The Earth Is Getting Greener
NASA has got some good news for us. The world is a greener place today than it was 20 years ago. How does this happen? Well, it appears China and India are leading the change.
NASA researchers compared satellite data(卫星数据) from the mid-1990s to today. They found that the whole world’s green leaf area had increased by 5% since the early 2000s. That’s about the same area as the whole Amazon rain forest. At first, the researchers were unsure what caused the large increase in greening around the planet. After further study, they found that greening was mostly in China and India.
China and India have the world’s biggest population. In the past, they were considered to have harmed the environment seriously. But the two countries have made the largest greening of the planet exist in the past twenty years.
The tree-planting programmes in both countries have made huge contributions to the whole world’s greening trend(趋势). China has carried out the programmes to protect forests and make them larger. These programmes were developed to keep soil in place to reduce air pollution and so on. India continues to break world records in tree planting. It was reported that 800,000 Indians planted 50 million trees in one day in 2016.
The greening trend has also caused by intensive(集中的) agriculture in both countries. Both countries have greatly increased food pollution in order to feed their large populations.
However, the researchers warned that we should not be happy with the situation. Some of the natural green leaf areas in the earth are getting smaller at the same time. The gain in global greenness does not offset(抵消) the losses.
【小题1】How much had the whole world’s green leaf area increased since the early 2000s?【小题2】According to the passage, what has made the whole world’s greening trend happen?
【小题3】Do you think the environment in Suzhou will get better? Why or why not?
