1 . Shop Sustainably

If you have to name one thing that contributes most to your ecological footprints, you may say the energy you use at home, or your car’s emissions.     1     Knowing this can make your grocery shops more planet-friendly. Here is what you can do to help shop sustainably.

●    2     Using those is a great first step. If you get some, do remember to fill them with your purchases. When you adapt yourself to reusing them, then you’ll cut your consumption of single-use plastic bags even further.

●Avoid unnecessary packing. Buy loose fruit and vegetables instead of pre-packaged produce, and avoid products that contain multiple single packages or double packaging, like grain in a box and a bag. Consider switching from tea bags and coffee pods to tea leaves and ground coffee.     3    

●Go organic when you can. In addition to the benefit organic farming has to insect biodiversity, it’s also considered more sustainable and better for the environment.     4    Choosing free-range or Marine Stewardship Council-certified products also encourages environment- and animal-friendly food production.

●Buy seasonal and native products.     5     So you can avoid buying goods that have travelled long distances to reach your plate. As well as opting for local goods, depending on where you live, in the supermarket, you can also buy directly from the source at farmers’ markets.

2 . A Purdue University invention could save millions of taxpayer dollars and significantly reduce traffic delays. The new invention, a sensor that allows concrete to “talk”, decreases construction time and how often concrete pavement (路面) needs repairs while also improving the road’s sustainability and cutting its carbon footprint. Fixed directly into a concrete pour the sensor sends engineers more precise and consistent data about the concrete’s strength and need for repairs than is possible with currently used tools and methods.

“Traffic jams caused by repairs have wasted 4 billion hours and 3 billion gallons of gas, on a yearly basis. This is mainly due to insufficient knowledge and understanding of concrete’s strength levels,” said Luna Lu, who has been leading development of the sensor since 2017. “For instance, we don’t know when concrete will reach the right strength needed to accommodate traffic loads just after construction. The concrete may be put into use too early,leading to frequent repairing,” she added.

With the technology Lu and her team invented, engineers can directly monitor the fresh concrete and accurately measure many of its properties at once. The sensor notifies engineers via a smartphone app exactly when the pavement is strong enough to handle heavy traffic. The stronger the pavement is before being used by vehicles, the less often it will need to be repaired. By decreasing road repairs and construction timelines, this technology could reduce carbon dioxide that vehicles would have given off while waiting in traffic to get around a construction site.

Methods that the industry has used for more than a century call for testing large samples of concrete at a lab or onsite facility. Even though these tests are well understood by the industry, differences between lab and outdoor conditions can lead to inaccurate estimates of the concrete’s strength due to the different concrete compositions and temperatures of the surrounding area.

3 . The UN this week launched a report urging companies to stop issuing false net-zero targets that amount to greenwashing.

Greenwashing is a term used to describe situations where companies mislead consumers by claiming to be eco-friendly or sustainable as a marketing plan rather than as a core principle of their business model. Often, these industries spend more money making themselves appear sustainable than they do taking actual sustainable measures into their company.

Cities, financial institutions, and scores of companies have announced plans to reduce their emissions to zero, which, in principle, should help the fight against climate change.

“The problem is that the criteria for these net-zero commitments have varying levels of precision and loopholes (漏洞),” said UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres during the launch of the report.

Many net-zero plans contain far-away or unclear targets and often call for the use of unproved technologies like carbon capture and tree planting, which effectively allow companies to continue polluting the atmosphere. Studies show that most of these net-zero plans will do little to stop temperatures from rising. For example, many oil majors have announced plans to reduce emissions from their operations to zero by 2050 that do not take into account the carbon emitted by the fossil fuels they sell, which would allow them to increase production. Far from decreasing, fossil fuel production is going strong.

To close these net-zero loopholes, the UN this week released a report that includes 10 recommendations to ensure that companies, cities, regions, and other non-state actors issue credible and accountable net zero commitments. “Their plans cannot rely on cheap carbon credits instead of immediately cutting their own emissions,” Guterres said.

Financial institutions need to cut down emissions from all their investments and businesses need to bring down the carbon footprint of their supply chain, the report said. The report’s lead author, Catherine McKenna, urged companies to release new net-zero targets within a year. The updated targets must contain concrete actionable details.

4 . Hurricane season can be wild and unpredictable.    1    Here are some ways you can beef up your home security in hurricane weather, even if you need to move out.

    2    That actually does nothing to ensure your safety in the powerful winds. Sticking to hurricane shelters or plywood (胶合板) is the only way to go when it comes to protecting those points of entry in hurricane conditions. Buy sheets of plywood,measure your windows and use brackets (支架) to hold the plywood in place.

Sandbags are very useful. While sandbags won’t be able to help in the extreme storm, many people will be able to prevent flooding and extensive damage to their belongings by placing sandbags.     3    Any storm water that is kept out of your home is storm water that won’t be able to damage the belongings inside your home, so sandbags are well worth having at your doorways during a hurricane.

