1 . Microplastics are tiny bits or threads of plastic, often too small to be seen. In recent years, microplastics have been found almost everywhere, from the North pole to Antarctica, from the top of Mount Qomolangma to the deepest point in the sea.
In a recent study led by a group called Ocean Wise, researchers made four trips across the Arctic Ocean. They took 71 samples from between 10 and 26 feet below the ocean’s surface, and 26 more samples from more than 0.6 miles below. They found microplastics in all but one, with an average of about 40 microplastic particles in every cubic meter. To identify the particles they found, the scientists used a tool based on infrared (红外的) light. Over 92% of the microplastics found were small threads, called microfibers. About 73% of these fibers were made of a plastic known as polyester(聚酯), which exactly matched polyester used in clothing.
The study also found far more microfibers near the Atlantic side of the Arctic Ocean than near the Pacific side. The fibers on the Atlantic side were also newer. The team believes this suggests that the fibers come from Europe and North America. Peter Ross, who led the research, said, “With these polyester fibers, we’ve created a cloud throughout the world’s oceans.”
Most samples were taken from an ocean layer where lots of sea life finds food. The scientists believe this means that many kinds of sea life, from the smallest to the largest, are likely to be affected by the pollution.
So how do these microfibers get into the sea? They break off when clothes are washed and emptied by washing machines into underground pipes. One recent study suggested that laundry from the US and Canada carries around 7,716,000 pounds of plastic microfibers into the sea every year.
1. Which is true about the study according to paragraph 2?| A．All the samples taken contained microplastics. |
| B．Polyester accounted for most of the microfibers. |
| C．The head of the research group is called Ocean Wise. |
| D．Most samples were collected from over 0.6 miles below. |
| A．These polyester fibers look like clouds. |
| B．The world’s oceans are linked together. |
| C．The pollution has reached a serious level. |
| D．The food chain of the sea has been damaged. |
| A．Plastics. | B．Ocean layers. |
| C．Washing machines. | D．Laundry. |
| A．Efforts Made to Protect the Arctic Ocean |
| B．Reduction in the Consumption of Plastic Products |
| C．Microplastics Found All Through the Arctic Ocean |
| D．Reasons Behind the Pollution of the Arctic Ocean |
2 . You’ve heard that plastic is polluting the oceans—between 4.8 and 12.7 million tonnes enter ocean ecosystems every year. But does one plastic straw or cup really make a difference? Artist Benjamin Von Wong wants you to know that it does. He builds massive sculptures out of plastic garbage, foreing viewers to re-examine their relationship to single-use plastic products.
At the beginning of the year, the artist built a piece called “Strawpocalypse,” a pair of 10-foot-tall plastic waves, frozen mid-crash. Made of 168,000 plastic straws collected from several volunteer beach cleanups, the sculpture made its first appearance at the Estella Place shopping center in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.
Just 9% of global plastic waste is recycled. Plastic straws are by no means the biggest source (来源)of plastic pollution, but they’ve recently come under fire because most people don’t need them to drink with and, because of their small size and weight, they cannot be recycled. Every straw that's part of Von Wong's artwork likely came from a drink that someone used for only a few minutes. Once the drink is gone, the straw will take centuries to disappear.
In a piece from 2018, Von Wong wanted to illustrate (说明) a specific statistic: Every 60 seconds, a truckload's worth of plastic enters the ocean. For this work, titled "Truckload of Plastic" Von Wong and a group of volunteers collected more than 10,000 pieces of plastic, which were then tied together to look like they’d been dumped(倾倒)from a truck all at once.
Von Wong hopes that his work will also help pressure big companies to reduce their plastic footprint.
