In a bid to control the nation’s growing problem with food wastage, the South Korean government has started a unique initiative – “Pay as You Trash”. As of now, the South Korean government has three methods     1     place to charge citizens for the food thrown away. One is through a RFI card. When users tap this card over a specially designed food waste bin, the lid (盖子) will open, allowing them to dump their waste. The waste     2     (weigh) automatically and a bill is recorded in the user’s account which the user needs to settle on a monthly basis. Each RFI bin costs $1,500 and     3     serve 60 households.

The second billing method is through pre-paid garbage bags. These specially designed bags are priced based on volume. There’s also an electronic management system,     4     residents put food waste directly into the bin and pay for it by purchasing a special tag     5     (attach) to the bin.

Every household in South Korea is subject to one of these payment systems.     6     the new payment method affects you depends totally on how much food you throw away. Whatever system you use, you are sure to feel the pain of food waste. The more food you throw out, the more you end up     7     (pay).

And it’s working. Residents like Seoul housewife Ms. Kwan have found it necessary to adopt innovative methods to avoid food waste. She picks     8     wet out of leftover food before throwing it away. She also separates fresh produce and other food items into     9     (small) portions so that only the required amount is used up per meal. “     10     the fees can be reduced, I’m willing to adopt any innovative method to avoid food waste,” she said.

4 . The woods are turning orange. Drifts of dry leaves are growing on forest floors and flying into street corners. From a distance, it is beautiful. But the air is still warm and summery. This turning and leaf fall is not the usual gradual preparation for winter in temperate zones(温带) but a stress response by trees trying to preserve water. We are now in a false autumn, caused by heat and drought. And it feels wrong.

There is, therefore, something deeply disturbing about such a graphic alteration of familiar rhythms, Droughts are not unknown to the UK, of course, and too many parts of the world are certainly familiar with far more severe versions. But increasingly they are occurring in the context of a climate emergency, and record-breaking heat. And the beauty of a false autumn, specifically, has an emotional effect, a deep weirdness, something mysteriously suggestive of evil or danger

Cultures across the world contain ceremonies for the propitiation(宽恕) of the weather; a sense of responsibility for the natural world—and the belief that it will punish us if we fail it—is as old as humanity. One of the reasons why the Romantic poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s 1798 poem The Rime of the Ancient Mariner is so effective is the directness with which it links the shooting of an albatross(信天翁)—the destruction of innocent wildlife—to a terrible change in the weather: no rain, just burning, death-dealing sun. We may not understand the mechanism, but at an instinctual(本能的) level it feels right.

And in a similar way it has not really been a surprise to hear that birds are struggling. In London,   young swifts (雨燕) were seen falling out of the sky. Fewer—and too early—nuts and berries mean some animals will not live through this winter. Older trees, with their longer roots, will hopefully survive, but young trees may not—all that promises further warming. There will always be a degree of uncertainty about the causes of specific weather events, but we cannot deny that we have not taken care of the albatross. Now we must hope we are doing enough to make sure that these fearful golden days are pot an autumn of autumns.

How sustainable are your sneakers?

Over the last five years the sneaker industry has grown rapidly and shows no sign of slowing down. The global athletic footwear market is expected to exceed 95 billion (USD) by 2025. According to the World Footwear Yearbook, over 24 billion pairs of shoes are produced annually. Among them sneakers account for the largest     1    . What are the environmental impacts of the rapidly growing sneaker industry?

Sneaker production is very     2    . A typical pair of running shoes produces about 13.6 kilograms of CO₂ emissions which is unusually high for a product that does not use electricity or require power-driving components.

These emissions mainly come from     3    . The majority of sneakers are made from plastic and/or plastic-like materials. All these petroleum-derived plastics produce a(n)     4     number of carbon dioxide.

Then why don’t we move away from the use of plastic? Since sneakers have to endure much more than a regular pair of shoes, the aspect of their     5     is very important when it comes to their overall performance. Unfortunately,     6     materials hold up better than natural ones. Plastic has made shoes better, lighter, faster, more comfortable, and more accessible to everyone worldwide. Another issue with sneakers today is that most of them are made by using a combination of different plastics     7     in a very complicated way, making them very hard to     8    .

The footwear industry is at least 10 years behind the rest of fashion in terms of environmental standards. Seven out of ten brands are having discussions on sustainability, yet only 40% of companies have a sustainability program in place. Big industry players (such as Adidas and Nike) and some smaller     9     are trying to reduce their carbon footprint in different ways.

Considering that close to 25 billion pairs of shoes were produced worldwide in the last year, it is clear that immediate action is very important. It is my hope that we consumers will     10     our relationship with fashion and think about the environmental impact of our shopping habits.

8 . Country diary: a chainsaw massacre in the alder woods

On an overcast, drizzly afternoon at Durham Wildlife Trust’s low Barns nature _________ alder provided the brightest splash of color in the _________

A tree had been felled and sawn into _________. Chainsaw wounds on this species can look like a massacre, because soon after the timber is cut, it turns a lurid shade of red, almost like blood, in stark contrast to the battleship-grey bark, _________ those wounds, which briefly _________ raw meat, fade to orange and finally to chestnut brown.

