1 . Corcoran, a farming town of California, is slowly sinking(下沉) when drought has forced farmers to pump(用泵抽) amounts of water from the ground. Corcoran is struggling to make sense of the strangest thing: His already suffering town is sinking, ever so gradually, into the ground.

To water its large fields and help feed America, farm operators began in the last century to pump water from underground sources, so much so that the ground has begun to sink. Strangely, signs of this subsidence are nearly out of sight. There are no cracks(裂缝) in the walls of the typical American shops in the town’s center, nor in the streets or fields.

This year’s drought has changed this food-basket of America into a large field of brown dust, forcing the government to limit(限制) the use of water by farmers. So Corcoran now finds itself in the middle of a bad circle: With their water supplies limited, farm operators are forced to pump more underground water, which in turn speeds the sinking of the town.

Few locals have spoken out against the problem -- not surprising, since most of them work for the same big agribusinesses pumping up groundwater. “They are afraid that if they speak against them, they might not work there any more,” said Atilano, who has spent years working for one of the country’s biggest cotton producers, J. G. Boswell.

On this summer afternoon, under a heat wave, some people stop to chat under a large wall painting. It describes a clear blue lake surrounded by snow-covered mountain peaks -- for now, a far dream.

When you look at the map of the Tengger Desert (腾格尔沙漠), you will see a “green wall” in the southwest. It products Wuwei City of Gansu Province from sandstorms.

With an area of over 8,000 mu, the “green wall” was planted by Wang Tianchang and his family. They have done this great job for over 20 years.

In his seventies now, Wang Tianchang is an ordinary farmer from Gansu Province. He and his family live in a small village close to the Tengger Desert. People there once suffered a lot from sandstorms for a long time. They destroyed their farms and houses. To hold back sand, Wang Tianchang decided to do something. In 1999, Wang planted his first plant in the desert and started his life of sand control.

It is never easy to bring life on the desert. In the beginning, Wang had no experience with desert plants. The sand covered the holes he dug very soon. The wind rooted out the seedlings he planted even on the second day he had done. It was challenging, but he never gave up.

His family helped him a lot, especially his son Wang Yinji. To plant more trees, the two of them even lived in the desert for about six years. They found grass to sleep on as their beds.

Thanks to Wang’s “green wall”, Wuwei City sees much fewer sandstorms. Wang has brought back not only green to the desert but also hopes to the people there. He is our hero!

Yours,

Li Hua

7 . How to Survive a Tsunami on the Beach

The word tsunami is from Japanese. It describes a series of waves that can reach over 100 feet tall and travel at speeds up to 600 miles per hour across the sea. A single wave in a tsunami can be quite long, as much as 60 miles, causing great damage.    1    

Your best chance for surviving a tsunami on a beach is to pay attention to the warning signs, stay away from the shore after an earthquake, and get to high land. Then wait for information from disaster response groups.

    2    With your family, discuss how you’ll reach the evacuation area (紧急疏散区) as soon as possible.

The sooner you know a tsunami is coming the better your chance of making it to higher ground.    3    

·Head for high ground, get at least 100 feet above sea level.

·    4    

·Don’t swim against the current.

As you learn how to survive a tsunami, remember the first wave in a series of waves is the smallest and weakest.    5     If you’re in a boat at the beach, head out into the ocean. You’ll stand a better chance away of survival away from the shoreline.

8 . Every week, Angela looked at her recycling bin, filled with shampoo bottles and plastic containers, with mixed feelings. Sure, it was a lot of plastic, but it was going to be recycled. Or so she thought. Then, her husband sent her some articles revealing that less than 6% of the country’s plastic gets recycled. She was shocked.

Determined to cut back on her plastic consumption, Angela got a starter kit from a company selling refillable household cleaners (家用清洁器). In it were tablets, containing concentrated hand soap as well as glass and bathroom cleaners, and four empty containers. She filled each one with tap water, then dropped in a tablet and watched it dissolve. If she was happy with the cleaners, she would order more tablets but reuse the containers. No new plastic required.

Given plastic’s harmful effects on the environment, nearly three quarters of Americans say they are trying to reduce their reliance on single-use plastic, according to Pew Research Center. Since plastic is everywhere and avoiding it altogether is extraordinarily difficult, some, like Angela, have revived a once-customary practice: refilling containers. Household cleaners seem particularly prepared for a refill revolution, for many can be easily concentrated and reconstituted (with water. If just 10% to 20% of plastic packaging are reused, a report from the World Economic Forum estimates, the amount of plastic waste entering the ocean will be cut in half.

Not everyone is as enthusiastic, though. Jan Dell, a chemical engineer, noted that many cleaning products are packaged in PET or HDPE, two types of plastic with relatively high recycling rates. So she is less concerned about them but far more concerned about the packaging of other products. “What companies should be focusing on is everything else that isn’t recyclable, that is single use and that often becomes plastic pollution,” she said, pointing to plastic bags and cups. “This is just a classic example of big corporations doing something to attract people’s attention over here on something that’s not the main issue to distract from all the single-use plastic they’re pushing out.”