Life without access to energy is simply miserable. Accessing energy is the single most important factor in improving the lives of individuals and increasing the economic opportunities available in their communities. Access to lighting transforms education from outdoors during the day, to indoors and anytime! A simple refrigerator can transform a fruit stand to a grocery store. Reliable electricity allows businesses to stay open and ultimately provides the cornerstone that allows industries to form.

There is a dominant school of thought that energy access can be achieved around the world with only carbon-free sources. This paradigm envisions effectively “leapfrogging” traditional development patterns, skipping industrialization, and transforming economies with green energy and a service economy. While compelling in theory, this vision lacks several critical factors; the need to manufacture the goods that will build the economy, the scalability of energy sources, and the affordability of that energy.

This transformation is currently underway and its progress is inevitable. The urgency is created by individuals current, difficult conditions and the availability of abundant, affordable energy, particularly coal. All new energy demand will come from the developing world. Without a thoughtful conversation about the projected doubling of world energy demand, energy consumption will continue as it is currently underway, in two parallel paths. One path prioritizes carbon-free sources, and sets goals and policies that incentivize those. The other path responds to the supply and demand inherent in a world economy and is resulting in the massive development of coal-fired electricity generation.

The reality of energy development can be summarized in the example of India’s projected energy development. By 2022, India is planning 100 GW of new solar and a relatively tiny 50 MW of new coal. However, a simple calculation of the likely emissions of these two new sources of energy conducted by a colleague at Stanford indicates that if all this new electricity generation came from natural gas, the result would be 20 percent fewer emissions. This is a conversation worth having.

Although not a carbon-free source, natural gas has a transformative role to play in the energizing of developing nations. Abundantly available around the world, and more transportable than ever, a world natural gas market is creating a more stable, affordable supply. As an electricity generation fuel, it is both a base load alternative to coal and a backup for renewable generation. In this capacity, natural gas provides carbon and non-carbon air emissions benefits. When used as a transportation fuel, natural gas provides significant air quality benefit to traditional fuels and can be equally affordable. When deployed as a cooking fuel, liquefied petroleum gas(LPG), provides dramatic health benefits and could reduce the unnecessary 4 million annual deaths attributed to cooking over inefficient, biomass fuels. As an economic cornerstone, natural gas can empower industrial development as a chemical feed-stock fertilizer component, direct energy source, and electricity provider.

If your children’s Christmas wish lists are hard to distinguish, pity their teachers who have been struggling with confusing schoolwork ever since schools reopened.

“ Younger kids failed to learn letter patterns and formations while older kids lose speed and clearness without regular practice during the shutdown of schools, ” says Sheilagh Blyth, an occupational therapist (治疗专家) who studies handwriting.

Of course, it’s a symptom of a wider problem. As Amanda Spielman, the head of Ofsted ( Office for Standards in Education ), indicated yesterday, handwriting puts an added burden on parents — it’s long been an aspect of children’s school books that they analyse at home.

“ This is a big problem for my almost 10-year-old ”, says one mother. “ When they sent two year’s worth of his books back together, the degradation (退化) was severe and it hasn’t recovered ” .

Another mother worries that her younger son has fallen behind compared with his older brother. “ His handwriting is definitely not where I think it should be, ” she says.

Blyth warns handwriting needs to be practiced regularly and that students need to practise the letter formation and joined-up writing to write well in exams. “ Learning handwriting doesn’t just happen as there are increasingly fewer day-to-day opportunities to write with a pen or pencil, ” says Gill Budgell, an educational consultant who wrote Penpals for Handwriting meant for three to 11-year-olds.

The Write Dance programme is an approach to teaching handwriting that is based on physical movement. Diana Strauss, who runs the programme in the UK with Nicole Barrons, says, “ Whole body movement relaxes the shoulders and the arms and has a positive effect on physical tasks, which handwriting is. ”

Diana is seeing more interest from schools in accessing the Write Dance Programme, which was developed in the 1960s by Ragnhild Oussoren, a Dutch graphologist (笔迹学家). “ We’ve been busy doing live training sessions, particularly with schools in Wales, ” she adds.

Perhaps there is hope for Father Christmas and those gift wish list after all.

In my class in high school, there was a girl who was considered the most unpopular. No one actually knows how this exclusion came from, but we all followed it for no reason at all. One day after lunch, we girls sat on the track field, talking about things that happened in our lives. Someone brought her up, and soon the topic transformed to laughing at the funny hairstyle of her, the stupid way she walked and....I felt extremely uncomfortable but kept silent, because I didn't want to be the one “supporting” the common enemy. After all, it's just a short gossip time among a trusted group of friends; why should I bring unnecessary tension?

Suddenly, one of my friends pointed her finger towards somewhere behind me. All of us turned around and saw that exact girl, hand still in the air, with a twisted (扭曲的) look on her face. She lowered her hand in slow movement, then turned around and ran off. For a second, I wanted to stand up and chase her down to tell her that no one meant what they said, and that she is an amazing person being who she is. But my legs felt so heavy, I didn't want to make a fool out of myself - why bother taking care of the class clown (小丑)? People would think that I was crazy as well!

A few weeks later, the teacher told us that a classmate dropped out of school - it was that girl. Her parents told the school that it was the peer pressure that made her want to leave. The teacher wanted to know who the bully (霸凌) was. Again, no one spoke a word. Perhaps it was exactly this cold, hard silence that drove her away. I certainly did not raise my hand. I had never even said anything bad about her; it was my friends who loved to make fun of her every day. Surely, I didn't bully her physically or with my language, but I kept silent when others did. By failing to stand up for her and offering her support, I was giving agreement, which made others think that it was okay to mistreat her. Perhaps if I had realized I was wrong earlier - instead of convincing myself that I had nothing to do with her leaving, I wouldn't have to bear the burden of heavy shame on my shoulders.