1 . With greater climate catastrophe (气候突变) on Earth, it is natural for us to make every effort to stop the potential floods, snowstorms, and alarming reports from scientists. For many of us (myself included), part of that means running out to buy reusable straws, organic cleaners, and packaging-free products.

However, before you rejoice in “green” purchases, take a second to consider the results of a new study from Arizona University. By comparing the shopping habits, mental health and environmental impact of young people, the researchers reaffirmed a principle: Buying less beats buying “green” stuff without effort. And that is true whether you are looking at the impact that your purchases have on the Earth or on your own happiness.

It should not come as a shock that simply consuming less is better for the planet. After all, every new item a factory yields requires some resources to produce. Take plastic bag bans for instance. If your city is getting rid of single-use shopping bags, it can be tempting to pay for a fashionable organic cotton bag hanging in the check-out line of your local supermarket. However, experts insist that growing cotton is actually no better for the Earth than producing the conventional plastic bags. Your best bet for carrying your groceries if you care about sustainability? Any bag you already own. This is true of many kinds of “green” products.

It is not just the Earth that will be happier if you buy less. You will feel more contented too, according to the new study. “People believe that they might well be self-satisfied about becoming environmentally conscious through green buying patterns, but it doesn't seem to be that way”, said the lead researcher Sabrina Helm. “Reduced consumption has effects on increased well-being and decreased psychological distress, but we don't see that with green consumption.”

“Owning every new green product on the market might make you feel contented, but if you relieve yourself of that burden of ownership, most people report feeling a lot better,” said Helm.

2 . When storms come rolling in across the ocean, they struck coastlines with tremendous force. Luckily, for thousands of miles of tropical coastlines, nature has provided a remarkable form of protection: coral reefs.

These colorful wonders are best known for their diversity of life, their plentiful seafood, and their draw to scuba-diving tourists. But they are also astonishingly durable and firm structures, built by tiny animals with calcium carbonate skeletons (碳酸钙骨架), which provide an important service to the coastlines standing behind them — they can absorb up to 97% of wave energy.

A new study estimates that reefs offer protection to up to 5.3 million people and $109 billion in gross domestic product (GDP) per decade. The maps in the study scientists generated are at a much finer resolution (分辨率) than previous analyses, which allows users to view coral reefs with more details and see where reefs provide the highest degree of protection for people, GDP and infrastructure (基础设施). “This level of detail means we can use this information in practical ways, like in the marine spacial planning we do to inform conservation strategies around the world,” says Dr. Spalding, the co-author of the study. More accurate data on where reefs protect people and infrastructure from destructive waves can help improve decision-making about which reefs to protect.

We have already lost half of the world’s reefs, and scientists predict we could lose up to 90% if actions are not taken to protect them. Effective management strategies are vital to supporting reef health and recovery.

Coral reefs are often selected for conservation based on their ecological significance, which may mean they are located in remote places, away from the more direct effects of human pressures like development and pollution. “We are failing ourselves as well as nature if we don’t also consider protecting the reefs that are located closer to humans,” says Spalding. “These are the reefs that protect us and provide for us in abundance. Let’s look after them.”

Going green is more than just a fad (一时的流行). Understanding the link between a clean environment and human life is not a new concept. In fact, it was noticed as early as ancient Rome and medieval Europe. However, it was only in the late 1960s that environmentalism grew to become a political and grassroots movement, influencing ordinary people around the world.

The movement has been able to influence governments across the world to be responsible towards the environment in a variety of ways, such as limiting the burning of fossil fuels and managing how harmful waste is thrown away.

Fast-forward to today and we see how green-living has entered so many areas of our everyday lives, from choosing the appliances that use less water and energy to using reusable bags instead of plastic bags and even buying clothes made from recycled sources. For many of us, making small environmentally-conscious decisions, such as bringing a reusable container to take away food, is how we change our normal habits one step at a time. However, there is a growing community of people who embrace a zero waste lifestyle and make great changes to the way they live to reduce their carbon footprint.

Living a zero waste lifestyle means doing one's best to achieve the aim of not sending anything to a landfill (垃圾填埋场). People who adopt this lifestyle cut down on their waste by reducing what they need and want. They reuse what they own and send few things to be recycled.

Despite what this movement is called, experts say true zero waste is difficult to achieve. This is because waste unavoidably comes about whenever an item is created, transported or repurposed (改换用途), either through emissions or energy. The idea, really, is to change mindsets and habits to lessen our negative impact on the environment as far as possible.

4 . Some of you may play Ant Forest, a game on Alipay. Users collect “energy” to make their “trees” grow. When the “energy” reaches a certain level, some organizations and companies will plant a real tree in a desert area of China. And now it seems that the nation’s efforts as a whole to make a greener world have paid off.

According to a research by NASA, China and India are mainly responsible for making the Earth greener over the past two decades. The study has found that since 2000 the Earth’s green leaf area has increased by 5 percent, or over 5 million square kilometers. That’s an area equivalent to the total area of the Amazon rainforest. It is mainly the result of big tree-planting programs in China and intensive agriculture in both countries, according to NASA. China was the major contributor, adding 25 percent to this increase, while India added 6.8 percent.

Over the past decades, China has made great efforts to green the land. In 1978, China began a national-level forestation project – the Three North Shelterbelt Forest Program, also known as the “Great Green Wall”. The program has seen many trees planted in 13 provinces and autonomous regions in northern China to act as windbreaks, according to China Daily. By the end of 2017, the forest coverage rate among the regions of the project had reached 13.57 percent, compared to 5.05 percent 40 years ago.

In the light of China’s success in dealing with desertification, the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) believes the country is a good example for others to follow. “China is one of the most successful countries in greening the desert and has lessons to share with the world,” UNEP Executive Director Erik Solheim told Xinhua.

6 . The world’s largest whales are more than just astonishing creatures. Much like the ocean, soil and forests, whales can help save humans from the increasing climate crisis by storing carbon. In a paper published recently, climate researchers suggest that whales are important, but often overlooked, carbon sinks.     

The enormous size of these marine mammals, which can reach 150 tons, means they can store carbon much more effectively than smaller animals. And because whales live longer than most animals, they could be “one of the largest stable living carbon pools” in the ocean. Even when whales die, their dead bodies fall down to the deepest parts of the sea and settle on the seafloor, trapping the carbon they’ve stored in their bodies. An indirect way whales can be critical carbon sinks is through their waste. Whale poop (粪便) is rich in nutrients which can be taken up by phytoplankton — tiny organisms that suck up carbon dioxide as they grow.

The process of carbon sequestration helps reduce climate impact, because it locks away carbon that otherwise would have warmed the planet somewhere else for hundreds, if not thousands of years.

Yet whales are threatened, with six out of 13 great whale species classified as endangered or vulnerable due to threats including industrial whaling, as well as trap in fishing equipment, climate change-caused shifts in prey availability, noise pollution and more.

Heidi Pearson, a researcher at the University of Alaska Southeast, said the research shows that protecting whales has a double benefit — helping to stop the biodiversity crisis as well as human-caused climate change. Protecting whales is a low risk and low regret strategy, because there’s really no downside. She said there was no risk to this strategy compared to other untested, expensive solutions to capturing and trapping carbon, such as geoengineering.   

But there remain big gaps in knowledge to fully determine how whale carbon should be used to slow down climate changes. Pearson hopes the current paper pushes policymakers to consider whales as a significant part of climate change solution.