than they need. However, a few of them are coming round to the idea that this cannot continue, encouraging customers to reuse their plastic bags, for example.
But this is not just about supermarkets. It is about all of us. We have learned to associate packaging with quality. We have learned to think that something unpackaged is of poor quality. This is especially true of food. But it also applies to a wide range of consumer products, which often have far more packaging than necessary.
There are signs of hope. As more of us recycle, we are beginning to realize just how much unnecessary material we are collecting. We need to face the wastefulness of our consumer culture, but we have a mountain to climb.
1. What can we learn from the last paragraph?| A．Fighting wastefulness is difficult. |
| B．Needless material is mostly recycled. |
| C．People like collecting recyclable waste. |
| D．The author is proud of his consumer culture. |
| A．Using too much packaging. |
| B．Recycling too much waste. |
| C．Making more products than necessary. |
| D．Having more material than needed. |
| A．the tendency of cutting household waste |
| B．the increase of packaging recycling |
| C．the rapid growth of supermarkets |
| D．the fact of packaging overuse |
| A．Unpackaged products are of bad quality. |
| B．Supermarkets care more about packaging. |
| C．It is improper to judge quality by packaging. |
| D．Other products are better packaged than food. |
On my way home from work yesterday, I
I understand that, but in this case it’s
I really believe we should do away with packaging completely. There is
In the last few years,environmental disasters
9 . In the past 50 years,the amount of water in the open ocean with zero oxygen has gone up more than fourfold.In coastal water bodies,including river mouths and seas,low-oxygen sites have increased more than tenfold since 1950.Scientists expect oxygen to continue dropping even outside these zones as Earth warms.
“Oxygen is fundamental to life in the Oceans,” said Denise Breitburg,a marine ecologist with the Smithsonian Environmental Research Centre.“The decline in ocean oxygen ranks among the most serious effects of human activities on the Earth’s environment.Actually,it’s a great loss to all the support services that rely on recreation and tourism,including hotels and restaurants and taxi drivers and everything else.The reverberations(严重影响) of unhealthy ecosystems in the ocean can be extensive.”
In areas traditionally called “dead zones”,like those in Chesapeake Bay and the Gulf of Mexico,oxygen plummets(大幅下跌) to so low levels that many animals die.As fish avoid these zones,their habitats become smaller and they’re easier to be attacked or caught.But the problem goes far beyond “dead zones”.Even smaller oxygen decline can prevent growth in animals,hinder reproduction and lead to disease or even death.It can also cause the release of dangerous chemicals such as nitrous oxide,a greenhouse gas up to 300 times more powerful than carbon dioxide.While some animals can boom in “dead zones”,overall biodiversity falls.
Climate change is the key criminal in the open ocean.Warming surface waters make it harder for oxygen to reach the inside of the ocean.Furthermore,as the ocean as a whole gets warmer,it holds less oxygen.In coastal waters,too much nutrient pollution from land creates algal blooms,which use up oxygen as they die and break down.
People’s livelihoods are also on the line,the scientists reported,especially in developing nations.Smaller fisheries(渔场) may be unable to relocate when low oxygen destroys their harvests or forces fish to move elsewhere.So we humans have to carry on a war now and win the war.
1. What does the first paragraph mainly talk about?| A．The ocean has been losing its oxygen. |
| B．The amount of sea water is increasing. |
| C．The coastal water bodies are dangerous. |
| D．Earth becomes warmer and warmer. |
| A．Different oceans have different levels of oxygen. |
| B．The decline in ocean oxygen has great influences. |
| C．The future of tourism relies on the levels of ocean oxygen. |
| D．The decrease in ocean oxygen is the most serious environmental problem. |
| A．It offers more food. |
| B．It forms dangerous gas. |
| C．It reduces their living areas. |
| D．It produces more carbon dioxide. |
10 . Striking footage (镜头) recorded for National Geographic shows a dying polar bear struggling to find food on a land without ice or snow. The poor creature can be seen dragging its bony frame (骨架) across the rough land and searching for food in a bin.
Paul Nicken, the photographer who shot the heart-breaking footage, says the sight reduced him to tears. “We stood there crying—filming with tears rolling down our cheeks,” he said. They found the dying creature on Canada’s Baffin Island—an area that has seen an extreme reduction in sea ice because of global warming.
Nicken says that had he stepped in, it would only have deepened the situation. Instead, he filmed the bear’s slow, painful death and posted it to social media to serve as visual proof of the impact of climate change. “When scientists say bears are going extinct, I want people to realise what it looks like. Bears are going to starve to death,” said Nicken.“This is what a starving bear looks like.”
Polar bears are only native to the Arctic region and are one of the many casualties (伤亡) of climate change. They rely on the Arctic ice to hunt seals and are becoming increasingly threatened as the ice melts away.
The World Wildlife Fund(WWF) predicted back in 2002 that polar bears may face extinction for losing habitat. There are an estimated 25,000 bears left in the wild and most experts agree that unless climate change is controlled, they will all be dead within the next 100 years. “The simple truth is this—if the Earth continues to warm, we will lose bears and the entire polar ecosystem. This large male bear was not old, and he certainly died within hours or days in that situation,” Nicken wrote on Instagram. But there are solutions. We must begin putting the Earth—our home—first.
1. What can people see in the striking footage?| A．A starving polar bear. | B．Some dying creature. |
| C．A crying photographer. | D．The reduction of sea water. |
| A．To raise people’s awareness of climate change. | B．To get a prize in photography competition. |
| C．To attract readers’ interest in bears. | D．To raise money for bear protection. |
| A．The polar bears that are left can be found in Canada. |
| B．They were hunting seals when taken photos of. |
| C．The WWF has done a lot to protect them. |
| D．Melting ice is a huge threat to their life. |
| A．The unknown diseases increased polar bears’ deaths. |
| B．The whole bear ecosystem will suffer a heavy loss. |
| C．The destruction of forest affected the ecosystem. |
| D．The polar bear will be extinct in this century. |
