1 . The oil and gas industry may be emitting about three-times the amount of climate-warming methane than government estimates show, according to a new study from Stanford University, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and other organizations in Nature. Methane (甲烷) is the main component of natural gas and among the greenhouse gases heating the planet, which is produced when extracting crude oil.
Specific measurements varied from a low of less than 1%, or about what the Environmental Protection Agency estimates, at a site in Pennsylvania to a high of nearly 10% in New Mexico. Researchers found the higher percentages of methane released generally had something in common. “These are places where production is mostly focusing on oil,” says Evan Sherwin, a research scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory who conducted the research as a postdoctoral researcher at Stanford University. But oil and gas often come out of the ground together, and if there wasn’t a way to transport the less-valuable gas to where it could be sold, leaks were higher.
In Pennsylvania, by contrast, drillers are focused on producing natural gas, and there, very little of the methane was wasted. That complicates an argument many in the industry have made, generally in opposition to tighter government regulations on methane. They say drillers have the incentive to capture gas leaks so they can sell the fossil fuel. But that’s not always possible, if industry hasn’t built the pipelines and other infrastructure to get the gas to consumers. In this study, researchers estimate the industry releases about 6.2 million tons of methane a year, valued at $1.08 billion.
“Emissions of methane from fossil fuel operations remain unacceptably high,” said Tim Gould, chief economist at the International Energy Agency, during a Tuesday call with reporters. The organization’s Global Methane Tracker shows methane from the energy sector was near the record high level in 2023.
Despite that, the IEA concludes that if countries fully implement existing pledges on methane reductions, that would make significant progress toward achieving global climate goals. “2024 could mark a turning point and policies are starting to be put into place. Greater transparency is coming. Awareness is spreading and we have enhanced ability to track large leaks and act quickly to shut them down,” Gould said. Gould said he hopes to have good news to share, about a reduction in methane emissions, next year.
1. What can we infer from paragraph 2?| A．Various measures are taken to restrict the release of methane. |
| B．The low value of the gas in part leads to the high leak of the methane. |
| C．The more focused on the production of the gas, the higher the methane release |
| D．The percentage of methane in developing countries is higher than in developed countries |
| A．Equipment. | B．Productivity. | C．Drive. | D．Assessment. |
| A．Caution: Methane emission gives rise to serious global warming. |
| B．Methane emissions: Oil and gas industry’s hidden impact. |
| C．Measures taken to cut back on methane emissions. |
| D．Methane is to blame for the climate change. |
| A．Critical. | B．Dismissive. | C．Doubtful. | D．Optimistic. |
2 . Plastic is everywhere, from the Arctic ice to vital organs in the human body. In fact, previous estimates suggest that the average person swallows a credit card-worth of microscopic plastic particles(颗粒) every week. But new research shows that this could actually be an understatement.
Microplastics are plastics smaller than 5 millimeters, found in industrial waste, beauty products, and formed during the degradation of larger plastic pieces. Over time, they break down into even smaller nanoplastics. These tiny particles can pass through our intestines and lungs into our bloodstreams, reaching vital organs like the heart and brain.
While the idea of eating plastic is unsettling in itself, the major concern here is that these plastic particles contain chemicals that can interrupt our body’s natural release of hormones, potentially increasing our risk of reproductive disorders and certain cancers. They can also carry toxins(毒素) on their surface like heavy metals.
In the past, researchers have shown bottled water can contain tens of thousands of identifiable plastic fragments in a single container. However, until recently, only the larger microplastics were detectable with available measuring tools, leaving the area of nanoplastics largely a mystery.
Using Raman microscopy (显微镜学), capable of detecting particles down to the size of a flu virus, the team measured an average of 240, 000 particles of plastic per liter of bottled water, 90 percent of which were nanoplastics, a revelation 10 to 100 times larger than previous estimates.
These plastics likely originate from the bottle material, filters used to “purify” the water, and the source water itself. “It is not totally unexpected to find so much of this stuff, ” the study’s lead author, Columbia graduate student Naixin Qian, said in a statement. His team hopes to expand their research into tap water and other water sources to better inform our exposure to these potentially dangerous particles. “The idea is that the smaller things get, the more of them I reveal, ” he added.
