2 . Most of us are used to the sound we hear in daily life, such as music, the middle of the night.     1    . However, when these sounds of television, people talking on their phones and even pet dogs barking in the night keep you from sleeping all night or the traffic starts to give you a headache, they turn into noise pollution. For many of us, the concept of pollution is limited to nature an resources. However, noises that tend to damage the natural rhythm of life make environmental pollutants.

    2    . Man-made noises such as horns, airplanes and even cars can be too loud for our hearing range. Constant exposure to loud noise can easily result in the damage to our eardrums (耳膜) and lead to our loss of hearing.

Too much noise pollution in working areas such as offices, construction sites, bars and even in our homes can influence psychological health. Studies show that the occurrence of aggressive behavior, sleep disturbance, and constant stress can be linked to excessive (过度的) noise levels.     3    .

Loud noises can certainly influence our sleeping pattern.     4    , if we don’t have a good sleep at night. For example, our performance may go down i the office as well as at home. It is therefore recommended to take a sound sleep to give our body proper rest.

As of now, there do not exist many solutions to such pollution.     5    , when it comes to what an individual can do. Only when our understanding of noise pollution is complete can we take steps to get rid of it completely.

3 . A Plastic Ocean is a film to make you think.Think,and then act.We need to take action on our dependence on plastic.We’ve been producing plastic in huge quantities.Drinking bottles,shopping bags and even clothes are made with plastic.    1     What happens to all the rest?This is the question the film A Plastic Ocean answers.

The film begins as a journey to film the largest animal on the planet,the blue whale.But during the journey the filmmakers make the shocking discovery of a huge,thick layer of plastic floating in the Indian Ocean.    2     In total,they visited 20 locations around the world during the four years to make the film.

In the film there are beautiful shots of the seas and marine life.    3     We see how marine species are being killed by all the plastic we are dumping in the ocean.The message about our use of plastic is painfully obvious.

    4     In the second half,the filmmakers look at what we can do to deal with the problem.

They present short-term and long-term solutions.These include avoiding plastic containers and recycling as much as you can.The filmmakers also stress the need for governments to work more on recycling programmes.

We make a shocking amount of plastic.Over 300 million tons of plastic are produced every year,and at least 8 million of those are dumped into the oceans.The results are disastrous,but it isn’t too late to change.    5    

4 . Imagine an area 34 times the size of Manhattan. Now imagine it covered ankle-deep in plastic waste—a total of about 19 billion pounds of garbage.     1    .

“We’re being overwhelmed(淹没) by our waste,”said Jenna Jambeck, an environmental engineer who led the 2015 study that determined this astonishing number.     2    , unless something is done to stop the tide of garbage.

Plastic—a widely-used material—has in many ways been a benefit to humans but it has also caused a growing problem. Today, plastics are the No.1 type of garbage found in the sea. Ocean Conservancy, a nonprofit that organizes an annual coastal cleanup event worldwide, said plastic waste makes up around 85 percent of the garbage collected from beaches and oceans.

Ocean Conservancy says plastics are believed to threaten(威胁)at least 600 different wildlife species(物种).     3    ; a growing body of evidence suggests humans are consuming plastics through the seafood we eat. A research suggests some plastics could be poisonous to humans, and could potentially increase the risk of health problems.

    4    . At the Economist World Ocean Summit this week, ten nations announced to reduce plastic sea liter as part of UN Environment's CleanSeas campaign.     5    Corporations also have a role, as do individuals. We can start by thinking twice before using single-use plastic products—and when we do use them, we should take care to properly throw them off or recycle.

5 . Particulate Matter

There are things floating around in the air. Most of them, you can not even see. They are a kind of air pollution called particles or particulate matter. In fact, particulate matter may be the air pollutant that most commonly affects people’s health.

Have a Look.

Particles can come in almost any shape or size, and can be solid particles or liquid droplets.    1     These two groups differ in many ways. One of the differences is size, we call the bigger particles PM 10 and we call the smaller particles PM 2.5.

BIG.

The big particles are between 2.5 and 10 micrometers (from about 25 to 100 times thinner than a human hair). These particles are called PM 10 (we say ―PM ten, which stands for Particulate Matter up to 10 micrometers in size).    2    

SMALL.

The small particles are smaller than 2.5 micrometers (100 times thinner than a human hair).    3    We say ―PM two point five, as in Particulate Matter up to 2.5 micrometers in size.The smaller particles are lighter and they stay in the air longer and travel farther. PM 10 particles can stay in the air for minutes or hours while PM 2.5 particles can stay in the air for days or weeks.And travel?     4     PM 2.5 particles go even farther; many hundreds of miles.

Particulate Matter and Your Health.

