Directions: Fill in each blank with a proper word chosen from the box. Each word can be used only once. Note that there is one word more than you need.
Is climate change consuming your favorite foods?
Coffee: Whether or not you try to limit yourself to one cup of coffee a day, the effects of climate change on the world’s coffee-growing regions may leave you little choice. 【小题1】 America, Africa, Asia and Hawaii are all being threatened by rising air temperatures and unstable rainfall patterns, which invite disease and 【小题2】 species to live on the coffee plant and ripening beans. The result? Significant cuts in coffee yield and less coffee in your cup. It is estimated that, if current climate patterns continue, half of the areas 【小题3】 suitable for coffee production won't be by the year 2050.
Tea: When it comes to tea, warmer climates and erratic precipitation aren't only 【小题4】 the world's tea-growing regions, they're also messing with its distinct flavor. For example, in India, researchers have already discovered that the Indian Monsoon has brought more intense rainfall, making tea flavor weaker. Recent research coming out of the University of Southampton suggests that tea-producing areas in some places, 【小题5】 East Africa, could decline by as much as 55 percent by 2050 as precipitation and temperatures change. Tea pickers are also feeling the 【小题6】 of climate change. During harvest season, increased air temperatures are creating an increased risk of heatstroke for field workers.
Seafood: Climate change is affecting the world's aquaculture as much as its agriculture. As air temperatures rise, oceans and waterways absorb some of the heat and 【小题7】 warming of their own. The result is a decline in fish population, including in lobsters (who are cold-blooded creatures), and salmon (whose eggs find it hard to survive in higher water temps). Warmer waters also 【小题8】 toxic marine bacteria, like Vibrio, to grow and cause illness in humans whenever ingested with raw seafood, like oysters or sashimi.
And that 【小题9】 "crack" you get when eating crab and lobster? It could be silenced as shellfish struggle to build their calcium(碳) carbonate shells, a result of ocean acidification (absorb carbon dioxide from the air). According to a study, scientists predicted that if over-fishing and rising temperature trends continued at their present rate, the world's seafood 【小题10】 would run out by the year 2050.