1. What is the primary focus of the new research?| A．The presence of plastic particles. | B．The use of plastic in everyday products. |
| C．The detection methods for microplastics. | D．The potential risks of nanoplastics to human. |
| A．Finding the source of plastic particles. | B．Helping to cure the deadly flu virus. |
| C．Detecting the smaller plastic particles. | D．Improving the quality of bottled water. |
| A．To focus on areas with higher plastic pollution. |
| B．To be aware of the dangerous particles in daily life. |
| C．To further measure the types of particles in tap water. |
| D．To detect the smaller plastic particles in industrial areas. |
| A．Skeptical. | B．Objective. | C．Conservative. | D．Positive. |
3 . There is an increasing alarm about the extent of microplastics pollution, which has been found everywhere from Everest to the Arctic. However, it turns out there’s an even smaller and more poisonous form of plastic pollution entering remote reaches of the globe. A new study published in Environmental Research found significant quantities of nanoplastics (纳米塑料) in ice samples from both the North and South Poles.
“Now we know that nanoplastics are transported to these corners of the Earth in these quantities. This indicates that nanoplastics are really a bigger pollution problem than we thought,” study lead author Dusan Materic said in a press release.
Nanoplastics are plastics that are smaller than a micrometer in size. Their small size means they are more difficult to study than microplastics, or plastics between five millimeters and a micrometer. But they may be even more dangerous.
“Nanoplastics are very toxicological active compared to, for instance, microplastics, and that’s why this is very important,” Materic said.
Materic and his team used new methods to measure nanoplastic pollution in ice samples from Greenland and Antarctica. They sampled a 14-meter-deep ice core from the Greenland ice cap and sea ice from Antarctica’s McMurdo Sound. They found that there were an average of 13.2 nanograms per-milliliter of nanoplastics in the Greenland ice and an average of 52.3 nanograms per milliliter in the Antarctic ice
But what was even more surprising than the amount of nanoplastics in the remote ice was just how long they had sat there. “In the Greenland core, we see nanoplastic pollution happening all the way from the 1960s. So organisms, despite the lack of the solid evidence, likely all over the world, have been exposed to it for quite some time now,” Materic said.
The study also looked at the types of plastic present in the samples. Half of the Greenland nanoplastics were polyethylene (PE), the kind of plastic used for plastic bags and packaging. A quarter came from tires and a fifth were polyethylene terephthalate (PET), which is used for clothing and bottles.
1. Why should researchers focus more on nanoplastics?| A．They are smaller but more dangerous. |
| B．They are more important to science. |
| C．They are easily polluted by ocean water. |
| D．They are more active in cold surroundings. |
| A．The North and South poles are the birthplace of nanoplastics. |
| B．Nanoplastics have less influence on the planet than microplastics. |
| C．Nanoplastics have been existing since the 1960s throughout the world. |
| D．Nanoplastics found in the samples are widely used in the daily life. |
| A．The Greenland core. |
| B．The Antarctic ice. |
| C．The amount of nanoplastics. |
| D．Nanoplastics pollution. |
| A．Mircoplastics prove to be more dangerous. |
| B．Nanoplastics pose a threat to people’s life. |
| C．Nanoplastics are making their way to the poles. |
| D．Mircoplastics set the alarm bells ringing. |
4 . Many of the negative impacts humans have on the environment are visible to the naked eye. Trash washes up on our beaches, the ice caps are visibly shrinking, and smog darkens our skies. But some environmental threat, such as microplastics, are nearly invisible.
The U. S. National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration classifies microplastics as any piece of plastic less than five millimeters. Some are as small as three microns—half the size of a red blood cell. This comes from a variety of sources, including the microbeads found in cosmetics, paint, tire dust, industrial waste, and clothing.
