Ever since "Mother Nature" gave me life, I expected to grow tall and big.
As a young 1, I was well protected in the forest. I used to 2 a good time with my friends under the blue sky and 3 the river. Our only purpose was to stand high. My pal, Tim often said, "All I ask for is to be 4 the whole day."
More than 300 days passed and we grew straight. Until one day, our 5 birthday, people came, moved us from the 6 and put us on their trucks. "I don't want to go!" Tim cried.
After a long journey, we arrived in a completely different place with 7 green. Here we were planted in a line. 8 the wind blew strongly, I could not even open my eyes to see Tim 9 beside me. So we needed enough 10 to grow thicker and higher to stop the wind.
As time went by, we finally 11 much stronger. I could keep my eyes open in the wind! I even found the blue sky was back!
This was no longer a no-man's-land, and hundreds of visitors came here. A man took a picture of us with his 12, "Thank you. We can enjoy clear days 13 worrying about sand storms." A young girl jumping up and down came over and 14 me. "Thank you," she said, "It's you that have turned the desert into a green land!"
Tim and I smiled at each other, feeling 15. The sun was shining brightly in the bluer sky.
We all know there is a problem with plastic pollution. Five trillion plastic bags are used every year. One million plastic drinking bottles are bought every minute.
What if we could use plastic waste to build roads? This is exactly what Toby McCartney has done.
In 2019, McCartney's UK-based company, MacRebur, built the world's first plastic road in Elgin town, Scotland. The plastic waste was made into grains and then mixed with bitumen (沥青). The road looks just like any other road. But it has improved strength and is more stretchy (有弹性的) thanks to the plastic.
"Our technology can not only help solve the problem of plastic waste but also produce roads that deal better with changes in the weather, reducing cracks and holes on the roads," McCartney told the BBC.
McCartney's idea came from a trip to India. "I saw people in India would put plastic waste into the holes on the roads and burn it. The plastic would melt down and cover the hole," said McCartney.
"I knew that there must be some similarities between the plastic and bitumen, which both come from oil. That's how I started to think about mixing them," he said.
After lots of testing, McCartney found the perfect recipe. And now his company has built many plastic roads around the world, from Australia to Europe. A one-kilometer stretch of roads uses about 684,000 plastic bottles or 1.8 million plastic bags. The road itself can be recycled at the end of its lifetime. The materials can be reused to build new roads.
"We're just a small part of ending the plastic problems, but it's nice to be part of it," McCartney said. "I just don't want my daughters to live in a world where there are more plastics in our oceans than fish."
a. saves money
b. is not easy to break
c. is mixed with bitumen
d. is not afraid of hot weather
Lauren Singer has produced almost no waste in the past two years, providing that a rubbish-free lifestyle is possible. Lauren studied environmental science at NYU (New York University). It was during her student years that she began working towards "zero-waste" goals.
Today she has learned to make all of her own everyday eco-friendly products, such as toothpaste, shampoo, kitchen cleaner and so on. She also set up her own company "The Simply Co." to sell her home-made products. "I stopped buying packaged (包装过的) products and began bringing my own bags and jars (罐子) to fill with products at the supermarket," she explained. "I stopped buying new clothes and shopped for only second-hand things." Lauren usually writes about her experiences of a zero-waste life on her blog (微博). Lauren says that she now saves a lot of money because she is prepared when she goes shopping, and does not buy things that she won't use at all. Lauren says that the past two years were not easy, but her zero-waste life has been well worth the effort.
The 23-year-old girl has become a role model to many. She's giving talks in schools and colleges and also having more and more interviews about her zero-waste lifestyle on TV and the radio worldwide.
John Muir was a protector(保护者) of nature. He set an example that each of us can follow to protect the natural areas around us.
The first way we can follow Muir's example is to discover our local natural areas. He once walked one thousand miles from Indiana to Florida.
Muir loved to explore the outdoors. He learned everything he could about rocks plants, and animals. From his exploring, he came to realize that the wilderness, places where people do not live or build, is an important gift. Muir made a decision that his life's goal was to protect this gift.
Muir's greatest example for us is his work to protect nature. He shared its beauty by writing books. In winter, he enjoyed its "pearl gray belt of snow (珠灰色雪带)". However, he also saw sheep eating Yosemite's plants and people cutting down its trees for wood. Muir gave talks and wrote books about these dangers. President Theodore Rooevelt was so impressed (给……留下深刻印象) after hearing that Muir visited Yosemite that he signed a law making Yosemite a national park in 1890.
We can find our own pieces of nature to explore, learn about and protect. We can write to our local newspapers about nature's beauty. We can all follow John Muir's footsteps.
A. Muir was a great traveler.
B. We can also tell people how to help care for it.
C. Another way to follow Muir is to learn about nature.
D. This meant that the US government would take care of it.
E. He climbed Yosemite's peaks (山峰) and described them as "clothes in light".
Scientists have long predicted that warmer temperatures caused by climate (气候) change will have the (big) influence on the world's poorest people. New research now suggests that it has already happened over the past years.
A study coming out in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (find) that in most poor countries, (high) temperatures are more than 90% likely to have resulted in a fall in economic output (经济产量), compared to a world without global (全球的) warming. The influence has been less big in richer (country)—with some even benefiting (获益) from higher temperatures.
"We're not saying that global warming created inequality (不公平)," says Noah S. Diffenbaugh, the writer of the study and a professor at Stanford University who studies climate change. But "global warming has slowed down the improvement", the poorest countries (face) the worst influence of rising temperatures-for which they are least responsible, he adds.
We all believe that it's necessary to have dreams. However, to make dreams into reality (现实) is not easy thing. A young man called Frank would like to work hard to make his dreams come .
Frank went diving (潜水) in Australia he was 16. He was shocked to see (much) plastic bags than fish in the sea. Frank made up his mind to clean up the ocean. However, everyone told him that there was nothing he could do to stop plastic bags from (go) into the ocean. But the young man didn't give . He spent several months studying plastic pollution. Finally, he came up with a science project using floating barriers (漂浮的栅栏) for collecting the waste. That is to say, instead of using nets and ships to collect the plastic bags, the barriers can make the plastic bags (come) together with the help of natural ocean currents (洋流) and wind. What's more, the collected plastic bags can (recycle) and made into products or oil.
Finally, Frank (win) prizes for the project, but that was not enough for him. He wanted to make it a reality. In 2013, he set up The Ocean Cleanup. Together with scientists, engineers and volunteers, the young man is working hard to clean up the ocean. In the , this great project will help make our world a better place.
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do find feel care throw |
Water is very important to people. We can't live without water. There is less and less water on the earth. But some people don't seem about that. They waste a lot of water. They pour dirty water into rivers and lakes, and they rubbish into them. Last weekend, I decided to go to a small river to swim. But when I got there, I that the water in it was black.
Something must to stop the pollution. We should save water and we should also find ways to reuse it. If we don't, we sorry in the future.
Kate: You're late today! You made me stand here for forty minutes.
Paul: I'm really sorry.
Kate: Why didn't you drive your car? It's faster than taking a bus.
Paul:
Kate: Really? Are you going to get a new one?
Paul: I just want to live without a car.
Kate:
Paul: I think our city is badly polluted because of the heavy traffic and I hate to spend lots of time sitting in the car.
Kate:
Paul: I am going to buy a bike and then ride to work.
Kate: Good idea. You're living a low-carbon life and it's also a good way to take exercise.
A. What made you do that?
B. But how are you going to work?
C. No, I'm not.
D. When do you want to buy a new one?
E. I've sold my car.
F. I had to wait for a bus for along time.
