How to save planet earth
Have you ever held a product in your hands and considered the existential weight of your purchase? Beyond each price tag hides a ripple effect. It expands from soil to water ways, grocery aisle to kitchen plates, factories to fulfillment centers and mail slots to landfills. This global impact has become less hidden in the past decade, and ignoring the people downstream from us has grown increasingly difficult.
We’re more aware than ever of the mark our consumption leaves on planet Earth, which now sustains nearly 8 billion people. Somehow, humans are still pumping more than 30 gig a tons of carbon dioxide(CO2)per year into the atmosphere, despite the mountain of evidence that CO2 is the top contributor to greenhouse gases causing global warming.
Climate journalist and author Tatiana Schlossberg says even a simple trip to the supermarket can feel paralyzing in 2021. “I want to buy the local thing, but it’s not organic. Or, maybe it’s in a plastic box,” she says. In her 2019 book Inconspicuous Consumption, she ventures way beyond the store aisle and into the web of less apparent ways that humans are damaging Earth. For example, your internet use is tied to extensive carbon emissions and energy consumption.
In fact, being a good citizen on planet Earth with climate concerns, you’ve likely asked or agonized over this question: What should I do?
One of their most consistent insights may surprise you: Consumer responsibility misses the mark. “One of the major failings of the environmental movement is having everyone focus on these small things that everyone can do.” says Ayana Elizabeth Johnson-a marine biologist and co-host of the podcast How to Save a Planet.
“Individuals join together to collectively have far more power changing the system than they can as individuals,” says Anthony Leiserowitz, director of the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication.
| A．That doesn’t mean it’s none of your business. |
| B．these experts propose other key steps that every human can take toward a better future. |
| C．Similar challenge apply to use of plastics and consumption of meat and other goods. |
| D．Part of the challenge with the environmental movement is the astonishing list of things we need to change. |
| E．The solution to this problem, however, is not for you to stop using the internet, according to Schlossberg. |
| F．It’s easy to get lost in the storm of supposed answers around social media, the latest data sets and “ego-friendly” marketing campaigns. |
相似题推荐
【推荐1】Difficult financial times don’t mean your giving shuts down.
1. Pick up the phone
Calling someone “for no reason” is an important opportunity to show them that you are thinking of them. You are taking time out of your busy day to reach out. Everyone needs someone to just listen sometimes. They may be filled with joy or sadness.
2.Write a note
3.
You never know what someone might be going through-a painful divorce, a tough college semester, or just a bad day. Opening up your home will make someone feel appreciated. In addition’ it costs less than going out. The leftovers from this dinner can be packaged up for homeless people. That’s double giving!
4. Set aside money from a daily routine to donate
Giving doesn’t have to mean a life full of sacrifices. You can still buy a burger or get your nails done.
| A．Give a gift to the stomach. |
| B．Invite someone over for dinner. |
| C．To take your awareness to a new level, move beyond money. |
| D．But instead of buying much coffee every week, you can drink less. |
| E．While some people enjoy receiving gifts, all of us appreciate a kind word. |
| F．Instead, they allow you to examine how your time and money are spent. |
| G．Be there to celebrate their good news, or support them with sympathy. |
【推荐2】Statistics prove that we’re not the best at sticking to New Year’s resolutions.
●
Umber Eats or Deliver brings food to your door with almost zero effort on your part but plenty of pressure on your pocket. Remove them from your phone and you’re less likely to overeat a two-large-pizzas-and-garlic-bread meal deal for dinner — and think of all that money you’ll save!
● Store up.
By shopping for fresh food and the makings of a healthy meal in your fridge, you’ll save money and excess (过量的) kilograms because chances are you won’t order last-minute takeaways.
● Small steps add up.
● Block it.
You can plan to limit your access to processed foods by stocking mainly healthy foods, and making those foods the first thing you see when you open the fridge.
| A．Don’t skip meals. |
| B．Delete food delivery apps. |
| C．The same applies to money. |
| D．Have healthy meals at home instead. |
| E．Minor day-to-day decisions have a huge impact on weight loss. |
| F．No weight-loss goal is complete without a workout component. |
| G．But what if you could target your diet and financial goals with the one resolution? |
【推荐3】Anger often makes us uncomfortable. When you find your anger too uncomfortable to process, please let it go. But remember to create a healthy anger in your children is to practice creating a healthy anger in yourself. Once you're better at experiencing anger and expressing it in a healthy way, you'll be able to model a good style of anger for your kids.
Some kids deal with anger by creating a "false self": a child who is perfect for their parents. People who have developed a false self are often passive aggressive and seem shallow because they've hid away all the feelings with depth and character.
How do we keep kids from creating false selves? We need to raise them in an environment where it's safe to express feelings. Once you feel more comfortable with your own anger, you can teach your children why anger is a helpful emotion. When your kid expresses anger, help them examine what it is that has made them angry. Why did it make them angry? How did it do that? Then, you can teach them that while emotions are never wrong and are always valid, our expressions of our emotions are within our control.
