【推荐1】South Baltimore is often thought of as a place to avoid—folks are taught to be careful of it. There was a mass shooting this past July, and another in early September.

“People think Curtis Bay is a dangerous place. It’s not. It’s just we’re surrounded by dangerous things,” says Taysia Thompson, 17.

Taysia, is one of the Free Your Voice members, a group of student activists fighting against a very different kind of danger in their neighborhood: air pollution and climate change. Now, the focus of their movement is the mountains of coal. Coal releases a fine, black dust small enough to get into people’s lungs. It makes respiratory (呼吸的) diseases worse, or can even cause disease and premature death. And there are the greenhouse gas emissions after the coal is burned.

The teens of Free Your Voice are taking on a big opponent: the massive goods transportation company CSX, which transported more than 8 million tons of coal through South Baltimore in 2021. The goal is to eventually get the state regulators to deny the permit that CSX needs to operate, or at least require the company to enclose all the coal, or at the very least put water onto all of it so there’s less dust blowing around.

This past summer, Taysia and three other students spent their time gathering evidence to try and get the coal pollution out of their neighborhood. They used sticky paper to gather samples of dust from all over the neighborhood to prove that the dust is from coal. They are also sending dust samples to a scientist in California, who uses an electron microscope to compare the dust that’s in this neighborhood to samples from the piles of coal at the terminal in South Baltimore to see if it matches.

The students now have support from their community. But the responses from officials have not been very satisfying. “Everyone is just breathing the air. And we will keep fighting.” says Taysia.

【推荐2】Mobile phones and Personal Digital Assistants have varied precious metals and plastic. When we choose to recycle mobile phones and other such devices, it not only helps to conserve the valued resources within, but it also reduces greenhouse gas emissions that occur during manufacturing and processing.

The U. K. produces about 55 pounds of e-waste per person. Mary Creagh MP, Chair of the Environmental Audit, mentions that the household e-waste, which makes up a large number of cell phones, is piling up in a “tsunami of e-waste”.

Most Europeans change their cell phone every 18 to 24 months. The next time you have a new phone, don’t throw your old one anywhere or slide it into a drawer to gather dust. Either recycle it or if it still does its job well, consider donating it to a program that serves essential technology to low-income groups and individuals. There are also some recycling programs that work with community organizations and schools to collect unused cell phones as fundraising projects.

Apple accepts taking back the old iPhones to recycle and reuse them through its Renew pro-gram. In 2015, Apple recycled 90 million pounds of electronic waste. The composition thus recovered includes 23 million pounds of steel, 13 million pounds of plastic, and nearly 12 million pounds of glass. There were some high-value recovered materials too—2.9 million pounds of copper (铜), 6.6 pounds of silver, and 2.2 pounds of gold!

We live in threatening times when our planet is subject to risks that shouldn’t be ignored. With the decreasing metal reserves, the valuable metals inside cell phones are more precious than ever.

Let’s walk the talk and not just crawl when it comes to protecting our natural resources. Every human being on the planet has a responsibility to do their part in stopping e-waste by choosing to recycle mobile phones.

【推荐3】More than 90% of Great Barrier Reef coral(大堡礁珊瑚)surveyed this year was bleached(漂白)the fourth time in seven years, Australian government scientists said. Bleaching in 2016, 2017 and 2020 damaged two-thirds of the coral in the reef. The environmental group Greenpeace Australia Pacific said in a statement the extent of the latest bleaching was “another complaint of the Morrison government which has failed to protect the reef and worsened the problem through its support of fossil fuels(化石燃料).”

Scientists hope most of the coral in the reef off Australia’s eastern coast will recover from the current event, said David Wachenfeld, chief scientist at the authority. ”The early indications are that the death won’t be very high, “Wachenfeld said Wednesday. ”We are hoping that we will see most of the bleaching coral recover. We will probably end up with an event more like 2020. In 2020, there was mass bleaching, but there were low deaths. However, the bleaching events in 2016 and 2017 led to quite high levels of coral mortality.

Coral is made up of tiny animals called polyps(息肉)that are fed by microscopic seaweed that live inside the reefs and are sensitive to changes in water temperatures. The seaweed provides the reefs with their colors and produce sugars that provide the coral with most of its nutrients. Rising ocean temperatures turn the chemicals that the seaweed produce into poison. The coral turns white as it effectively spits the poisonous seaweed out. So, coral bleaches as a heat stress response. Heat stress beyond a few weeks can lead the coral to die of hunger.

“This is heartbreaking. Our Barrier Reef really is in very serious trouble indeed. ”Simon Bradshaw, a researcher at the Climate Council, said, “the reef’s survival depended on global cutting down heat giving out within the decade.”

【推荐2】Being a student, especially an international one, means having a lot of friends in different countries. So, for us, it is quite common to maintain (维持) friendships by electronic communications. I never believed in Internet friendship. Yes, I met people online. I had one very good friend from a forum (论坛); we were talking and then we just disappeared from each other’s lives. So I never thought that an Internet friend might be truly real.

Recently, I changed my mind. A few weeks ago I came back from St Petersburg, a city I don’t know at all, except for one girl who changed my understanding of friendship.

I met Dilyara on a FanFiction website. I found one of her stories, and really liked it so I commented (评论) on it. She liked my stories too. Then after a while of just reading them, we decided to exchange real names and started chatting on social media platforms (社交媒体平台).

In just 3 days we knew everything about each other. We just understood each other in seconds; we had the same interests, made the same jokes and shared common opinions and similar situations in our lives. In a week we couldn’t spend one day without texting each other. We were sending each other gifts and letters on birthdays, New Year, and other holidays. She helped me a lot on my bad days and I was also there for her. Although we have thousands of kilometres between us, it is the strongest friendship I have ever had.

Internet friendship is something really good. Victoria Lebed, a student from London, tells me she also believes in Internet friendship. She actually has a few online friends she is always happy to talk to. They share what is going on in their lives and give each other advice. But she says: “Yes, you always need to be careful, don’t send your bank details or share personal information or photos if you are unsure about someone’s identity.”