【推荐1】European Union scientists said on Wednesday that 2023 would be the warmest year on record. The average world temperature for the first 11 months of the year hit the highest level on record, 1.46 degrees Celsius above the 1850 to 1900 average.

The record comes as governments are in negotiations at the COP28 meeting in Dubai. Governments are deciding whether to gradually stop the use of coal, oil and gas, the main source of warming emissions.

The 2015 Paris climate agreement set a goal of limiting worldwide temperature rise to 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial times. Above that limit, scientists warn of severe effects on weather, health and agriculture.

Diplomats, scientists, activists and others have been meeting in Dubai to find ways to limit warming to those levels. But the planet is not cooperating. They say Earth is on its way to reach 2.7 to 2.9 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial times. C3S records go back to 1940. United States government records go back to 1850. Using information from ice cores, tree rings and corals, scientists have said this is the warmest 10-year period Earth has seen in about 125,000 years. That dates back to the time before human civilization.

Scientists say there are two driving forces behind the six straight months of record hot temperatures. One is human-caused climate change from the burning of coal, oil and gas. And El Nino, the natural warming of surface waters in the Pacific, is making it worse.

Samantha Burgess, deputy director of C3S, said in a statement that “the November temperatures, including two days warmer than 2C above preindustrial, mean that 2023 is the warmest year in recorded history, which is very likely to be a cool year in the future unless we do something about our dependence on fossil fuels.”

【推荐2】Away from the bright lights of the city, if you look up at the night sky you will see an ocean of bright stars. But in the illuminated (灯火通明的) concrete (混凝土) jungles we humans have built ourselves, it’s a different story.

This year, Earth Hour was observed on March 26. The annual tradition, started by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) in 2007 in Sydney, Australia, was created to raise awareness for climate change. Those celebrating turn off all their electrical appliances (家用电器) for one hour. It also draws attention to another serious problem that the world is currently facing — the threat of light pollution.

Light pollution happens when too much man-made light harms nature. Scientists have found that it is especially harmful to nocturnal (夜间的) animals. These creatures rely on the natural light cycle provided by the movement of the sun to help coordinate (协调) their sleep cycles. When this is disturbed by constant bright lights from man-made structures, it can seriously disorientate (使……失去方向感) the animals and harm their physical health. “Wildlife species have evolved on this planet with biological rhythms — changing that has profound effects,” said Travis Longcore, a biogeographer with the Urban Wildlands Group in Los Angeles, US. A lack of darkness at night can also cause difficulties for animals in other ways.

Newly hatched (孵化) baby sea turtles rely on the brighter horizon over the ocean to guide them from the beach to the sea. However, with artificial lights next to the oceans, the small animals are easily led away from the right path. “Hatchlings are attracted to lights and crawl (爬行) inland, or crawl aimlessly down the beach, sometimes until dawn (黎明), when predators (天敌) or birds get them,” said Michael Salmon, a biologist at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton, Florida.

Artificial light has caused a “drastic (激烈的) change” to the natural environment of animals, research scientist Christopher Kyba told the International Dark-Sky Association. “Predators use light to hunt, and prey (猎物) species use darkness as cover,” Kyba explained. If a predator has such an extra advantage in hunting its prey, this can lead to an imbalance in the ecosystem as the hunted species are no longer able to maintain their population when they become over-hunted.