【推荐2】As the world’s climate changes, ocean warming is getting faster and sea levels are rising more quickly, warns a new report. The report also discusses a relatively new problem appearing in the oceans: heat waves.

The unusually hot water affected animals that live off the coast of Maine, which are important to the local fishing economy (经济). What’s more, it quickly became clear that the state wasn’t alone. “Heat wave events have popped up all over the ocean.” says Andrew Pershing, scientific officer at the Gulf of Maine Research Institute. “We’ve actually had three huge heat waves in the Gulf of Maine—2012, 2016 and 2018—and now we’re looking at repeat heat waves in the northern Pacific; Australia’s also had some repeat heat waves.”

That’s a big deal for coastal communities whose economies depend on fish and other seafood. Heat waves in recent years drove a lot of changes in life off the coast of the Pacific Northwest, which in turn led to disastrous seasons for fishermen. Unusually hot water supported the growth of algae that polluted the Dungeness crab (螃蟹) fishery on the West Coast, shutting it down for months. At the same time, the hot water off the coast led to continuous dry weather on land, which killed large numbers of salmon (鲑鱼) and raised the risk of wildfires.

The report suggests actions to slow ocean warming and rising and to adapt to its influences. Most importantly, the authors support what has been known for many years: Greenhouse gas emissions (排放物) are the main driver of changes in the world’s oceans, and the global economy must make a complete change to reduce those emissions.

“Even if we cut carbon emissions right now, we are still looking at 20 to 30 years of change.” Pershing explains. “That means, no matter what we do, we have to work out how we are going to adapt to these changes.”

【推荐3】Plastic recycling is a hot topic. But what’s the real face behind it? You diligently sort your rubbish; you dutifully wash your plastic containers; then everything gets thrown in a landfill or in the ocean anyway. According to one analysis, only 9% of all plastic ever made has likely been recycled. Here’s the kicker: the companies making all that plastic have spent millions on advertising campaigns lecturing us about recycling while knowing full well that most plastic will never be recycled.

A new investigation by National Public Radio (NPR) and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) reports that the large oil and gas companies that manufacture plastics have known for decades that recycling plastic was unlikely to ever happen on a broad scale because of the high costs involved. “They were not interested in putting any real money or effort into recycling because they wanted to sell raw material,” Larry Thomas, former president of one of the plastic industry’s most powerful trade groups, told NPR. There is a lot more money to be made in selling new plastic than reusing the old stuff. But, in order to keep selling new plastic, the industry had to clean up its wasteful image. “If the public thinks that recycling is working, then they are not going to be so concerned about the environment,” Thomas noted.

We have been successfully convinced that people start pollution and people can stop it and that if we just recycle more, the planet will be OK. To some degree, that is right: there must be a level of personal responsibility when it comes to the climate emergency. We all have to do our part. But individual action is a tiny drop in a heavily polluted ocean. We need systematic change to make a real difference. And, more than anything, we need to change what we value.

【推荐1】One of the most famous literary challenges in history was when Dr. Seuss received a challenge from his publisher that he could only use 50 words to write an entire book. That’s all well and good, but it’s a tough challenge, to be sure. However, Ernest Vincent Wright would no doubt turn up his nose, as he challenged himself to pen an entire 50,000-word novel without once using the letter “e”.

Wright managed to pull it off. The final product was Gadsby, which is about a man named, well, Gadsby, who tries to save his city with the help of a youth group. It took Wright nearly six months to complete the work, and in his introduction pages he mentioned the challenges along the way.

One of the biggest challenges was replacing pronouns, since it’s tough to write a sentence, let alone a novel, without words like “he” or “she” or “her” and so forth. Additionally, he was forced to find ways to work around using past tense words that typically end in “-ed”, which, as you might imagine, is more than a little tricky.

Still, Wright did manage to come up with 50,110 words and a full story without any cheats, making it one of the most successful lipograms (避讳某字之文) in the history of writing. Wright self-published the book in 1939 and it was read primarily by people who tried to find any cheats, so convinced were they that Wright simply must have used the letter.

The entire novel is available online to read for free, as it entered the public domain in 1968. It’s a good thing, too, as the storehouse that contained the majority of the copies burned down, destroying enough of the books that it has since become a rare book collector’s prize, with copies being valued at thousands of dollars.

At the end of the day, of course, it remains a truly great achievement. After all, “e” is the most commonly used letter in English, with more than 11 percent of all words in the Oxford dictionary containing at least one “e”.

【推荐3】“Where I grew up, there were not a lot of plants outside,” said Yolanda Palmer. “Some people had them; some people didn’t.”

Palmer, who is from Southwest Philadelphia, discovered her love for plants at the age of 10. Growing up, she developed great skills in growing plants and learned more about nature each and every day.

“As I got a little older, one block in my neighborhood would be filled with flowers and things in the yard,” she said. “But in another block there would be none.”

Since then, Palmer had wanted to share her love of plants with the community. But the dream remained just a seed (种子) while she worked an ordinary day job. Sitting in the company she often thought she had to do something else. Palmer then planted the seed. She started small, selling at a local outdoor market in Southwest Philadelphia and then coming to shows and festivals in Chestnut Hill.

By December 2021, she had her store on German town Avenue, “Foliage”. There, she sells common plants, rare (罕见的) plants, small plants, and large plants. “The goal is to sell them to homeowners to beautify their home and also to clean the air,” she said.

Palmer’s home is in Chestnut Hill, a central gardening center in the city. She hopes her message will be able to reach other communities in the Philadelphia area. “Everyone should buy houseplants. Everyone should want cleaner air,” she said. “And that way, in the future when our children grow up, we can make it better.”

Palmer plans on continuing to work hard to support not only her store, but her boys, four dogs, one cat and 128 plants at home.