Green is an important color in nature. It is the color of grass and the leaves on trees. It is also the color of most growing plants.

    Sometimes, the word green means young, fresh and growing. Sometimes, it describes something that is not yet ripe or finished. For example, a greenhorn is someone who has no experience, who is new to a situation. In the fifteenth century, a greenhorn was a young cow or ox whose horns(角) had not yet developed. A century later, a greenhorn was a soldier who had not yet had any experience in battle. By the eighteenth century, a greenhorn had the meaning it has today—a person who is new in a job.

    Someone who has the ability to grow plants well is said to have a green thumb. The expression comes from early nineteen hundreds. A person with a green thumb seems to have a magic touch that makes plants grow quickly and well. You might say that the woman next door has a green thumb if her garden continues to grow long after your plants have died.

    The Green Revolution is the name given some years ago to the development of new kinds of rice and other grains. The new plants produced much larger crops. The Green Revolution was the result of hard work by agricultural scientists who had green thumbs.

    Green is also the color used to describe the powerful feeling, jealousy(嫉妒). The green-eyed monster is not a frightening creature from outer space. It is an expression used about four hundred years ago by British writer William Shakespeare in his play “Othello”. It describes the unpleasant feeling a person has when someone has something he wants. A young man may suffer from the green-eyed monster if his girlfriend begins going out with someone else. Or, that green-eyed monster may affect your friend if you get a pay rise and he does not.

    Although environmental problems have existed for centuries, some people still care little about our environment. Problems like ice melting, electronic waste are lighting up news programs and becoming part of an ongoing dialogue about the environment.

    As a teenager, what do you think all the problems mean for your future and for the future of the planet? For our October 2016 writing contest, we want you to really consider what you think about environmental problems.

Use these questions to help focus your essay

● What environmental problem do you think should cause the greatest alarm and action?

● Do you think that you have a personal responsibility to help solve environmental problems or do you feel helpless against the struggle?

● What do you think could help a specific environmental problem?

Don't try to answer all these questions. Use one of them to make a personal essay.

The title of the essay

    When you hand in your essay, title it as: Environmental Problems: _______.

    Include the phrase “Environmental Problems” as the beginning of your essay title, but then make the rest of your story title unique. Examples:

● Environmental Problems: Trashy Behavior and the Plastic Bottle

● Environmental Problems: We Can't Exist If We Refuse to Change

Rules:

1) This is a non-fiction essay contest.

2) Essays are 500 words or less.

3) Essays must be your original work.

The deadline:

Midnight Oct. 30, 2016

Results:

    The winner will be posted on our writing contest website or on Teen Trend Report after Nov. 26, 2016.

    The days of the hunter are almost over in India. This is partly because there is practically nothing left to kill, and partly because some steps have been taken, mainly by banning tiger-shooting, to protect those animals which still survive.

    Some people say that Man is naturally a hunter. I disagree with this view. Surely our earliest forefathers, who at first possessed no weapons, spent their time digging for roots, and were no doubt themselves often hunted by meat-eating animals.

    I believe the main reason why the modern hunter kills is that he thinks people will admire his courage in overpowering dangerous animals. Of course, there are some who truly believe that the killing is not really the important thing, and that the chief pleasure lies in the joy of the hunt and the beauties of the wild countryside. There are also those for whom hunting in fact offers a chance to prove themselves and risk death by design; these men go out after dangerous animals like tigers, even if they say they only do it to rid the countryside of a threat. I can respect reasons like these, but they are clearly different from the need to strengthen your high opinion of yourself.

    The greatest big-game hunters expressed in their writings something of these finer motives. One of them wrote.

    “You must properly respect what you are after and shoot it cleanly and on the animal's own territory(领地). You must fix forever in your mind all the wonders of that particular day. This is better than letting him grow a few years older to be attacked and wounded by his own son and eventually eaten, half alive, by other animals, Hunting is not a cruel and senseless killing - not if you respect the thing you kill, not if you kill to enrich your memories, not if you kill to feed your people.”

    I can understand such beliefs, and can compare these hunters with those who hunted lions with spears(矛) and bravely caught them by the tail. But this is very different from many tiger-shoots I have seen, in which modern weapons were used. The so-called hunters fired from tall trees or from the backs of trained elephants. Such methods made tigers seem no more dangerous than rabbits.

