1）对于来信表示高兴；

2）城市所发生的变化；

3）你的感受。

参考词汇：全国文明城市National Civilized City

注意：

1）词数80左右；

2）可以适当增加细节，以使行文连贯。

Dear Doris

……

Yours sincerely,

Li Hua

Animals in Antarctica

There are no land animals that actually live in Antarctica! However, the surrounding ocean is rich in living creatures! It's just too cold to support very many life forms! Now let's meet some of the Antarctica's animals.

Weddell Seal

They are the southern most pinniped (鳍足类的) in the world. Males are generally smaller than females. Interestingly, newborn pups have a coat of long hair, which they will shed (脱落) within the first month as the protective layer of their body is developed.

Blue Whale

Named for its blue-gray color, this huge animal may grow to be roughly 100 feet long and weigh more than 120 tons! A blue whale eats about 4 tons of krill (磷虾) per day during the feeding season! This means that about 40 million krill are eaten every day for six months by a blue whale! The tongue of the blue whale can be as big as a Volkswagen! The blue whale is the loudest animal on earth!

Rockhopper Penguin

One of the most beautiful penguins, the rockhopper shake their heads and cause their yellow eyebrows to fly into a "halo" in order to attract a mate!

Wandering Albatross

This species of albatross wanders the ocean for months at a time searching for food. It sleeps on the ocean surface at night and drinks sea water. The wandering albatross is the largest bird in the world in terms of the wing span一11 feet!

Ross Seal

Ross seals are very rarely seen because they live deep within the pack ice. It is believed that Ross seals feed mainly on squid, fish and krill. They were named after the British polar explorer Sir James Ross, who first discovered them in 1840.

Emperor Penguin

Emperor penguins are the biggest of the 18 penguin species. They are flightless birds. They are the only living species to reproduce during the harsh Antarctic winter. Without a nest, the father emperor penguin keeps the egg warm by holding it on his feet for 2—3 months until spring, during which the father doesn't eat anything and he just eats a little snow for moisture. Unbelievable! What a Dad!

I stood on the deck, (stare) at the huge waves. From the moment we left port and sailed into the English Channel, weather had got worse and worse. Now, lightning flashed across the sky, was covered in dark clouds.

Suddenly, the noise of the engines stopped. The ship slowed, rolling heavily in the rough sea. A voice over the loudspeaker told us (remain) calm—then added that a fire (start) in the engine room, and said that all passengers must go (immediate) to the nearest lifeboat station.

We all ran onto the deck, following the signs for the lifeboats. The ship's officers arrived, made sure we had life jackets and showed us to put them on.

I looked again in horror at the wild, stormy sea. The (think) of being out there in a tiny boat was (terrify). Minutes passed like hours, until at last a voice announced that everything was control and the danger was over. We all cheered as the engines started again and the ship moved forward into the waves. I still couldn't believe it was over until we had reached port and I was standing on solid ground again!

A Native American village in the U. S. state, Alaska, has voted to relocate its entire population of some 600 people due to the threat of rising seas.

Shishmaref, located on a tiny island north of the Bering Strait that separates the United States and Russia, is losing up to three meters of shoreline each year. It is one of dozens of old villages in Alaska that face growing threats of flooding and erosion due to global warming.

Its residents, who are members of the Inupiat tribe, voted 89 to 78 to relocate, said Donna Barr. This is not the first time its residents have made such a decision. They voted in 2002 to relocate but that effort failed.

"It's not going to be the last time that the United States has to deal with communities severely threatened by climate change and impacts and whether or not they can stay there," she said.

In Shishmaref, Tommy Richter, pastor of the Lutheran Church, the island's only church, said the community was tom over leaving its heritage behind. "There are people here who have been here for generations and don't want to leave at all," he said.

The cost of relocation has been estimated at some $ 180 million, and authorities are seeking state and federal funding, according to local media. Where to relocate remains to be decided, the clerk said. Two sites on the mainland are being considered. Relocation could take more than ten years. The island, which is 18 square kilometers, lies five miles off the mainland. Its economy is based largely on fishing and hunting.

Scientists attribute coastal erosion in Shishmaref to global warming that has thawed sea ice that once shielded the island from storm surges. Its layer of permanently frozen soil on which it is built, is melting as well.

The village already has moved several homes and a National Guard Armory away from its coastline and built sea walls that have had limited success.

Since 2014, more than 140 tribes and tribal organizations have gotten government funding to help address the impacts of global warming, it said.

The day will come when renewable energy such as wind, solar, geothermal and others replace fossil fuels as the major source of world energy. However, most analysts insist that this day will not arrive for many years to come—certainly well past the middle of the century. Systems of fossil fuels have already been firmly set up, and it is too costly or impractical to replace the existing systems with renewables. But there are good reasons to believe that the transition (转变) to renewables will come much faster than previously thought.

