The year 2114 will be an eventful one for art. In May of that year in Berlin, the philosopher-artist Jonathon Keats’ “century cameras” – cameras with a 100-year-long exposure (曝光）time – will be brought back from hiding places around the city to have their results developed and exhibited. Six months after that, the Future Library in Oslo, Norway, will open its doors for the first time, presenting 100 books printed on the wood of trees planted in the distant past of 2014.

As Katie Paterson, the creator of the Future Library, puts it: “Future Library is an artwork for future generations.” These projects, more than a century in the making, are part of a new wave of “slow art” intended to push viewers and participants to think beyond their own lifetimes. They aim to challenge today’s short-term thinking and the brief attention spans of modern consumers, forcing people into considering works more deliberately. In their way, too, they are fighting against modern culture – not just regarding money, but also the way in which artistic worth is measured by attention.

In a similar fashion, every April on Slow Art Day, visitors are encouraged to stare at five works of art for 10 minutes at a time – a tough task for the average museum visitor, who typically spends less than 30 seconds on each piece of art.

Like the Future Library, the century cameras are very much a project for cities, since it’s in cities that time runs fastest and the pace of life is fastest. “Since I started living in a city, I’ve somehow been quite disconnected,” Anne Beate Hovind, the Future Library project manager, who described how working on the library drew her back to the pace of life she knew when she was growing up on a farm in her youth, told The Atlantic magazine.

I am so grateful for the 21-Day Eco challenge hosted by Kindspring. Taking care of our sweet Mother Earth has always been __(1)____ to me in my life and I have taken __(2)____  in my everyday life to recycle, reuse, think about ways to protect our Mother Earth, etc. However, this __(3)____  awoke me even more.

Our Scholars Together community has taken on more than we have before __(4)____  recycling ,using our own china cups and metal water bottles when we go out ,not buying things in __(5)____  containers and having green lunches more consistently, not__(6)____  ,but the biggest change we made was setting a goal of Zero Waste.

We set up more boxes and bins for paper that we could __(7)____  again, recycled every sheet of use-on-both-side paper, plastics, cans ,etc. We also __(8)____  all of our food we cooked or bought ,instead of throwing some away. We really __(9)____  it a challenge. Each day we all saw how little __(10)____ could be in our dustbins. I realized that I had been throwing paper away that could be used on the other __(11)____ or could be recycled, and now I am looking everywhere for __(12)____  that can be used more __(13)____  until recycling time.

The videos offered by Kindspring have been so__(14)____  and useful to us all that I don’t want the Eco challenge to __(15)____ . We will continue to do our part and __(16)____  the news to our family and friends. Next week we are trying some __(17)____  in our local sandwich and sub shops where the kids like to go to see that we can bring our own __(18)____  in, rather than having them put in bags. It is cool to see how the __(19)____  spreads. Thank you Kindspring for __(20)____  the community with daily support and great researched videos and information.

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Going green seems to be fad(时尚)for a lot of people these days. Whether that is good or bad, we can’t really say, but for the tow of us, going green is not a fad but a lifestyle.
    On April22, 2011, we decided to go green every single day for an entire year. This meant doing 365 different green things, and it also meant challenging ourselves to go green beyond easy things. Rather than recycle and reduce our energy, we had to think of 365 different green things to do and this was no easy task.
    With the idea of going green every single day for a year, Our Green Year started. My life and I decided to educate people about how they could go green in their lives and hoped we could show people all the green things that could be done to help the environment. We wanted to push the message that every little bit helps.
    Over the course of Our Green Year, we completely changed our lifestyle. We now shop at organic(有机的)stores. We consume less meat, choosing green food. We have greatly reduced our buying we don’t need. We have given away half of what we owned through websites. Our home is kept clean by vinegar and lemon juice, with no chemical cleaners. We make our own butter, enjoying the smell of home-made fresh bread. In our home office anyone caught doing something ungreen might be punished.
    Our minds have been changed by Our Green Year. We are grateful for the chance to have been able to go green and educate others. We believe that we do have the power to change things and help our planet.

It is interesting to see that the force of only 6 or 7 people pushing in the same direction can cause up to 1,000 pounds of force-enough to break brick walls. During a deadly stampede(逃奔), people can even die standing up. People die when pressure is put to their bodies in a front to back direction, causing them not to be able to breathe.

If you are in a crowd, the first and most important thing is to make yourself familiar with your surroundings and find different exits. No matter where you are, make sure you always know how to get out. Make yourself aware of the type of the ground you are standing on, and know that in a crowd of moving people wet ground can cause you to fall.

