1 . If you look at the dynamic “Global Temperatures” map on NASA’s website, you can see the historic temperature change over time across the planet as the timeline goes from 1880 to the modern day. By 2019, the entire planet is in red, orange, and yellow colors, indicating temperatures much higher than the historical average in every country and human inhabitance.

If the timeline went to 2023, the map would look even worse. That’s because the summer of 2023 was the hottest ever, according to ocean monitors. July was the hottest month in recorded history. Next July could be worse. Unless we do something quickly, we face dealing with more and more dangerous and expensive natural disasters in the future.

Forest fires sent smoke from Canada across the North American continent, causing New York City to have the worst air quality in its recorded history. Heavy rainstorms fell on Vermont and the Northeastern United States in just a couple of days in the middle of July, which exceeded the amount that area would usually receive in two months and caused extreme damage to homes and businesses. Around the same time, flash flooding in Bucks County, Pennsylvania — north of Philadelphia — killed nearly a dozen people.

Erich Fischer, a researcher specializing in climate studies at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, is concerned that natural disasters could get much worse in the future—and in ways we cannot predict. He called for a “strike for climate justice,” which actually took place on Sept. 15, 2023. “The strategy needs to be twofold (双重的) . We need to decrease carbon emissions as much as realistically possible. That is already happening with people using electric cars and other green technologies. At the same time, we also need to find ways to predict the risk of natural disasters ahead of time,” said Erich Fischer.

2 . The cry of the fishing cat sounds like the quack of a duck, and the rest of this midsize cat also enables it to hunt in the water. Its streamlined head is perfect for moves in the mangrove swamps (红树林沼泽地) and wetlands of South and Southeast Asia, and its pointy ears even fold (折叠) down when it jumps into deep water. The short and strong tail helps control its direction. The extra-thick coat keeps it warm and dry while swimming.

“I found fishing cats to be very ingenious,” says Tiasa Adhya, co-founder of The Fishing Cat Project, a research and conservation group based in eastern India. Her research recently showed that the animal has two methods of catching fish. In deep waters, the cat stays still on the banks for hours before jumping into the water for the kill. In shallow (浅的) waters, though, the cat actively drives the fish out of their hiding places by moving about with heavy steps.

Now the fishing cat is facing another challenge: humans. The world has lost almost 90 percent of its wetlands since the 1700s, with Asia suffering the greatest loss. These days, industrialized fish farming, pollution and other human behaviors have destroyed the living condition of freshwater fish and set fishing cats against farmers, as the hungry cats steal farmed fish, and the farmers get even with them (报复). Once found along river systems from Pakistan to Vietnam, the cats have disappeared from large areas of their range.

Researchers are testing new methods, including the commercial launch (商业化推出) of a type of native rice variety. Depending on nutrients (营养物) washed in by rains rather than on chemicals, the rice creates living space for the fishing cat and its food. The idea is that in healthy lakes where there is plenty to feed fishing cats and fishermen alike, killings will be unnecessary. “Nobody takes a loss,” Adhya explains, “when somebody takes a fish.”

3 . As a child, Cruz Avila walked through the forest every day in central Mexico’s Amanalco-Vall de Bravo Basin. She would pick wood and medicinal plants. She also learned to find birds and identify the different trees near her home. Avila learned that listening to a waterfall is a good medicine for the soul and the body.

Several months ago, she and other residents decided to make these walks an attraction for tourists. Their goal is to create a source of income, preserve the forest and support responsible medicine for the soul tourism. In 2021, Avila and other community members attended training as nature guides.

In recent years, residents of the forest communities have suffered from tourism that’s not environmentally sustainable (可持续的). In early April 2022, the communities officially presented their alliance (联盟). One of the people presenting it was Avila, and her voice echoed (附和) the feelings shared by many who are part of this project. “To us, forests are our home,” she said. “We want to take care of them as we take care of our home. We invite hikers and tourists to come to see our house, to get to know and enjoy this place with respect and care.”

Avila said her community has developed a sustainable tourism plan based on hiking and workshops. They also plan to have a viewing platform ready by 2023.

Avila said she plans to start promoting her hiking project, “I’m going to take visitors to a place called El Caballero, and halfway through, with the other neighbors, we’ll offer them a workshop on making pulque and bread,” she said. Pulque is a drink made from a plant that grows in the region.

