1 . Patagonia, a leading brand in outdoor clothing, is climbing a mountain in the clothing industry and reaching a new summit. Through several measures, the company inspires people to share, resell, repair, and recycle their clothes, producing less waste. Every second, about one garbage truck of used clothes is sent to the landfill (垃圾埋区) or is burned. Patagonia is taking this alarming statistic seriously. They are including a “buy used” choice on their website, offering second-hand clothes alongside their newest designs.

The second-hand trend is here to stay. Other chains such as The North Face, Macy’s, Adidas, Burberry, and Made have also accepted the new circular economy business model. Famous traditional retailers (零售商) are also becoming used clothing providers, and are changing the way second-hand clothes are sold.

Even the most skeptical (怀疑) shoppers are now open to the idea of buying used quality items. As a result, it is no surprise that the total second-hand market is expected to grow to almost twice the size of fast fashion by 2029. Naturally, the most sustainable (可持续的) piece of clothing is the one that already exists. This “green” article of clothing doesn’t require using original resources. Moreover, it prevents used clothes from ending up in landfills, and it requires no plastic packaging.

According to a 2018 report by ThredUP, buying a piece of used clothing expands its life on average by 2.2 years, which reduces its carbon, waste, and water footprint by 73 percent. So even though the development of new materials and processes in fashion seems promising (有前景的), wearing second-hand clothes is the easiest and most immediate way to face the environmental challenges the fashion industry brings.

3 . What would you think if someone suggested pulling down Big Ben to make way for a car park? It would be ridiculous, right? But when it comes to devastation (毁灭) of the natural world, we aren’t so easily shocked. But we should be...or we’ll be in a lot of trouble.

Nature is shrinking by the day. Ancient forests are destroyed. Wetlands are becoming dry. Woodland is disappearing. And all in the name of progress. This is bad in itself, but it’s devastating for biodiversity.

Biodiversity refers to the variety of plants, animals and other living things which are all inter-connected. The ecological services provided by biodiversity are vital to everyday life. The air we breathe is a product of photosynthesis (光合作用) by green plants. In fact, all life on earth exists thanks to the benefit of biodiversity. More than 90 percent of the calories consumed by people worldwide are produced from 80 plant species. And 30 percent of medicines are developed from plants and animals. Maintaining a wide diversity of species in each ecosystem is necessary to preserve all living things.

The loss of biodiversity could be devastating. “It is wrong to think that biodiversity can be reduced indefinitely without threatening humans,” said Harvard University biologist Edward O. Wilson, known as “the father of biodiversity”. He warned, “we are about to reach a critical point beyond which biodiversity loss will be unavoidable.”

But what can we do? The problem is that the concept of biodiversity is so vague. People might care about giant pandas, but it is much harder to excite them about the fate of tiny sea creatures which are being boiled to death in the cooling systems of power stations along coastlines. The Guardian newspaper is trying to help. It has started the Biodiversity 100 campaign to try to convince governments around the world to take action to deal with the widespread concerns about biodiversity. This includes persuading the UK government to create a series of marine reserves to reverse the decline in sea-life caused by industrial fishing, banning the fishing sharks by the Japanese fishermen and stopping the killing of dingoes in Australia, among many other things.

There is a lot to do. And we’d better get a move on if we don’t want to end up with a planet that can’t support life!

5 . Global warming may or may not be the great environmental crisis of the 21st century, but — regardless of whether it is or isn’t — we won’t do much about it. We will argue over it and may even, as a nation, make some fairly firm commitments (承诺) to avoid it. But the more dramatic and meaningful these commitments seem, the less likely they are to be observed.

Al Gore calls global warming an “inconvenient truth,” as if merely recognizing it could put us on a path to a solution. But the real truth is that we don’t know enough to relieve global warming, and — without major technological breakthroughs — we can’t do much about it.

From 2003 to 2050, the world’s population is estimated to grow from 6.4 billion to 9.1 billion, a 42% increase. If energy use per person and technology remain the same, total energy use and greenhouse gas emissions (mainly, CO₂) will be 42% higher in 2050. But that’s too low, because societies that grow richer use more energy. We need economic growth unless we condemn (注定) the world’s poor people to their present poverty and freeze everyone else’s living standards. With modest economic growth, energy use and greenhouse emissions will more than double by 2050.

No government will adopt strict limitations on economic growth and personal freedom (e.g. electricity usage, driving and travel) that might cut back global warming. Still, politicians want to show they’re “doing something”. Consider the Kyoto Protocol (京都议定书). It allowed countries that joined to punish those that didn’t. But it hasn’t reduced CO₂ emissions (up about 25% since 1990), and many signatories (签字国) didn’t adopt tough enough policies to hit their 2008-2012 targets.

The practical conclusion is that if global warming is a potential disaster, the only solution is new technology. Only a determined research and development program might find ways of breaking our dependence on fossil fuels or dealing with it.

The trouble with the global warming debate is that it has become a moral problem when it’s really an engineering one. The inconvenient truth is that if we don’t solve the engineering problem, we’re helpless.

In order to save this species from     1    , the Chinese government placed it under national protection. Zhaxi and other     2     watched over the antelopes day and night to keep them safe from     3    . Bridges and gates were     4     to let the antelopes move easily and keep them safe from cars and trains. The measures were     5    .

Yours,

Li Hua