When in danger, a few seconds can make a difference, giving you the possibility of making use of your escaping route. Always stay closer to the escape route. If you find yourself in the middle of a moving crowd, do not fight against the pressure, do not stand still or sit down, because you can easily get trampled（踩踏）. Instead, move in the same direction of the crowd; make use of any space that may open up to move sideways to the crowd movement where the flow is weaker.Keep your hands up by your chest, like a boxer-it gives you movement and protects your chest. If you fall, get up quickly. If you can’t get up because you are injured, get someone to pull you up. If you have kids, lift them up.

If you fall and cannot get up, keep moving in the same direction of the crowd, or if that is not possible, then cover your head with your arms; do not lie on your stomach or back.

When a leafy plant is under attack, it doesn’t sit quietly. Back in 1983, two scientists, Jack Schultz and Ian Baldwin, reported that young maple trees getting bitten by insects send out a particular smell that neighboring plants can get. These chemicals come from the injured parts of the plant and seem to be an alarm. What the plants pump through the air is a mixture of chemicals known as volatile organic compounds, VOCs for short.

   Scientists have found that all kinds of plants give out VOCs when being attacked .It’s a plant’s way of crying out. But is anyone listening? Apparently. Because we can watch the neighbours react.

   Some plants pump out smelly chemicals to keep insects away. But others do double duty. They pump out perfumes designed to attract different insects who are natural enemies to the attackers. Once they arrive, the tables are turned. The attacker who was lunching now becomes lunch.

   In study after study, it appears that these chemical conversations help the neighbors .The damage is usually more serious on the first plant, but the neighbors, relatively speaking, stay safer because they heard the alarm and knew what to do.

Does this mean that plants talk to each other? Scientists don’t know. Maybe the first plant just made a cry of pain or was sending a message to its own branches, and so, in effect, was talking to itself. Perhaps the neighbors just happened to “overhear” the cry. So information was exchanged, but it wasn’t a true, intentional back and forth.

 Charles Darwin, over 150 years ago, imagined a world far busier, noisier and more intimate  (亲密的)   than  the  world  we  can  see and hear. Our senses are weak. There’s a whole lot going on.

When people argue about whether coffee is good for health, they're usually thinking of the health of the coffee drinker. Is it good for your heart? Does it increase blood pressure? Does it help you concentrate? However, coffee affects the health of the human population in other ways, too.

       Traditionally, coffee bushes were planted under the canopy（树荫）of taller trees. However, more and more farmers in Latin America are deforesting the land to grow full sun coffees. At first, this increases production because more coffee bushes can be planted if there aren't any trees. With increased production come increased profits.

       Unfortunately, deforesting for coffee production immediately decreases the local wildlife habitat, because native birds nest and hide from predators（捕食者）in the tall trees and migrating birds rest there.

       Furthermore, in the long term, the full-sun method also damages the ecosystem because more chemical fertilizers and pesticides（杀虫剂）are needed to grow the coffee. The fertilizers and pesticides kill insects that eat coffee plant, and then the birds eat the poisoned insects and also die. The chemicals kill or sicken other animals as well, and can even enter the water that people will eventually drink.

       Fortunately, farmers in Central and South America are beginning to grow more coffee bushes in the shade. We can support these farmers by buying coffee with such labels as "shade-grown" and "bird-friendly". Sure, these varieties might cost a little more. But we're paying for the health of the birds, the land, ourselves, and the planet. I think it's worth it.

In 2013 alone at least 20,000 African elephants were killed for their teeth. In South Africa over the last two years more than 2,200 rhinos were killed for their horns. These numbers are alarming, because current rates of illegal hunting are faster than birth rates, which could lead to extinction for these ecologically important creatures in their environment. Indeed, some elephant and rhino populations are on track to be locally extinct within the next decade.

If you are reading this, you may already be aware of these facts. But you might not know that wildlife trafficking(走私) not only threatens the existence of elephants and rhinos but is also leading to extinction of other species, such as tigers, tortoises, sea turtles —and the world’s most trafficked mammal—pangolins.

Pangolins are the only mammals that are entirely covered in tough scales(鳞), which makes them look very strong. But actually they are endangered mammals. There are eight different species of pangolins, four in Asia and four in Africa, and all are threatened with extinction. Although pangolins are protected throughout most of the countries where they live, high demand in East Asia, where the delicious pangolin meat is considered a delicacy and where their scales are used in traditional medicines, is driving an illegal trade in both live animals and pangolin parts. The number of pangolin trafficking is shocking. Experts believe that over the last 10 years more than 1 million pangolins were taken from the wild. It is estimated that between 40,000 and 81,250 pangolins were killed for the illegal trade in 2013 alone.

