NASA has got some good news for us. The world is a     1    (green) place today than it was 20 years ago. How does this happen? Well, it appears China and India are leading the change.

NASA researchers compared satellite data (卫星数据) from the mid-1990s to today. They found that global green leaf area     2    (increase) by five percent since the early 2000s. That’s about the same area as the entire Amazon rainforest. At first, the researchers were unsure     3     caused the large increase in greening around the planet.

After further     4     (investigate), they found that greening was mostly located in China and India. China and India have the world’s biggest populations. In the past, they     5     (consider) to have overexploited land, water and other resources for economic growth. But now, the two countries are responsible     6    the largest greening of the planet in the past two decades.

China has carried out programs     7     (protect) and expand forests. These programs were developed to reduce the     8    (effect) of soil erosion(水土流失), air pollution and climate change. India continues to break world records in tree planting.     9     was reported that 800,000 Indians planted 50 million trees in one day in 2016. However, the researchers warned that we should not be content with     10     situation. The gain in global greenness does not offset (抵消) the losses.

While many people stay up to celebrate the Double Eleven shopping festival, Elsa Tang in Beijing avoids online shopping. Whenever she    1     (shop), she brings her own cloth bags for her groceries instead of using the plastic ones at the store.

In fact, Tang is not the only person     2     is interested in a zero- waste lifestyle. In August, a report about the Chinese young generation's attitude toward a zero-waste life showed that 3,201 people    3     (age) from 20 to 34 shared their opinions and stories about the eco-friendly lifestyle.

Yu Yuan, 29, is a zero-waster. Five years ago, Yu     4     (force) to move out of her rental house     5     a hurry. So she had to throw out 80 percent of her belongings    6     keep only the essentials. But afterward, Yu felt “much lighter” with     7     (little) stuff than before. After that, she began her zero-waste life.

The idea of a zero-waste life was first put forward by French author Bea Johnson. Her idea was: Live a life while hardly     8     (create) rubbish; spare no efforts to save the environment, such as avoiding single- used objects; instead of throwing away unwanted things into landfills, people can donate them to others or    9     (organize) like the Red Cross. If we keep reducing the burden on Mother Earth, it will make     10     huge difference.