1 . Padraig ó Dubhlaoidh,an Irish master violin maker，has created the world’s first-ever vegan violin,valued at 8, 000.

An amateur violinist himself, Padraig ó Dubhlaoidh has long held the belief that animal body parts aren’t needed to create the instrument.“With our planet facing crises on almost every front, the collective voice of people wanting a fairer future grows stronger every day, ”he said.“ Ethical(合乎道德的)musicians are part of this movement and have long wished for a violin that is fully vegan yet retains all the qualities of the classic instrument.”

Traditional instruments are tightly connected to animal products.Like other wood-based instruments, violins use hide glue-a product obtained from the skins and bones of animals-as a primary adhesive(黏合剂).Violin strings and bows have also been known to contain ivory and horse tail hair. Using traditional tools and methods, Padraig chose natural replacements such as steamed pears, berries, and spring water to create the instrument. His adhesive, composed in part of spring water gathered from the hills behind his home, is 100%natural.

More than just an ethical step in the right direction, Padraig says his natural adhesive has other advantages.He said, ”During my experiments, I discovered that the vegan violin has unexpected advantages.Apart from the benefit to animals, society, and our environment, it has become very clear that animal-based glues have harmful effects on violins, inducing powerful tension on wooden components.The adhesive used in my vegan violin, however, has no such effect.This is an acoustic(声音的)improvement.”

While Padraig doesn’t think everyone will switch to the vegan violin immediately, he does think there’s a bright future ahead for his instrument and the concept of vegan instruments. He continues to make both vegan and non-vegan violins in his workshops. However, he said, “Just as petrol cars are gradually being replaced with more eco-friendly options, the same progression may happen to violins gradually, and even many other handicrafts.”

Our world has been greatly affected by global warming and it is critical (关键的) that people, young and old, join hands to fight it. Most     1    (important), children today should learn to be eco­friendly at a young age.

It is believed that the nation should ask schools     2    (have) a class about “Green Living”. Every school should teach students to know about global warming and what they can do to reduce their carbon footprints. In the classes, students could be assigned to find several     3    (solve) to energy problems while learning about their effects     4     the earth. Students also should     5    (encourage) to use what they learned in class at home.

Too many people think that global warming is not a threat, but it is one of our     6    (big) problems. Steps     7    (take) to be “green” in the school are so effective. What would children be learning if the school’s lights were always left on and there were no recycling bins?

Green living and green schools are part of     8     new wave sweeping over the nation. How will our future leaders respond after years of living in a community     9     protecting our world’s natural environment just isn’t considered important？Schools and the government should teach young people to devote     10    (they) to dealing with global warming.

7 . France has changed the rules in its grocery stores and marketplaces. Starting on January 1, 2022, most fresh fruits and vegetables can no longer be packaged for salern plastic.

Under the new law, more than 30 types of fruits and vegetables must now be sold in materials that can be recycled. Potatoes, tomatoes, apples and carrots are some of the items included in the list. Plastic will still be allowed for packs that are over 1.5 kilograms. Smaller items such as raspberries and cherry tomatoes can still be sold in plastic for now, but the country plans to ban (禁止) all single-use plastic packaging for whole fruits and vegetables by 2026.

This ban on plastic packaging is part of a broader effort by France to control plastic waste across a range of sectors. Other efforts include preventing restaurants from including plastic toys in children’s meals, newspapers and magazines from being delivered in plastic, and tea bags being sold in plastic packages. Furthermore, public locations must provide water refill stations to disincentivize the use of single-use water bottles.

It’s believed that 37% of fresh fruits and vegetables are wrapped in plastic in France. The government says the new ban will stop one billion pieces of plastic from being used each year.

Not everyone is happy with the change. François Roch, president of the French fruit sellers’ federation, told Reuters, “Selling loose produce is complicated (复杂的) as many customers touch the fruit and people do not want their fruit to be touched by other customers.”

The ban will likely require a change in habits Shoppers will probably have to take their own reusable bags to fill and weigh. It will be interesting to see how France deals with the complications that come with selling loose produce, and whether other countries follow suit, once a precedent (先例) has been set.

9 . Carol-Anne O’Callaghan, a former teacher from Great Missenden, Buckinghamshire, has fought hard to protect ancient oaks near her home, which she says are home to rare bats.

In February 2021, O’Callaghan was walking her dogs when she spotted yellow dots stuck on some of the 99 oak trees in a narrow country lane close to her home. The dots indicated trees marked for destruction. After she learned the trees would be felled as part of the HS2 high-speed railway works, she called the HS2 helpline and was told there was nothing that could be done as an over-road would be built. She gets choked up remembering the moment she realized many of them were to be cut down.

O’Callaghan loves that ancient line of oaks. They were planted in the 19th century. “My family and I would picnic under them,” she says, “climb them, have rope swings on them. The trees are amazing and beautiful and meant so much.” One of the last photos of her mother, taken shortly before she died, was of her sitting in a swing in their branches.

She noticed that on the other side of the lane, to the north, there were no ancient oaks. So she began campaigning to save the trees. With the help of her daughter, Blaize, she started a petition(请愿书), which went on to get nearly 43,000 signatures. “I saw someone passionate about giving a voice to those who don’t have one, someone not afraid of asking questions and calling out large, daunting businesses for doing the wrong thing,” says her neighbour Victoria.

Buckinghamshire Council has got involved, and the felling is paused. A final decision has yet to be made about the proposed over-road. “We’re optimistic that they’ll hear our argument and take the ecology of the lane into account,” says O’Callaghan. “We want them to put in a green crossing in the gaps between trees, for the bats, and we’d like the place to become a conservation area. For the trees and the bats—this is what we are fighting for!”

10 . It seems there’s nowhere left to run from the microplastic (微塑料的)pollution. A small pilot study recently took microplastics from one of Europe’s most distant places, the French Pyrenees mountains, and found as many microplastics in the soil as you might expect from a big city like Paris.

The reason? The wind. Researchers now fear that our planet’s winds can pick up microplastics from about anywhere and transport them around the world, sometimes in large quantities. “We’d kind of expected it in a city getting blown around,” said Steve Allen from the University of Strathclyde in the UK, one member of the team. “But way up there? We expected to find some, ” he said. “We didn’t expect to find so many.”

Microplastics are pieces smaller than a fifth of an inch that have broken down from larger pieces of plastic. The forces of nature don’t distinguish (区分)between materials like stones and rocks, and plastics. Wind and waves hit plastics and break them down just the same, making them into dust that can then get swept up by the gentle wind and into the atmosphere. It’s a continuing environmental concern, as more and more microplastics find their way into our food and air.

The fact that microplastics can be found in large numbers even in distant places is a sign that is has become a global pollution problem. Steve Allen and his team set up collectors 4,500 feet up in the mountains for five months to trap plastic particles (粒子) as they fell to the Earth. The team found that an average of 365 plastic particles fell on their square meter collector daily. This included bits form plastic bags, plastic film and packaging material, among other plastic sources. Many of these materials were small enough to be breathed in without even realizing it. They’re in the air, and they’re everywhere.