During the last twenty years there has been increasing concern with the quality of the environment. Along with air and water pollutants, noise pollution has been recognized as a serious pollutant. As noise levels have risen, the effects of noise have become more obvious.
Noise is described as unwanted sound. Causes of noise pollution include traffic, aircraft, rock bands, barking dogs, television, garbage trucks, and noise from neighbors, voices, alarms and boats. Studies show that over forty percent of Americans are disturbed at home or lose sleep because of noise pollution.
Noise has bad effects on people. Noise interferes (干扰) with human activities at home and work, and is in various ways dangerous to people’s health and well-being.
When we think, talk, listen to music, or sleep, we need quiet. Even low levels of noise can be annoying or frustrating. Sudden increases in volume can make sounds annoying. The quieter the background is, the more unpleasant a noise can be.
Noise can also make instructions or warning unclear, resulting in accidents.
Long exposure to noise levels above eighty-five decibels (分贝) can damage inner ear cells and lead to hearing loss. Noise can result in the uncontrolled fear response and can cause adrenaline (肾上腺素) to be pumped into the bloodstream, the heart rate to quicken, muscles to tense, breathing to increase, and the digestive system to slow down.
Local government has the responsibility to fight noise pollution. For example, it can regulate the speed of trains through their community. On the other hand, ad responsible citizen will never make noise pollution wherever he is.
| Title | ||
| Definition (定义) | ||
| Traffic, aircraft, rock bands, barking dogs, television, garbage trucks, and noise from neighbors, voices, alarms and boats. | ||
| Bad | ●Disturbing | ·When we think, talk, listen to music, or sleep, even low levels of noise can be ·Accidents may |
| ●Being dangerous to people’s health and well-being | ·Long exposure to loud noise can lead to ·Noise can result in the uncontrolled fear response. | |
| ● ●Citizens: never make noise pollution. | ||
2 . Friday night lights are good for the game, but they may be bad for biodiversity.
According to a study published Friday in the journal Animal Conservation, bright stadium lighting could affect the feeding habits of bats. Insects swarm (涌往) to these lights in large numbers, creating a competitive advantage for bat species who aren’t afraid of humans and human structures. This could impact local ecosystems and reduce biodiversity.
For most humans, there simply isn’t enough daylight hours—we have been developing new ways to light the night since we first controlled and used fire. But researchers say our need for continuous visibility can have serious consequences for neighboring species.
Light pollution has been linked to some ecosystem damage. Baby turtles, for example, naturally use the light of the moon to travel towards the open ocean. But constant and poorly designed artificial lighting can affect their sense of direction, obviously disturbing their life cycles.
“Increasing light pollution is a major feature of global change that’s caused by humans, and it is a potential threat to biodiversity,” co-author M. Corrie Schoeman said in a press release.
Dr Schoeman, a professor of biology at the University of Kwazulu-Natal, conducted field experiments to determine how stadium lighting affected bat behaviors. He found that “urban exploiter” bats were drawn to hunt near bright lights, while “urban avoider” bats were not. Exploiter species are able to take advantage of human resources, such as artificial light. Avoider species, by comparison, tend to avoid humans and human structures.
But it’s hardly survival of the fittest. This man-made, ecological scale-tipping could result in the decline or loss of avoider species. And that, in turn, could threaten the balance of local ecosystems.
Luckily, light pollution is considered an “easy fix” compared to other forms of pollution. Smart lighting design— hooded (带罩的) streetlamps，motion-sensitive residential lights (触控住宅用灯), and better controls to remove unnecessary brightness—can obviously reduce light pollution. As for stadium lights, earlier games could do a lot of good, both for bats and for our ecosystems as a whole.
1. What does the author want to demonstrate with the example of baby turtles?| A．Turtles are good at using human lights. |
| B．Light pollution has caused ecological damage. |
| C．Artificial lighting can train turtles’ sense of direction. |
| D．Human neighboring species have their own way of lighting. |
| A．They are the fittest of their species. |
| B．They are fond of artificial lighting. |
| C．They always defeat “urban avoider” bats. |
| D．They break the balance of their species. |
| A．How to reduce light pollution. | B．How to improve stadium lights. |
| C．How to balance the ecosystem. | D．How to recognize unnecessary brightness. |
| A．Evolution of Bats | B．Competition Among Bats |
| C．Stadium Lights Change Bat Behavior | D．The Number of Bats Are Decreasing |
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Last Sunday, my friends and I went to seaside. There was many people swimming in the sea. We felt about happy when we saw some wonderful view. But something unpleasant caught their eyes. Some visitors throw a lot of rubbish into the sea. We also found some dead fish, plastic bags and empty bottles float on the surface of the water, and the air smelt terribly. The marine (海的) environment is seriously damaged, what makes me worried. I think we should take effective measures to protecting the environment. Only by doing it will we live better and become healthier.
