Antarctica is the highest, driest and coldest place on Earth. It is also the remotest, a fact which 【小题1】 for its unspoiled environment. It is widely described as the last 【小题2】 on our planet. The cold climate is 【小题3】 for maintaining the continent’s year-round ice fields. Even though Antarctica receives more sunlight than the equator(赤道), the temperatures are lower because the ice sheet 【小题4】 the heat back into space.

For centuries, Europeans wondered about the 【小题5】 of a South-Polar continent, but no one actually knew for certain Antarctica was there until 1820 when European explorers “discovered” it. Since then, men have gone to Antarctica in search of 【小题6】. Testing their abilities, several teams of explorers set out in 1911 to be the first men to stand at the South Pole.

Once completely 【小题7】, Antarctica has more recently been playing host to adventurers seeking for excitement, scientists interested in experimenting, and companies looking to 【小题8】 this wild area for profit.

Yet, Antarctica’s fragile and complicated eco-system is threatened by its human visitors. Damage to the environment occurs as people come looking for resources beneath the ice, or 【小题9】 leave their garbage behind. Currently, countries are working to ensure that the damage to Antarctica’s environment is 【小题10】, and that Antarctica will remain an unspoiled place.

If corals go, divers and marine biologists are not the only people who will miss them. Reefs take up a fraction of a percent of the sea floor, but support a quarter of the planet’s fish biodiversity. The fish that reefs 【小题1】 are especially valuable to their poorest human neighbours, many of whom depend on them as a source of protein. Roughly an eighth of the world’s population lives within 100km of a reef. Corals also protect 150,000km of shoreline in more than 100 countries and territories from the ocean’s buffeting, as well as 【小题2】 billions of dollars in tourism revenue. In the Coral Triangle, an area of water stretching across South-East Asia and into the Pacific which is home to three-quarters of known coral species, more than 130m people rely on reefs for food and for their livelihoods in fishing and tourism.

Measures to mitigate climate change are needed regardless of coral, but even if the world’s great powers were to put their shoulder to the problem, global warming would not be brought to a 【小题3】 halt. Coral systems must adapt if they are to survive, and governments in countries with reefs can help them do so.

Corals need protection from local sources of harm. Their ecosystems suffer from coastal run-off, whether sewage or waste from farms, as well as the sediment dumped from beach-front building sites. Plastic and other debris block sunlight and spread hostile bacteria. Governments need to 【小题4】 tighter rules on these industries, such as tougher local building codes, and to put more effort into enforcing rules against overfishing.

Many reefs that have been damaged could benefit from 【小题5】. Coral’s biodiversity offers hope, because the same coral will grow differently under different conditions. Corals of the western Pacific near Indonesia, for example, can withstand higher temperatures than the same species in the eastern Pacific near Hawaii. It seems that 【小题6】 the hardiest types and encouraging them to grow in new spots is a way forward, though an expensive one. A massive project of this sort is under way in Saudi Arabia as part of a tourism 【小题7】.

More drastic intervention to head off the larger threats corals face should also attract more 【小题8】. Shading reefs using a polymer film as a sunscreen to cool them is under discussion for parts of the Great Barrier Reef. Other schemes to help corals involve genetic engineering, 【小题9】 breeding and brightening the clouds in the sky above an area of the reef by spraying specks of salt into the lowest ones, so that they deflect more of the sun’s energy. These measures may sound 【小题10】, but people need to get used to thinking big. Dealing with the problems caused by climate change will call for some radical ideas.

Nowadays, the species in the world 【小题1】. Who will 【小题2】 it? Of course, it is human beings’ behavior that does harm to the environment, which has a bad effect on the species. People begin to 【小题3】 how many species will survive in the future if we don’t take action. So it is time for us to take steps to save endangered animals and plants. Scientists 【小题4】 finding ways to help protect them. The most important thing is that people should 【小题5】 the importance to protecting the environment. Only by joint efforts can we solve the problem eventually.