The Friends of the Amazon is a nonprofit association helping to preserve the forest, its wildlife and its native cultures in the Peruvian Amazon.  We are located 3 degrees south of the equator in the Region of Loreto, which is roughly the size of Montana and is one of the richest areas in the world in terms of flora(植物群) and fauna（动物群）. Our team consists of lawyers, ecologists, sociologists, medical professionals and native Amazonians working together to protect the forest and its people from destruction. We use litigation（诉讼）, filing lawsuits against those who seek to destroy the forest and its native cultures. In addition to legal processes, we promote health, education, and the conservation of native plants and animals.

The Amazon Rainforest is commonly referred to as the "lungs of the planet" whose trees are essential for absorbing carbon dioxide (CO2, a greenhouse gas that causes global warming) and converting it into oxygen, thereby mitigating the rise of global temperatures and climate change.  An estimated 120 billion tons of carbon dioxide is absorbed in the Amazon Rainforest and global emissions of carbon dioxide increase with every tree of the rainforest that is cut down. That is why the survival of the Amazon Rainforest is vital for the survival of our planet, without which rising global temperatures could melt the polar icecaps and cause flooding of our coastal cities. 

Currently, the Amazon is under siege（围攻）, with an estimated 1000 hectares being destroyed everyday.  After harvesting old growth forests, corporations are often replacing the native forest with palm oil plantations instead of reforesting with native tree species.  Palm oil trees are native to Africa, not the Amazon, and due to high profits, their promotion by international aid agencies and recent legislation in Peru, palm oil plantations represent perhaps the single greatest threat to the native Amazon Rainforest. 

In addition to conventional logging and deforesting to make room for crops such as palm oil and soybeans, the Amazon forest faces a new threat in the form of REDD projects and “Carbon Cowboys”.  REDD refers to Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation by using carbon offsets (“carbon credits”).  Under the guise of REDD projects, scammers are tricking native communities into signing unjust contracts in English without legal representation which essentially give these so called Carbon Cowboys the forest for free. These cheaters are making false promises of "billions of dollars in profits" from REDD and voluntary carbon offset （碳补偿）projects by lying that they are representatives of the United Nations and World Bank in order to trick vulnerable indigenous Amazonians into ceding their land by signing unjust contracts with hidden clauses that give the Carbon Cowboys a power of attorney to do whatever they want with the forest for a period of 100 years.  Friends of the Amazon is actively filing lawsuits against these Carbon Cowboys and those who support them. 

For further information on our programs and to find out how you can help preserve the Amazon Rainforest, please contact:

Friends of the Amazon

153 Túpac Amaru Street

Iquitos, Peru

Phone: (+51) 985665374

For more specific information on supporting the goals of our nonprofit organization, please contact us using the email address listed below.

If you would like to learn how you can help preserve the Amazon Rainforest and its indigenous people, please contact us for more information at:

info(at)friendsoftheamazon.org

1.The Friends of the Amazon is the name of _________.

A．your best friend                        B．a non-profit organization

C．a historic hero                          D．a famous carbon cowboy

2.What does the underlined word “converting ” in the second paragraph mean?

A．changing          B．increasing         C．reducing          D．burning

3.Why is the survival of the Amazon Rainforest vital for the survival of our planet?

A．Because this forest absorbs a lot of carbon dioxide emitted by the world

B．Because people rely on this forest to get enough wood to build houses and furniture

C．Because people living here can get a large sum of compensation to offset carbon dioxide

D．Because the United Nations and the World Bank are helping preserving the land here

4.We can learn from the passage that palm oil trees _____________.

A．have produced much profit for the local people.

B．are native to Amazon and fit in well with their surroundings

C．are native to Africa and may do great harm to the native Amazon trees

D．are used to replace the native forest because the local people can profit from them

5.The purpose of this article is _______.

A．introduce the largest rain forest in the world

B．to appeal to the government to take some measures to get rid of Carbon Cowboys

C．to advertise the rain forest as a favourite tourist destination

D．to arouse the awareness of the public to help conserve the “lungs of our planet”

                  A NATIONWIDE BESTSELLER

It's likely that everything you learned about America's ancient history is wrong.

   The new book, 1491, completely changes our understanding of the Americas before the arrival of Columbus in 1492.

                DID YOU KNOW?

   When Columbus landed there were probably more people in the Americas than there were in Europe.

   The peoples of North America had such healthy life-styles that as late as the 19th century they continued to be the tallest people on earth.

   Facts have shown that the Americas were populated as long as 33,000 years ago.

     4,000 years ago Mesoamerican farmers developed corn in a feat (技艺) of genetic engineering that still isn't completely understood.

                        COMMENTS ON 1491

     "In the tradition of Jared Diamond & John McPhee, a totally new view of pie-Columbian America"                                                               

--Richard Rhodes

     "Attractively written and really absorbing ... Charles C. Mann has produced a book that's part detective story, part epic (史诗) and part tragedy (悲剧). He has taken on a vast topic: thousands of years, two huge continents, and cultures."

