3 . When you are little, it’s not hard to believe you can change the world. I remember my enthusiasm when, at the age of 12, I addressed the people at the Rio Earth Summit. “I am only a child,” I told them. “Yet I know that if all the money spent on war was spent on ending poverty and finding environmental answers, what a wonderful place this world would be. In school you teach us not to fight with others, to work things out, to respect others, to clean up our mess, not to hurt other creatures, to share. not to be greedy. Then why do you go out and do the thing you tell us not to do? You grown-ups say you love us, but I challenge you, please, to make our actions reflect your words.”

I spoke for six minutes and received a standing ovation. Some of the delegates even cried. I thought that maybe I had reached some of them, that my speech might actually spur (激励) action. Now, ten years from Rio, after I’ve sat through many more conferences, I’m not sure what has been accomplished. My confidence in the people in power and in the power of an individual’s voice to reach them has been deeply shaken.

When I was little, the world was simple. But as a young adult, I’m learning that as we have to make choices-education, career, lifestyle-life gets more and more complicated. We are beginning to feel pressure to produce and be successful. We are taught that economic growth is progress, but aren’t taught how to pursue a happy, healthy or sustainable (可持续的) way of living. And we are learning that what we wanted for the future when we were 12 was ideal and innocent.

Today I’m no longer a child, but I’m worried about what kind of environment my children will grow up in. I know change is possible, because I am changing, still figuring out what I think. I am still deciding how to live my life. The challenges are great, but if we accept individual responsibility and make sustainable choices, we will rise to the challenges, and we will become part of the positive tide of change.

4 . When it comes to nutrition, people in the United States often make poor choices. Sometimes bad eating habits are not the consequence of a lack of nutritional information or the unavailability of nutritious foods; some people simply choose to eat _______. They prefer to eat only the foods that taste delicious to them. Unfortunately, the decision to eat poorly has lasting _______. As many as half of all Americans are overweight. _______, many Americans suffer from conditions such as heart disease, high blood pressure, and adult-onset diabetes(糖尿病) that can also result from these poor lifestyle choices. If we want to live long, healthy lives, we must make better nutritional decisions. Otherwise, we could be _______ our health and our futures.

Proper nutrition begins with _______. The United States Department of Agriculture(USDA) issues food guidelines to help people to make appropriate nutritional choices. These guidelines are _______ in a USDA chart called the Food Guide Pyramid. The Pyramid is based on research into the specific types of nutrients needed for disease resistance and proper body weight.

According to the Pyramid, Americans should get most of their daily calories intake from bread, cereal, rice, and pasta, eating 6 to 11 servings of these foods per day. Whole-grain products are the best. The larger numbers of servings are only _______ people such as athletes, whose work includes a great deal of physical activity. Following this category are the fruit and vegetable categories, with a total suggested _______ of from 5 to 9 servings per day. This _______ the importance of fiber, vitamins, and minerals in maintaining a healthy lifestyle. The Pyramid’s other ________ include 2 to 3 servings of dairy products and 2 to 3 servings from a group that includes meat, fish, beans, and nuts. The USDA recommends that fats and sweets be eaten sparingly(一点点地).

There are many risk factors that ________ poor health. Among these are such lifestyle choices as improper nutrition and ________ exercise. Current research by the American Heart Association shows that heart disease very often begins when a person is a child. ________ this, many Americans think they can postpone healthy eating and proper exercise until they have health problems. Unfortunately, diseases are not generally ________ until symptoms begin, and by then it may be too late. To live long and productive lives, we must make proper choices now, including healthy ________ choices.

6 . “Walkability” linked to reduced hospital costs and admissions

​Neighborhoods designed to encourage people to walk to and from the shops and public transport will help reduce hospital costs and admissions linked to residents, new Canberra research shows.

The research project, from the University of Canberra’s Health Research Institute, has revealed a relationship between a suburb’s “walkability score” and a reduction in both hospital costs and admissions and added to the growing debate surrounding the role of “social determinants” in health outcomes.