These tiny fragments can become fixed in animals’ tissue through taking food or breathing. Various marine species, such as deposit-feeding lugworms, are shown to have microplastics in their intestinal tracts (肠道). The production and disposal of microplastics, among other unaware actions by humans, have played a significant role in boosting the worsening of marine ecosystems. But microplastics are not just a problem for marine life. Humans are consuming them too, sometimes through eating seafood containing microplastics.
Microplastics also run uncontrollably in drinking water. A 2017 investigation by Orb Media, which looked at tap water samples from over a dozen countries, found that 83 percent of the samples were contaminated with plastic fibers. Once taken, most of the microplastics stay in our systems forever, and little is known about their long term impact on our health.
Microplastic pollution is not an easy problem to deal with, but there are small changes that you can make to reduce your contribution to the problem. One strategy is to stop fibers before they enter the wastewater stream. Patagonia announced that it will sell the Guppy Friend, a bag that you can place clothing in before tossing it into the wash, which will prevent the fibers from being flushed away. You can also avoid buying any facial scrubs (面部磨砂膏) that use plastic microbeads. Lastly, you can reduce your plastic consumption and waste altogether by buying reusable water bottles and grocery bags, and being sure to always recycle any plastics you come across.
1. Why did the author mention the negative impacts visible to the naked eye?| A．To blame people for their behaviors |
| B．To show the notable threats on earth. |
| C．To stress the urgency of ecology protection. |
| D．To introduce the hidden dangers of microplastics. |
| A．They are so small that can be ignored. | B．They are produced by human deliberately. |
| C．They have a lasting effect on people’s body. | D．They gain attention for the bad influence. |
| A．To promote the sales of a new type of bag. |
| B．To give ways to reduce microplastic presence. |
| C．To tell how to reduce waste and consumption. |
| D．To state the difficulties of decreasing microplastics. |
| A．Many hands make light work. | B．Constant dropping wears the stone. |
| C．Actions speak louder than words. | D．Practice makes perfect. |
5 . For many people, it is hard to imagine what it is like to lose their sense of smell. Known as “anosmia”, loss of smell can have a substantial effect on our overall wellbeing and quality of life. But while a sudden respiratory infection (呼吸道感染) might lead to a temporary loss of this important sense, your sense of smell may well have been gradually eroding away for years due to something else- air pollution.
Exposure to PM2. 5 has previously been linked with smell loss, but typically only in occupational or industrial settings. But new research is now starting to reveal the true scale and the potential damage caused by the pollution we breathe in every day. On the underside of our brains lies the olfactory bulb (嗅球). This sensitive bit of tissue is essential for the enormously varied picture of the world we get from our sense of smell. It’s also our first line of defense against viruses and pollutants entering the brain. But, with repeated exposure to PM2. 5, these defenses slowly get worn down.
“Our data show there’s a 1.6 to 1.7-fold increased risk of developing anosmia with sustained particulate pollution (粒状物污染),” says Murugappan Ramanathan, a rhinologist. One Mexican study in 2006, which used strong coffee and orange odors showed that residents of Mexico City which often struggles with air pollution — tended to have a poorer sense of smell on average than people living in rural areas of the country.
So, should we care that air pollution to which we are all exposed -is damaging our sense of smell and causing anosmia? Clearly, the answer is yes. Ramanathan says, “Air quality matters. I think we need tight regulations and control. Many people may not even realize the pollution they are exposed to. But even the everyday, low level air pollution we are exposed to should be taken more seriously.”
