1 . E-cigarettes are battery-operated devices that allow users to breathe in nicotine (尼古丁) without lighting a cigarette. They come in many shapes and sizes like regular cigarettes, pens, USB sticks and other everyday items.

Though e-cigarettes may be less harmful than regular cigarettes, their effect on health can still be serious. Using e-cigarettes, or vaping, has been associated with a higher risk of lung injury. E-cigarette exposure may be particularly harmful to young adults — it can harm their brain development and cause a lifelong addiction to nicotine. According to Food and Drug Administration(FDA), an increasing number of students are using e-cigarettes every year and FDA is trying to work out how to regulate using e-cigarettes.

One way to cut e-cigarette consumption is to impose a tax. A study by the Centre for Health Economics &Policy Studies at San Diego State University found that a $1 increase in e-cigarette taxes is associated with a 14% — 26% decrease in vaping among high-school students. Young people tend to be strapped, so even a small tax increase could discourage their vaping. Unexpectedly, the tax increase seems also to decrease teenage alcohol consumption. According to the study, a $1 increase in e-cigarette taxes is associated with a 10%-11%reduction in teenage excessive alcohol use. Smoking and drinking tend to go together.

Teenagers who drink are twice as likely as others to light up. In turn, raising taxes on cigarettes has been found to reduce teenage drinking.

So should lawmakers surely rush to carry out an e-cigarette tax? The answer is not so simple. Catherine Maclean, one of the study's authors, warned, “Despite the potential of a tax increase on e-cigarettes to restrict young adults' using cigarettes, it may lead to some others switching to regular cigarettes or illegal vaping products.”

Many other ways are put forward. Some believe requiring a prescription (处方) for e-cigarettes could help as well. Another tighter regulation is also a possible answer — Britain and the Euro-pean Union regulate the amount of nicotine in e-cigarettes.

2 . Germany’s top court has ruled that parts of the country’s 2019 climate (气候) action law must be changed because they don’t do a good job of protecting young people. The result is a big victory for the nine young people who started the law suing (诉讼).

The court suing stresses an important part of the climate change: The change will impact greatly on young people far more than the adults. That’s because the effects of earth warming will become more serious over time. As young people become adults, they’ll be left to deal with many problems that today’s adults have ignored. The government’s failure to plan carefully was putting their future lives in danger.

In 2019, Germany passed a new law, promising that the country would be carbon neutral (碳中和) by 2050. The law made a detailed plan of action until 2030. But the law didn’t have any specific rules or plans for climate actions that would be taken between 2031 and 2050.

Last Thursday, the judges of Germany’s highest court agreed with the young people. They said that not taking climate action made the basic rights of young people to a good future in danger.

The young people had challenged the government’s law in four specific areas. The judges didn’t agree with all of the challenges. But having the court support even a part of their case is seen as a big victory. Neubauer is one of the young people who sued. She works with the climate action group Fridays For Future. Ms. Neubauer said, “Climate protection is our basic right. This is a huge win for the climate movement. It changes a lot.”

The court has given the German government until the end of 2022 to fix the law. The climate law will now need to have a much more detailed plan for the actions that will be taken after 2030 to cut Germany’s pollution, allowing it to become carbon neutral by 2050. Germany’s government has said that it will quickly begin working to make the needed changes.

3 . In China, 2020 was bid farewell with a series of fireworks and the scratching off of 200 million metric tons of plastic straws from the nation’s pollution stocks.

The ban comes into effect first with two items, plastic straws and single-use shopping bags, with other single-use plastics to follow. China is one of fewer than 10 nations to ban plastic straws completely.

The ban was announced in the Party's new Five-Year Plan in January 2021, and aims to reduce plastic pollution while moving to biodegradable alternatives, starting with plastic straws.

But there is something unique that makes a plastic straw ban in China have more effect than other countries, and it isn't the fact that it is the most populous nation. It’s that paper and polylactic acid compound straws will replace plastic ones in the people’s favorite drink — tapioca pearl tea, also known as milk or bubble tea.

Chinese consumers love milk tea. These treats, often taking the place of the West‘s morning coffee, are drunk through plastic straws larger and thicker than those we would recognize from a McDonald‘s as they must be able to adapt to the movement of the “bubbles” of tapioca pudding.

Milk tea chains like Nayuki in Shanghai have already been using paper straws for most of the year ahead of the first stage of the plastic ban scheduled to start in 2021. One Chinese news agency reports that while prices for biodegradable alternatives to straws and bags are more expensive, the ban has seen the market share for bio-plastics increase to an expected $7.3 billion in 2025, and a further doubling to $ 13.9 billion by 2030, suggesting the cost will rapidly decrease as more companies enter the market with new technologies.