When you breathe, you take in the air along with any particles in the air, like heavy metal sand cancer causing organic compounds. Both PM 10 and PM 2.5 particles can cause health problems, specifically respiratory (呼吸的) health.    5     Exposure to particulate matter leads to increased use of medication and more visits to the doctor or emergency room.

6 . E-waste is fast becoming a serious global problem.     1    

The source of e-waste

We live in a society that constantly produces and consumes electronic products. It is often cheaper to buy new pieces of equipment than to repair old ones. Also, through clever advertising, companies persuade consumers to replace their old TVs, mobile phones and computers for the latest models. E-waste is created when we throw away electronic equipment like this. In the EU alone, about 8.7 million tonnes of e-waste is produced each year.     2    

The problem with e-waste

Burying e-waste in landfills or burning it causes serious problems for the environment.     3     These substances can then leak into the ground in landfills or pollute the air when they are burnt.

Global recycling schemes (计划)

    4     However, their schemes are not always managed properly and sometimes electronics are just sent to poor countries such as Ghana. Here they are often burnt in public areas, which is very bad for people’s health. Setting up recycling programs in the countries that create e-waste could solve this problem. E-cycling centres could recycle the parts that we can reuse and properly dispose of the rest.

Take-back policy

Another solution to e-waste is to make manufacturers responsible for their used products. This could mean forcing them to take back old products which are no longer wanted.     5    

Consuming less

We can all reduce the amount of waste we produce by buying electrical products only when we have to.

7 . Thanks to Earth, we have fresh air to breathe, clean water to drink and warm sunshine to enjoy. But it seems that we may have taken these things for granted and not realized that our planet is getting “sick”.     1     More than 15,000 scientists around the world have written a letter to warn about environmental challenges.

Among those environmental challenges, climate change sits at the top. Global average temperatures have risen by more than 0.5℃ since 1992.     2     It means that heat waves would last around a third longer and rainstorms would be about a third more violent if we take no action. The increase in sea levels would also be much higher. Countries like Singapore and Tokyo that are at low altitudes (海拔) may be covered by the ocean in the future.

    3     It’s getting harder to get fresh water. Ocean pollution has become serious. Since 1992, the human population has grown by 2 billion, while the populations of all other animals have dropped by nearly 30 percent.

Scientists say that we are experiencing the sixth mass extinction (物种大灭绝) in history. More than two-thirds of the world’s wildlife could be gone by the end of the decade if action isn’t taken soon.     4    

However, we have made some progress by making the hole in the ozone (臭氧) layer smaller. That’s because we gradually stopped using chemicals that can break down ozone, a gas that protects Earth.

    5    

8 . Early people had very little effect on the environment. They lived in very small 'clan'（部落） groups. They collected or killed only enough for the clan's survival. Early clans were nomadic, which means that they did not stay in one place.     1     . The land had time to recover and animals had time to breed （繁殖） before the clan returned for the next season.   

As time went by, these small family clans joined with others to form larger groups for protection.

    2     . Eventually, people tamed（驯养） wild animals such as dogs and horses. People settled around rivers   and fertile plains to share responsibilities and duties. Then, people began to plant crops instead of moving to areas where the plants grew. This development changed the environment.

    3     . Some people were better at performing a particular task than other clan members, so they began to specialize in things they were good at doing. This also meant that they began to exchange their goods for things that others produced.

People began to communicate with distant tribes. Land was cleared for roads. Foreign plants and animals were transported to places where they had not existed before.     4     . So art, dance and music became important ways of expressing feelings and thoughts. This was how many great civilizations started.

Compared to the past, modern civilization has experienced many changes to become the highly developed society that exists today. Populations have increased rapidly. Inventions and technology have made work easier. However, pollution and other serious problems have also resulted from human progress.     5     .

9 . Main Types of Water Pollution

When we think of Earth’s water resources, we think of huge oceans, lakes, and rivers.     1     The most obvious type of water pollution affects surface water. For example, a spill from an oil tanker creates an oil layer that can affect a vast area of an ocean.

    2     A great deal of water is held in underground rock structures known as aquifers(含水层). Water stored underground in aquifers is known as groundwater. Aquifers feed our rivers and supply much of our drinking water. They can also become polluted, for example, when weedkillers used in people’s gardens drain into the ground.

Surface water and groundwater are the two types of water resources that pollution affects.     3     If pollution comes from a single location, such as a pipe attached to a factory, it is known as point source pollution.     4     A great deal of water pollution happens not from one single source but from many different sources. This is called nonpoint source pollution.

Sometimes pollution that enters the environment in one place has an effect hundreds or even thousands of miles away.     5     One example is the way radioactive waste travels through the oceans from unclear reprocessing plants in England and France to nearby countries such as Ireland and Norway.