1. What do the underlined words “eroding away” mean in paragraph 1?| A．Evolving. | B．Becoming weak. |
| C．Becoming sharp. | D．Appearing. |
| A．Exposure to PM2. 5 has nothing to do with smell loss. |
| B．The pollution we breathe in on a daily basis may cause harm. |
| C．Our nose stops viruses and pollutants from entering the brain. |
| D．Our defenses will disappear quickly with air pollution exposure. |
| A．They have developed anosmia with air pollution. |
| B．Their sense of smell is poorer than rural people’s. |
| C．They often consume strong coffee. |
| D．They tend to have a good sense of smell. |
| A．How we should react to air pollution. |
| B．What we should do to protect the environment. |
| C．What steps we can take to recover from anosmia. |
| D．How we can improve our life quality. |
6 . Air pollution remains a critical health risk in the European Union, claiming over 500,000 lives in 2021, with findings suggesting nearly half of these could have been prevented if pollution were reduced to levels recommended by health experts. Data from the European Environment Agency (EEA) show that of these deaths, 253,000 were linked to exposure to fine particulate matter (PM2.5) going beyond the World Health Organization’s (WHO) guideline limit of 5 micrograms per cubic meter. These particles are especially dangerous as they can pass into the bloodstream and affect various organs. Nitrogen dioxide and ozone also contributed to the mortality (死亡频率) statistics, associated with 52,000 and 22,000 deaths respectively. The EU’s environment commissioner, Virginijus Sinkevicius, underlined that air pollution poses the top environmental health risk in the EU. Nevertheless, there is evidence of improvement, with deaths from PM2.5 decreasing by 41% between 2005 and 2021, and the EU targets a reduction of 55% by 2030.
In response to these concerns, the WHO, which updated its air quality guidelines in 2021, warns that no level of air pollution can be considered safe but has set upper limits for certain pollutants. The European Parliament vote to bring the EU’s air quality standards in line with the WHO but decided to delay doing so until 2035.
Sinkevicius said that air quality is indeed improving due to effective clean air policies. Beyond death counts, the EEA also assessed air pollution’s broader impact on diseases such as asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and diabetes, stressing not only mortality but the quality of life impacts. EEA researcher Alberto Gonzalez Ortiz pointed to severe disability states caused by these conditions, worsened by air pollution.
The EEA’s comprehensive approach shows that while the fight against air pollution has seen progress, immediate action is still critical to reduce pollution and reduce its widespread effects on public health.
1. Why does the author mention specific figures in Paragraph 1?| A．To stress the risk of PM2.5 in the EU. | B．To illustrate the impact of air pollution. |
| C．To prove the improvement in air pollution. | D．To show the guidelines of EEA lose control. |
| A．It adjusted air quality standards accordingly. |
| B．It didn’t perform the new limits until 2035. |
| C．It claimed current pollution levels were relatively safe. |
| D．It decided to change the guidelines completely. |
| A．Concerned about its policies. | B．Indifferent due to its level. |
| C．Uncertain about its impact. | D．Optimistic about its progress. |
| A．The impact of wise decisions on air pollution in the EU. |
| B．The specific health conditions worsened by air pollution. |
| C．The progress and challenges in dealing with air pollution. |
| D．The role of the WHO in establishing global health policies. |
7 . Just when you thought you were taking care of your health by eating enough fruit and vegetables every day, new research has come out revealing that you might be swallowing microplastic particles (颗粒) along with all those vitamins, minerals, and fiber. A groundbreaking study published in the journal Environmental Research has found that fruits and vegetables absorb microplastic particles from the soil and move them through vegetal tissues, where they remain until eaten by hungry diners, thus getting transferred to human bodies.
The researchers, who are from the University of Catania in Italy, as well as Sousse and Monastir universities in Tunisia, analyzed a variety of common fruits and vegetables —carrots, lettuce, broccoli, potatoes, apples, and pears. These were chosen for the fact that they are frequently consumed, usually one per day, which allowed the researchers to better assess the dietary intakes of MPs (microplastic particles) and NPs (nano-plastics). The samples were purchased from different sources in the city of Catania, including a small fruit vendor and a supermarket.
The researchers found that apples, followed by pears, were the most polluted fruit samples, and carrots were the most polluted vegetable. In the study’s discussion section, the authors wrote, “We can assume that the fruits contain more MPs not only because of the very high vascularization (血管化) of the fruit pulp (果肉) but also due to the greater size and complexity of the root system and age of the tree (several years) compared to the vegetables (60-75 days for the carrot).”
This study is important because it's the first to detect microplastics in fruits and vegetables. They have been found in other sources before, such as sea salt, beer, water (bottled, in particular), shellfish, sugar, soil, and even air, but never inside fresh produce. It’s an alarming discovery that raises yet another red flag about microplastic pollution in the natural environment.
