Goodish News of Climate Change

Emissions of carbon dioxide (related to energy production) have stabilized, for now.

Is it a peak, a stutter or just a brief pause? Time will tell. But whatever it is, on February 11th the International Energy Agency (IEA), an intergovernmental ________ which collects such data, announced that emissions of carbon dioxide in 2019 which were ________ to energy had remained the same (33.3bn tonnes) as the previous year’s.

Energy-related emissions, which include those (produced by electricity generation), heating and transport, ________ more than 70% of the world’s industrial CO₂ pollution. The reason why the emissions remained the same was that there was a(n) ________ in coal use, particularly in rich countries, combined with an increase in the use of renewable power.

As a result of this the CO₂-intensity of electricity generation—a(n) ________ of how much of the gas is emitted per kilowatt hour of petrol produced—fell by nearly 6.5%, to 340 grams of CO₂ per kilowatt hour. It had already been ________, but this is three times the average for the past decade. Such declines more than offset (抵消) the ________ of increased electricity production. The average emission-intensity of power generation in 2019 was “lower than all but the most efficient gas-power plants”, according to the IEA.

This is not the first time energy related emissions have plateaued (保持稳定). Between 2013 and 2016 they hovered around 32.2bn tonnes a year, before rising again in 2017 as the use of coal to ________ developing economies increased. This ________ plateau was accompanied by excited declarations that such emissions had peaked. Similar ________ have been made this week, perhaps also prematurely. Besides changes in coal use, a ________ economy may have played a part and the data show that milder than usual weather caused a perceptible drop in emissions from several countries with large, carbon-hungry economies.

________, the latest data from the Amazon rainforest also make us feel relieved. This, one of the world’s largest woodlands, has acted ________ as an absorbing sponge (海绵) for CO₂ by removing it from the atmosphere through photo-synthesis. Researchers at Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research have shown that a vast part of the south-east of the Amazon, about one fifth of its area, has lost its ________ to absorb the gas and is now a net source of emissions into the atmosphere instead. This land has been widely deforested, so the result is little ________. But it is disappointing.

One evening, Catherine was at home as usual. As her ________ swung between what she was going to do with her life and her dinner plans for the evening, she was unexpectedly ________ by an urgent call from her sister “Get over here! Turn on NBC and cheek these guys out. They are just like you.” One Facebook message and a phone interview later, Catherine ________ herself on a bus with 8 strangers in the middle of the sweltering desert of Utah, picking up trash and ________ awareness of zero-waste and climate change.

With a deep ________ of the environment and a desire to make a ________, Catherine, Davey, and a group of self ________ environmental pick-up artists” went on a coast to coast road side trash pick-up. As they walked sometimes only ________ 0.9 miles on an entire day they ________ and steadily made their way across the United States for three years, picking up a total of 201,678 pounds of trash.

Catherine and Davey ________ wonderful stories of hope and inspiration with us that fueled their efforts to continue their journey. After spending weeks silently ________ how she would have enough money to fly home for her two-week spring break, Catherine found a blank, unidentified envelope ________ with S850 cash in the desert, just enough to get her home and back. After their bus ________ outside of Denver, they unexpectedly got ________ and arrived in Yosemite National Park three weeks later, just in time for the “Yosemite Facelift” where volunteers from all over the state came together with a ________ of cleaning up trash all over the park. Together, their team learned to simply devote themselves to their task, and surrender to the journey.

She looked up at me sadly, her pain unbearable obvious. I _______her as she swam silently around the small pool, surrounded by people she didn’t know. The top left corner of her yellow shell was _______, and her flippers(鳍状肢)were filled with cuts and scars. Then she swam slowly to others.

I couldn’t help but think that these_______ creatures looked as though they were war heroes wounded in battle, but they weren’t. They were just a group of innocent sea turtles that had been injured by _______ humans.

Earlier that day, our group of forty high school students had learned that those endangered sea turtles were being _______all the time_______water pollution, litter, and careless boaters and fishermen. We were taught how to _______ the deaths and injuries of this species and to encourage others to conserve our ocean life and environment.

I had always been conscious of the damage our environment was suffering_______I had never truly been given the opportunity to _______the devastating(毁灭性的)effects of environmental destruction until I observed that ____________. Seeing a picture or movie of these animals cannot truly capture the____________ on their faces. Now that I have witnessed the____________caused by the pollution and people’s carelessness. I try to encourage my peers to ____________ their daily habits to ____________the environment by recycling, conserving water and energy, or ____________ time and money to help save endangered animals. I stress to them that we need to start saving our environment now ____________it’s too late. We must fight for those creatures that cannot____________for themselves because we have only one world to live in and one____________ to save it. Now I will always be that person ____________that ice cream wrapper flying crazily in the wind just because I hate the thought of even one piece of____________on the ground.