1 . A new study led by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School has found that climate-impact labeling on a sample fast food menu significantly influenced people’s food choices in favor of more climate-friendly items, such as vegetarian diet, chicken, or fish dishes.

The researchers enrolled over 5,000 online participants and presented them a sample menu resembling a fast food menu and asked them to choose a single item for a meal. While one group of participants received a menu with non-red meat items like salads or chicken sandwiches labeled “low climate impact”, another one received a menu with red meat items, such as beef burgers, labeled “high climate impact.” Finally, a third control group received a menu with QR codes on all items but no climate labels.

The analysis revealed that both the high and low climate-impact labels significantly reduced red meat selections compared to the control group. The high climate-impact labels had a strong effect, increasing non-beef choices by 23 percent compared to just 10 percent in the case of menus including low climate-impact labels.

“These results suggest that menu labeling, particularly labels warning that an item has high climate impact, can be an effective strategy for encouraging more sustainable food choices in a fast food setting,” said the study lead author Julia Wolfson, an associate professor in the Department of International Heath at the Bloomberg School.

Besides, participants were also asked to rate how healthy they believed the item they ordered was, and those who selected a more sustainable item perceived their choice to be healthier compared to those who selected a red meat item.

Since red meat consumption has been linked to a variety of health issues, including colorectal (结肠的) cancer and type 2 diabetes (糖尿病), the type of climate-impact labeling could prove highly effective in preventing illness. However, as the researchers warn, climate-impact labels may also have the unwanted side effect of making a choice seem healthier than it actually is.

“We look for labeling strategies that create ‘win-wins’ for promoting both more sustainable and healthier choices,” Wolfson concluded.

2 . Compost (堆肥) is one of the most wonderful things in the world. You take organic matter that would otherwise end up in landfills and create a nutrient-rich material that will help make gardens grow, flowers bloom and make it easier to feed the world. Thanks to Tipa, an Israeli start-up, you will soon be able to add plastics to your compost mix.

Plastic is one of the most challenging problems on the planet. As No Camels reports, it often takes 500 years for plastic to break down, and even then, microplastics remain in water or on land. Furthermore, according to Inc. Com, even though plastic can theoretically be recycled, less than 5 percent of flexible plastic packaging that is put into recycling by consumers is actually recycled.

But that doesn’t need to be the case anymore.

Now, Tipa and other companies have begun to create plastics that are able to biodegrade like any organic matter does. When asked how she got the idea of creating compostable flexible plastics, Dafna Nissenbaum, the CEO and co-founder of Tipa, said, “Nature also packs its products, like bananas, apples and oranges, but with a compostable material. Our plastics will break down exactly like any other organic material and turn into solid fertilizer (肥料).”

Unlike other compostable plastics on the market, Tipa’s plastics can be fully composted in home composts. This means that the average person with a garden compost could use their packaging and just throw it in the compost instead of the recycling bin when they are done with it.

Another thing that Tipa has been doing is to create partnerships with existing producers instead of creating their own factories. The company’s materials are purposefully designed to be compatible (兼容的) with machinery that already exists and produces non-compostable plastics. Tipa says that fits in with its goal of creating a sustainable future.

Tipa has partnered with some high-end designers. Both Stella McCartney and Mara Hoffman use Tipa’s products to package their products. Many brands are now aware that using sustainable packaging will endear them to customers, and Tipa helps them do that.

4 . As the family of 16 Asian elephants started moving north, no one knew where they were heading, or why. At first, no one thought much about it. Elephants sometimes disappear beyond Xishuangbanna National Nature Reserve in southwestern China’s Yunnan Province, but they always return.

    1    . During 16 months the elephants walked 300 miles north to Kunming, the provincial capital of Yunnan Province. Along the way, they robbed the crops and blocked the traffic, causing about a half million dollars in damage, and there was the risk of an elephant attacking a curious onlooker.     2    . The simple answer would be to calm the giant mammals and transport them back to the reserve.

But that would be risky for this group, especially for the three baby elephants. Instead, officials mobilized (动员) an emergency task force to keep everyone, elephants and humans alike, safe. Drones tracked the elephants’ every move. Electric fences, road barriers, and new pathways helped them move toward safer routes. Tons of corn, pineapples, and bananas were used to trick them away from towns.     3    .

Some might argue that doing so much to keep a family of elephants safe was wasteful. But conserving our natural and human heritage is about encouraging good in the world.     4    , just as we need health and peace. They’re essential parts of the world where our lives take place, and they help us make sense of our own stories. They provide the context for our existence.     5    .

It’s reported that about 10% of the global population do not have clean water. The water crisis has serious effects on people’s health, education, and     1     (finance) situation and on the stability of their community.

Water     2     (use) to keep clean and keeping clean is the key to good health. For example, a simple cut to a child’s leg can be treated by washing it, to avoid infections.     3     clean water, that simple cut can become a serious medical condition.

Children who spend a lot of time collecting water are less likely     4     (attend) full time education. Chances are that those students aren’t able to study to the level     5     (require) to go to college or university. The problem is     6     (particular) bad for girls, who tend to be the family’s members     7     (walk) a long way to collect water.

Low standards of education make     8     much more difficult for people to get jobs that are both well-paid and safe. If there is no money from     9     (employ), it’s difficult for communities to develop their water supply and sanitation (卫生).

Water is often a source of argument and even wars. The stability of a whole region or even a country can be in danger because of a shortage of clean water. To decrease the influence of the water crisis, the United Nations has a Sustainable Development Goal     10     specifically refers to water and sanitation.

Chinese scientists have developed a kind of plastic that degrades in sea water and could help slow down the     1    (increase) serious plastic pollution in the ocean.

The new plastic can degrade in sea water over a period ranging from a few days to several hundred days,     2    (leave) small parts that cause no pollution, said Wang Gexia,     3     is a senior engineer. 

For a long time, people focused     4     white pollution on land. Plastic pollution in the sea only caught people’s attention when more and more     5    (report) about marine animals dying from it appeared in recent years.

Scientists combined water dissolution and biodegradation processes     6    (design) and invent     7     new plastic.

The research     8    (select) as one of the winning projects at a contest. The contest encouraged young Chinese scientists to develop groundbreaking technologies and was intended to inspire creativity. 

China has given top attention to     9    (environment) protection, contributing Chinese wisdom to     10    (resolve) global pollution problems.