When this reserve was established half a century ago, around old gravel pits (采沙场), some moisture-loving alders were planted to help _________ a bare, windswept site. Alder wood is one of the finest sources of charcoal, and the plantation trees are old enough now to be coppiced, to produce barbecue fuel.

There is also an important natural alder wood here, created by a cataclysm almost two and a half centuries ago, which led to the designation of the reserve as a site of special scientific interest.

The Great Flood of 1771 _________ Weardale, washing away bridges all the way to the coast. When the water subsided, the course of the River Wear had _________ half a mile south, and the old riverbed became what is now the reserve’s Long Alder Wood, the finest example of its kind in the region.

When it sometimes floods, this tangle of gnarled（苍劲嶙峋的） trees has a _________ of the Florida Everglades（佛罗里达大沼泽） about it, with mossy, fallen trunks sinking back into the ooze (淤泥). Year round, there are wonderful __________ to watch birds from an embankment level with the tree canopy. This afternoon an acrobatic flock of about 30 goldfinches（金翅雀）__________ and chattered through the twigs, feeding on tiny seeds that fall from the woody cones.

Sadly, since the mid-1990s, another__________ has befallen this locally __________ woodland: alder dieback disease has killed around half the mature trees. Coppicing is leading to some regeneration, though in this precious __________ dead timber is allowed to lay where it falls, reserved for the needs of a __________ community of fungi, invertebrates and woodpeckers, rather than back-garden burger-flippers on summer evenings.

9 . To be honest. I’ve been missing the online shopping experience in China since I moved to the US four years ago. So when I noticed Shein becoming mainstream in the US over the past few years, I though, Great! I finally have a Taohao replacement! So I went on my first Shein journey in August 2022.

But somewhere along the way, I started questioning why I enjoy this particular kind of shopping, and also what it means for an e-commerce platform to offer endless deals.

To be fair, there are Shein purchases that I’ve really enjoyed, like a $2 nylon watchband that feels better than my original Apple Watch band. I also think people should be able to choose quantity and price over quality, because the idea of demanding that people only buy premium products feels unrealistic.

But as it turns out, I’ve finally started to see through the illusion (错觉) of Shein-like platforms. To get these occasional incredible deals, you are encouraged to shop much more than is necessary or even reasonable. This illusion has worked for a long time and for a lot of people, including me! But it’s become harder and harder to ignore the environmental consequences of my purchases, and the ways in which platforms trick people into buying more and more.

And I don’t think I’m the only one experiencing that awakening. Broadly speaking, I think society is slowly but surely shifting toward recognizing the climate impact of mass-produced cheap goods. While these conversations have yet to happen as widely and furiously in China, companies like Taobao and Shein will inevitably have to answer the question of whether their business model is sustainable for everyone—or only for themselves. So where are they beading from here? There’s certainly a lot of soul-searching for the industry to do.

And I’m doing some soul-searching of my own.

10 . In just a few decades the United States could eliminate fossil fuels（矿物燃料）and rely 100 percent on clean, renewable energy. That's the vision of, a Stanford engineering professor who has produced a state-by-state road map of how the country could rid itself of coal oil, natural gas, and nuclear power.

By 2050, Jacobson expects the nation's transportation network - cars, ships, airplanes - to run on batteries or hydrogen produced from electricity. He sees the winds blowing across the Great Plains powering vast stretches of the country's middle while the burning sun helps electrify the Southwest. "There's no state that can't do this," Jacobson says.

Today only 13% of U. S. electricity comes from renewables（再生性能源）. Jacobson's goal would be one of the nation's most ambitious undertakings. This transformation would cost roughly $15 trillion, or $47,000 for each American, for building and installing systems that produce and store renewable energy.

What would it take? Seventy-eight million rooftop solar systems, nearly 49,000 commercial solar plants, 156,000 offshore wind turbines（风力涡轮机）, plus wave-energy systems. Land-based wind farms would need 328,000 turbines, each with blades longer than a football field,. These farms would occupy as much land as North Carolina.

For now, he says, prospects are encouraging. Thanks in part to government funding and large-scale production, costs are falling. The amount of power generated nationwide by wind and solar increased 15-fold each between 2003 and 2013. This summer Barack Obama moved to reduce carbon emissions from coal-fired power plants, and Hawaii committed to having all its electricity provided by renewables by 2045.

Still, many experts aren't convinced. “It has zero chance,”Stephen Brick, an energy fellow with the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, says of Jacobson's plan. Political, regulatory, and social barriers are huge, especially in a nation where the energy systems - and much of its political influence - is rooted in the oil, gas, and coal industries. Some critics are concerned about whether the resulting grid（输电网）would be reliable. And neighborhood battles would likely occur over wind farms and solar plants. Even outspoken scientist James Hansen, who warned the government a quarter century ago about climate change, insists that nuclear power is essential to rid the country of fossil fuels.

Yet Jacobson’s work at least offers a starting point. Scientists and policymakers may keep arguing about solutions, but as Obama points out, the nation must continue its march toward a clean-energy future even if it's not yet clear how that will look in 35 years. “If we don't do it,” he said this summer, “nobody will.”