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Saving the Planet with Earth-Friendly Bamboo Products

  Jackie Heinricher's love affair with bamboo started in her backyard.“As a child, I remember playing among the golden bamboo my dad had planted, and when there was a slight wind, the bamboos sounded really musical.”

  A fisheries biologist, Heinricher, 47, planned to work in the salmon industry in Seattle, where she lived with her husband, Guy Thornburgh, but she found it too competitive.Then her garden gave her the idea for a business:She'd planted 20 bamboo forests on their seven-acre farm.

  Heinricher started Boo-Shoot Gardens in 1998.She realized early on what is just now beginning to be known to the rest of the world.It can be used to make fishing poles, skateboards, buildings, furniture, floors, and even clothing.An added bonus:Bamboo absorbs four times as much carbon dioxide as a group of hardwood trees and releases 35 percent more oxygen.

  First she had to find a way to mass-produce the plants-a tough task, since bamboo flowers create seed only once every 50 to 100 years.And dividing a bamboo plant frequently kills it.

  Heinricher appealed to Randy Burr, a tissue culture expert, to help her.“People kept telling us we'd never figure it out,”says Heinricher.“Others had worked on it for 27 years!I believed in what we were doing, though, so I just kept going.”

  She was right to feel a sense of urgency.Bamboo forests are being rapidly used up, and a United Nations report showed that even though bamboo is highly renewable, as many as half of the world's species are threatened with dying out.Heinricher knew that bamboo could make a significant impact on carbon emissions(排放)and world economies, but only if huge numbers could be produced.And that's just what she and Burr figured out after nine years of experiments-a way to grow millions of plants.By placing cuttings in test tubes with salts, vitamins, plant hormones, and seaweed gel, they got the plants to grow and then raised them in soil in greenhouses.

  Not long after it, Burr's lab hit financial difficulties.Heinricher had no experience running a tissue culture operation, but she wasn't prepared to quit.So she bought the lab.

  Today Heinricher heads up a profitable multimillion-dollar company, working on species from all over the world and selling them to wholesalers.“If you want to farm bamboo, it's hard to do without the young plants, and that's what we have,”she says proudly.

(1)

What was the main problem with planting bamboo widely?

[  ]

A.

They didn't have enough young bamboo.

B.

They were short of money and experience.

C.

They didn't have a big enough farm to do it.

D.

They were not understood by other people.

(2)

What does Heinricher think of bamboo?

[  ]

A.

Renewable and acceptable

B.

Productive and flexible.

C.

Useful and earth-friendly.

D.

Strong and profitable.

(3)

The underlined word“renewable”in Paragraph 6 probably means“________”.

[  ]

A.

able to be replaced naturally

B.

able to be raised difficultly

C.

able to be shaped easily

D.

able to be recycled conveniently

(4)

What do you learn from the passage?

[  ]

A.

Heinricher's love for bamboo led to her experiments in the lab.

B.

Heinricher's determination helped her to succeed in her work.

C.

Heinricher struggled to prevent bamboo from disappearing.

D.

Heinricher finally succeeded in realizing her childhood dream.

答案:1.A;2.C;3.A;4.B;
解析:

  Jackie Heinricher開始愛上了她后院的竹子!霸谛r候,我記得我在爸爸種植的金竹旁玩耍,當有微風吹過時,竹子發(fā)出了令人難以置信的音樂。這就是我的魔幻區(qū)域。”

  Heinricher,47歲是通過培訓的漁業(yè)生物學家,計劃在西雅圖干鮭魚工業(yè),在那里她與丈夫蓋伊索恩伯勒生活,但她發(fā)現(xiàn)這個行業(yè)競爭力太強了。她的花園給了她辦一個業(yè)務的想法:她要在她的7英畝的農場上種植20棵竹子,并已取得了一些成功繁殖的成果,在那些小花園里(每小時成長二英寸,成為了一個景觀,好像沒有那么快)。

  Heinricher于1998年承包了竹筍花園。她意識這些只是剛剛開始:令人難以置信的是竹子多才多藝,非常環(huán)保。它可以用來制造捕魚桿,滑板,建筑,家具,地板,甚至是服裝和床上用品(織物軟絲綢)。另外一個好處:竹子作為一種硬木樹可吸收四倍二氧化碳,并釋放更多的氧氣,大概超過百分之三十五。如果Heinricher可以利用她的園藝技能來推動綠色環(huán)保事業(yè),這樣會更好。

  起初,她不得不找到一種方法,來大規(guī)模的生產(chǎn),這是一項艱巨的任務,因為竹子花產(chǎn)生種子每50到100年才一次。所以竹子工廠經(jīng)常沒有材料可用。

  Heinricher呼吁組織培養(yǎng)專家蘭迪伯爾幫助她。“人們不停地說我們沒有成果出來”Heinricher說!昂芏嗳斯ぷ髁27年,我相信我們所做的,所以,我們只要堅持,不放棄!

  她是感覺到有一種緊迫感。竹林正在迅速枯竭,聯(lián)合國的一份報告表明,即使是高度可再生竹子,有多達一半的世界物種瀕臨滅絕。Heinricher知道竹子可以對二氧化碳排放量和世界經(jīng)濟有重大的影響,但前提是可以大量生產(chǎn)。而這只是她和伯爾經(jīng)過9年實驗得出的結論-可以讓植物成千上萬的增長。把剪好的竹子放入試管中,與鹽,維生素,植物激素,和海藻膠混合,植物發(fā)芽了,然后拿出來,把他們放在溫室的土壤中。

  在破解了代碼之后,伯爾的實驗室遇到了財政問題。Heinricher在組織培養(yǎng)操作中沒有任何經(jīng)驗,但她不準備辭職。于是,她購買了實驗室!斑@是一場可怕的挑戰(zhàn),”她說!拔覐5個員工干到了55個員工[包括伯爾]。我不怎么睡覺。一夜之間就像在新兵訓練營里一樣。有時候,我奇怪我怎么會在這里!

  今天Heinricher擁有了一個盈利數(shù)百萬美元的公司,與世界各地有貿易往來!叭绻阆胱鲛r場竹子業(yè),沒有植株很難完成,這就是我們所經(jīng)歷的”她說。


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