1 . Antarctica is the highest, driest, and coldest place on Earth. It is also the remotest, a fact which demystifies its unspoiled environment. It is difficult for people to get there, and not a comfortable place for people to stay once they arrive. It is widely described as the last true wilderness on our planet.

The cold climate is responsible for maintaining the continent’s year-round ice fields: They never melt. Even though Antarctica receives more sunlight than the equator, the temperatures are lower because the ice sheet reflects the heat back into space. Thus, the coldest temperature ever recorded on Earth was in Antarctica in July, 1983. Soviet scientists shivered (瑟瑟发抖) through temperatures that fell to minus 89.2 degrees Celsius.

Once completely inaccessible, Antarctica has more recently been playing host to adventurers seeking excitement, scientists interested in experimenting, and companies looking to exploit this wild zone for profit: gold, uranium and oil are just some of the valuable resources which lie beneath the continent’s icy covering.

For centuries, Europeans wondered about the existence of a South-pole continent, but no one actually knew for certain Antactica was there until 1820 when European explorers “discover” it. Since then, men have gone to Antarctica in search of adventure. Testing their abilities, several teams of explorers set out in 1911 to be the first men to stand at the South Pole.

Yet, Antarctica’s fragile and complicated ecosystem is threatened by its human visitors. Damage to the environment occurs as people come looking for resources beneath the ice, or carelessly leave their garbage behind. Currently, countries are working to ensure that the damage to Antarctica’s environment is minimized, and that the last wilderness on Earth will remain an unspoiled place.

3 . It has now been one year since The Ocean Cleanup made history by cleaning up the first of the plastic from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch(垃圾带). And now, its researchers are turning the waste into designer sunglasses. Not only are the stylish glasses made from the plastic collected, but the earnings go toward helping support the nonprofit so they can continue cleaning up the ocean.

The new glasses are the first product to be created from the recovered ocean waste, but The Ocean Cleanup website says it will not be the last. Back in October 2019,after years of research, The Ocean Cleanup project announced that their System 001/B had successfully collected plastic waste from the garbage patch. The system uses the natural forces of the ocean to gather plastic in the garbage patch, a process that was first brought up by Boyan Slat back in October 2012.

Together with famous designer Yves Behar, and Safilo, The Ocean Cleanup worked to create sunglasses that could produce a feeling or memory of the ocean, reminding people where they came from and what they are protecting. The frames（框架）of the new sunglasses are made from the recovered ocean pollution. Because the joining points have also been specially designed, they can very quickly be taken apart for recycling.

Although the sunglasses cost $199 a pair, all of the money earned from them will be used to fund the nonprofit' s operations. For every pair sold, the organization will be able to clean 24 football-fields-worth of ocean garbage. And since the glasses went on sale earlier last week, supporters have already funded more than 133 , 100 football fields of garbage.

“When every pair is bought up from the first batch（批）of sunglasses, we can then clean 500,000 football fields worth of plastic,” says the website. “That means we can use this garbage to clean more garbage: going full circle, over and over, until we have achieved our purpose of clean oceans.

5 . The world’s first named heat wave hit Seville, Spain, pushing temperatures past 110 degrees Fahrenheit and earning the most severe tier (级别) in the city’s new heat wave ranking system. Heat wave “Zoe” has brought burning temperatures to the southern part of the country for the last few days, particularly the area where Seville is located.

Zoe is the first named heat wave to hit Seville since it officially used a new system last month to name and rank heat waves, similar to hurricanes (Climatewire, June 22). Only the most severe heat waves get names, named this year in reverse (颠倒的) alphabetical order. After Zoe come Yago, Xenia, Wenceslao and Vega. The worst of the heat is expected to begin tapering off (减弱) today, but it has already posed a significant risk to human health.

Seville’s new ranking system takes a three-tiered approach to categorizing heat waves, with Category 1 as the lowest ranking and Category 3 as the most severe. The system has specific criteria for each category, involving not only daytime temperatures, but also nighttime lows, humidity and the heat’s expected effects on human health.

Spain has been struggling with extreme temperatures for much of the summer already. High heat broke local records around the country last month, and the first two weeks of June were the hottest on record in the country. Across the continent, this year was Europe’s second hottest June on record. Extreme heat returned again earlier this month. Cities across Spain broke monthly temperature records and wildfires broke out on the landscape.

Climate change is causing heat waves to become more frequent, more severe and longer-lasting all over the world, increasing the risks to human health. Seville’s new naming and ranking system is intended to raise public awareness about the dangers of extreme heat.

