【推荐2】Called “America’s wolf”, the red wolf is the only large predator whose historic range is found entirely within the United States, stretching from Texas to New England. But hunting gradually reduced its range, and it was declared extinct in the wild in 1980.

Recovery efforts in the wild began in 1987 on the Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge. In a ground-breaking successful experiment, eight captive (圈养的) wolves were released this year into North Carolina, eventually growing into a population over 100, reaching a peak of around 120 wolves in 2012. But illegal hunting and management changes by the Fish and Wildlife Service resulted in their numbers plummeting.

In the spring, conservationists celebrated a small bit of good news when four captive-born pups (幼兽) were placed into a cave and successfully adopted by a wild red wolf mother. Meanwhile, another four adults were released into the wild. The pups are thought to be still alive and healthy. But the adults didn’t go well. In the months after release, three were struck by cars and killed, and the fourth was fatally shot on private land.

To boost the population after these deaths, the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced in November that it planned to release nine adult red wolves into their recovery area this winter, land within and surrounding two wildlife reserves.

The Service also recently announced it would withdraw a 2018 proposal to shrink (缩小) the red wolves’ protected area in North Carolina by 90 percent, after a lawsuit accused the agency of going against the Endangered Species Act. Ron Sutherland of the Wildlands Network says it’s crucial that the agency has abandoned this wrong-headed proposal. And yet the situation now is even more urgent than it was in 2018 — this should launch the conservation community in the U. S. into crisis mode to save this species and bring it back from the extinction.

【推荐1】Melanie Guttmann, co-founder of LG, a German climate (气候) group, once spent six days in prison after being arrested during a public gathering against “new normal”. She tells me that she just wanted to have a peaceful life, spend some time with the people she loved and start a family. But finally, she says, she’d be willing to be in prison even longer if it might make a difference. “I started to realize that no matter whether I’m in prison or not, I will never have those things.”

I have been turning over her words for what happened later. Vermont experienced storms last week, causing floods and resulting in deaths. An extreme heat brought the number of people in one Phoenix emergency room to levels never seen since the COVID-19 pandemic. The ocean water around the Florida Keys reached a temperature of over 90°F, seriously endangering coral reefs.

Many well-meant statesmen mention what’s happening as “new normal”. It’s meant, of course, to point out the long-term effects of putting large amounts of greenhouse gases into air. But the phrase of “new normal”, to me, also has the suggestion that now, at least, is “normal,” as if we’ve been riding a lift of global (全球的) temperature rise, and just arrived at the top floor. “It surely is hot up here at the new normal, but good thing is that it won’t get any worse.”

Unfortunately, though, it will. The changes we are experiencing are only quickening. Each new season is a baseline from which things will get stranger still. There’ll be yet more heat domes, storms, and flooding, coming at a faster and faster speed. By 2050, the world could be dealing with 1.2 billion climate refugees (难民) escaping for their lives.

One thing from Guttmann’s words is clear: However bad things are now, they’re set to get a whole lot worse. We need to have the awareness that there is no “new normal” where we can stop to catch our breath. And, if we don’t do something, things will get worse.

【推荐3】February 13, 2022, marked the 25th anniversary (纪念日) of the Great LEGO Spill — the worst toy-related environmental disaster of all time. On this important day in 1997, the Tokio Express was hit by a huge, 28-foot high wave off the United Kingdom’s southwestern coast, tilting the ship by 60 degrees and causing it to drop 62 containers into the sea. One was filled with about 5 million colorful LEGO bricks!

Shortly after the incident, LECO pieces began washing ashore the beautiful beaches of Cornwall and Devon in southwest England. Many locals rushed to hunt for the toys. Cornwall resident Tracey Williams was among the thousands of locals that searched the beaches regularly to find the little sea-themed pieces.

In 2010 Williams moved to Cornwall and came across some LEGO pieces on her first trip to the beach. Wondering where else they had been found, she created a Facebook group. Called “Lego Lost at Sea”, it allowed her and hundreds of other collectors to share their discoveries. As it turned out, the LEGO bricks were not just washing ashore English beaches. They had also been found in Wales, Ireland, the Channel Islands, France, Belgium, and Holland, showing just how far ocean currents had carried them.

