Li Hua

3 . Cal Fire captain Shawn Raley barked evacuation (疏散) orders over the radio for the neighborhood of Sunset Terrace. The sky was red and the wind screamed. New fires lit in bushes and on roofs. Raley, a 24-year veteran of wildland fires, had seen nearly everything, including swirling eddies of air called fire whirls. But he hadn’t seen anything like this.

At around 7:15 p.m., he drove toward areas in the wooded hills. He figured that residents would need help escaping. His headlights barely pierced the smoke, but he could see three bulldozers (推土机) inch past him on two-lane Buenaventura Boulevard. Don Andrews drove one; Terry Cummings and Jimmie Jones drove the other two. They were under swaying electrical line, and Raley shouted at them to move away.

In the driveway of a house, Raley spotted a Tesla with someone in the driver’s seat. Dr. Thiruvoipati Nanda Kumar had raced eight kilometres home from Vibra Hospital. His wife, Yasoda, and daughter, Sushma, hadn’t received an evacuation alert, and when the power cut out, their garage door wouldn’t open. locking their car inside.

“Go back!” Raley shouted at Kumar, sounding his siren.

“My wife and daughter are there. Can they come in? Kumar said, pointing to Raley’s vehicle. He figured they’d be safest with the captain.

“Come in my truck?” Raley asked. “Yes.”

The women jumped into the back seat, coughing. Nearby, flames that climbed 30 meters burned their neighbors’ homes. Soon theirs would fall, as well.

“I’ll lead you out,” Raley yelled to Kumar. “Take your car.”

Debris (碎片) attacked the truck, cracking Raley’s windshield and breaking the other windows as the wind blew the vehicle off the road. The captain threw himself across the passenger seat, protecting his face as the fire passed over them. Yasoda and Sushma screamed.

“Are you okay?” Raley shouted, though he knew the answer. He was embarrassed. He’d told this trapped family that he would get them out safely. Now they were covered in glass and bleeding. Behind them, the trunk of Kumar’s Tesla was a flame.

6 . In 2022, campaign group Fashion Revolution Chelsea dye a garden for its Chelsea Flower Show presentation. An ancient craft, natural dyeing is a practice whose time has come again, with hand tie-dyed fashion also making a comeback in recent years.

The revival has been encouraged by Covid lockdowns, “which allowed people to explore the craft at home, says natural-dyeing enthusiast and teacher Susan Dye. It’s unlikely, though, that the practice would have caught on in quite the same way if not for a continually growing discomfort about fashion’s heavy footprint. From carbon emissions to animal cruelty, fashion is under considerable inspection. “Put it this way, 97% of dyes used in the industry are petrochemically (石油化学产品) based,” says sustainable fashion consultant Jackie Andrews, who helped advise the UN Ethical Fashion Initiative. We’ve got net zero targets which mean we’re going to have to remove all those petrochemicals from the manufacturing cycle.

Fashion is a huge polluter. According to the UN Environment Program, the industry is responsible for up to one-fifth of all industrial water pollution—due to the fact that most clothes today are produced in poorer countries where regulation is weak and enforcement weaker. Waste water is dumped directly into rivers and streams, poisoning the land as well as the water sources of people and animals who rely on them.

It’s easy to see why someone who cares about people, planet and animals, as well as clothes, might turn to natural plant dyeing. From the beauty of the raw materials—often wild plants-to the property of only bonding with natural fiber like cotton and linen (亚麻布) from the minor footprint of recycling old clothing that has grayed or faded over time to the vibrant and long-lasting dyeing results, plant dyeing feels like a quiet act of rebellion. This is why, while beginners start with simply changing their clothes’ color, new worlds open. Many of today’s natural dyers grow their own dye plants, run local community workshops, and advocate for change in industrialized fashion systems and beyond.

7 . After years of heated debate, gray wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone National Park. Fourteen wolves were caught in Canada and transported to the park. By last year, the Yellowstone wolf population had grown to more than 170 wolves.

Gray wolves once were seen here and there in the Yellowstone area and much of the continental United States, but they were gradually displaced by human development. By the 1920s, wolves had practically disappeared from the Yellowstone area. They went farther north into the deep forests of Canada, where there were fewer humans around.

The disappearance of the wolves had many unexpected results. Deer and elk populations — major food sources (来源) for the wolf — grew rapidly. These animals consumed large amounts of vegetation (植被), which reduced plant diversity in the park. In the absence of wolves, coyote populations also grew quickly. The coyotes killed a large percentage of the park’s red foxes, and completely drove away the park’s beavers.

As early as 1966, biologists asked the government to consider reintroducing wolves to Yellowstone Park. They hoped that wolves would be able to control the elk and coyote problems. Many farmers opposed the plan because they feared that wolves would kill their farm animals or pets.

The government spent nearly 30 years coming up with a plan to reintroduce the wolvers. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service carefully monitors and manages the wolf packs in Yellowstone. Today, the debate continues over how well the gray wolf is fitting in at Yellowstone. Elk, deer, and coyote populations are down, while beavers and red foxes have made a comeback. The Yellowstone wolf project has been a valuable experiment to help biologists decide whether to reintroduce wolves to other parts of the country as well.

8 . Scientists say a huge percentage of bird species are in danger because their habitats, or homelands, are disappearing.

Traditional migration paths take birds through countries that are not protecting the places for birds to stop, rest and feed. The scientists studied the migration or flight paths of almost 1,500 species. They decided that 91 percent of them passed through dangerous areas.

The major danger for migratory birds is development. Buildings and pavements have covered the places where birds stop and feed as they move from one part of the world to another. One of the scientists who worked on the study says “Many of these important places have been lost to land reclamation because of urban, industrial and agricultural land expansion”.

The problem, according to scientists, is that many of these small birds die along their migration paths because they don’t have a safe place to feed and rest. There is no place to restore their energy for the next part of their journey. Countries in North Africa, Central Asia and those along the coasts of East Asia are having the most difficult time in protecting land. The scientists say these countries do not have enough areas that are safe for birds. One species that doesn’t exist now is the Eskimo curlew. “Our world gets poorer every time we lose a species,” one of the scientists says.

The researchers say countries need to work together and come up with safe stopping areas for birds that pass through their boundaries. For example, one country might have preserved safe zones for migrating birds. But a neighbor country might not. A bird might die.

One scientist who is not connected with the report tells Los Angeles Times that while some habitats are changing, more work can be done to make urban areas safe for birds.

He says small changes, like planting more native plants or keeping cats out of the areas birds would be likely to use, could make a big difference.