1. Which is the main idea of the text?| A．Artists’s opinions on plastic safety |
| B．Media Interest in contemporary art |
| C．Responsibility demanded of big companies |
| D．Ocean plastics transformed into statues |
| A．Drawing public attention to plastic waste. |
| B．Beautifying the city he lives in. |
| C．Introducing eco-friendly products. |
| D．Reducing garbage on the beach. |
| A．To explain why they are useful. |
| B．To voice his views on modern art. |
| C．To show the difficulty of their recycling. |
| D．To find a substitute for them. |
| A．Worrying | B．Calming |
| C．Refreshing | D．Challenging |
3 . White sand beaches of the Cocos Islands, which are known as a gorgeous tourist destination surrounded by greenish blue water, have now been filled with plastic wastes like abandoned plastic water bottles, toothbrushes, and cigarette lighters.
Jennifer Lavers, a marine scientist, went to these tropical islands with her research team. Knowing that lots of beaches were polluted by plastic wastes, the team conducted a careful scientific examination on the coast, only to find the problem caused by pieces of trash humans left was worse than expected.
Not all plastics are to blame. They are necessary in places like hospitals and airplanes, and make our vehicles lighter and more efficient. However, other plastics, especially disposable plastics, account for the growing mess on the beaches. Islands all over the world are jammed with plastics. And the Cocos Islands are no exception.
It requires the greatest effort of all time to control plastic pollution in modern society. No matter how tall the hurdles(栏架) are, something has to be done.
Apparently, demand for disposable plastics must be reduced greatly. “Why don’t we carry around bags that we can use over and over again?” asked Richard Gross, a chemist who researches innovative ways to make more sustainable plastics. “Let’s carry around reusable lunch boxes. We should understand how serious the situation is.”
Although it is important for individuals to make an effort to avoid using disposable plastics, it is also generally believed that only with international rules can such a deep-rooted, common, and worldwide scourge(灾害) be tackled.
However, the U.N., which engages in dealing with accelerating climate change and public health crises, obviously isn’t paying enough attention to calling for international action on plastic pollution. As a result, billions of plastic products will still be produced every year, many of which will end up in the ocean.
Nowadays, fish are eating plenty of plastics, and people eat those fish. It remains unrevealed how it will affect human health, but clearly the amount of plastics used has increased many times in the last several decades, and if this tendency goes on, by 2050 an enormous amount of carbon will be released into the already carbon-saturated(碳饱和的) skies.
1. Why does the author write about the Cocos Islands at the beginning of the text?| A．To tell the story of the islands. |
| B．To appreciate the islands. |
| C．To introduce the problem of plastic pollution. |
| D．To introduce a scientific study. |
| A．People don’t care about the problem. |
| B．The problem is too serious to deal with. |
| C．Action must be taken however difficult the problem is. |
| D．The problem is as difficult as jumping over tall hurdles. |
| A．Cautious. | B．Optimistic. |
| C．Enthusiastic. | D．Unconcerned. |
| A．The beautiful Cocos Islands |
| B．The problems caused by disposable plastics |
| C．Scientific research on plastics |
| D．Plastic pollution on Cocos Islands |
4 . Before you throw your trash into the nearest can, think for a moment. Not all your garbage can be dumped into one trashcan. It needs to be sorted out with different things going into different bins. Waste classification, a practice that has long been normal in developed countries like Japan, is the new challenge for many Chinese urban residents. However, though initially you might need to rack your brains to figure out which trash goes into which can, in the long run, the result is well worth the effort.
Landfills, sites where waste is buried and covered over with soil, are a major method of disposing of residential waste in China. However, considering the environmental disaster associated with burying waste, there is a pressing need to reduce the amount of waste that goes into a landfill. Classification, sorting waste into different categories such as harmful waste, recyclables and kitchen waste, is a key solution.
Currently, 46 cities across China, are carrying out a program that aims to put in place a classification-based garbage disposal system by the end of 2020. It is hoped that this will reduce the quantity of waste that ends up in landfills by a large degree. Shanghai came into the media focus in early July after it carried out compulsory garbage sorting rules that those who fail to dispose of garbage properly should be fined. Beijing is reviewing its regulations to follow in Shanghai’s footsteps. The new rules may cause short-term inconvenience but they are meant to help residents follow the concept of garbage classification for the common good.
