Is Climate Change Consuming Your Favorite Foods?
As the increased amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, heat stress, longer droughts(干旱), and more intense rainfalls linked to global warming continue to upset our daily weather, we often forget they also impact the quantity, quality, and growing _________ of our food. Many foods have already _________ top spots on the world's "endangered foods" list, indicating their possibility to become _________ within the next 30 years.
To start with what is _________ in many people's lives we are disappointed to find that coffee plantations in South America, Africa, Asia, and Hawaii are all being threatened by rising air temperatures and irregular rainfall patterns, which invite disease to _________ the coffee plant and beans. The result? Significant _________ in coffee output.
And coffee's culinary (烹饪的) cousin, cacao (aka chocolate),is also suffering stress from global warming's rising temperatures. But for chocolate, it isn't the warmer climate alone that's the problem. Cacao trees actually _________ warmer climates as long as that warmth is paired with high humidity and sufficient rain. _________, the problem is that the higher temperatures projected for the world's leading chocolate-producing countries are not expected to be _________ by an increase in rainfall. Therefore as higher temperatures take more moisture from soil and plants, it's __________ that rainfall will increase enough to make up for this loss.
Another notably nutritious plant, peanut grows best when it gets five months of continuous warm weather and 20 to 40 inches of rain. Anything __________ and plants won't survive. That isn't good news when most climate models agree that the climate of the future will be one of the __________, including droughts. The world has already caught a glimpse of peanut's future fate when last year a serious drought across the peanut-growing Southeastern U.S led many plants to die. According to a financial report, the __________ spells (时期) caused peanut prices to rise by as much as 40 percent!
Finally, in the world of sea, as air temperatures rise, oceans and waterways absorb some of the heat and undergo warming of their own. The result is the __________ in fish population. Warmer waters also encourage vicious marine bacteria, like Vibrio, to grow and cause illness in humans. And that satisfying “crack” you get when eating crab could be __________ as shellfish struggle to build their calcium carbonate (碳酸钙) shells, a result of ocean acidification.
【小题1】A.attitudes | B.choices | C.locations | D.resources |
【小题2】A.contributed | B.earned | C.featured | D.reflected |
【小题3】A.amazing | B.unique | C.typical | D.scarce |
【小题4】A.necessary | B.luxurious | C.practical | D.original |
【小题5】A.defend | B.rob | C.shock | D.infect |
【小题6】A.increases | B.cuts | C.changes | D.failure |
【小题7】A.survive | B.prefer | C.admire | D.encounter |
【小题8】A.Moreover | B.By contrast | C.However | D.Therefore |
【小题9】A.accompanied | B.influenced | C.blocked | D.doubled |
【小题10】A.unlikely | B.irrelevant | C.inappropriate | D.immeasurable |
【小题11】A.more | B.less | C.warmer | D.colder |
【小题12】A.patterns | B.depths | C.extremes | D.ends |
【小题13】A.rainy | B.shiny | C.freezing | D.dry |
【小题14】A.revolution | B.shrink | C.extinction | D.evolution |
【小题15】A.silenced | B.heightened | C.changed | D.minimized |