1 . What comes to mind when you think about chocolate? A candy bar at Halloween? Ice cream on a hot day?

For Ibrahim, a 12-year-old boy from the West African country of Ghana, chocolate is not about sweet treats; it is about bitter work.     1     But if they did, we would learn that Ibrahim spends his days growing and harvesting cocoa beans, from which chocolate is made. We would also learn that he is just one of more than two million children who perform this difficult labour instead of attending school.

To change the harmful practices like this, some farms use an approach called Fairtrade.     2     It aims to create a different relationship between buyers (chocolate companies) and sellers (cocoa farmers) by encouraging farmers to join together to form a shared business called a cooperative. Because farmers work together instead of competing with each other, they can demand a higher price from the buyers.     3    

Consumers like you can play a role as well. You can buy Fairtrade chocolate if possible, pressure candy companies to change their labour practices, or ask local stores to sell Fairtrade products.     4     It is a programme recognizing schools that provide Fairtrade products in cafeterias or include related lessons in curriculum (课程).

Chocolate has a hidden story that affects children like Ibrahim—children who want a happy future just like you do.     5     By enjoying Fairtrade products or simply spreading the word, you can make chocolate as sweet for all children as it is for you.

2 . The recent reports of a 4-year-old girl on a Shanghai beach have gone viral on social media platforms, provoking debate about whether China should criminalize negligence in child supervision.

The father of the little girl claimed that he left her alone on the beach for about 12 minutes to fetch his phone. However, she was nowhere to be found when he was back. Surveillance (监控) videos show that she waited for about 10 minutes before walking toward the water’s edge alone, and then disappeared into the water. Two weeks later, her body was discovered about 100 kilometers away in neighboring Zhejiang Province.

The core issue in this case is the father’s leaving his young daughter unattended on the beach, causing her tragic death. Should such behavior, when it causes harm to a child, be seen as a criminal act? In an online survey, more than 90 percent of respondents insisted that the father be held legally responsible and face criminal punishments.

Nevertheless, according to Liu Chunquan, a lawyer, it may not satisfy the criteria for criminal negligence, since the primary focus of Chinese criminal law is on extreme cases of parental neglect, such as physical abuse and mental torture. Rarely do legal authorities charge parents; instead, they are just likely to face penalties consisting of warnings and fines.

In 2022, a 2-year-old baby drowned in a cesspool while in the company of his father. The court ruled shared responsibility between the father and the cesspool’s owner, with a 7:3 proportion. The owner was ordered to pay 20,000 yuan to the child’s family. Unluckily, similar cases do exist nationwide. Roughly, 100,000 children lose their lives in accidents annually in China, which is largely due to negligence, such as parents leaving their children unattended, either in locked cars or at home. Besides, drowning is now the main cause of death for children aged 1 to 14 years old.

It is no wonder that an increasing number of netizens request that specific laws and regulations be passed to ensure the safety of children and their well-being. Hopefully, criminalizing child supervision negligence in China can serve as a warning and precaution.

However, downsides of introducing such legislation may also emerge. For instance, it’s difficult to distinguish between a regrettable accident and criminal negligence, so that over-criminalization can be triggered, in which well-meaning parents making honest mistakes are charged with a crime.

Therefore, a more balanced approach to addressing the issue of infant safety should involve a combination of new legislation, education and support services. The ultimate objective is to prevent similar catastrophes in the future. We must recognize that children are not only their parents’ offspring, but also the nation’s future.

7 . More than half a trillion dollars. That's the estimated value of all the stuff that U. S. shoppers bought last year only to return it—more than the economy of Israel or Austria. We tried new brands with unfamiliar sizes after seeing them on TikTok. We overbought for the holidays, and we shopped overly online, where returns are between two and five times more likely than that from stores.

Where does it all go? Take the blanket I bought on holiday sale for example. I opened the package, only to discover it was just too small for my new sofa. So I returned it. Sorry, blanket! What will happen to it?

“Your blanket is very likely to be in a landfill,” says Hitendra Chaturvedi, a supply chain management professor at Arizona State University. “That is what consumers don't realize—the life of a return is a very, very sad path.” Value is the big threshold (门槛): Is the product worth the cost of shipping back and paying someone to inspect, clean, repair or test? Experts estimate that retailers (零售商) throw away about 25％ of their returns. Every year, U. S. returns create almost 6 billion pounds of landfill waste.

Many others get resold in discount and outlet stores. Some go to sellers on websites. Some get donated to charity or recycled. “These options have increased over the past decade, allowing more and more returns to find a new home”, says Marcus Shen, chief operating officer of B-Stock, a platform where retailers can resell their returns, often to smaller stores.

As companies compete on flexible return policies, technology is also slowly playing a part: helping shoppers buy the right-size sweater or picture a new blanket inside their room. Most importantly, She says, shoppers themselves are getting more and more comfortable with buying stuff that's not exactly brand-new.

“The idea of that is no longer scary for us, right?” he says. On his holiday-returns agenda is an electric, self-heating coffee mug that he has never opened, and he feels confident it will find a happy new buyer.

8 . The destruction of our natural resources and contamination of our food supply continue to occur, largely because of the extreme difficulty in attaching legal responsibility to those who continue to treat our environment with careless abandon(放任). Attempts to prevent pollution by legislation, economic encouragement and friendly persuasion have been met by lawsuits, personal and industrial denial and long delays--not only in accepting responsibility, but more importantly, in doing something about it.

It seems that only when government decides it can afford tax encouragement or production sacrifices is there any initiative for change. Where is industry’s and our recognition that protecting mankind’s great treasure is the single most important responsibility? If ever there will be time for environmental health professionals to come to the frontlines and provide leadership to solve environmental problems, that time is now.

We are being asked, and, in fact, the public is demanding that we take positive action. It is our responsibility as professionals in environmental health to make the difference. Yes, the ecologists, the environmental activists and the conservationists serve to communicate, stimulate thinking and promote behavioral change. However, it is those of us who are paid to make the decisions to develop, improve and enforce environmental standards, I submit, who must lead the charge.

We must recognize that environmental health issues do not stop at city limits, county lines, state or even federal boundaries. We can no longer afford to be tunnel-visioned in our approach. We must visualize issues from every perspective to make the objective decisions. We must express our views clearly to prevent media distortion and public confusion.

I believe we have a three-part mission for the present. First, we must continue to press for improvements in the quality of life that people can make for themselves. Second, we must investigate and understand the link between environment and health. Third, we must be able to communicate technical information in a form that citizens can understand. If we can accomplish these three goals in this decade, maybe we can finally stop environmental degradation, and not merely hold it back. We will then be able to spend pollution dollars truly on prevention rather than on bandages.