“What we’re finding now are the pieces that sank as well as the pieces that floated,” Williams says. “It’s providing us with an insight into what happens to plastic in the ocean, how far it drifts (漂移) — both on the surface of the ocean and also along the seabed—and what happens to it as it breaks down.”

No one knows when the LEGO bricks will stop appearing on the beaches. But one thing is for sure, that is, the plastic pieces will be around for centuries. A 2020 study analyzing the structure of the washed-up LEGO bricks concluded that the five million pieces could take as long as 1,300 years to degrade (降解) completely. And like all plastic products, the iconic toys will never entirely disappear. Instead, they will break down into tiny “microplastics” and be eaten by ocean animals. They will make their way up the food chain to humans.

【推荐2】An Irish designer is growing unique mushroom hives (蜂箱) in order to protect her island’s local black bees. For years, Ireland imported a large group of bees from places with tropical climates and warmer weather. Bees find it challenging to survive in Irish climate but other generic factors like loss of habitat and increase in the usage of pesticides have also led to a decline in the bee population. Further, the imported new species mated (交配) with local bees to produce their young that stormed the hives of the black bees and still could not get adjusted to the weather.

Econooc is a type of hive designed by Niamh Damery, an Irish designer, to save Ireland’s native black bees. This hive is among the world’s finest 20 and has been considered for the James Dyson Design Award for Sustainability. The designer not only aims to protect the bees but also intends to have people participate in its conservation.

The mushroom hives are cultivated from mycelium pores (由菌丝孔培育而成) with by-products like straw or wood shavings used as substrate (底座). Mycelium, situated underground, provides support to the fruiting body. These mushrooms are coming out as a probable design tool. GNN reported that mushrooms could be used to build things like canoes, bricks, and coffins. To create the beehive, mycelium and the substrate concoction (混合物) is stuffed into a mold (模具) in the shape of the actual hive. It is then heated in the oven to secure the shape.

Econooc copies a hive and is placed in the hollow of a local tree. This is the natural habitat of the black Irish bees, where they build their shelter, store food and protect their young ones. Recycled plastic is used to make a landing pad so that owners can watch the activities of the bees. The hive is secured on the tree with the help of old car seatbelts to fasten it. Every aspect of the project is based on sustainability.

【推荐3】Albert Einstein single-handedly changed the universe 100 years ago. For centuries, Isaac Newton’s straightforward formulas ruled the universe — or at least how physicists thought about it. Any object with mass caused an attractive force on any other object with mass; the bigger the masses, and the closer the two objects, the stronger the attraction. Simple. But in 1915, Einstein suggested that things were a bit trickier.

Even Einstein had to labor for almost a decade to formulate the complex mathematical relationships behind his work, his own version of gravity: the general theory of relativity. Gravitational attraction, it turned out, was due to nothing less than the bending of the space. A massive object actually bends the 3-D structure of the space around it, taking any smaller objects in the close area along for the ride. This results in familiar phenomena like orbiting moons, planets and stars, as well as some stranger effects like cosmic ripples and black holes. And, surprise, it turns out that Einstein was right. But, even after a century of confirmation, physicists, growing technological signposts mean they are still eager to theory, anxious to see if it holds up.

The rest of his life, Einstein tried to combine all the known forces of the universe (including his version of gravity) into one simple set of rules, but the answer fled him. Some 60 years after his death, scientists still hope to unify the forces. Testing relativity might just turn up a key clue in the quest. Physicists may be able to do what Einstein never could if they find out where, if ever, nature begins to disagree with general relativity. Whatever it was that fueled Einstein’s insights into the universe — whether it was an extraordinary brain or just the way he looked at the world — his work has lasted at least 100 years undefeated. Maybe it always will. But perhaps, in the next 100, someone else will have changed the universe once more.