It’s important to prepare the inside of your home for strong winds and rain. But you should also keep an eye on the outside of your house, too. Trim (修剪) trees, especially dead branches, to prevent anything else that could fly through a window and cause damage during a hurricane.       4    

You should also take pictures of expensive items like electronics and keep notes of their serial numbers.     5    Also, there are always bad people out right after a storm. If the worst happens and your home is broken into right after a bad storm, having pictures and detailed notes about what was in your home prior to the hurricane will make it easier for police to track down stolen items.

5 . Before the year has even come to a close, climate experts are certain that 2023 will be the hottest year in recorded history.

On Dec. 6, the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) — part of the European Union's space program — revealed that this year's average global temperatures have been 2.6℉ (1.46°C ) higher than temperatures in preindustrial times and 0.2°F (0.13°C) higher than January to November in 2016. These “extraordinary” temperatures mean that 2023will be “the warmest year in recorded history,” C3S deputy director Samantha Burgess said in a statement.

The researchers note that this year's record heat was partly caused by the latest El Nino event — a phenomenon where warmer water near the equator triggers warmer global air temperatures — that began in June. Some other experts have suggested that the January2022 eruption of Tonga's underwater volcano, which pumped record levels of water vapor into the atmosphere, may also be partly responsible.

Despite these factors, the major cause of climbing temperatures is global warming caused by runaway greenhouse gas emissions, which, noted in a C3S statement, have trapped more than 25 billion atomic bombs' worth of energy in our atmosphere over the last 50 years. And still worse, the global carbon emissions have reached a new high this year, according to scientists at the United Nations Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP28) On Dec 4.

The effects of global warming are becoming more obvious. In 2023, research revealed that climate change is causing major US cities to sink and more than half of the world's largest lakes and reservoirs to shrink. Studies also predicted that the Gulf Stream, which plays a vital role in ocean circulation, could collapse by as early as 2025, and that rising sea levels could swamp the U S coastline by 2050.

However, scientists say that we still have time to prevent further disaster. Leading climate change expert Michael Mann, from the University of Pennsylvania, recently wrote that “we can still stop the worst effects of climate change” if we stop emitting greenhouse gases as soon as possible.

6 . The students stand on a pier (码头) over the Harlem River in New York City. They stare down into the brown water. Their teacher, Mr. Rodman, pulls a long rope out of the river. Fastened to the end of the rope is a metal cage and inside are oysters (牡蛎). Taking turns, the students measure all the oysters, and then compare notes. The biggest oyster is over 2 inches long, much bigger than a healthy size for its age! They also measure the level of oxygen. As more oysters grow, the water should become clearer and hold more oxygen. Also, other animals should move in.

Oysters are soft-bodied animals, and share the underwater community with plants, fish, and other life. They are food for crabs and other animals. As new oysters grow, they attach their shells to older ones，forming big reefs with many small spaces where other animals live. Oysters eat algae (藻类). If algae grow too fast，they can decrease oxygen from the water-and even fish need oxygen to breathe!

But what happened to the oysters 100years ago in New York Harbor? Before then, lots of oysters lived in these waters. They were shipped to restaurants around the world. By the early 1900s, people were eating them faster than they could grow. Pollution was pouring into the waters. The harbor became seriously polluted. Since the 1970s, new laws have helped reduce poisonous waste. Some fish started to swim through again. But oysters were still missing-until recently.

The Billion Oyster Project began in 2014 to help bring oysters back to New York Harbor. The project has recruited (招募) more than 6,500 students at more than 100 middle schools and high schools to help grow, distribute, and study the oysters.

Finally, the students put the oysters back in the cage. Mr. Rodman lowers the cage into the river. In a few months, they will check the cage again. When the oysters are big enough, they will be moved to join a healthy reef in the middle of the harbor.

8 . Introduced species have a bad reputation. It has been believed that the species mix in a particular place should remain as unchanged as possible. But this is just an opinion. Other opinions are possible. A study published recently by Dov Sax of Brown University, thus asks how the benefits of introduced species might be better assessed, so that opinions can be more informed. Specifically, he identifies several aspects for that.

Initially, whether introduced species provide direct human advantage is taken into account. Dr. Sax and his colleagues ignored crops, since their benefits are obvious. But they included transplanted grass species that have gone wild，yet provide grazing(牧草)for domestic animals, and introduced forest trees that produce wood for construction.

Another factor is their possible benefit to the ecosystem into which the introduction has happened. Such introduction is sometimes made to reduce the risk of a localised species becoming extinct. Pyne’s ground plum(李子)，native to a handful of sites in the central basins of Tennessee but now transplanted to others, falls into this category.

The last value is experienced on an emotional rather than a practical level. Lots of people feel good about native wildlife, which is generally the main motive for its conservation. But that feel-good factor can extend to introduced species as well. Such value can cut both ways, however. For example, ring-necked parakeets, an Asian and African species, have been spreading through Britain for several decades. Some find them a colourful addition to the local wildlife, others a noisy competitor for native birds.

In light of their analysis, Dr. Sax and his team therefore suggest that researchers studying introduced species should in future create a clear distinction in their studies between changes that have happened and judgments about the value of those changes. In addition, when making those judgments, they should acknowledge all types of values, rather than focusing narrowly on one or two of them.

That done, many species will surely still be accused of possible damage. But others, badly thought of in the past, may not.