Coauthors Dr. Yan Yu and Vincent Learnihan studied ACT Health data from 30,690 hospital admissions across 88 of the ACT’s suburbs, and then matched them against each suburb’s “walkability score”. That score is a measure of how easy it is to get around a particular suburb, including the number of interconnected streets, footpaths and the presence of shops, public transport stops, restaurants and services within walking distance of each other.

Dr. Yu said the study showed that those suburbs rated as “walkable”—with a walkability score of 20 units or more—were linked to a 12.1 per cent lower hospital cost for those residents and a 12.5 per cent lower rate of hospital admissions.

She said the admissions data they focused on included cancers, cardiovascular diseases, endocrine, nutritional and metabolic diseases and diabetes.

But the research also showed that in Canberra, some 80 per cent of all the city’s suburbs were still “car-dependent”, which Mr. Learnihan said showed more needed to be done to help encourage Canberrans to walk, ride and use public transport.

While Mr. Learnihan commended the ACT government’s existing “active travel” programs, he said the study showed that wider and better funded initiatives to improve the “walkability” of new and existing suburbs could help save on health costs and improve Canberrans’ quality of life.

Dr. Yu said such changes could be as simple as improving footpaths and bike paths, increasing public transport access and improving local shops.

7 . In rich countries like America, the absence of professional waste-pickers presents a problem. The general public is not very good at sorting rubbish. Households and businesses serviced by municipal waste-management providers may actually have got worse at sorting in the past 20 years, says Peter Keller of Republic Services, America's second-biggest waste management firm, which runs Newby Island in San Jose.

Citizens of rich countries, where almost 100% of municipal waste gets collected, take such services for granted - unless the collectors go on strike (罢工),as happened in the Belgian city of Ghent in early August, leaving streets in a stink (恶臭) for days. In some industrialized nations, increasingly, residents are charged based on volume (known as "pay-as-you-throw") To encourage sorting, such schemes often exempt recyclables.

The volume of recyclables has reached 1,400 tons a day, a lot by American standards, says Mr. Keller. That should come as no surprise. After all, inhabitants of the San Francisco Bay area pride themselves on their recycling ability. San Francisco boasts a recycling rate of 80% one of the highest of any rich-world city. San Franciscans may therefore be shocked to learn that a lot of them, as Mr. Keller puts it, “aren't very good at it"

Two possible reasons account for Mr. Keller's remarks. The first is that many people do not know what is recyclable. Beer bottles and soft-drink cans are, he says. Egg cartons and magazines are not, for there is not market for the materials of which they are made. Some things are recyclable on their own, but not when combined, such as "paper" cups lined with plastic film. It is hard to blame consumers for feeling increasingly puzzled, he admits

The other problem is that residents only have to separate recyclables from non-recyclables Cans, bottles and papers are all thrown into one bin. This mix can, to some degree, be sorted at plants like Newby, enabled by clever technology which uses optical sensor;(光电感应器) and magnets to separate materials automatically. Anyway, these was no match for humans when it came to sorting.

As the volume of recyclables increased in America and Europe, the quality of recycled output decreased because everything was mixed in together. This did not trouble materials. recovery facilities (MRF) operators so long as they would offload their increasingly impure stock abroad. Then China announced it would not accept any plastics or carboard, and American waste-management companies have been struggling to find what to do with their poor-quality waste.

9 . Too much work, too little money and not enough opportunity for promotion, .or growth are stressing us out on the job, according to a new survey from the American Psychological Association.

We all know that stress reduces all of the things that help productivity— mental clarity (清晰), short-term memory, decision-making and moods. One-third of employees experience lasting stress related to work, the survey found. Fifty-four percent of the 1,501 employed adults surveyed say they feel they are paid too little for their contributions, and 61% said their jobs don’t offer adequate opportunities to advance. Only half of the adults surveyed said they feel valued at work.