As the programs show, residents can gradually develop this habit with their growing consciousness and the help of advanced technology. In future, this practice should be adopted across China, in urban cities and rural areas alike. With public involvement, China’s garbage sorting program will contribute not only to the nation’s sustainable (可持续的) development but also to making the planet a better place to live in.
1. What is the most probable reason for classifying waste？| A．No site for burying waste. | B．People’s habit. |
| C．Economic cost. | D．Environmental pollution. |
| A．To practise waste classification. | B．To protect environment. |
| C．To save oil for farming. | D．To reduce the quantity of waste. |
| A．A program adopted across China | B．Shanghai carried out new disposal rules |
| C．Doing the best with waste | D．Protecting environment is necessary |
5 . More Plastic than Fish in the Oceans by 2050
30 years from now our seas will be containing more plastic than fish．According to a report released by the World Economic Forum, plastic production around the world is expected to double within the next 20 years．
About 8 million tons of plastic are dumped into the sea every year．
Plastic is becoming more and more common in our world．
Oil is the raw material that plastic is made of．Currently, 5% of the world's oil production is turned into plastic．
| A．By 2050 it will rise to a fifth． |
| B．There, it can last for hundreds of years． |
| C．It has many uses and is cheap to produce． |
| D．More people have sensed its seriousness． |
| E．Today, one garbage truck full of plastic gets into the ocean every minute． |
| F．They were aiming to highlight the global issue of plastic pollution in the oceans． |
| G．Plastic that turns up in the seas endangers the fish population and other marine animals． |
6 . Many experts are calling the growing problem of global waste a worldwide health crisis in since pollution from trash is not only harming the world’s oceans, air and soil but also endangering people’s health as well as the livelihood of all living creatures.
Reduce, reuse, recycle
Such a dilemma raises the question, is there a more responsible way of dealing with trash? Fortunately, there is.
Circular economy
Traditionally, manufacturers would make a product to be used and disposed of by consumers. This linear (直线型的) model of production offered no help in the fight against global waste.
Once a product’s value is exhausted, the materials are recycled and returned to manufacturers. The outcome is less waste. One large-scale example of this is happening on the island of Taiwan.
In 1997, Taiwan established its signature 4-in-1 Recycling Program, consisting of communities, government cleaning teams, recycling companies and the Recycling Fund. Residents separate their recyclable waste. The local government collection teams collect it.
Turning garbage into gold
By following a circular system, more products than ever are being manufactured using recycled materials. Environmentally-friendly decisions like these help to conserve natural resources, reduce pollution, save landfill space and even create new job opportunities.
| A．Practices in Taiwan |
| B．4-in-1 Recycling Program |
| C．Recycling can truly turn garbage into gold |
| D．Living a zero-waste lifestyle is the way to go |
| E．Alternatively, a circular economy was introduced |
| F．The recyclable waste is recycled in many local factories |
| G．Recycling companies buy waste materials from them to make profits |
7 . Airborne dust is normally seen as an environmental problem, but the lack of it is making air pollution over China considerably worse.
A new study suggests less dust means more solar radiation hits the land surface,which reduces wind speed. That lack of wind in turn leads to an accumulation of air pollution over heavily populated parts of China. The researchers found that reduced dust levels cause a 13% increase in human-made pollution in the region.
Hundreds of millions of people across China continue to be impacted by air pollution from factories and coal-fl red power plants. Studies suggest that the dirty、air contributes to 1.6 million deaths a year, about 17% of all mortalities. But this new research says that the human-induced pollution is being made worse or better by naturally occurring dust that blows in from the Gobi desert. Using models to simulate 150 years of wind and dust patterns in the region, the researchers found that the dust deflects significant amounts of sunlight. Without it, more heat from the Sun hits the land. Differences in the temperatures between land and sea cause the winds to blow. Without the dust, the land warms up more and that changes the temperature differential with the sea leading to weaker breezes - and more air pollution.