It’s an area that will likely see a lot more attention in coming years, with the study authors calling for further research into the question of microplastic and whether it harms the health of both plants and humans.
1. What is the study mainly about?| A．The main cause and influence of soil pollution. |
| B．The microplastic pollution in fruits and vegetables. |
| C．The benefits of daily fruits and vegetables consumption |
| D．The great changes in people's dietary habits. |
| A．The age of root system. | B．The huge size of fruit tree roots. |
| C．The complex preservation method. | D．The large amounts of the fruit pulp. |
| A．It needs to be further studied. | B．It wasted them quite a lot of time. |
| C．It has caused harm to health. | D．It has attracted attention to diets. |
8 . Most environmental pollution on Earth comes from humans and their inventions, such as cars or plastic. Today, car emissions (排放物) are a major source of air pollution leading to climate change, and plastics fill our ocean, creating a significant health issue to marine (海洋的) animals.
And what about the electric light, thought to be one of the greatest human inventions of all time? Electric light can be a beautiful thing, guiding us home when the sun goes down, keeping us safe and making our homes bright. However, like carbon dioxide emissions and plastic, too much of a good thing has started to impact the environment. Light pollution, the inappropriate use of outdoor light, is affecting human health, wildlife behavior and our ability to observe stars.
Light pollution is a global issue. This became obvious when the World Atlas of Artificial Night Sky Brightness, a computer-generated map based on thousands of satellite photos, was published in 2016. Available online for viewing, the map shows how and where our globe is lit up at night. Vast areas of North America, Europe, the Middle East and Asia are glowing (发光) with light, while only the most remote regions on Earth (Greenland, Central African Republic and Niue) are in total darkness. Some of the most light-polluted countries in the world are Singapore, Qatar, and Kuwait.
Sky glow is the brightening of the night sky, mostly over cities, due to the electric lights of cars, streetlamps, offices, factories, outdoor advertising, and buildings, turning night into day for people who work and play long after sunset.
People living in cities with high levels of sky glow have a hard time seeing more than a handful of stars at night. Astronomers are particularly concerned with sky glow pollution as it reduces their ability to view stars.
More than 80 percent of the world’s population, and 99 percent of Americans and Europeans, live under sky glow.
1. What can we learn from paragraph 2?| A．Electric light is the greatest human invention. |
| B．The use of outdoor light must be forbidden. |
| C．Electric light is the main factor to keep us safe. |
| D．Electric light has both advantages and disadvantages. |
| A．Qatar. | B．Kuwait. | C．Niue. | D．Singapore. |
| A．Sky glow costs too much. | B．Sky glow has a bad effect on their sleep. |
| C．Sky glow wastes too much electricity. | D．Sky glow affects their viewing stars. |
| A．Different kinds of pollution | B．Plastic pollution |
| C．Air pollution | D．Light pollution |
9 . If humans were truly at home under the light of the moon and stars, we would go in darkness happily, the midnight world as visible to us as it is to the vast number of nocturnal (夜间活动) species on this planet. Instead, we are diurnal creatures, with eyes adapted to living in the sun’s light. This is a basic evolutionary fact, even though most of us don’t think of ourselves as diurnal beings. Yet it’s the only way to explain what we’ve done to the night: We’ve engineered it to receive us by filling it with light.
The benefits of this kind of engineering come with consequences — called light pollution — whose effects scientists are only now beginning to study. Light pollution is largely the result of bad lighting design, which allows artificial light to shine outward and upward into the sky. Ill-designed lighting washes out the darkness of night and completely changes the light levels — and light rhythms — to which many forms of life, including ourselves, have adapted. Wherever human light spills into the natural world, some aspect of life is affected.
In most cities the sky looks as though it has been emptied of stars, leaving behind a vacant haze (霾) that mirrors our fear of the dark. We’ve grown so used to this orange haze that the original glory of an unlit night — dark enough for the planet Venus to throw shadows on Earth — is wholly beyond our experience, beyond memory almost.
