Human activities have given rise to severe damage to the ecosystem.

An early solution to environmental problems means a quick recovery of ecological balance.

Strict punishment on the traffic regulation breakers ensures a desirable transportation order.

Less TV viewing time helps reduce obesity.

A study indicates that vegetarians have a 70% chance of lacking various indispensable nutrients.

Too much work pressure should be responsible for depression, anxiety and even suicide.

1. Are you a student or do you work?

2. What is/was your major?

3. Why did you choose this major?

4. Is your major very popular in your country?

5. What part is most interesting about your major?

6. Teachers and students, who do you think are important in the course?

7. What do you plan to do after graduation?

Ours is a throw-away society strongly influenced by consumerism as we value convenience over environmental protection. Even though we are environmentally conscious to some extent, we do not appear to be serious enough in taking measures to reduce consumption, let alone repairing and re-using old things instead of buying new ones. Much is known about what is happening whereas little is being done to effectively prevent the serious situation from becoming worse.

The causes of the development of the "throw-away society" are clear, so are its effects on the environment. We throw away out of convenience because societal conventions have us constantly move on to the next new fad or technology. For example, we are dumping large quantities of thrash, such as plastic bags and diapers that can pollute the environment. Likewise, we are discarding televisions, cell phones, computers and other plastics in exchange of new ones that unsurprisingly will become our future garbage. It is as if a product were designed or intended on purpose to fail or become less desirable over time, only to be thrown away after a certain amount of use. So much so, we are filling the environment with more rubbish than we can possibly dispose of, and as a result pollution is the price we are paying for the popular culture of consumerism in the age of mass production.

Nevertheless, there are no ready solutions to consumerism-related problems due mainly to the fact that the "throw-away" habits die hard, especially when often it could be more costly to repair old products than to buy new ones. Consequently, although many people have a critical view of over-consumption and excessive production of short-lived items, few people are actually able to resist the systematic attempts of business to make us wasteful as well as debt-ridden and permanently discontented individuals. To relieve the environmental impacts, we pretend to believe that one ideal solution should rest on educating consumers to voluntarily do "positive" buying--recycled and re-used. Without a doubt, this might be nothing but wishful thinking since such a measure is easier said than done in a well-to-do society, imagining that only extreme poverty could perhaps stop the "throw-away" trend. Fortunately, the good news is that there exist some kinds of technological know-how that may kindle the hope of finding a "green" solution, commonly called Waste-To-Energy (WTE) plants. Of course, it remains to be seen how efficiently those WTE plants can reduce waste volume and also contribute to resource recovery, thereby protecting the environment.

What with education and what with technology, it is expected that more could be done to combat the key problems in the "throw-away society". To be sure, environmental awareness alone is not enough to spare our planet from being further damaged if we do not change that consumer lifestyle which is not doing any favor to the environment. In a society gradually being used to obsessive consumerism, the cruel reality is that too many people now prefer convenience to environmental protection, while too few measures are likely to become effective anytime soon.

These days, owing to the advances in biomedical technology, there is a growing tendency in some countries for fresh couples to have children late in their life. From my perspective, this notable trend may associate with women themselves as well as with the increasingly soaring cost of living.

Obviously, women tend to receive longer education in their life span, which means they may get late marriage and consequently have postponed child-bearing. Furthermore, with longer and better education, women may reconsider their role in marriage. To be specific, they may attach more attention to their career trying to be professional in their field, compared with their traditional counterparts mainly performing the role of mother in a family. Apart from the reason coming from women themselves, the high cost of living in some countries may also contribute to this phenomenon. Not only can feeding a family be burdensome for young couples, but offering high quality education for their offspring could be an even more daunting task, which to a large extent hinder their progress to be parents.

Admittedly, having late child-bearing may enable women to fulfill their career ambitions and allow young couples to establish a solid financial base. However, despite the contribution of medical science, late child-bearing may make women be confronted with the pregnancy problems such as low fertility and the high risk of genetic disorder, which could be detrimental to their physical and mental health. Furthermore, postponed child-bearing could also trigger the decline of overall population, which in turn can exacerbate the problem of ageing population, ending up with more pressure on feeding the elderly for our future generations.

To conclude, although having postponed child-bearing could pave the way for women's career development, and enable young couples to better prepare for parents in terms of financial support, the risk of such practice for individuals and society should not be ignored and the analysis seems to indicate its drawbacks outweigh its merits. Thus, government and communities are supposed to do more to help our young couples to get balanced in this issue.

Every city has old buildings. Every year the governments around the world spend large sums of money restoring them. Some people consider this a huge waste of money and they believe the governments’ budget should go to building new houses and roads, while others insist that the restoration of old buildings in cities is well worth the money.

There are a host of reasons why some urban old buildings should not be restored. To start with, the old buildings are no longer suitable for people to live in, therefore they should be destroyed and give way to new buildings so that people, especially young people in the cities have more living spaces. Secondly, the old buildings can cause inconveniences for the city dwellers. Since there is not a direct route through the old buildings, people sometimes have to go to and off work by making a long detour around them, and in this way much of their time is wasted. Finally, the old buildings may give rise to safety problems. More than 100 people, for example, are killed or injured each year in my city, just because of the collapse of some ancient buildings.

Yet old buildings - at least some of them - are significant historically and culturally, and hence should be restored for that reason. They carry some important messages about the city or even the whole nation. The Summer Palace, for instance, is a perfect reminder of how the imperial family in the Qing Dynasty in feudal China were living and so has great cultural significance. Such old buildings, if well preserved, can become tourist spots and attract thousands of visitors from around the globe.

We all need a memory of our past. Many old buildings do have historical and cultural value which tells us who we were. We need to take good care of these buildings and keep them as long as possible, however much money it may involve, so that they can tell the stories of the city or the nation to our future generations. Of course, the money squandered on those old buildings with little value should be used to solve more practical problems such as housing and traffic.