“There are two dust sources. One is the Gobi and the other is the highlands of north-west China, but we found the Gobi had much more influence," said lead author Yang Yang, from the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Washington State, US. “Less dust in the atmosphere causes more solar radiation to reach the surface. It weakens the temperature difference between the land and the sea and impacts the circulation of the winds and causes a stagnation over eastern- China and that causes an accumulation of air pollution.”
Another study has recently shown a link between declining Arctic sea ice and a major air pollution event in China. The authors of the new study believe that both theories could be true.
“Our study has the same mechanism: the weakening of winds causes more pollution, and what is behind this needs to be studied/ said Yang Yang, “We have two views on this kind of weakening of wind. They found the sea ice, we found the dust-wind interaction can also lead to weakening of the wind. I think both of them are important.”
The researchers believe that the study may inform broader questions about how natural human-created aerosols interact.
Many parts of the world, in addition to China, are now suffering from increased levels of air pollution and understanding how dust, winds and emissions work together may help limit some of the worst impacts of dirty air.
One of the key lessons from this study is that the absence of dusty conditions could mean the air you are breathing is worse for you, not better.
1. According to the new study, the formation of air pollution over heavily populated parts of China is due to_________.| A．the accumulation of dust | B．the shortage of wind |
| C．the high level of living standards | D．the rise of temperature |
①the worse circulation of the winds
②more heat from the sun
③lessening temperature between the land and the sea
④less dust
⑤a worse stagnation
| A．④②③①⑤ | B．①④②⑤③ |
| C．④①③②⑤ | D．①⑤②④③ |
| A．Lack of dust from the highlands of north-west China means we can breathe better air. |
| B．There is little connection between declining Arctic sea ice and air pollution in China. |
| C．Declining Arctic sea ice and dust-wind interaction can cause weakening of the wind. |
| D．The interaction between dust, winds and emissions can worse dusty conditions. |
8 . Have you ever wondered how many cigarettes you're passively smoking while walking through the streets of a polluted, smog-infused((烟雾笼罩的)city?No?Well, a pair of digital developers just invented an app that will definitely and accurately answer that question.
Shit, I Smoke! was created by Brazilian-born designer Marcelo Coelho and Paris-born app developer Amaury Martiny in just a week, after they read a study that analyzed air pollution and its equivalent(等量)to cigarette smoking. The article, co-written by Richard Mueller, a MacArthur fellow and physics professor at the University of California, Berkeley, explains a mathematical model that compares smoking and tobacco-related deaths to levels of PM2.5, a microscopic particle(微粒)that is a dangerous, cancerous pollutant after burning.
The app shows that Parisians can effectively inhale(吸入) between three and six cigarettes per day, while a person in Delhi could be smoking up to 20 cigarettes-without even touching one--on a bad day. Other cities have worrying numbers, too (6. 5 cigarettes daily in Mexico City ).
“I was surprised to see that Buenos Aires and Sao Paulo have the best air quality in all Latin America,despite the fact that these are heavily populated cities,”said Coelho, who's originally from the latter, Brazil's largest city.
For both Coelho and Martiny, the app isn't only a useful tool to inform users about their city's air quality;it also makes this information more accessible and easier to understand. “These air-quality monitoring stations are just numbers, numbers that are very specific to professionals who work in environmental issues,” Martiny said. “So when you make this conversion(转换)to cigarettes, it makes it easier to understand what people are dealing with and the consequences air quality has in the daily lives.”
The developers' plan now is to keep working on and enriching the app's features. This will most likely include monthly average cigarette rates, and enabling users to get data from cities other than the one they're in.