People who are afraid of their own anger will never learn how to listen to what their anger is trying to tell them. Instead of teaching our kids that their anger is wrong, that "happy families" are never angry, or that all feelings of anger lead to violence and fear, we can teach our children that anger is OK. Anger is natural, it is normal, and it can be experienced and expressed in a healthy way.
1. What is the main idea of the first paragraph?| A．Anger makes us uncomfortable. |
| B．Anger is difficult to deal with. |
| C．Parents often lose their temper at home. |
| D．Parents should model a good anger style. |
| A．Polite and optimistic. |
| B．Perfect and helpful. |
| C．Negative and indirect. |
| D．Rude and dishonest. |
| A．To give tips to create healthier anger. |
| B．To suggest ways to avoid anger. |
| C．To show the harm anger does to kids. |
| D．To stress the importance of expressing anger. |
| A．Food& Recipes |
| B．Psychology & Health |
| C．Life & Entertainment |
| D．School& Education |
【推荐1】Amazon’s chief executive officer, Jeff Bezos, refused to address employees’ demands that the company take action on the climate crisis at its annual shareholder meeting.
About 50 members of the group Amazon Employees for Climate Justice attended the event, representing 7,700 staffers who signed a letter publicly urging Amazon to change its climate policy. Employees put forth a proposal (提议) at the meeting requesting a public report on climate change from Amazon’s board (董事会) of directors. The board suggested shareholders vote against it, and it was not passed.
After the proposal failed to pass, employees attempted to meet Jeff Bezos, who refused to meet with them.
“Jeff remained off-stage, ignored the employees and would not speak to them. Jeff’s inaction and lack of meaningful response indicated his dismissal of the climate crisis,” the group said in a statement after the event.
At a press conference following the shareholder meeting, the employees suggested Amazon should put forth a timeline for reaching a zero emission (排放) goal.
“Amazon has the scale and resources to spark the world’s imagination and lead the way on addressing the climate crisis. What we’re missing is the leadership from the very top of the company,” said Jamie Kowalski, a software engineer who co-filed the resolution and attended the shareholder meeting.
The proposal noted that other tech giants have released reports on their contributions to climate change and have committed to addressing concerns. Microsoft has been carbon neutral (碳中和), meaning it balances its carbon emissions with carbon removal. Google has been carbon neutral since 2007.
A spokesman from Amazon confirmed that none of the shareholder proposals outlined ahead of the vote were passed, including the request for a report on climate change. The employee group said in the press conference that the board’s standpoint on the proposal made it difficult to pass. They said they would continue to pressure Amazon.
1. Why wasn’t the proposal from employees passed?| A．The board wasn’t in favour of it. |
| B．They didn’t provide all the details. |
| C．Some workers didn’t sign their names. |
| D．They didn’t seek Jeff Bezos’ approval first. |
| A．Having curiosity. | B．Having confidence. |
| C．Lack of attention. | D．Lack of experience. |
| A．Confused. | B．Unconcerned. |
| C．Supportive. | D．Disappointed. |
| A．To show other companies have taken action. |
| B．To show Amazon will follow other companies. |
| C．To show all companies are facing great pressure. |
| D．To show big companies care less about the environment. |
【推荐2】Recently I rolled into a local restaurant to try an Impossible Burger, an all-plant meat-like pie invented by the Silicon Valley company Impossible Foods. It’s famous for having a weirdly chewy, even bloody, meat-like quality, a surprising verisimilitude (逼真) that has made it “perhaps the country’s most famous burger,” as New York magazine recently wrote. One bite into its gorgeous, smoky flavor, and I was convinced.
This is good news, because the time has come to mass-produce fake meat, fast. Why? Because in the fight to ease climate change, meat replacement is one of the lowest-hanging fruits.
Meat production chews up land and lets out methane(沼气) by the kiloton, accounting for about two-thirds of all greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture. A University of Oxford study recently found that, to keep global warming below 2 degrees this century, we need to be eating 75 percent less beef and 90 percent less pork globally. “Without concentrated change, we really risk going beyond key environmental limits,” Marco Springmann, one of the Oxford researchers, warns me.
Diets are culturally enshrined(神圣的), so changing them will be hard. Fake meat can help camouflage(掩饰) that dramatic transformation with slight adjustment.
Still, even the most exceptional substitutes for meat face a huge challenge if they’re going to replace 75 to 90 percent of beef and pork. The first taste of an Impossible Burger-a moment when low expectations work a powerful magic in the product’s favor-is one thing. But how do you keep meat-eaters asking for more after their sixth, and their 26th?
Fortunately, the science here is playing an important role. Impossible Foods owes much of its appeal to a bioengineering process that turns out big, blood-red tanks of “heme,” a crucial molecule that gives veggie(素食主义者) meat “that slightly metallic bloody flavor,” as David Lipman, chief science officer of Impossible Foods, tells me. Meanwhile, “cultured meat,” created by growing actual animal cells in a basin, is becoming a reality. In New York, the scientists at Ocean Hugger Foods have engineered a process to transform tomatoes into mock tuna. And over in the Netherlands, a company called The Vegetarian Butcher is developing a Nespresso-style device: You pour in a bag of vegetable protein and out pops fake meat. The company aims to release it in two years.
