When Alice became a primary school teacher in Detroit, Michigan, she wanted her students to fall in love with reading. But early on, she realized that some kids had few chances to get books.

She said that she had figured out which books each child in the class liked to read at the end of the first day of school. To Alice, the solution was simple: Give kids books. In 2018, she gave away about one thousand second-hand children’s books over three days. Most people were satisfied with the charity event.

But she wanted to do more. So she set a new goal for herself: Give away one million books. She got to work at once, first by persuading friends to donate books or money to buy books. Before long, as the news of Alice’s project spread, strangers started to send her piles of books. As quickly as receiving the books, Alice gave them to local schools free of charge, and supplied many books to little free libraries around the city. She also hosted a book club for the local prisoners.

In the four years, Alice has been doing all this. She has given away more than seventy thousand books, but her goal is far more than that. She is not slowing down. She decides to work harder to achieve her goal. It is too important for kids with few choices. “Reading can take you anywhere,” she says. “You can travel in time and space. If you can read, you can learn almost anything.”

One million species face extinction, more than ever before in human history, according to a UN report released in May. And humans should be responsible.

The Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) based the assessment (评估) on some 15,000 sources considering the causes and results of environmental changes over the past 50 years.

The findings are clear and alarming. The researchers have found that about 25 percent of the world’s plants and animals are at risk of extinction. These include sea and land animals. Even the domesticated (驯养的) animals are at risk: Over 9 percent of the domesticated animal species used for food and agriculture might have been lost.

There are some big problems. This rapid decrease of the natural world endangers global food safety and quality of life. For example, about 4 billion people rely on natural medicines, produced by the disappearing species, for their health care. And losses of species that pollinate (授粉) plants threaten up to $ 577 billion in crops each year.

The researchers identified five drivers responsible for the unpleasant news. They think at the top of the list is the change of land and sea use. The change in ecosystems towards agriculture, aquaculture and other human developments has led to changes in the natural living space of species. It is followed by the direct overuse of creatures (harvesting crops, cutting down the trees, hunting and fishing) and climate change, including rising sea levels and increasing extreme-weather events, wildfires, floods and droughts. The final causes of species extinction are pollution, especially plastics, and the spread of non-native species that can displace or kill native plants and animals.

The researchers say it is time for humans to make a change. They think maybe a new global way to save food and refuse waste in our everyday life could turn the tables. Whether that is possible is an open question.