Besides, women’s stress is rising as families rely more on women’s earnings. An employed wife’s contribution to family earnings has reached, on average, 47% since 2009, so women feel especially stuck and tense. Thirty-two percent of women said their employers don’t provide sufficient opportunities for internal advancement, compared with 30% of men. Women are more likely to feel tense during a typical workday, reporting more often that their employer doesn’t appreciate what they do.

Physically, the body responds to stress by secreting hormones into the bloodstream that stimulate accelerated (加速的) heart rate and breathing and tensing of muscles. People who experience stress as a positive often have increased blood flow to the brain, muscles and limbs, similar to the effects of aerobic exercise. Those who feel frightened or threatened, however, often have an unstable heart rate and constricting wood vessels (血管). Their blood pressure rises and hands and feet may grow cold. They may become agitated, speak more loudly or experience errors in judgment.

Emotional responses to stress often divide along gender lines, with men more likely to have a “fight or flight” reaction while women are more likely to have a tend and befriend” response, seeking comfort in relationships and care of loved ones, according to the research.

Women tend to “internalize”, which contributes to their stress. Many women hesitate to speak up for themselves or challenge behavior they see as unfair. Kay Keaney, interior designer, 40, rose fast at a California medical group, taking on responsibility for interior and facility planning. With her 60-hour workweeks, plus early-morning and late-night meetings and a 1.5-hour commute each way, she seldom had time with her two small children. Whether stuck in traffic on her way to a 6 p.m. pickup at day care, or tom between her children and urgent work emails, “I just wanted to crawl out of my skin,” she says. “I was overwhelmed.” Yet she hesitated to complain. “There was too much work to be done, and playing the Mommy card was bad form.” But the experts suggest that women should give themselves a voice.

10 . The legend of the potential third runway at Heathrow, Britain’s largest airport, has been called the longest take-off in history. A commission in 1993 recommended expansion, and the government first favored the plan in 2003. But it was not until 2018 that the transport secretary finally gave the project the go ahead. A court of Appeal ruling in February 2020 that the runway was not compatible with Britain’s obligations under the Paris climate agreement of 2015 appeared to have finally spoiled the plans. But on December 16h the Supreme Court overturned that judgment and once more green-lit the project.

The initial Court of Appeal judgment found that the government’s decision to allow the expansion to go ahead was unlawful because Chris Grayling, then transport secretary, had failed to take the Paris agreement into account. While that was a blow to Heathrow, it helped get Boris Johnson’s government out of trouble. Mr. Johnson, whose own constituency (选民) is near the airport, has been a fierce critic of the expansion plans, famously pledging to protesters that he would “lie down with you in front of those bulldozers (推土机) and ... stop the construction.” The government chose not to appeal, but Heathrow did; and the Supreme Court decided that the government had taken Paris into account, and the Court of Appeal was therefore wrong.

Even so, the expansion may not go ahead. While the airline industry has long championed a third runway, much has changed since February 2020. British Airways, Heathrow’s largest customer, has become skeptical about the plans. Earlier this year Willie Walsh, the chief executive of BA’s parent company, argued that “it was a Herculean task (艰巨的任务) before COVID and I think it’s impossible now”. Although air travel will almost certainly rebound as social-distancing restrictions are eased in 2021, the industry is not expecting a quick recovery. The International Air Travel Association, a lobby group, expects that global spending on air travel will be about half of 2019 levels in 2021. Short-haul flights from Britain are expected to rise sharply as the vaccine is rolled out and consumers dash off to sunnier climes, but the outlook for longer-haul flights remains highly uncertain.

Analysts reckon the big unknown is the future of business travel. Firms that have grown accustomed to Zoom meetings may well be less keen to splash out on high-priced tickets from London to New York. Although business flyers account for only around 10% of transatlantic customer they pay ten to 12 times as much per ticket as economy passengers. A substantial fall in their numbers would mean large rises in ticket prices for the rest, which in turn would dent demand. If long-haul flight volumes remain depressed, then the business case for a third runway at Heathrow starts to look ropy. Boris Johnson is unlikely to have to prostrate (卧倒) himself in front of those bulldozers soon, if ever.