2 . In 2014, Xu Yitang, a student at the National Academy of Chinese Theatre Arts, saw corals at an aquarium for the first time.

Little did he know the chance ______ with the creature would spark a lifelong ______. He began to ______ the local market to learn about coral farming from merchants selling plants, fish and corals. He also searched for information on relevant forums online, and before long, started ______ a coral in a small fish tank at home.

“The coral organism is quite ______ and has extremely high ______ for water quality,” recalls Xu. “In the beginning, its state was not good.”

As he became better ______ of the creature, he learned that coral reefs are known as “tropical rainforests” and “underwater gardens” of the ocean, providing ______ for a quarter of all marine life. ______, rising sea temperatures have led to coral ______. Xu felt an increasing sense of urgency and ______ to protect them.

Fast-forward to today, he ______ a coral conservationist in a Sanya-based tropical biological research center.

Each day, he spends several hours diving deep under the waves to observe and ______ the growth and development of the creatures.

His story has been ______ in the recently premiered online program Burning Youth that aims to use documentary shorts and in-depth studio interviews to ______ the inspiring stories of young Chinese people from various walks of life.

3 . On September 29, 2021, the US Fish and Wildlife Service declared it would be removing 23 species from its Endangered Species Act, including the ivory-billed woodpecker, various Hawaiian birds and freshwater fish, not because they had been pulled back from the edge of extinction, but because the USFWS believed these species would never recover, and were most likely extinct, therefore not requiring protection.

In April, 195 countries are getting together in China for a UN conference to discuss global agreements to protect nature and biodiversity, with the hope of finalizing an agreement to safeguard plants, animals, and ecosystems. However, the new strain (毒株) of Covid-19, Omicron, has potentially thrown the plans into a mess, and negotiators may switch to online talks if travel restrictions to China are put in place again.

“We can't go another four months without any progress” said Georgina Chandler, senior international policy officer at the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. Conservationists are urging the talks to go ahead —   online if necessary — as the biodiversity crisis shows no sign of slowing up.

“Nature loss has not gone away and threatens both human lives and the global economy,” said Lin Li, director of global policy at the organization. “With one million species currently in danger of extinction, delaying action is not an option.”

Improving conservation and management of natural areas, such as oceans, forests, and wildernesses is crucial to safeguarding the ecosystems on which humans depend. However, forests are still being devastated, often for farming or commercial use. As trees absorb about a third of planet-warming emissions produced worldwide, stopping deforestation is key. At COP26 in Glasgow last November, world leaders plan to invest $19 billion in public and private funds to protect and restore global forests.

It’s easy to feel disheartened by the disappointing news, but the only way to stop more species suffering the same fate is to pay attention and take actions.

4 . Whenever I order food for delivery, I play a little game to guess how many sets of tableware(餐具)the restaurant will provide with my meal. Sometimes restaurants will throw in two, three or four sets for just one order. But I rarely need any tableware at all, and the waste goes into the trash or collects dust in a kitchen drawer.

Researchers working with Chinese technology group Alibaba tried a simple approach to this problem. Instead of just wastefully doling out tableware, the company required food-delivery customers in some cities in China to pick how many sets of tableware they wanted to receive.The default (默认设置)was set at zero. The result, published today in the journal Science, was a 638% increase in the share of no-tableware orders. If applied across China, researchers found, the approach would save nearly 22 billion sets of plastic tableware. The study doesn’t cover carbon emissions, but it’s safe to say that the impact would be significant. It struck me as a useful reminder of the many low-hanging fruits across the economy that can cut waste, and emissions.

Nudging its customers cost Alibaba nothing more than a few hours of software engineering time and the impact it brought was immense. The concept of nudging comes from the field of behavioral economics known as nudge theory. It suggests that a slight action can encourage good human behavior without the need for policies that limit choice or economic punishment that raises the cost of bad behavior. To nudge customers to eat better, for example, a restaurant might organize its menu by listing healthy options first and bury unhealthy ones at the bottom. More recently, some big companies like Google have also begun to use nudges to advance climate objectives.

Behavioral economics broadly, and nudges more specifically, aren’t without controversy. Some might think it assigns consumers responsibility for addressing environmental challenges. But there is another way to look at it. In the absence of necessary policy—and policy is needed一companies can help encourage a widespread shift of consumer behavior.

And all of that behavioral change can add up. The International Energy Agency found in 2021 that small behavioral changes in energy consumption such as walking instead of driving and adjusting the thermostat could in total shave off 4% of global emissions. The more that companies can do to facilitate such changes, the better.

5 . Once the red wolf’s historic range stretched from Long Island to Missouri and down to the Texas-Mexico border. But by 1972 their population was reduced to a small area along the Gulf coast due to habitat loss and hunting.

To conserve the species, 14 individuals were caught as part of a reproducing program. In 1980 their wild relatives were declared extinct — the caught wolves were all that was left and thus lots of genetic variation was lost. You can’t help it when you have so few founders.

Kristin Brzeski is an assistant professor at Michigan Technological University, whose research focuses on the conservation of genetics of wild animal populations. He thought this work had been an underdog scientifically and for conservation, for all wolves decreased in amount dramatically, especially the red wolves. Now, Brzeski and her co-workers have found a surprising new pool of red wolf genes that might help bring more diversity to the tiny population: they found the disappearing genes of red wolves in wild coyote populations. But why did this happen?

