1 . A recent global study, which surveyed 10,000 young people from 10 countries, showed that nearly 60 percent of them were extremely worried about the future state of the planet. The report, which was published in The Lancet, also showed that nearly half of the respondents said that such distress affected them daily, and three quarters agreed with the statement that “the future is frightening.” This, along with many other studies, shows clearly that climate change is not just a threat to the environment that we inhabit. It also poses a very real threat to our emotional well-being. Psychologists have categorized these feelings of grief and worry about the current climate emergency, a common occurrence among youth today, under the label of “eco-anxiety”.

Eco-anxiety doesn’t just affect young people. It also affects researchers who work in climate and ecological science, burdened by the reality depicted by their findings, and it affects the most economically marginalized (边缘化的) across the globe, who bear the damaging impacts of climate breakdown.

In 2024, eco-anxiety will rise to become one of the leading causes of mental health problems. The reasons are obvious. Scientists estimate that the world is likely to breach safe limits of temperature rise above pre-industrial levels for the first time by 2027.

In recent years, we’ve seen wildfires tear through Canada and Greece, and summer floods ruin regions in Pakistan that are home to nearly 33 million people. Studies have shown that those impacted by air pollution and rising temperatures are more likely to experience psychological distress.

To make matters worse, facing climate crisis, our political class is not offering strong leadership. The COP28 conference in Dubai will be headed by an oil and gas company executive. In the UK, the government is backtracking on its green commitments.

Fortunately, greater levels of eco-anxiety will also offer an avenue for resolving the climate crisis directly. According to Caroline Hickman, a researcher on eco-anxiety from the University of Bath, anyone experiencing eco-anxiety is displaying entirely natural and rational reactions to the climate crisis. This is why, in 2024, we will also see more people around the world join the fight for climate justice and seek jobs that prioritize environmental sustainability. Campaigners will put increased pressure on fossil fuel industries and the governments to rapidly abandon the usage of polluting coal, oil, and gas.

It’s now clear that not only are these industries the main causes for the climate crisis, they are also responsible for the mental health crisis, which is starting to affect most of us. Eco-anxiety is not something we will defeat with therapy, but something we will tackle by taking action.

3 . The streets and roofs of cities all absorb heat, making some urban areas hotter than rural ones. These “urban heat islands” can also develop underground as city heat spreads downward, and subway tracks and other subsurface infrastructure(基础设施) also constantly radiate warmth into the surrounding earth.

A new study of downtown Chicago shows underground hotspots may threaten the very same structures that give off the heat in the first place. “Without anyone realizing it, the city of Chicago’s downtown was deforming,” says study author Rotta Loria, an environmental engineer.

Humans aren’t the only potentially affected. “For a lot of things in the subsurface, it’s kind of ‘out of sight, out of mind’,” says Grant Ferguson, a geologist. But the underground world is full of creatures that have adapted to subsurface existence such as insects and snails. As the temperature rises because of climate change and underground urban development, scientists are keeping eyes on the potential implications for underground ecosystems.

But the question of how underground hotspots could affect infrastructure has gone largely unstudied. Because materials expand and contract with temperature change, Rotta suspected that heat coming from underground could be contributing to wear and tear on various structures. To understand how underground temperature difference has affected the ground’s physical properties, he used a computer model to simulate(模拟) the underground environment from the 1950s to now—and then to 2050. He found that by the middle of this century, some areas may lift upward by as much as 0.50 inch or settle by as much as 0.32 inch, depending on the soil makeup of the area involved. Though these may sound like small displacements, Rotta says they could cause cracks in the foundations of some buildings, causing buildings to fall.

Kathrin Menberg, a geoscientist in Germany, says these displacement predictions are far beyond her guesses and could be linked to the soft, clay-heavy soils. “Clay material is particularly sensitive,” she says, “It would be a big issue in all cities worldwide that are built on such material.”

Like climate change above the surface, underground changes occur gradually. “These effects took decades to develop,” Ferguson says, adding that increased underground temperatures would likewise take a long time to dissipate on their own. “We could basically turn everything off, and it’s going to remain there, the temperature signal, for quite a while.”

But Ferguson says this wasted heat energy could also be reused, presenting an opportunity to both cool the subsurface and save on energy costs. Still, this assumption could fail as aboveground climate change continues to boost underground warming. However slowly, this heat will gather beneath our feet. “It’s like climate change,” Rotta Loria says. “Maybe we don’t see it always, but it’s happening.”

A

Friendship clubs provide a platform for people to take part in     1     social activities, such as group outings, shared hobbies, and interactive events. They help to bring together like-minded individuals who are seeking to make new friends.     2    , joining a friendship club is also beneficial for people to     3     through face-to-face interaction.

B

Nature is our home. Humans and other living things on the planet couldn’t survive without the resources that come from nature. We should take care of our “home” before it’s too late. If we keep overusing and destroying nature, it will finally    4     on us. We should try our best to     5     with nature.

Humankind’s growing need for food is running up against thousands of other species’ need for space. By 2050, humans may need to clear an additional 3.35 million square     1     (kilometer) of land for agriculture.     2     (transform) these largely natural habitats would squeeze more than 17,000 vertebrate species from some of their lands. But changing how and where food     3     (grow) can minimize the impacts. “We can feed the planet without messing it up too badly,” says conservation scientist David Williams.

Although Start of Autumn, the 13th traditional Chinese solar term, often indicates the     1     (begin) of autumn, heat waves will not come to an end. The period of high temperatures,    2     (call) “Autumn Tiger”, usually lasts for about 30 days. Because of decreasing precipitation(降水), it is even hotter during this period than Major Heat. As the saying goes, “If it rains     3    the day of Start of Autumn, a good harvest is expected.”

10 . In Thailand, human-elephant conflict is increasing. To local farmers, elephants threaten their safety and economic livelihood.

Bring the Elephant Home (BTEH) is a non-profit organisation whose mission is to increase chances of survival for elephants and work towards a world in which people and elephants can live in harmony, benefting from each other’s existence. BTEH’s projects root in local communities. Their work is characterised by three principles:local involvement, a healthy ecology, and benefits for people and elephants simultaneously (同时地). They lead to shared decision making, ownership of local communities, sustainability, and a peaceful coexistence of people and animals.

A group of BTEH researchers and local farmer volunteers are experimenting with how to make the plantations less appealing to elephants and prevent them from coming into the farms. And the Tom Yum Project comes into being.

The name of the Tom Yum Project comes from the Thai soup. The ingredients (原料) for the soup are chilli, garlic, lemongrass, and onion—none of which are attractive to elephants. This project gives hope to alternative crops as a solution to human-elephant conflict in Thailand. The project works in the following steps.

The Tom Yum Project is the first research and community-based alternative crop planting initiative to promote human-elephant coexistence. Now, some similar projects will be carried out in Sri Lanka.