6 . Name an active volcano: Fuji, Vesuvius, Mt. St. Helens, or even Iceland’s infamous Eyjafjallajokull—every single one of them has a decent-size population at the base, and some of them have full-blown big cities. Why do people choose to live near a ticking time bomb?

It all starts with the soil. The molten (熔化的) rock that pours forth during a volcanic eruption is known as magma (岩浆) when it’s underground, and lava once it reaches the surface. Magma takes other things up with it—minerals and nutrients that are then broken down to make the soil extra productive. The result is that on volcanic soil, tomatoes grow bigger, beans grow greener, and flowers grow brighter.

In Mexico, the active Popocatepetl and the inactive Iztaccihuatl are at the center of a centuries-old legend, and the Aztecs certainly weren’t going to abandon the place most closely associated with their cultural heroes. Meanwhile, in Iceland, the cruelty of the volcano Hekla became a point of pride. Some Christians on the island believed it was literally a gateway to Hell, while others told a tale of an evil magician driven off by the volcano’s lava bombs.

That explains why people have been living near volcanoes since the dawn of man. But as technology has advanced, the benefits of volcanoes have only increased. In Iceland and New Zealand, for example, geothermal energy plants have come to play a primary role in keeping the countries’ lights on. That wouldn’t be possible without the volcanoes that created the islands in the first place. Plus, the unmatched sights created by volcanic networks aren’t just pleasant to live near; they’re also a major draw of tourist dollars. That kind of thing can’t be ignored.

Whatever the draw, it’s clear that volcanoes have a lot to offer the people who live in their shadows. Living near a volcano is a lot like betting, but in this case, you’re going to want to get out before things get too hot.

9 . As Plastic Chokes the Ocean, Technology Can Help

Some 8 million tons of non-recyclable (不可回收的) plastic end up in the ocean each year. At an alarming rate, the seas may have more plastic than fish by the middle of the century.     1    

Require a global solution to a global problem.     2     The developed countries and most of developing countries show their leadership in this process by setting goals, encouraging other member states, and offering support for poor countries.

    3     Although they are helpful to protect clean water and air, as it is known, non-recyclable plastic is widely used in the markets. Therefore, non-recyclable plastic still can be bought in our daily life. Its disappearance needs much more time and efforts.

Pay more attention to the new studies on plastic and technologies. Some of researchers are aiming to make replacements for plastic.     4     For example, “interceptors” can remove river pollution before it reaches the ocean.

Expect more responsibility from manufacturers.     5     As a start, they should be encouraged to simplify complex packaging. And their working with world governments will support poorer nations to improve waste collection and landfill (垃圾场) management.

The world doesn’t have enough time in trying to solve the problem. The sooner these efforts start, the better.

10 . The air conditioner is nearly 100 years old, but the technology is essentially the same as it used to be. Although it has made our lives easier and more comfortable, this all comes at a cost. The cooling of our air is responsible for 10% of the planet’s electricity consumption. And as the world heats, demand for air conditioners will continue to grow. This, in turn, will increase the influence that cooling machines have on the climate, thus warming the Earth further and creating a vicious cycle.

The current technology is unsustainable. That’s why a group led by RMI, a nonprofit environmental research organization, has launched the Global Cooling Prize, a $1-million competition to design of the next generation of air cooling systems. The proposed designs employ a wide range of technologies. Barocal, a Cambridge University startup, uses solid-state cooling technologies instead of traditional liquid refrigerants (制冷剂) that may leak out over time. Meanwhile, a proposal from Kraton, a Texan chemical engineering company, simply uses water, completely doing away with the main mechanical component of air conditioners, the compressor, to make the design more affordable. Others focus on the limitations of current air conditioning units, such as the lack of control over both temperature and humidity (湿度) at the same time. The design proposed by US startup M2 Thermal Solutions allows users to set both a specific temperature and the level of humidity in a room.

It’s difficult to tell what these proposed new machines will look like before the actual machines are built, but it’s arguable that they will create something new, as most of the shortlisted designs are based on fundamentally different technology compared to traditional devices.

The overall winner, announced in November 2021, will be awarded $1 million in prize money. This is when the real challenge begins: convincing the world that traditional air conditioners need replacing. “The current industry is worth more than $100 billion and has a well-established value chain from manufacturing (生产) to distribution to after-sales support,” said Vijay Mhetar, Kraton’s senior vice president. “Any new design will need to have minimum barriers for customer adoption and have a similar supply chain established.”