To get to true mass adoption, fake meat will need to compete favorably with the real thing on multiple fronts. Impossible Foods’ goal is to drive the price of its product below that of Safeway’s 80/20 hamburger meat, at which point people will simply vote with their wallets. The new industry also wants to improve on animal flesh in various ways. Fake meat will outcompete traditional meat because “you won’t need to refrigerate it if you’re making it as you go,” co-founder Niko Koffeman says. That’d give unmeat an enormous advantage for energy-poor developing regions. Plus, fake meat could provide more choices. “You could have very soft and tender meat for elderly people,” Koffeman adds. “You could have a custom meat for whatever you need.”
We could speed this dietary shift with smart public policy too. Beginning in 2006, New York City cut the number of adults consuming one or more sugary drinks per day by 35 percent by running appealing public service campaigns and requiring the labeling of their high calorie counts in fast-food restaurants. Imagine similar measures promoting fake meat: “Save the planet, bite by bite.” Save your health too. Speaking of your conscience, industrial-scale animal farming is ethically unpleasant.
You can tell the world is shifting this way, because the ranchers (牧场主) are nervous. Last year, the US Cattlemen’s Association asked the government to define “meat” as a product “obtained directly from animals.” That anxiety, which is no doubt caused by science, goes to show that this grand shift isn’t impossible.
1. The author was convinced by the Impossible Burger because .| A．it looks like a traditional meat burger |
| B．it contains no meat but tastes like meat |
| C．its flavor is different from that of normal ones |
| D．more vegetables are used in the burger |
| A．A task that is difficult to fulfill. | B．An approach that is economical. |
| C．A goal that is easy to achieve. | D．A product that is environment-friendly. |
| A．fake meat cannot change people’s dietary habits |
| B．fake meat is worthy of investment for its great potential |
| C．a decline in meat consumption can relieve global warming |
| D．fake meat will replace real meat because of its lower price |
| A．fake meat will not be necessarily stored in a refrigerator |
| B．the price of fake meat will be one-fourth of the traditional meat’s |
| C．fake meat will win over the older people thanks to its quality |
| D．fake meat has a bloody flavor that is not found in traditional meat |
| A．The US government doesn’t give enough support to ranchers. |
| B．The world will probably accept the idea of fake meat. |
| C．People don’t like to eat meat produced by the ranchers now. |
| D．The definition of meat has been revised because of fake meat. |
| A．Fake meat or traditional meat, must we choose? | B．Traditional meat, an environment killer. |
| C．Let’s speed up the dietary shift. | D．Let’s welcome the fake meat. |
【推荐3】In recent years, the leaders and islanders of many small-island nations have warned that climate change is an existential threat to their homelands, fearing they could disappear under rising seas as the planet warms. But according to the latest research, small, low-lying islands dotted around the Pacific and the Caribbean—often seen as the places most vulnerable to global warming—can naturally adapt and raise themselves above disturbing waves.
A three-year study led by Britain’s University of Plymouth, which looked at coral reef islands such as the Maldives, found that tides move sediment (沉积物) to create higher altitude, a process that may keep islands habitable. These islands were formed hundreds of thousands of years ago by waves moving and piling up reef material or sediment to create higher ground—a natural defence mechanism that continues.
Low-lying island states are judged to be at greatest risk from increasingly powerful storms and rising oceans, with some making preparations to resettle their people within decades. Many are already building sea walls, appealing for international aid or setting up projects to repair damage caused by climate change impacts. The world’s tens of thousands of coral reef islands are mostly uninhabited, but are home to about one million people who largely rely on fishing or tourism for a living.
Scientists built a model coral reef and island in a laboratory tank with rising water levels and used computer models to reproduce how such islands respond to higher seas in reality. The results suggest that by choosing climate-adaptable infrastructure (基础设施) that allows for occasional flooding, like building on stilts (桩子) and movable houses, islanders with enough space could adapt to their shifting environment. Sea walls, however, are compromising the natural ability of the islands to adjust to rising sea levels. “If you stop the flooding of the islands, you also stop the movement of the sediment on top of the island,” said lead author Gred Masselink, professor of coastal geography at the University of Plymouth.
1. What does the underlined word “vulnerable” in Paragraph 1 probably mean?| A．Unnoticeable. | B．Beneficial. |
| C．Significant. | D．Sensitive. |
| A．Piling-up sediment creates a natural defence for small islands. |
| B．Disturbing waves keep the islands unlivable. |
| C．A computer model is used to provide more space for islanders. |
| D．Sea walls prevent the disappearance of small islands. |
| A．Casual. | B．Joyful. |
| C．Unconcerned. | D．Defensive. |
| A．Small Islands May Not Disappear Under Rising Sea. |
| B．Climate Change Poses Threats to Small Islands. |
| C．The Climate-adaptable Infrastructures of Small Islands. |
| D．The Perfect Solution to Rising Seas for Small Islands. |
