低碳圈

　With the advent of the global environmental protection campaign, “low-carbon” has become an increasingly popular expression, a catch phrase, among the environmentally-conscious people. White-collar workers pride themselves on going to offices on bicycles, on foot, or even on roller skates instead of being “the men behind the wheel”. Housewives save water after washing vegetables or clothes for flushing the toilet. Everybody seems to be an environmental activist nowadays.  

　　　　By “low-carbon lifestyle”, we refer to a pattern of life involving minimum emission of carbon dioxide (CO2), the most important greenhouse gas produced by human activities, primarily through the combustion of fossil fuels. Carbon dioxide is detrimental to human, animal and plant life because it is the primary contributor to global warming that threatens to raise the sea level, leading to the extinction of animals and plants, and ultimately to that of human beings. There is only one Mother Earth for human beings and, literally speaking, preserving the Earth means preserving humanity itself.  

　　　　The pursuit of a low-carbon lifestyle seems to be a vogue to many people but, in essence, it is a long-term necessity. As college students, there are many ways we can become involved in low-carbon endeavors. We can conserve water, recycle our textbooks, and turn off lights on leaving our classrooms. We can resort to public transportations like buses and subways instead of taxis or private cars. Most importantly, we should reduce the use of computers by rejecting meaningless computer games. Even as students, we have a whole range of channels to pursue a low-carbon lifestyle that is beneficial to ourselves and to humanity as a whole.