Do you think you're green? You're a totally modern citizen, aren't you? You keep your bottles and take them to the bottle bank. You have a black bin and a green bin, one for general waste and one for recyclable waste. Your car uses lead—free petrol. You use the same plastic bag every time you go to the supermarket. Maybe you even cycle to work from time to time. You are playing your part; you are green and environment—friendly. Well, I've got news for you:

    YOU ARE NOT DOING ENOUGH!

    If you don't believe me, look at these facts. Trust me, they're from a BBC website.

    On average every person in the UK throws away their own body weight in rubbish every seven weeks.

    Every year, the average dustbin contains enough unused energy for 500 hot baths, 3,500 hot showers or 5,000 hours of television.

    Every UK household produces over one tonne of rubbish every year.

    If all the aluminium drink cans sold in the UK were recycled, there would be 14 million fewer full dustbins per year.

    Just one recycled aluminium can saves enough energy to run a television for three hours!

    At Christmas over 83 square kilometres of wrapping paper is thrown in the bin.

    Almost three billion nappies (used for baby) are thrown away in the UK every year. 90% of these are buried and take hundreds of years to disappear.

    Have I made you believe that you need to do more? No? OK, here are one or two more facts.

    Recycling just one plastic bottle saves enough energy to power a light bulb for six hours.

    Collecting dustbins and cleaning streets costs ￡1. 6 billion per year.

    Surely you must believe me now. You need to do more. The good news is that there is some— thing else you can do.

    Dolphins are not fish, but warm-blooded animals. They live in groups, and speak to each other in their own language. In this they are like other animals, such as bees and birds. But dolphins are very different from almost all land animals. Their brain is nearly the same size as our own, and they live a long time—at least twenty or thirty year.

    Like some other animals, dolphins use sound to help them find their way around. They also make these sounds to talk to each other and to help them find food. We now know they do not use their ears to receive these sounds, but the lower part of the mouth, called the jaw.

    Strangely, dolphins seem to like man, and for thousands of years there have been stories about the dolphin and its friendship with people.

    There is a story about sailors in the 19^th century. In a dangerous part of the sea off the coast of New Zealand, they learnt to look for a dolphin called Jack. From 1871 to 1903 Jack met every boat in the area and showed it the way. Then in 1903 a passenger on a boat called The Penguin shot and wounded (伤害) Jack. He recovered and for nine years more continued to guide all ships through the area—except for The Penguin.

    Today, some people continue to kill dolphins, but many countries of the world now protect them and in these places it is against the law to kill them.

    Now too much CO makes the Earth warmer and warmer, and brings bad effect to people. To save our Earth, a new lifestyle called low-carbon life becomes popular. Low carbon means low energy and no waste. It is necessary for everybody to learn to live a low-carbon life.

    To live a low-carbon life, we'd better save as much energy as we can. For example, turn off the lights and TV when you don't use them, use cold water to wash clothes or dishes: take a short shower and try to take a cold one when the weather gets warm: don't do the cooking with electricity.

    To live a low-carbon life, we should eat less meat. Being a vegetarian can help reduce (v)one and a half ton of carbon dioxide a year, but keeping animals for food produces even more carbon dioxide than all the cars do in the world.

    To live a low-carbon life, we should plant more trees. Trees are very important for us. They can not only produce oxygen for us to breathe and keep the air clean. But also take in the harmful gases from the air. To protect trees we should stop people from cuing down trees and plant as many trees as we can.

    If we can keep them a habit in our daily life, the earth will become a safer planet for us to live on.

    Humans can go to the hospital when they're ill. But as for animals, what should they do？To stay healthy, animals have their own ways to heal(治愈)themselves. Now let's get to know their special skills.

    Skill One

    Have you ever seen your dog or cat lick(舔)its wounds？Why do they do it？It probably feels good, but it's good medicine. Licking cleans a wound, and saliva(唾液)has chemicals that kill germs(细菌).

    Skill Two

    To avoid diseases, many animals have good living habits. They hate to be dirty. Most animals separate their pooping(排便)areas from their eating areas. Horses poop far away from the grass they eat. Rabbits put their poop in special pooping areas.

    Skill Three

    Have you ever heard of the expression "starve a fever(发烧时宜饿)"？Many animals stop eating when they're ill. When a sick animal stops eating, it can stop germs from getting necessary things.

    Skill Four

    Another way that animals heal themselves is to raise their body temperature. High temperature can kill germs. Warm—blooded animals(like us)get fevers to fight with germs.

    Cold—blooded animals(like snakes)look for pieces of wood or rocks heated by the sun.

    Fish move to warmer waters.