    When we see a person in trouble, the first idea that comes to our mind is to lend a hand. But what if we see an animal in trouble, does the same rule apply?

    This question was raised after a group of penguins were saved from an icy gully（峡谷）in Antarctica. It was filmed for the BBC wildlife series Dynasties. The film crew were anxious when they saw that a group of penguins had fallen into a gully and been trapped with their young. They built a slope（斜坡）so that a few of the penguins could save themselves.

    The case has taken the international media by storm. Viewers watching this film let out a sigh of relief. "I'm so glad. I understand not taking action directly, but a helping hand isn't bothering, right?" viewer Kathryn Shaw said on her Facebook.

    However, others think human interference（干涉） is unnatural. "You can't have sunshine throughout your life. To have done anything else would only make matters worse," said the show's creator David Attenborough, according to The Times.

    In this case, however, Mike Gunton, the executive producer of the series, said that this was a one­off situation. "There were no animals going to suffer by interfering. You weren't touching the animals and it was just felt by doing this... they had the chance not to have to keep slipping down the slope," he told the BBC.

    Such cases are familiar to Paul Nicklen, wildlife photographer for National Geographic. He told Metro, "If it's ever a predator（捕食者）situation, no matter how gut­wrenching, you stay out of the way. Even when you're watching a male polar bear eat a baby bear."

    "There's no rule book in those situations. You can only respond to the facts that are right there in front of you," Will Lawson, the show's director, told Daily Mail.

    I was so fortunate today to be able to offer my love and help to an older lady at my local supermarket. I saw her standing there. I felt quite strange about such a situation.

    What was she looking at? As I looked, I found it was a "Shredded Pork Bun Meal Kit", which is a service that sends customers food ingredients and recipes for them to prepare their own fresh meals. "That's new," I thought. Then I watched as the lady began to dig into her handbag and tried to pull out one of the biggest magnifying glasses (放大镜) I had never seen in my whole life! "Oh, she can't read it," I realized.

    So I stood there and continued watching her. The voice in my mind often asks me to do the right thing. It told me to help her. But I argued back saying, "No. I won't offer help. It will only embarrass her and she is OK now anyway. She has the world's biggest magnifying glass to help her！"

    And I stood there longer. But the voice came back, "Help her, Nicole. Don't be embarrassed. Just do it. Offer your help." So I did it. I read and explained all the things that were included in that box. I read out the ingredients, the instructions on how to cook it and so on.

    She didn't end up buying it, but she was still quite grateful. I walked away knowing that I had helped her and made the right choice. Mostly, I had reminded her that people in this world still care about the old.

    She was seen. She was loved. And she mattered so much that a complete stranger took time to help her. And that stranger was me, a person who argued and didn't want to do so in the beginning.

    So grateful I am when I choose to listen to the voice in my heart. It is because of love. Love is all that ever really matters. I also get happiness through helping her.

I first came across the concept of pay­what­you­can cafés last summer in Boone, N. C. , where I ate at F. A. R. M (Feed All Regardless of Means) Café. You can volunteer to earn your meal, pay the suggested price ($10) or less, or you can overpay—paying it forward for a future customer's meal. My only regret after eating there was not having a chance to give my time. So as soon as Healthy World Café opened in York in April, I signed up for a volunteer shift(轮班).

F. A. R. M and Healthy World are part of a growing trend of community cafés. In 2003, Denise Cerreta opened the first in Salt Lake City. Cerreta now runs the One World Everybody Eats Foundation, helping others copy her pay­what­you­can model.

"I think the community café is truly a hand up, not a handout," Cerreta said. She acknowledged that soup kitchens(施粥所) have a place in society, but people typically don't feel good about going there.

"One of the values of the community café is that we have another approach," she said. "Everyone eats here, no one needs to know whether you volunteered, overpaid or underpaid. "

The successful cafés not only address hunger and food insecurity but also become necessary parts of their neighborhood—whether it's a place to learn skills or hear live music. Some teach cooking to seniors; some offer free used books. Eating or working there is a reminder that we are all in this world together.

My 10 am～1pm shift at World Healthy Café began with the café manager—one of the two paid staff members. Our volunteer crew wasn't the most orderly, but we managed to prepare and serve meals with a lot of laughs in between. At the end of my shift, I ordered my earned meal at the counter, together with other volunteers. After lunch, I walked out the door, with a handful of new friends, music in my head and a satisfied belly and heart.