She believes the tourism project will receive support from visitors. She thinks it will be especially popular with those who are eager to help protect the forests and want to learn about forest communities.

5 . Most of us have heard of the 3Rs: reduce, reuse and recycle. It is the core principle of a sustainable (可持续的) life, but few of us can apply it in our own lives. Now, there’s a “lab” you can explore and discover a way toward living sustainably.

3R Lab is located in Xuhui district, Shanghai. It offers exhibitions, activities and goods that showcase the 3R principle. The key to a sustainable life, according to Vincent T. M. Fong, the 32-year-old from Hong Kong who created the lab, is to make it a long-term promise. “A sustainable life should be sustainable itself in the first place. You can’t lead a sustainable life on a whim. Small and comfortable changes are exactly what you need,” Fong said.

The lab regularly hosts ugly fruit markets, offering these strange fruits which are often thrown away by traditional markets and consumers at a quite attractive price. “They’re thrown away simply because of their appearance. Buying fruit regardless of how they look reduces food waste significantly in our daily life,” Fong commented.

A water tank with two types of straws is another equipment in the lab. “One type is made from normal plastics widely used in our daily life while the other is from PHA, a new replacement for plastics, and the water is sourced from the Suzhou River,” explained Ni Li, an employee of the lab. Visitors can see how the PHA straws degrade (降解) into a thin layer in just one month, while the others remain unchanged.

“Leading a sustainable life does not necessarily mean sacrifice,” said Fong. Consuming ugly fruit and using degradable plastics are small changes that are good for the environment and easy to stick to. Only in this way can the 3R principle become part of our lives, he added.

After working there for six months, Ni, who wasn’t mindful of the 3R principle before arriving at the lab, now uses her cup every time she buys a coffee. “The job has reshaped my life,” Ni said.

8 . A United Nations report found the ozone layer (臭氧层) is slowly recovering, more than 35 years after every nation in the world agreed to stop producing ozone-consuming chemicals. The ozone layer, a blanket of gas that exists between 10km and 50km above Earth’s surface, protects the planet from the sun’s powerful radiation.

“We see things getting better,” said Paul Newman, co-chair of the UN team that examines the health of the ozone layer every four years. The global average amount of ozone 30km high in the atmosphere won’t be back to 1980 levels until about 2040, the report said. And it won’t be back to normal in the Arctic until 2045.In Antarctica, where the ozone layer is so thin that there’s a big hole, it won’t be fully fixed until 2066, the report said.

The global effort to recover the ozone hole came out of a 1987 agreement called the Montreal Protocol. Professor Petteri Taalas said the recovering of the ozone layer showed what could be achieved when the world worked together. “Ozone action sets an example for climate action,” Professor Taalas said.

There were signs of recovering in the last report on the ozone layer four years ago but the improvements were only slight. “Those numbers of recovery have solidified a lot,” Mr. Newman said. Mr. Newman added the two main chemicals that damage the ozone layer—chlorine (氯) and bromine (溴)—were now in lower levels in the atmosphere. Chlorine levels were down 11.5 per cent since peaking in 1993 and bromine, which is more damaging to the ozone layer but is at lower levels in the air, dropped 14.5 per cent since its 1999 peak.

UN environment program director Inger Andersen has previously said the recovering of the ozone hole was “saving two million people every year from skin cancer”.

    1    (handle) the widespread use and environmental damage caused by single-use plastics,   a Chinese research institute has proposed developing new technologies    2    using a more eco-friendly substitute-bamboo. The proposal,    3    (announce)on Thursday by the International Centre for Bamboo and Rattan, comes after the Bamboo as a Substitute for Plastic Initiative introduced at the High-level Dialogue on Global Development held     4     (virtual) in Beijing in June.

Fei Benhua, director of the International Centre for Bamboo and Rattan, said bamboo-straw manufacturing technology could be realized and used to replace plastic straws on     5    large scale,    6    (add) that using bamboo to make straws is just the beginning.

The world makes nearly 400 million metric tons of plastic every year for use in packaging, construction, catering and other    7    (purpose), and China’s delivery industry annually     8    (produce) about 1.8 million tons of plastic waste. A sharp rise in single-use plastics,     9    are produced almost entirely from fossil fuels, has damaged the well-being of the planet. Bamboo, on the other hand, can be used to produce cups, straws, paper and packaging, while being     10    (recycle) and environmentally friendly.