It is hardly surprising that many experts say we will see a relatively slow transition from fossil fuels to renewables, given what is known about previous energy changes of this sort. "Energy transitions take a long time," observed Vaclav Smil of the University of Manitoba in Scientific American. It took more than 50 years for coal to replace wood as the world's leading source of energy and another 50 years for oil to replace coal; the change from fossil fuels to renewables, he argued, is not likely to come any faster.

Under ordinary circumstances, Smil's forecast would no doubt prove accurate. But these are not ordinary times. Growing concern over climate change is leading to increasingly strict controls on CO₂ and other greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions(排放), while the development in renewables technology is lowering their price and speeding their installation.

There are, of course, many difficulties in the effective control of carbon emissions, as demonstrated by coal companies to block the introduction of new rules by the US Environmental Protection Agency. Nevertheless, it is impossible to dismiss the progress being made at the local and international levels to promote the use of renewables. The European Union (EU), for example, is well on the way to achieving a 20% reduction in GHG emissions from 1990 levels by 2020, along with a 20% increase in the use of renewable energy.

The transition to renewables will be faster due to dramatic improvements in the pricing and performance of such systems. As a result of the steady increases in the efficiency of wind and solar systems, together with the savings achieved through large-scale manufacture, the price of renewables is falling globally. With prices dropping this fast, solar energy is now proving competitive with fossil fuels for generating electricity in many areas.

The change from fossil fuels to renewable energy will not come overnight, and it will not escape many setbacks. Nevertheless, renewables are likely to replace fossil fuels as the main source of electrical power well before mid-century.

Nowadays, with the development of economy and rise of the level of people's living, more and more people have access to delicate gifts for each other. Wrapping paper waste has been on the rise. Try these suggestions for cutting down the amount of wrapping paper you throw away.

Reuse what you have.

Wrapping paper has such a brief life span(跨度)that it can be reused many times. It's estimated that the US produces 4. 6 million pounds of wrapping paper annually, and 2. 3 million pounds of that ends up in the trash. The remainder stays in people's homes, awaiting reuse.

Use different material.

Who says you have to choose bright wrapping paper to decorate a present? Choose basic brown paper that can be decorated beautifully with a bow, ribbons, leaves or markers. Repurpose newspaper, old posters, and children's school artwork as wrapping paper.

Ask for better paper.

Sellers stock what customers want, and recyclability should come first, so let that be known when you're out shopping. As explained by Simon Ellin, CEO of the Recycling Association, a trade body that represents about 90 waste management companies and paper merchants in the United Kingdom, "It's a battle we've been in all year — do you really need to design a non-paper wrapping paper? " Shop with that in mind, too.

Use baskets, fabric, gift boxes or bags, tea towels, and more to wrap your presents. Learn the Japanese art of furoshiki, using beautiful knots to fasten colorful, reusable fabrics in attractive ways. This way, you'll have no wrapping paper waste to contend with.

A. Try zero waste.

B. Leave your gifts unwrapped.

C. However, there is a problem.

D. In fact, gifts are not so important.

E. Make paper with recycling in mind.

F. It's especially true if care is taken to unwrap it without tearing.

G. There are plenty of other delightful eco-friendly alternatives to wrapping paper.

My crippled (瘸腿) grandmother was dancing. I stood in the living room doorway, absolutely shocked. I heard her singing when I opened the door but did not want to interrupt her by shouting I had arrived. She was wearing beautiful dancing shoes and her legs obeyed her perfectly. As long as I could remember, she was once the pet of the dancing world. But it was all over after a sudden accident. She had always limped (一瘸一拐地走), helped by a cane (拐杖).

She turned around and saw me standing in the doorway. Her song ended, and her beautiful movements ended with it. Grandma turned towards the kitchen. She was walking with no difficulties in her beautiful shoes. I followed her, not believing my eyes.

"So…" I asked surprisedly but happily, "how did your leg heal(康复)?"

"To tell you the truth—my leg has been well all my life," she said.

"But I don't understand!" I said. "I mean…You have pretended all these years?"

"Very much so," Grandmother closed her eyes, "and for a very good reason."

"What reason?"

"Your grandfather."

"You mean he told you not to dance?"

"No, this was my choice. I am sure I would have lost him if I had continued dancing. I weighed fame (名声) against love and love won. "

"We were talking about the engagement (订婚) when your grandfather had to go to war. It was the most terrible day of my life when he left. I was so afraid of losing him, and the only way I could stay peaceful was to dance. And then one day a letter came. There were only three sentences: 'I have lost my leg. I am no longer a whole man and now give you back your freedom. It is best if you forget about me. ' "

Grandma continued to tell me that Grandfather was in hospital and she made her decision not to give him up. She took her leave, and traveled away from the city.

Paragraph 1:

Several weeks later, she returned.

Paragraph 2:

She took a deep breath, leaned on her cane and limped to Grandfather.