1 . This fall, students at the University of Massachusetts found a new menu at their dining commons: the “diet for a cooler planet” menu. This meant herb-roasted lamb, raised with a carbon-friendly approach. It included sweet potatoes that had been picked from a local farm’s field post-harvest. The options were plant-heavy, locally grown, and involved little to no packaging.

“We wanted to let students participate in climate action by making choices about their food,” says Kathy Wicks, sustainability director for UMass Dining. The university is not alone in this effort. Increasingly, American consumers and institutions are thinking about how their food choices factor into climate change. For many, small choices at the grocery store, dining hall, and restaurant can feel more accessible than big-ticket options like buying a fuel-efficient car or installing home solar panels.

Small changes in dietary habits may make a big difference. Climate activists often target fossil fuels and transportation systems, but studies point to the food system as a significant contributor to global warming. According to Project Drawdown, a research organization that evaluates climate solutions, the way food is grown, transported, and consumed accounts for about a quarter of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. Beef is a regular target. “If, on average, Americans cut a quarter pound of beef per week from their diet, it’s like taking 10million cars off the road a year,” says Sujatha Bergen, director of health campaigns for the Natural Resources Defense Council. Food waste ranks third among climate solutions. While much waste occurs before consumers are involved—food left on the field or “chucked” because it does not fit appearance standards, Americans also throw out a lot of food they have purchased: about $1, 600 worth a year per family of four.

“People are beginning to understand that their food choices make a big impact on climate,” says Megan Larmer, director of regional food at the Glynwood Center for Regional Food and Farming in New York. But, she cautions substantial change will need to come from the wholefood system.

Trees are useful to man in three very important ways: they provide him with wood and other products; they give him shade; they help to prevent drought and floods.

Unfortunately, in many parts of the world, man has not realized that the third of these services is the most important. To make money from the trees, he has cut them down in large numbers, only to find that without them he has lost the best friends he had.

Two-thousand years ago, a rich and powerful country cut down-its trees to build warships, with which to gain itself an empire. It gained the empire, but since the trees were cut down, its soil became hard and poor. When the empire fell to pieces, the home county found itself faced by floods and hunger.

Even where a government realizes the importance of an enough supply of trees, it is difficult for it to let the villagers see this. The villagers want wood to cook their food with, and they can earn money by selling wood to the townsmen. They are usually too lazy or too careless to plant and look after new trees. So, unless the government has a good system of control or can educate the villagers, the forests will not get protected. This does not only mean that the villagers’ sons and grandsons will have fewer trees. The results are even more serious. Where there are trees, their roots break the soil up, allowing the rain to sink in, which makes the soil stick together and prevents it being washed away easily. Where there are no tree, the rainfall son hard ground and flows away on the surface, causing floods and carrying away with it the rich top-soil, in which crops grow so well. When all the top-soil is gone, nothing remains but worthless desert.

3 . Last year, wildfire spread through Boulder, Colorado. It wasn’t a hot summer day. It wasn’t a forested neighborhood. It was winter in the suburbs (郊区). More than 1,000 homes and buildings burned.

Large parts of the country that don’t have wildfires are now at risk. They include nearly 80 million homes and buildings. That’s what new data shows. Over the next 30 years, the risk will only grow. The group First Street Foundation created a program called Fire Factor. People can go to a website to learn what their wildfire risk is in 2022 and in 2052. Right now, about 16% of Americans live in risky places. By 2052, that will go up to 21%.

California will likely suffer a lot from wildfire. That’s partly because it is so big and partly because of its weather. So California will be on the top of the at-risk list. But nearly half of all at-risk Americans in 2052 will live in the southern half of the U.S. The South will be home to the largest number of people at high risk: 32 million. States like Texas, Florida, Oklahoma, and North and South Carolina will be “in the line of fire,” so to speak, and so will southwestern states like Arizona and New Mexico.

People are doing many things to make fire risk worse. They are moving to places where wildfire is a natural yearly event. They are building homes right next to plants and trees that can burn. Climate change has increased heat and dryness. That means any spark (火花) at any time can cause a big fire.

As with many climate threats, wildfires put minorities (少数群体) at the greatest risk. By 2052, about 44% of all Native Americans will live in places at major risk from wildfire. Nearly 1 in 4 Hispanics will. People who don’t speak English or own cars will have a harder time learning about and getting away from a fast-moving fire.

4 . Can you survive an unannounced storm? Although there is expert broadcasting and we are equipped with cell phones, there’re still some instances(情况) when the violent weather takes us by surprise.

While most Atlantic hurricanes form off the coast of Africa giving plenty of early warning, sudden Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico hurricanes form and move rapidly in less than a day’s time, endangering everyone and everything in their path.

Oil workers were trapped off the shore when sudden storms appeared. Natural scientists have been stuck in coastal areas without storm warning. Ten years ago a Texas National Guard group was trapped on the beach by rain-forced flooding and had to ride out(经受的住) a major hurricane during a training exercise. There’ve been a few instances when travelers were trapped on an island or in a coastal area and unable to escape in time.

Escaping from the storm-threatened areas is generally a choice for most of us—but not for all. Each year thousands of islanders across the Caribbean face the danger of hurricanes without so much as a public shelter to hide in. Most ride out the storm in their homes.

But there’re a few things you can do to prepare yourself for some unexpected emergencies. Being prepared for the unexpected may be your best and only defense. If you’re headed outdoors for a few days or weeks, you should always carry a flashlight (手电筒) with extra batteries, a Beidou device (装置), and a basic medical box. If you’re traveling in your car, remember you may suffer high winds. You’d better not stay inside to avoid being blown away along with your car. Keeping your head and your courage up is essential to survival in any type of danger. Let common sense guide you and always be prepared for the worst.

9 . Life will be peaceful if you always do kind things. I teach my daughters to develop a habit of ______ others. The little acts of ______ give you chances to provide service for others. They can make you feel how ______ it is to be kind and helpful.

We ______ in a rural (乡村的) area. Most of what we ______ is beautiful nature. One of the exceptions to the ______ is the rubbish that some people throw out of their car windows as they drive along the rural roads. One of the few ______ of living here is short of ______ public services, such as rubbish collection, which is common in the ______.

A helping behavior that I practice regularly with my daughters is driving around to pick up rubbish in our neighborhood. My daughters often have a ______ to see who can collect the most rubbish. They will often say to me in a(n) ______ voice, “There’s some rubbish, Daddy－ ______ the car!” And if we have time, we will often get out of our car and pick it up. ______ it may seem strange, we do it. In fact, we ______ it. We pick up rubbish in parks, on sidewalks, almost anywhere. One day, seeing a stranger picking up rubbish or the road, I stopped. He ______ his head and smiled, “I saw you doing this with your family. It’s a good ______ to protect our environment.”

There are many other ways to ______ kindness for others. You may share a dinner with a beggar, visit ______ old people in the nursing home, or help the blind ______ the street. You can think of something that can be finished ______ but helpful. It is fun, self-satisfying, and what’s more, it can set a good example. Helping others is helping yourself.