1 . I was 10 when flooding displaced my family from the Butaleja District of eastern Uganda in 2008. Illegal sand mining along the riverbanks_______flooding already caused by climate change. We_______ our farm and home, so we moved over 130 miles away to Kampala, Uganda’s capital city, where we lived with my______. But her home quickly became______, so we moved to a one-room rental (租赁)—much______and less beautiful than our old home. It was too much for my father. My mother raised my siblings (兄弟姐妹) and me after he______. She often ______to find enough food or money. I can’t______how many times we went to sleep hungry because we couldn’t afford food. But back on our farm, we had______to eat.

And we still couldn’t______the impacts of climate change. I’ll never forget one night in November 2014. It began to rain, the power______, and water flooded our room. We stood outside all night. The next morning, we moved back into our grandmother’s house for four months until my mom could afford to______a new home.

Living through______flooding made me realize I had to protect the environment. In 2020, I ______ Earth Volunteers, a climate nonprofit organization currently supporting youth climate education. Knowledge is______: I believe my father wouldn’t have abandoned (抛弃) us if he had known why those floods hit in 2008, or how to respond.

2 . When Alex Lin was 11 years old, he read an alarming article in the newspaper about e-waste. The article said that people were throwing away their e-waste in places it should never go. This was dangerous, the article said, because e-waste contains poisonous chemicals and metals like lead. These harmful substances (物质) can leak into the environment, getting into crops, animals, water supplies — and people.

Alex showed the article to a few of his classmates. They were worried too. But what could they do about this problem with e-waste? How would they even start? “The first thing we did,” Alex says, “was to learn more about the problem.” Alex and his friends spent several weeks gathering information about the chemicals in e-waste and their effects on humans. They learned how to dispose (处理) of e-waste properly and how it could be recycled. “Then,” he says, “we had to find out what the situation was in our town. So we sent out a survey.”

What they found shocked them: Of the people who answered the survey, only one in eight even knew what e-waste was, let alone how to properly dispose of it. Alex and his friends went into action. They advertised in the local newspaper and distributed notices to students, asking residents to bring their unwanted electronics to the school parking lot. The drive lasted two days, and they collected over 21,000 pounds of e-waste.

The next step was to set up an e-waste drop-off center for the town and to find a responsible company to recycle the waste. That was when Alex and his friends learned another scary fact about e-waste — some irresponsible recycling companies don’t break down the e-waste and dispose of it safely themselves. Instead, they ship it overseas to countries such as China and Nigeria, where local environmental laws are not applied. “We checked carefully online to make sure the company we chose didn’t do this,” Alex says.

Because of the work of people like Alex and his team, more and more people are getting the message about safe disposal of e-waste. As Alex says, “Today’s technology should not become tomorrow’s poisonous trash.”

4 . Animals being extinct from the Earth is a serious issue. When this happens in order to use their fur or skin for fashion, it is even worse, since it’s not even for a matter of human survival. That’s why a London zoo decided to make a powerful statement at the Siamese crocodile enclosure (鳄鱼围栏).

When visitors come in expecting to see a crocodile, they’re greeted with the handbag instead, making a very effective and powerful point about illegal wildlife trade and the harm it takes on the species involved.

A sign by the enclosure reads, “This bag used to be found swimming in slow-moving rivers and streams across Southeast Asia and Indonesia. Over the last 75 years, more than 80% of Siamese crocodiles have disappeared. Many, like this one, were hunted for their skins as part of the illegal wildlife trade.”.

Native to parts of Southeast Asia, Siamese crocodiles are critically endangered and have become virtually extinct in the wild. Due to hunting as well as habitat loss, they are now absent from nearly 99% of their original range. A huge part of the decline of population is due to humans using their wetland habitat for rice farming, and things only took a turn for the worse when large-scale hunting for their skin for commercial purposes began in the 1950s.

The particular handbag that is on display at the zoo was confiscated at a UK airport, according to Benjamin Tapley, leader of reptiles and amphibians at ZSL London Zoo.

Tapley told The Huffington Post, “We made this exhibit, within ZSL London Zoo’s Reptile House, to draw visitors’ attention to the destructive impact the Illegal Wildlife Trade (IWT) is having on species around the world. At ZSL, we are working globally with governments and local communities to protect wildlife, support law enforcement (执法) that targets illegal trade networks, empower local communities affected by IWT and reduce demand for threatened wildlife.”

5 . For Vishwanath Mallabadi from Bangalore, India, there is no such thing as a useless object or “waste”. Give him anything—abandoned metal or plastic items, old devices, dysfunctional printed circuit boards — and he’ll create art out of it.

Vishwanath’s passion is particularly relevant in the current age, where India generates more e-waste than it can recycle. From 2019 to 2020, the country generated a total of more than 1 million tonnes of e waste. Of this, only 22.7 percent was collected, taken apart and recycled. The eco-artist has upcycled and transformed nearly 200 kg of e-waste into usable products and proposes eco-art as a means to deal with waste management.

