There have been some suggestions lately calling for the end of traffic in some cities by the year 2034. In order to reduce all this traffic, governments are planning to take away one of its biggest contributors(促成物)-cars. But is this a good idea? Our first reaction may be NO-NO-NO. They're taking away our cars and how can we travel in the city daily? But when you consider the problem a little longer, you may find the plans quite sound and realistic. Here's why:

The one thing that annoys most big cities is the non-stop heavy traffic. You have to see how terrible it is to drive into a very busy city centre-London, Miami, Tokyo? I'd say it's very bad. City layouts(规划) simply aren't built to manage that many moving parts. If we allow only buses, taxis and bikes to use the road, traffic problems in large cities will be immediately solved.

If you ever go to a large city centre, you often realize the difficulty some people have with sidewalk-to-sidewalk travel. If you live in New York City, there are so many people crossing in such a small area, that it's often difficult to know what exactly is even going on. But if cities begin to do away with cars, we'd see an increase in out-of-town travelers more willing to walk about city centres in safety.

The one thing that troubles any driver is being stuck in a traffic jam in the centre of town. You move forward at a very low speed, feeling annoyed, mad, and helpless. But why go through this hassle? If we do away with cars throughout major cities, it will give drivers the chance to actually enjoy their journeys on more open roads. It's a strange thought, yes, but many drivers will tell you driving in city centres is like driving in hell(地狱).

Although living on the shores, the children in the coastal villages in Kenya rarely eat seafood. In 2020, Lora lannotti, a public-health researcher at Washington University asked people why the children weren’t eating seafood but corn flour, even though all the parents fish for a living. The parents said it made more financial sense for them to sell their catch than to eat it.

So, lannotti and her team are running a controlled experiment. They have given fishers improved nets with small openings that allow young fish to escape, thus improving the health of the overfished ocean over time, and eventually increasing incomes. Then, community health workers are using home visits and messaging to encourage parents to feed their children more fish. Later the scientists will track whether children from these families eat better and are growing taller.

Lannotti is trying to deal with questions that are a major focus of the whole world looking for diets that are good for both people and the planet. More than 2 billion people are overweight or obese (肥胖), mostly in the Western world while 811 million people are not getting enough calories or nutrition, mostly in low-income nations. As the world’s population continues to rise and more people start to eat like Westerners do, the production of meat, dairy and eggs will rise by about 44% by 2050.

That causes an environmental problem alongside the health concerns. Our current industrialized food system already sends out about 1/4 of the world’s greenhouse-gas emissions. It also accounts for 70% of freshwater use and 40% of land coverage, and relies on fertilizers (化肥) that are responsible for much of the pollution in rivers.

“We need to make progress toward eating diets that have greatly lower ecological footprints, or it’ll be a matter of a few decades before we start to see global falls of biodiversity (生物多样性), land use and all of it.” says Sam Myers, director of the Planetary Health Alliance.

A new trend has popped up in China with many young people abandoning brand (品牌) names to create makeshift handbags out of things like reusable grocery bags and other materials. One example is the Shenzhen bag, which includes canvas (帆布) bags, paper bags, milk tea packages that people carry around in Guangdong Province.

Makeshift handbags like the “Shenzhen bag” are also common among young people in big cities like Beijing, Shanghai, and Hangzhou. People find the bags practical, wearable and fashionable, and they can be carried on the shoulder or the back. This emerging trend reveals a new attitude to consumption as young people in China begin to pursue a simple and shared life, with consumers no longer blindly pursuing brand names as a status (身份) symbol, but advocating a simple and low-carbon lifestyle. In addition to the handbags, and regardless of their monthly incomes, many young people are living more casually, in line with a “good enough mentality”. Loose T-shirts, Crocs, and canvas bags are basically standard mode.

“Consumers today are becoming more mature and rational. They are pursuing smarter consumption through careful consideration and calculation to find the cheapest; most practical, cost-effective way of shopping,” says. Wang Ning, a sociology professor at Nanjing’s Southeast University.

Economists believe that China’s Generation Z no longer blindly pursues brands and luxury goods or buys things for brand name and status. Instead, they pay more attention to their actual needs, quality, and experience of buying, and prefer sharing and secondhand purchases. They also advocate environmental protection and sustainable consumption.

Price-aware Chinese consumers have also begun to place a greater emphasis on their inner selves. Driven by rational consumption, many young people no longer save to buy a brand-name bag, but for self-improvement.

The new handbag trend has also created business opportunities. Reusing packaging used for food brands as handbags results in mobile advertising for the associated brands, and the phenomenon of the “Shenzhen Bag” has also benefited paper bag companies.