The fight is on to get rid of air pollution in our cities. While the best solution in the long-term would be to ban fossil-fueled cars, that won’t help the millions who are dying in the meantime, and so some high-tech solutions are now on the cards.
London’s air pollution problem has been getting worse for years. In March 2016, ten London pigeons became famous. These pigeons took to the sky, wearing backpacks monitoring air pollution. Once in the air, the backpacks sent live air-quality updates to the smartphones of the Londoners below.
Another promising approach can be found in Beijing. A seven-metre-high “Smog Free Tower”, designed by a Dutch scientist, Daan Roosegaarde, opened in Beijing’s 751 D Park in September 2016. It is a huge, outdoor air purifier. Airborne particles (颗粒) are sucked into the tower and caught by a dust-removal plate. Finally, clean air is blown out of the other end. “Changing smog particles does not take much power.” Roosegaarde said.
As for what to do with the collected PM waste, he has currently set up a business making jewellery out of the waste. Prince Charles owns a set of “smog free” cufflinks (袖扣). If collected on at a big scale, Roosegaarde believes it could even be used as a building material.
Mexico City has an alternative solution. Looking to Nature to maximize the surface area of a building, Allison Dring, a Berlin-based architect, managed to catch light and wind from all sides. She is now making a building material by burning agricultural crop by-products in the absence of oxygen. “It means that you are actually taking carbon (碳) out of the sky, transforming it into a material, and then using it to build,” says Dring.
The fight against outdoor air pollution is really just starting. Even if none of the ideas take off, at least Prince Charles’ cufflinks, the special building surface and pigeons wearing back-packs will have brought the issue more to the public’s attention.
【小题1】The underlined words “on the cards” in Para.1 probably mean ________.| A．hardly to achieve |
| B．widely questioned |
| C．very likely to happen |
| D．publicly welcomed |
| A．monitor air pollution |
| B．warn Londoners |
| C．update weather forecast |
| D．promote backpacks |
| A．It can catch light and wind. |
| B．Its power consumption is high. |
| C．PM waste from it can be reused. |
| D．It is the first air purifier in the world. |
| A．When can humans get rid of smog? |
| B．Why is technology used to fight smog? |
| C．How are the world’s cities fighting smog? |
| D．What makes smog a worldwide problem? |
