Bird populations in the UK continue to crash, new data shows, as campaigners predict the government will fail to meet its own nature targets unless radical (彻底的) changes are made. In 2021, on average the abundance of 130 breeding species was 12% below its 1970 value. Between 2015 and 2020, 24% of species increased, 28% showed little change and 48% declined. Wildlife experts agree that the decline in bird populations is largely driven by habitat loss.

The government passed the Environment Act into law in 2021, which requires a halt in species decline by 2030. Campaigners have said that radical changes to government policy are needed if it is to meet its targets. The problems were highlighted by the RSPB’s Big Garden Birdwatch this year, in which house sparrows remained the most frequently observed species in gardens for the 20th year in a row.

“The numbers speak for themselves when it comes to the astonishing declines of some of our once common birds,” said Beccy Speight, the RSPB’s chief executive. “We are in a nature and climate emergency and we’ve lost 38 million birds from our skies in the past 50 years. “This year, more than 500,000 people took part in the Big Garden Birdwatch, and more than 9 million birds were spotted. The results also identified problems faced by other common bird species, including chaffinches and greenfinches.

Richard Benwell, the chief executive of the environmental coalition Wildlife and Countryside Link, said: “Meeting the legal target to stop wildlife losses by the end of the next parliament (议会) can’t be achieved with a legal tweak (调整) here, some spare change there. Serious, sustained investment, proper punishment for pollution, and action in every department of government must be the features of any nature-positive manifesto (宣言).”

When we are children, the summer holidays seem to last forever, and the wait between Spring Festivals feels like an eternity. But later, we may find that the time just seems to fly by, with weeks, months and entire seasons disappearing from a blurred calendar at a fast speed. Why does time seem to pass faster as we get older?

According to the Daily Mail, our brains degrade as we get older. That diminish the amount of information we can deal with in a single day. “The human mind senses time changing when the perceived images change,” Adrian Bejan from Duke University, US, told the Daily Mail. “The present is different from the past because the mental viewing has changed, not because somebody’s clock rings.”

Infants, for example, move their eyes much more often than adults because they’re processing images at a faster rate. They deal with a large amount of information and do many things in a single day. This makes them feel like a single day lasts for a long time. However, as people get older, fewer images are processed in the same amount of time. Therefore, older people receive less information during a day than younger people. This causes things to seem as though they’re happening more quickly.

Apart from the degradation of our brains, some psychological reasons also make us experience time differently. People may measure time by the number of memorable events that can be recalled within a certain period. When we think about our youth, we may remember a life packed with first-time activities, for example, our first time traveling without our parents, or our first date. We experienced these events so vividly that time then seems to us to have passed very slowly. According to David Eagleman of the Baylor College of Medicine in the US, recalling these memories makes us feel like they took forever. Many adults find life is routine and sometimes dull. For this reason, when they look back, they might feel like there are not many exciting things to remember. Therefore, time seems to be moving faster to them.

Health insurance(保险) can be very expensive. Some working people do not make enough money to pay for it. In the US there is a program called Healthy Families. This program offers people health insurance at a low cost.

Families are charged about $7.00 a month for every child, and $10.00 for every adult. It costs much less than any other kind of health insurance. Having health insurance is very important. With this insurance, people can see a doctor when they are sick or hurt.

The program is not expensive at all, but many people are still not enrolling in it. People say that it still costs too much money. They need all of their money to pay for things like food and rent（租金）.

It is important for people to see a doctor when they need to. The Healthy Families Program makes it possible for more people to do this. Many ideas are being considered. Hopefully some of them will allow even more families to get health insurance.

The Healthy Families Program is made to help those who don’t have welfare (社会保障金) and cannot earn enough to pay for private health insurance. It is an important program, but officials say that too many people are signing up for it and then dropping out（退出） because of the Healthy Families Program’s cost.