Kivalina, an island village in Alaska, USA, is known by only a few people. It cannot be found on most maps of Alaska because it is only 10 km2. This small Arctic village is home to 400 Inuit people*. However, their home will become uninhabitable because the island could be covered by the Chukchi Sea by 2025. These Inuit people will have to leave their home.
But life now is already difficult. Over the past twenty years, winters have become warmer, the Arctic ice has kept melting, and the sea has been rising. These changes have made it harder to live by hunting and fishing than before. What's worse, there is no Arctic ice thick enough to keep them safe from terrible wind and rain.
These Inuit people think it is the oil and power companies in Alaska that have brought all these troubles, but they are the ones who are paying the price. It would cost hundreds of millions to move their village, and they have no idea where to get the money. Groups like ReLocate are working together with the Inuit people to save Kivalina, but nobody is sure if their hard work will come to anything. All the Inuit people can do now is to pray the rising sea will not cover their home too soon.
* The Inuit people are a group of people who live in the Arctic.
(melt 融化 hunt 打獵 company 公司)
NOlympics in Munich
11/11/2013
People in the city of Munich have spoken their mind: they do not want to host the Winter Olympics in 2022. To the cities that fight for this chance, 38 . The Olympics usually do a lot of good to the host city. The Games bring in jobs, visitors, and, most important of all, money. So why did people in Munich say no?
The Olympics 39 for people in Munich. For them, the world's biggest sports festival could invite serious trouble. There would be a lot of building work before the Games, and during the Games, too much traffic and too many visitors. Life would become terrible and nature would be hurt. And 40 : Munich hosted the 1972 Summer Olympics, and its neighbor, the mountain town Garmisch-Partenkirchen, hosted the 1936 Winter Olympics.
Still, the heavy price Munich paid does not worry the cities that are in the race to get the 2022 Winter Olympics. 41 , they are happy that Munich said no to the Olympics—their chances of getting the Games have become higher.
(host 舉辦 Olympics 奧運 visitor 遊客)