【推荐1】For Australian cattle farmer Jody Brown, the most frightening evidence of drought is the silence. Trees stand still, the singing of birds gone.

The constant dryness means her cattle have decreased to around 400, down from 1,100 in 2002, and at limes there have been no animals on the land at all. The native grasses, once green, have disintegrated into grey ash. According to United Nations’ estimates, global crop production could fall about 30% because of climate change, while food is sharply demanded in the coming decades. The world is facing a new age of rapidly increasing food prices that could push almost 2 billion more people into hunger in a worst-case climate crisis.

Facing the scary predictions, farmers have begun to adapt. On Brown’s farm, she’s experimenting with regenerative-farming practices better suited to drought. She’s exploring alternatives to traditional methods that don’t push the land as hard. Meanwhile many agrichemical companies are developing new varieties for vegetables, like cabbages that are more resistant to extreme weather.

Across the globe, farmers are switching seeds and improving irrigation (灌溉). Lucas Oliveira in Brazil is pulling out half his coffee trees to plant corn and soybeans instead. He is being forced to change course after coffee crops suffered from drought and then an extreme frost. With drought hitting California, Fritz Durst is working to trap water. He’s boarded up pipes to hold the rain that does fall. Durst will also plant cover crops, which can help enrich soils and prevent erosion (水土流失).

One of the biggest challenges for farmers is that there is currently no access to funds that would be critical to undertake the kind of massive transformation.

“If you have to deal with millions of farmers around the world, you have to coordinate (协调). That’s a huge task,” said Monika Zurek, senior researcher at University of Oxford’s Environmental Change Institute.

【推荐2】Kairo McLean was waiting for his mom to pick him up from school. She arrived with the car windows down, playing Kairo's song Easy Now as loud as the sound could go. That was when she informed him that he was nominated (提名)for the Juno Awards, one of Canada's most influential music awards, for Reggae Recording of the Year. At age 13, Kairo was the youngest artist ever nominated for Reggae Recording of the Year at the JUNOS. His Juno- nominated single Easy Now appears on his first-ever album(歌曲专辑)of the same title.

“I’m so glad that reggae music, which is originally from Jamaica(牙买加), is being rec- ognized and appreciated here in Canada, ”Kairo said in an interview. “It's really exciting that all my efforts have been recognized in spite of my young age, and it motivates me to keep struggling hard to realize my musical dream, ”he said.

“Kairo would try to play the keyboard before he was tall enough to reach it. He wanted to learn how to play the guitar before it could even fit on his lap, ”Kairo's mom recalled. “Listening to music from reggae music artists like Cocoa Tea, Yellowman and Bob Marley is a normal thing in our household. Apart from that, he really put many efforts in his interest, ” she added.

As a Canadian reggae artist outside of Jamaica, Kairo feels that music should spread a message about love and peace, not things like violence and hate. Kairo’s music is about bright light in the world, though we might be always caught in the darkness such as bullies(仗势欺人者)at school or crime in the society. “I bring up the injustices that I see in the world and I talk about them because they need to be spoken about and they need to be heard, ”said Kairo.