1. What does the underlined part “that question” mean?| A．How severely a city's air is polluted. |
| B．How harmful it is to smoke in urban areas. |
| C．How many cigarettes one usually smokes daily. |
| D．How much harmful air you're taking in in urban areas. |
| A．Paris | B．Delhi. |
| C．Mexico City. | D．Sao Paulo. |
| A．Brazil might have good air |
| B．his hometown was a badly polluted city. |
| C．air pollution wasn't a problem in Latin America. |
| D．Buenos Aires had the best air quality in Latin America |
| A．Encouraging people to abandon the habit of smoking. |
| B．Recommending some best places for people to live in. |
| C．Helping people better know their everyday air quality. |
| D．Reminding people to do something good for the environment. |
Lower Oxygen Levels Threaten Marine Life
Oxygen in the oceans is being lost at an alarming rate, with “dead zones” expanding rapidly and hundreds more areas showing oxygen dangerously exhausted, putting sharks, tuna, marlin and other large fish species at particular risk. Dead zones, where oxygen is effectively absent, have quadrupled(翻两番) in extent in the last half-century, and there are also at least 700 areas where oxygen is at dangerously low levels, up from 45 when research was undertaken in the 1960s.
The reasons behind this environmental collapse are multiple. Among all, pollutants generated by the industrial world have been the most destructive force to cause the unbalance, including a rising tide of plastic waste, as well as other pollutants. Seas are about 26% more acidic than in pre-industrial times because of absorbing the excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, with damaging impacts on shellfish in particular.
Low oxygen levels are also associated with global heating, because the warmer water holds less oxygen and the heating causes stratification(分层), so there is less of the vital mixing of oxygen-rich and oxygen-poor layers. Oceans are expected to lose about 3-4% of their oxygen by the end of this century, but the impact will be much greater in the levels closest to the surface, where many species are concentrated, and in the mid to high latitudes.
Another major cause for lower oxygen is intensive farming. When excess artificial fertilizer from crops, or wastes from the meat industry, runs off the land and into rivers and seas, it feeds algae(藻类) which bloom and then cause oxygen consumption as they die and decay.
The problem of dead zones has been known about for decades, but little has been done to tackle it. Now is high time to take actions and help the oceans function better.
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10 . Ship tourism to Antarctica is on the rise: More than 35,000 tourists are expected to visit Antarctic this summer. In 1992-1993, 6,750 visited Antarctica, according to the Antarctica Treaty. All of this tourism, however, is putting both tourists and the environment in great danger.
Among the tourist ships that visit the continent, the Explorer, a Canadian ship, was one of the first. Put to use in 1969, it was built to carry tourists to Antarctica. Last week, however, it became the first commercial passenger ship to sink beneath the waters. Fortunately, all of the passengers and crew members were rescued from the ship. However, the sunken ship endangered the Antarctic’s fragile(脆弱的) environment. The ship was estimated to be holding 48,000 gallons of fuel.
The accident was not unexpected. Both the US and UK had warned a conference of the Antarctic Treaty member countries in May that the tourism situation in this area was a potential disaster. The US said in a paper, people “should take a hard look at tourism issues now, especially those related to ship safety.” Although the Antarctic seas are relatively calm, floating ice causes a potential threat to ships. The owner of the Explorer blamed the sinking on a fist-like hole in the ship created by ice.
Many of the other large ships now visiting Antarctica are not designed especially against thick ice. Such ships generally can only come to the continent in summer. But the tourist rush is pushing ships into dangerous situations. “The increasing number of ships operating in Antarctic means that the ship are under great pressure to get there in time for the key visiting sites,” the British government wrote in a paper at the meeting of member countries.
As a natural frontier, Antarctica is in a messy legal situation. There are no obvious answers as to who is responsible for dealing with the threat that tourist may cause to human life and the environment.
There is no coast guard for Antarctica. Do we want it to become Disneyland, or do we need some controls?
1. Which of the following is true according to this passage?| A．Antarctica tourism has a history of about 17 years. |
| B．The number of tourists to the Antarctic is over 5 times as large as that of 17 years ago. |
| C．The tourism boom has caused holes in the floating ice in the Antarctic. |
| D．The Antarctica Treaty is responsible for the environmental problems. |
| A．led to a conference about the tourism situation in the Antarctic. |
| B．was caused by the rough seas |
| C．had been predicted |
| D．did harm to the Antarctic. |
| A．people had better not make a tour of the Antarctic |
| B．ships to the Antarctic should be built strong enough |
| C．there should be legal controls over tourism in the Antarctic |
| D．the Antarctic’s environment is fragile to be protected |
