【推荐2】Do you like travelling to other places, cities and countries? Many people do. Tourism is a huge industry —— it’s as large as or larger than the oil, food and car industries. It creates so many jobs that one in every ten people in the world works in tourism.

However, for many people and places, tourism is not a completely positive thing. Some places receive millions of tourists a year, which leads to problems for local people. When tour buses block roads, it’s hard for local people to get to work or school. Often, international companies open up, and small shops and restaurants close down. Another problem is accommodation — in Barcelona and New York, for example, many flats and houses are used as tourist accommodation, so homes for local people have become expensive and hard to find.

Tourism can have an effect on the environment as well. Natural areas are ruined to make space to build hotels and tourist facilities, and building them consumes a lot of energy and resources. Historic buildings are damaged, such as those in Venice by large cruise ships (游轮) entering the city. These ships also do ham to animal and plant life. More tourism means more crowds, noise, rubbish and pollution.

Some governments have already taken actions. In Barcelona and New York, there are now limits on short-term rental accommodation. The number of cruise ships entering Venice is limited now too. Importantly, individual tourists can help by choosing better ways of visiting places. For example, if tourists visit Venice on a cruise ship but they sleep and eat all their meals on the ship, does the local community in Venice really benefit from their visit? If not, it could be better to choose a different form of tourism, one that benefits the city and local people more.

Despite some problems, if we can make tourism more sustainable (可持续的), everyone can benefit from it, and people can continue to enjoy visiting these places in the future.

【推荐3】As newer, more advanced technologies come out, huge amounts of electronics (电子产品) are thrown away, instead of being reused. These goods often end up in landfills, where the chemicals inside them may be a danger to the environment. Electronics can contain harmful materials. If these materials get into the ground or water, the pollution can cause serious problems. Most electronics require metals. These metals must be mined from the Earth. Often the mining process creates serious pollution.

A group known as Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Forum is trying to make people more aware of the problems of e-waste. Recently, the WEEE Forum asked researchers from the United Nations (UN) to study a kind of e-waste that’s often not noticed because people don’t consider the goods to be electronics. The WEEE Forum calls this kind “unable-to-be-seen” e-waste.

The UN study shows that about 1/6 of all e-waste is “unable-to-be-seen”. Though it’s “unable-to-be-seen”, it’s certainly not a small amount. The “unable-to-be-seen” e-waste weighs about 9 billion kilograms. The WEEE Forum says that if this e-waste were put into 40-ton trucks and the trucks were then lined up, the line of trucks would be about 5,630 kilometers long.

The surprising kind leading the “unable-to-be-seen” e-waste group was toys. Worldwide, roughly 7.3 billion electronic toys are thrown away each year. These include goods like car racing sets, electric trains, and musical toys. They also include toys with electronic parts, like dolls that speak or games with electronic timers. In all, toys make up about 35% of “unable-to-be-seen” e-waste. But the problem is far larger than just toys. The report also shows that other everyday goods like home alarms, smoke alarms, power tools, and computer cables (电缆) are also big sources of “unable-to-be-seen” e-waste.

The WEEE Forum is hoping that as more people and governments become aware of e-waste, they will make a much greater effort to make sure electronics get reused.

The Chinese Shenzhou-13 spacecraft and its crew of three taikonauts ended their six-month mission with a return to Earth on Saturday, 16 April after completing the first long-duration stay aboard the Chinese Space Station.

The astronauts performed two spacewalks, conducted more than 20 different science experiments and delivered two live educational lectures in space, the report said. Leading China’s most recent human spaceflight was Zhai Zhigang, a major general in the People’s Liberation Army and an experienced taikonaut, having joined the Chinese human spaceflight program in 1998 and becoming the first Chinese person to conduct a spacewalk during the Shenzhou-7 mission in September 2008.

Female taikonaut and People’s Liberation Army Air Force colonel Wang Yaping also has experience within the Shenzhou program. She became the second Chinese woman to fly to space when she flew on Shenzhou-10 in June 2013, and now holds the distinction of being the first Chinese woman ever to conduct a spacewalk.

Ye Guangfu, a PLAAF pilot, was the only Shenzhou-13 crew member who was a first-time flier. He was selected to join the taikonaut corps (兵团) alongside Wang Yaping in 2010, serving as a backup crew member for the Shenzhou-12 mission that launched in June 2021.

The mission marks that China has completed the verification (验证) of key technologies of its space station, and also sets a record for Chinese astronauts’ duration in orbit, according to the China Manned Space Agency.

Calling the success of the astronauts a major win for China’s space exploration program, Cavince Adhere, a Kenya-based international relations scholar, pointed out that as a major developing country, China’s stride in space science is an inspiration to the developing country.

By building its own space station, China will expand its scientific reach, Adhere said, adding that China’s space exploration program is also open to other developing countries. For example, Beijing is working with African countries across a range of space exploration themes, the scholar noted. “Such exchange programs have significantly boosted capacity for space development programs on the continent.”

Saying the mission is “definitely a success,” Brad Tucker, an astrophysicist and cosmologist at the Australian National University, told Xinhua that it is “important to move forward with a long-term space station and full operation.”

This mission has shown that China’s astronauts “are capable of long-term space flight, which makes Earth’s future goals and plans for the Moon and beyond exciting,” Tucker said.