We’ve lit up the night as if it were an unoccupied country, when nothing could be further from the truth. Among mammals alone, the number of nocturnal species is astonishing. Light is a powerful biological force, and on many species it acts as a magnet. The effect is so powerful that scientists speak of songbirds and seabirds being “captured” by searchlights on land or by the light from gas flares on marine oil platforms. Migrating at night, birds tend to collide with brightly lit tall buildings.
Frogs living near brightly lit highways suffer nocturnal light levels that are as much as a million times brighter than normal, throwing nearly every aspect of their behavior out of joint, including their nighttime breeding choruses. Humans are no less trapped by light pollution than the frogs. Like most other creatures, we do need darkness. Darkness is as essential to our biological welfare, to our internal clockwork, as light itself.
Living in a glare of our own making, we have cut ourselves off from our evolutionary and cultural heritage — the light of the stars and the rhythms of day and night. In a very real sense, light pollution causes us to lose sight of our true place in the universe, to forget the scale of our being, which is best measured against the dimensions of a deep night with the Milky Way — the edge of our galaxy — arching overhead.
1. According to the passage, human beings .| A．prefer to live in the darkness |
| B．are used to living in the day light |
| C．were curious about the midnight world |
| D．had to stay at home with the light of the moon |
| A．The night. | B．The moon. | C．The sky. | D．The planet. |
| A．provide examples of animal protection. |
| B．show how light pollution affects animals. |
| C．compare the living habits of both species. |
| D．explain why the number of certain species has declined. |
| A．The Magic Light. | B．The Orange Haze. |
| C．The Disappearing Night. | D．The Rhythms of Nature. |
10 . Do you know how much India struggles to gather the waste plastic water bottles? According to a Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) report from 2012, India generates 15, 000 tonnes of plastics a day, of which the gathered ones only achieve 60%. The trashed-but-not-gathered plastic waste leads to land and water pollution. posing serious threat to the environment.
After seeing that, Ankur Chawla, a drink expert, undertook research to find a solution, after which he realised the biggest problem the country faced was disposing of plastic waste. To address it, he wanted to come up with a solution where they do not add to the problem of waste. Fortunately, Ankur was not alone. He met Bhrigu Seth who was into green farming. Both of them found that they shared a common goal and it didn’t take long for them to draft a plan of action. It is estimated that over 90 percent of aluminium(铝) drink cans in India are recycled. Instead, 70 percent of the cans are manufactured through recycled waste. After going through challenges at hand, the pair made up their minds.
Before taking the next step. both co-founders visited five-star hotels and took samples of water in aluminium cans, asking them whether they would give it a shot if something like that comes in the market. The pair received an overwhelmingly positive response. They then determined to launch Responsible Whatr, natural spring water drink packed in an aluminium can to solve the problem of waste plastic water bottles.
As one of India’s first natural spring water drink, Responsible Whatr offered an environmentally friendly and endlessly recyclable aluminium can. It’s a non-alcoholic drink that was launched with a vision for an eco-friendly future and an agenda to reduce single-use plastic pollution.
Going forward, Ankur and Bhrigu aim to cooperate with airports and ecommerce gates which would help them in directly reaching the homes of high networth individuals (HNIs). They also plan to tie up with corporate firms and cinema halls and join hands with NGOs that are fighting for the conservation of beaches and oceans.
1. What inspired Ankur to conduct his research?| A．Plastics remained the major bottle material. |
| B．Uncollected plastics caused severe pollution. |
| C．Plastics accounted for most of the daily waste. |
| D．The amount of plastic waste was beyond control. |
| A．Creating a new packaging design. | B．Developing an alternative to plastics. |
| C．Launching a rubbish sorting program. | D．Increasing the recycling of plastic cans. |
| A．Removing plastic pollution. | B．Promoting aluminium cans. |
| C．Advertising non-alcoholic drinks. | D．Advocating a sustainable approach. |
| A．By cooperating with NHIs. | B．By introducing new products. |
| C．By targeting profitable NGOs. | D．By establishing diverse channels. |