                                          -- Charles Matthews, San Jose Mercury News

     "Powerful and challenging"

                                                     --Alan Taylor, Washington Post

     "A pleasure to read as well as a wonderful education"                     

-- Howard Zinn

56. On the whole, 1491 is a book mainly about America's_______ .

    A. life-styles       B. population       C. history         D. agriculture

57. Which of the following is NOT TRUE about the comments on the book 1491 ?

   A. It is interesting and instructive.        B. It is attractive and culturally related

   C. It is challenging and revolutionary.     D. It is humorous and persuasive.

58. From this passage, we can learn______ .

   A. people settled in the Americas a little earlier than 1492

   B. North Americans were the tallest in the 18th century in the world

   C. Mesoamerican farmers knew genetic engineering 5,000 years ago

   D. the population in the Americas was smaller than that in Europe in 1492

Microwaves may be great at warming up food, but what about warming people?
Using microwaves to directly heat owners of a room would save much of the energy wasted by heating walls and furniture. And despite popular ideas about microwaves, this technique would be safe, according to Charles R. Burlier of the Microwave Research Center in Marlborough, New Hampshire. Low-power microwaves only penetrate (贯穿) the skin (low-power microwave penetration in a ham is about 0.2 inches, for example) and with no negative effects.
To test this idea, Buffler subjected himself to microwaves in a special room using a standard 500-watt, 2459 MHz magnetron (磁控管). He found that a person will start to feel warmth at about 20 milliwatts per square centimeter (mw. / sq. cm. ) ; a satisfactory feeling of warmth occurs between 35 and 50mw. / sq. cm. By comparison, a person standing in noonday summer sun feels the amount of 85 mw. / sq. cm. And a frozen meat pie in your microwave oven receives about 1000 mw. / sq. cm.
In houses of the future, each room could be provided with its own magnetron, says Buffler. When you stepped into the living room, for example, a motion detector (运动感应器)would turn on the magnetron, filling the room with low-power microwaves. In the same way that a microwave oven heats up a hamburger, but not the plate it’s on, you would feel warmth from the microwaves without changing the temperature of your coffee table. (You could, however, make your favorite easy chair even more comfortable by treating it with a radiation-absorbing chemical.)
While it might be some time before homeowners are comfortable enough with the idea to set up whole-body microwave heaters in houses, Buffler says microwaves may attract livestock(家畜) farmers. Lambs that are born outdoors in winter, for example, are frequently lost to cold. Microwaves could warm the lambs safely and quickly.
【小题1】Which of the following can tell the main idea of the passage?

Scientists have long understood the key role that oceans play in controlling the Earth’s climate. Oceans cover 70 per cent of the surface of the globe and store a thousand times more heat than the atmosphere does. What’s newer is the understanding of how this key component(组成部分) of our climate system responds to global warming.

A brake on global warming—for now

One of the oceans’ most important climate functions is absorbing heat and carbon dioxide(CO2), one of the gases that causes global warming. Acting as something absorbing heat, the oceans have absorbed huge amounts of heat and CO2 in the last forty years.

Fujita explains, “the oceans are saving us from faster climate change—they are putting a brake on the climate system.”

“That’s the good news,” he adds. “The bad news is that the oceans only slow the atmospheric warming. Once the oceans come to balance with a greenhouse-gas warmed earth, the extreme heat will remain in the atmosphere and things will get much hotter.” But where and how the oceans release this slowly increased heat is uncertain. And as the ocean stores heat, fragile(脆弱的) underwater ecosystems are struggling.

The most recent scientific report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change(IPCC) also notes with concern that the ocean is acidifying(酸化) because of increased absorption of atmospheric CO2. and thus causing a threat to shell-forming species.  Sharp increase in CO2 levels will cause further acidification of the ocean.

Currents distributing heat

Another important role the oceans play is that of distributor(散布者). Oceans deliver heat and life-sustaining nutrition around the globe. Just as blood tube bring oxygen and nutrition to cells in the human body, the ocean’s currents carry oxygen, nutrients and heat throughout the Earth. The ocean distributes 25 to 50 per cent of energy the planet receives from the sun. For example, the Gulf Stream carries heat across the Atlantic. This warm current gives northwestern European a milder climate that it would normally have so far north. A change to the ocean’s circulation patterns could throw Europe into a colder period, even as the rest of the world is experiencing warmer temperatures.

1. We can infer from the passage that _______.

2. From the passage we can learn that ocean’s currents _______.

1. produce oxygen and nutrients around     
2. absorb 25-50% of the energy from the sun
3. distribute the atmosphere hotter        

D.  change the ocean’s circulation patterns

3. Which of the following are the results of the ocean absorbing heat and CO2?

a. It causes further acidification.        

b. It makes the atmosphere hotter.

c. It balances the oceans with a green-house gas. 

d. It affects shell-forming species.  

e. It makes the oceans act as a heat sponge.           

f. It controls the Earth’s climate.

4. If the ocean’s circulation pattern changed, ______.