Remember: when a population is dying out, it might find the closest related species as their own best mate, so a red wolf and a coyote can have offspring. As a result, people can rediscover their genes in their coyote hybrid offspring. As red wolves are released back into the wild, reproducing with these coyotes could help the critically endangered species regain some of its genetic diversity.

This would be kind of the opposite direction: take the existing small population that still has red wolf genes that are so critical, and put them into a wild landscape with new genetic variation that they haven’t seen for 50 years or more. And all of a sudden, hopefully, this is like a super mix of genetic health and sort of a rebound that these animals can be wild and be themselves again.

The next step will include how to release red wolves in a way that takes advantage of the genes red wolves hiding in coyote populations. There should be a philosophy in our mind that we created this problem, so we should be responsible for fixing it.

6 . Open an app at your smart phone and scan the code bar on the garbage can. When you throw garbage into the garbage can, it will show the weight of the garbage and the points you can get from doing so.     1     It will become more popular in the future. Yes, we are talking about the smart garbage can.

    2     The environmental problems have become constant headaches in the development of those cities. Encouraging garbage classification has become an effective way.

In some cities, a variety of multifunctional smart garbage cans are being put into use. In Beijing, for example, a smart garbage can is equipped with an LED screen, which not only shows national policies on garbage classification but also shows the correct steps for garbage sorting. It can also calculate the weight of the garbage and the accumulated points one can get. They can be traded for some articles of daily use.     3     Its body is actually a screen. It is equipped with some Internal sensors. When people throw garbage into it, the internal sensors can automatically tell the types of the garbage. Meanwhile, people can see how to deal with them.     4    

Garbage disposal is a small issue that involves everybody each day. However, it is also a big issue.    5     With smart garbage cans in our daily life, the idea of garbage sorting will become more established. Our dream of building a greener and more beautiful China will come true so long as we start to make small changes right now.

7 . A future where insects make up a large part of the world’s diet is on the horizon. Despite the unpleasant nature of such cuisine, insects have been considered a delicacy in some parts of world for centuries. Their being low-fat and high-protein makes them a perfect choice for reducing hunger.     1    

Animal protein from livestock (家畜), such as cows, chicken and pigs, takes up 80 percent of the entire world’s farmland, despite only making up less than one-fifth of calories consumed globally.    2    Thus it would support a variety of biodiversity as nature intended.

Insects such as grasshoppers, meal worms and crickets are packed full of protein with much higher vitamin levels than pork or beef.    3    Greenhouse gas emissions through this process are also very little, with insect waste making excellent fertilizer (肥料) for agricultural soil.

It seems that insects are an ideal solution for many issues the world today is faced with.    4    Urban areas of Asia, Europe and North America are most likely to associate insects with dirt instead of as a tasty meal.

Times are changing. The European Union last year declared that meal worms were safe for human consumption. Cricket protein powder is also increasing greatly in popularity, with Canada rapidly becoming the largest market for the product.

    5    As we explore our solar system, efficient means of producing animal based-proteins will become vital. None are more efficient space-wise than insects. And the colonies of the future could well find themselves enjoying fried crickets with a pint of beer while watching the Martian sunset.

9 . You want to go vegan to help the planet, but it is your parents who are paying for the shopping. You think trains are better than planes when traveling.     1    Young people are some of the world’s most powerful climate leaders and want rapid action to tackle the problem.

    2    But the power to act is often still in the hands of older people, including parents. Big changes are difficult, especially when they involve other people. Where do you begin?

Eating less meat is one of the best ways to reduce our impact on the planet. Teach the Parent is a campaign that encourages these conversations between generations. It was started by young people frustrated with the lack of international climate action and their feelings of powerlessness. Even if your first talk with your parent goes badly, you should keep going.     3    If you bring it up every so often, it shapes your parent’s attitudes in the long term.

How we travel is a major source of carbon emissions, but switching from driving or lying can potentially limit family holidays and cost more. Present a solution rather than just a problem.    4    For example, saying “let’s do this thing instead” is really a good way to communicate. People talk about how expensive trains are, but think about what the carbon emissions from taking a plane mean in the long term for us.

Radically reducing what we buy and throw away can improve our carbon footprint, but it can be time-consuming and difficult. Advise your parents to reduce food waste and think more carefully about what they buy. Be well-informed about the things you want your family to start changing so they can see you care and have done some research. It’s important to not go into it expecting your parents to change their whole lives.    5    .

Taking action as an individual means you have managed to feel a lot more in control of your future.

10 . Shop Sustainably

If you have to name one thing that contributes most to your ecological footprints, you may say the energy you use at home, or your car’s emissions.     1     Knowing this can make your grocery shops more planet-friendly. Here is what you can do to help shop sustainably.

●    2     Using those is a great first step. If you get some, do remember to fill them with your purchases. When you adapt yourself to reusing them, then you’ll cut your consumption of single-use plastic bags even further.

●Avoid unnecessary packing. Buy loose fruit and vegetables instead of pre-packaged produce, and avoid products that contain multiple single packages or double packaging, like grain in a box and a bag. Consider switching from tea bags and coffee pods to tea leaves and ground coffee.     3    

●Go organic when you can. In addition to the benefit organic farming has to insect biodiversity, it’s also considered more sustainable and better for the environment.     4    Choosing free-range or Marine Stewardship Council-certified products also encourages environment- and animal-friendly food production.

●Buy seasonal and native products.     5     So you can avoid buying goods that have travelled long distances to reach your plate. As well as opting for local goods, depending on where you live, in the supermarket, you can also buy directly from the source at farmers’ markets.