What is the single most effective way to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions? Go vegetarian (素食)？ Replant the Amazon? Cycle to work? None of the above. The answer is: make air-conditioners better. On one calculation， replacing refrigerants (制冷剂) damaging the atmosphere would reduce total greenhouse gases equaling 90bn tonnes of CO2 by 2050. Making the units more energy-efficient could double that. By contrast, if half the world’s population gave up meat, it would save 66bn tonnes. Replanting two-thirds of tropical forests would save 61 bn tonnes. A one-third increase in global bicycle journeys, just 2.3bn tonnes.
Air-conditioning is one of the world's great overlooked industries. Automobiles and air-conditioners were invented at roughly the same time, and both have had a huge impact on where people live and Work. Unlike cars, though， air-conditioners have drawn little criticism for their social impact, emissions or energy efficiency. Most hot countries do not have rules to govern their energy use. There is not even a common English word for “coolth” (the opposite of warmth).
Yet air-conditioning has done more than most things to benefit humankind. Lee Kuan Yew, the first prime minister of Singapore, called it “perhaps one of the signal inventions of history”. It has transformed productivity in the tropics(热带地区)and helped turn southern China into the workshop of the World. In Europe, its spread has pushed down heat-related deaths to 10% since 2003, Men 70,000 people than usual, most of them elderly, died in a heatwave. For children, air-conditioned classrooms are associated with better grades at school.
Environmentalists who call air-conditioning“a luxury we cannot afford” have half a point, however. In the next ten years, as many air-conditioners will be installed(安装)around the world as were put in between 1902(invention time)and 2005.Unless energy can be produced without carbon emissions, these extra machines will warm the world. At the moment, therefore, air-conditioners create a vicious cycle. The more the Earth warms, the more people need them. But the more there are, the warmer the world will be.
Cutting the impact of cooling requires three things. First, air-conditioners must become much more efficient. The most energy-efficient models on the market today consume only about one-third as much electricity as average ones, Minimum energy-performance standards need to be raised raised, orintroduced in countries that lack them altogether, to push the average unit's performance closer to the standard of the best.
Next, manufacturers should stop using damaging refrigerants. One type called hydrofluoro-carbons, is over 1,000 times worse than carbon dioxide when it comes to trapping heat in the atmosphere. An international agreement to knock out these pollutants will come into force in 2019.
Last, more could. be done to design offices, malls and even cities so they do not need as many air-conditioners in the first place. More buildings should be built with overhanging roofs orbalconies for shade, or with natural ventilation (自然通风).Simply painting roofs white can help keep temperatures down. Providing indoor air-conditioned comfort need not come at the expense of an overheating world.
1.What’s the most effective way to reduce carbon gases?
A. Planting more trees. B. Leading green lifestyles.
C. Improving cooling systems. D. Buying new air-conditioners.
2.What can we learn from Paragraphs 2 and 3?
A. Air-conditioning enables factories to produce more in hot areas.
B. The heat-related deaths have dropped by 10% since 2003 in Europe.
C. There are many factories producing air-conditioners in southern China.
D. Air-conditioners have received little criticism for they have no negative impact.
3.Why do environmentalists call air-conditioning “a luxury we cannot afford” in Paragraph 4?
A. Because the price of air-conditioning is too high.
B. Because you can’t afford the time for installation.
C. Because the cost of energy consumption is too high.
D. Because the earth will suffer from its carbon emissions.
4.Which of the following measures can reduce the impact of cooling?
a.design natural cooling buildings
b.raise standards for energy-performance
c.make laws for international cooperation
d.stop applying harmful refrigerants to production
A. abc B. abd C. acd D. bed
Growing up in Georgia in the 1970s,I always felt that the bad old day of Southern prejudice (偏见) and ignorance had passed and that we were__a new South built upon hard-won racial equality, charity and the sense that no one was __ than anyone else.
I’m not so__anymore.Lately,I feel like our moral compass has been__,spinning to intolerance, greed and meanness.
In times of __ ,I put my faith in Elvis Presley, who__the South’s better angles. He was a hard worker, and __ he lived the high life, he never forgot that he had been born into __. I don't think you’ll ___hear an interview with the man when he didn’t express __for all that life had given him.
And he was a self-made talent, perhaps the__entertainer of all time, born in a two-room shack(棚屋) in Tupelo, Mississippi. I've been there many times, reflecting on what it says about America .Greatness can be born__.
Elvis was famous for his generosity---__cars, expensive gifts and other handouts to anyone in need. That’s how the Presleys__ the Great Depression(1929-1933). His father Vernon was a laborer who was often out of__ , and the Presleys relied on the kindness of family and neighbors to get them __ the hard time.
Today’s politicians please the crowds with messages that praise the rich and powerful and think of the poor as __ their fate__, the crowds believe that their problems could be solved if only the poor people below them didn't __ so much. To blame an immigrant (移民)for “ __ ” a job, instead of the CEO who won’t pay a living wage.
Yet, I still believe, as Elvis once said,“Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain’t goin’away”.
1.A. entering B. finishing C. deserting D. keeping
2.A. jail B. better C. smarter D. prettier
3.A. worried B. sure C. happy D. calm
4.A. checked B. fixed C. broken D. adjusted
5.A. danger B. war C. trouble D. debt
6.A. considered B. changed C. improved D. represented
7.A. after B. since C. although D. because
8.A. honor B. wealth C. fame D. poverty
9.A. never B. ever C. always D. still
10.A. concern B. anger C. appreciation D. surprise
11.A. greatest B. richest C. youngest D. handsomest
12.A. nowhere B. everywhere C. somewhere D. anywhere
13.A. giving away B. taking up C. picking up D. putting away
14.A. suffered B. survived C. faced D. avoided
15.A. work B. mind C. action D. breath
16.A. by B. over C. behind D. through
17.A. fighting B. escaping C. ignoring D. deserving
18.A. Consequently B. Fortunately C. Surprisingly D. Disappointedly
19.A. reflect on B. ask for C. take on D. care for
20.A. losing B. cutting C. stealing D. taking
---You don't so well, Betty. What's the matter with you?
---I’m going to have the first round of interview tomorrow, so I’m____.
A. feeling on cloud nine B. feeling hot under the collar
C. felling down in the dumps D. feeling butterflies in my stomach
Alice had graduated from university and ____as a volunteer in the countryside when I contacted her last year.
A. has been working B. was working C. has worked D. had worked
---I Love the movie Venom so much!
---Me too. The box office is reported ____approximately $2 billion.
A. reaching B. having reached C. to reach D. to have reached
____in smog as the pollution worsened, many cities of the Yangtze River Delta region had to close several freeways.
A. Blanketed B. Having blanketed C. Being blanketed D. Blanketing