Vishwanath’s father, D M Shambhu, was a famous sculptor and painter, but he wanted his son to choose medicine and become a doctor. However, Vishwanath, who was interested in upcycling second-hand objects right from childhood, decided to pursue a BFA in Applied Art. He later went on to work in a company as a high-level administrator and retired two years ago. “In my free time and during the weekends. I used to conduct experiments in e-waste and try to develop something unique,” he recalled.

So far, the eco-artist has created more than 500 objects. These include a six-foot tall sculpture made from upcycled computer keyboard keys, and a painting inspired by Vincent Van Gogh’s The Starry Night, using upcycled resistors (电阻器) on wood. Among his other artworks are a 42×38 inch figure statue created from upcycled keyboard keys on a sun board finished with plastics, a deer made of colorful used wires, plants and flowers from computer parts, and eco jewellery from upcycled digital wrist watch parts.

“The work involves selecting the e-waste objects—the texture, shape, and colour etc, and visualising and conceptualising the final product. It might take weeks and months for sculptures. However, sustainable initiatives and upcycled art are nowadays in demand in multinational companies opting for a sustainable culture,” he said.

8 . If we continue at our current production rate, the World Economic Forum predicts that by 2050 there will be more plastic than fish in the ocean. Today, there is a garbage island three times the size of France floating in the Pacific Ocean. However, in her presentation last week, Alexandra Cousteau, a world-renowned environmental advocate, offered a small sign of hope.

Cousteau’s talk, titled “Telling the Story of Our Water Planet: Innovation in Filmmaking and Social Media to Effect Environmental Change”, focused on using innovation and technology to create environmental solutions with a focus on restoration rather than preservation. She described our current approach to conservation as a “zero-sum game” between environmentalists and economists. An endangered species habitat can either be protected or developed; a polluted stream can either be cleaned or left to deteriorate (恶化). Both teams are on the defensive, yet playing a losing game.

In the 1970s, the environmentalist movement focused on conservation efforts. Cousteau said, “It was an effective tool then when plastics were young. But we have lost 50 % of our oceanic ecosystems since 1950. Conservation is no longer enough. “Cousteau urges us to create biological richness for the creatures still living in the sea.

Throughout her speech, Cousteau discussed the challenges facing our oceans and the solutions lying at our fingertips. She explained the power of seaweed farming to sequester (隔离) carbon. She talked of 3 D printing coral reefs rather than painstakingly growing. Most of all, she focused on the youths and our amazing power for driving practical change.

Cousteau said, however, there are challenges in the mission. Ocean conservation has inequalities (不平等) in its approach and implementation. Though the science exists, lawmakers need to employ these solutions efficiently and equitably, which is far easier said than done. Despite these obstacles, Cousteau’s message gave hope.

Modern environmentalism is no longer the work of a few, but the work of many dedicated individuals with a common vision for change. Together, we can regain hope and rebuild our oceans.

9 . A method to transform a commonly thrown-away plastic to a resin(树脂) used in 3D printing could allow for making better use of plastic waste. A team of Washington State University researchers developed a simple and efficient way to transform polylactic acid (PLA) (聚乳酸),a bio-based plastic used in products such as filament,plastic silverware and food packaging to a high-quality resin.

“We found a way to immediately turn this into something that’s stronger and better, and we hope that will provide people with the inspiration to upcycle this stuff instead of just throwing it away,” said Yu-Chung Chang, a postdoctoral researcher in the WSU School of Mechanical and Materials Engineering and a co-corresponding author on the work. “We made stronger materials just straight out of trash. We believe this could be a great opportunity.”

Although it’s bio-based, PLA, which is categorized as a number 7 plastic, can float in fresh or salt water for a year without degrading. It is also rarely recycled because like many plastics, when it’s melted down and re-formed, it doesn’t perform as well as the original version and becomes less valuable.

“It’s biodegradable and compostable, but once you look into it, it turns out that it can take up to 100 years for it to rot away in a landfill,” Chang said. “In reality, it still creates a lot of pollution. We want to make sure that when we do start producing PLA on the million-tons scale, we will know how to deal with it.”

While the researchers focused on PLA for the study, they hope to apply the work to poly-ethylene terephthalate(PET)(涤纶树脂), which is more common than PLA and has a similar chemical structure and presents a bigger waste problem. They have filed a temporary patent and are working to further improve the process. The researchers are also looking into other applications for the upcycling method.

Lately, Tom became more aware     1     the importance of acting against climate change because of a tree on the side of a road in his neighborhood. The tree is     2     80-year-old plane tree, and is at risk of being cut down due to construction work, along with various other trees in the neighborhood. This will be     3     (absolute) bad for the local environment because the trees     4     (play) a big part in keeping the air clean over the years.

This crisis (危机) caused many people in his community to stand up to defend the trees. They     5     (create) websites and posters to bring the trees to everyone’s attention.

He was definitely     6     (inspire) by the changes the trees’ supporters were making. Their resilience (韧性) and     7     (determine) were very motivational (激发性的). This was a big wake up call for him because he realized that change was happening right next to him.

    8     (fight) climate change is something that everyone should take part in     9     it affects every living being on the planet. Protect our planet! Start by doing something small every day,     10     really matters!