In February, the United States released a plan to deal with wildlife trafficking, which lays out the steps we will take to fight the illegal trade in wildlife, including pangolins. We are strengthening the carrying out of the plan; building international cooperation and contribution to protect wildlife; raising awareness to drive down the demand that is fuelling the illegal trade.

Get involved and remember World Wildlife Day (March 3) by spreading the plan. Use social media and tell everyone that now is the time to get serious about wildlife crime and end the demand that threatens species, big and small, from the huge elephant to the shy pangolin.

The world itself is becoming much smaller by using modern traffic and modern communication means. Life today is much easier than it was hundreds of years ago, but it has brought new problems. One of the biggest problems is pollution. To pollute means to make things dirty. Pollution comes in many ways. We see it, smell it, drink it and even hear it.

Man has been polluting the earth. The more people, the more pollution. Many years ago, the problem was not so serious because there were not so many people. When the land was used up or the river was dirty in one place, man moved to another place. But this is no longer true.

Man is now slowly polluting the whole world.

Air pollution is still the most serious. It’s bad for all living things in the world, but it is not the only one kind of pollution. Water pollution kills our fish and pollutes our drinking water. Noise pollution makes us angry more easily.

Many countries are making rules to fight pollution. They stop people from burning coal in houses and factories in the city, and from putting dirty smoke into the air. Pollution by SO₂ is now the most dangerous kind of air pollution. It is caused by heavy traffic. We are sure that if there are fewer people driving, there will be less air pollution.

The earth is our home. We must take care of it. That means keeping the land, water and air clean. And we must take care of the rise in pollution at the same time.

Bundle up ! Jack Forest has paid another visit to the Midwest. For the second time this week, a major winter storm has left people from Oklahoma to the Great Lakes struggling to stay safe and warm. Heavy, wet snow has shut down major highways, delayed flights and left hundreds of thousands of Midwesterners without power.

The storm began in Texas on Sunday and rapidly traveled north. A gust of 75 mile per hour winds pushed the storm up towards Oklahoma, bringing fifteen inches of snow to parts of Oklahoma. It then moved east and hovered (盘旋) over Chicago, Illinois, dropping four inches of wet snow on top of the city and its suburbs. Airlines canceled nearly 500 flights at Chicago’s O’ Hare and Midway airports. Taking into account the safety of their students in the storm, many schools in the affected states either delayed opening or did not open at all.

In Kansas City, Missouri, up to ten inches of snow had fallen before midday on Tuesday. The city’s mayor, Sly James, declared a state of emergency. Most government and office buildings were shut down. Some hospitals were forced to close urgent-care clinics. The Missouri Department of Transportation has told people to stay off all roads and major highways.

While heavy snowfall is not usual for this part of the country at this time of year, it is the amount of moisture (湿气) in the snow that makes conditions extra treacherous. When snow is especially damp, it weighs down trees and brings down power lines. Roofs can cave in under the pressure and roads can become very icy. The strained power lines have cut off electricity to more than 100,000 homes and business in the Midwest.

As snow falls and the temperature continues to drop, people are preparing the best they can to stay dry and safe. The wintry mix of sleet (雨夹雪) , rain and snow is making travel difficult for even snowplows and repair vehicles. “It’s snowing, blowing, drifting, everything,” said Robert Branscecum, a trucker from Illinois. “ I am not leaving anytime soon.”

Sports can help you keep fit and get in touch with nature. However, whether you are on the mountains, in the waves, or on the grassland, you should be aware that your sport of choice might have great influence on the environment.

   Some sports are resource-hungry. Golf, as you may know, eats up not only large areas of countryside, but also tons of water. Besides, all sorts of chemicals and huge amounts of energy are used to keep its courses in good condition. This causes major environmental effects. For example, in the dry regions of Portugal and Spain, golf is often held responsible for serious water shortage in some local areas.

   There are many environment-friendly sports. Power walking is one of them that you could take up today. You donˈt need any special equipment except a good pair of shoes; and you donˈt have to worry about resources and your purse. Simple and free, power walking can also keep you fit. If you walk regularly, it will be good for your heart and bones. Experts say that 20 minutes of power walking daily can make you feel less anxious, sleep well and have better weight control.

Whatever sport you take up, you can make it greener by using environment-friendly equipment and buying products made from recycled materials. But the final goal should be "green gyms". They are better replacements for traditional health clubs and modern sports centers. Members of green gyms play sports outdoors, in the countryside or other open spaces. There is no special requirement for you to start your membership. And best of all, itˈs free.