The heat wave that broke high temperature records in five European countries a week ago is now over Greenland,     1     (cause) the surface of the island’s vast ice sheet to melt at near-record levels and a huge     2     (lose) of ice in the Arctic. On Wednesday alone, more than 10 billion tons of ice was lost to the oceans by surface melt, which is equal to about 4,000,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools.

Melting     3     (increase) in recent decades because of climate change and has been decreasing accumulation from snow. Previously, during the 1970s and the 1980s, Greenland lost an average of 50 billion tons of ice each year. From 2010 to 2018,that figure shot up to 290 billion Tons     4     (annual). Next summer, the extent of the melt could surpass (超过) the record set in 2012,    5     about 97% of the ice sheet’s surface began to melt, NASA-JPL Caltech reported at the time.

Greenland, the world’s     6       (large) island, lies between the Atlantic and Arctic oceans, with 82 per cent of its surface covered in ice.     7     June 2019 study by scientists in the U.S. and Denmark said melting ice in Greenland alone would add between 5 and 33 centimeters to the rising     8     (globe) sea levels by the year 2100.     9     all the ice in Greenland melted, which would take centuries, the world’s oceans would rise     10     7.2 meter.

2 . I strongly believe that individual actions make a difference to our environment. I’ve been a vegetarian for more than two decades, choose to be child-free partially because I can’t justify my genes’ importance over the shocking amount of resources needed for raising another American, and haven’t owned a car in four years. Those things, over time, will absolutely reduce my impact on our beautiful world, and the more people do them, the greater the impact is.

But it’s not nearly enough.

While I will continue to do my part to fight climate change, I have to wonder why there isn’t an equal effort by those who have the biggest impact. According to a recent report, 71% of greenhouse gases are produced by just 100 companies. Surely, working to minimize their emissions (排放物) will do far more, much faster than me talking people’s ears off on Facebook about eating less meat. After all, I have been doing that kind of work for 20 years now, and we are still headed towards climate disaster.

Why should so much of the solution to global warming be on the shoulders of individuals?

When President Kennedy decided we needed to beat the Russians to the moon landing, he didn’t encourage housewives to figure out bow to get there. He got the smartest and most talented people together to solve the challenges. NASA got us there, with lots of hard work and late nights, and also full encouragement and funding from the US government.

But this is not the case with climate change. Big companies are let off the hook while we take on the huge burden of dealing with the emissions of the biggest and most powerful. That strikes me as just plain unfair. The serious threats of climate change require an all-hand-on-deck response. Corporations need to do their part, because I can’t do it on my own.

3 . For centuries, historians and archaeologists have defined periods of human history by the technologies or materials that made the greatest impact on society — like the Stone Age, Bronze Age, or Iron Age. But what age are we in now? For some researchers, according to Atlas Obscura’s Cara Giamo, that question can be answered with one word: plastics.

“Plastic has redefined our material culture and the artifacts we leave behind. It will be found in stratified (分层) layers in our trash deposits (沉积层)” That’s according to archaeologist John Marston.

The wide variety of synthetic polymers (合成聚合物) would not exist if it weren’t for human action. Since the first plastic polymers were invented, about six billion tons of plastics have been made and spread around the planet, from forests to oceans ever since the first plastics polymers were invented.

Plastics are one of the most significant changes that humans have made to the Earth’s makeup. Most plastics don’t easily degrade. This only adds to the problem. Recycling isn’t an adequate solution. Not all types of plastic are easily recyclable. And there are only a few recycling plants that can process all varieties of plastic.

According to Debra Winter, writer for The Atlantic, this means that many of the materials thrown into recycling bins can cross the planet several times before they are processed. They are made into produce rugs, sweaters, or other bottles. Although millions of tons of plastic are recycled every year, millions more end up in landfills or the ocean. The problem has reached the point where it’s possible that in just a few decades there might be more plastic in the world’s oceans than fishes.

“Plastics have a supposed life span of over 500 years, it’s safe to say that every plastic bottle you have used exists somewhere on this planet, in some form or another,” Winter writes. 

The damage may already be done. It may be too late for human populations worldwide to change their plastic-using ways. So the Plastic Age might soon take its place next to the Bronze Age and the Iron Age in the history of human civilization.

4 . 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.

5 . Plastic straws (吸管) have been a major problem in global discussions of environmental damage. Maybe because of their small size, the production cost of straws is low. In many countries, straws are offered freely after buying soft drinks. Therefore, plastic straws are one of the most used plastics and pollutants in the world.

The plastic straw is light and small. Due to their small size, plastic straws are often eaten by sea animals. Environmentalists have shown that the death of many sea animals is caused by eating plastic straws. The other damaging characteristic of plastic straws is that they are made of materials which cannot degrade. That means the materials cannot be changed into small harmless (无害的) ones.

The most effective way of dealing with the environmental pollution caused by plastic straws is the reuse or banning (禁止) the use of plastic straws. Being plastics, the straws can be made new items. Many organizations around the world change used straws into new products. In Africa, local communities collect used plastic straws and use them to make mats and bags. Another way of dealing with environmental pollution caused by plastic straws is placing a ban on their production and use. Experts advise governments to ban using plastic straws to save the environment. A few countries in the world such as Rwanda, Macedonia, China, Kenya have already banned the use of plastic bags and are expected to include plastic straws and bottles. But it will be a long way to do this effectively.

There are few environmentally friendly and biodegradable productions to take the place of plastic straws. These productions include paper straws, bamboo straws. However, such straws are usually expensive as their production cost is high. It’s still a question whether they can entirely take the place of plastic straws.

6 . A team of conservationists (环境保护主义者) captured 14 Loa water frogs earlier this month in northern Chile, a wildlife group reported.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) lists the Loa water frog as “critically endangered”. The not-for-profit Global Wildlife Conservation group said the 14 frogs were in poor condition when they were discovered in late June. The animals were small and struggling because of a lack of food and water.

The Loa water frogs are known to live only in a single body of water near Calama, in Chile. The city sits in the middle of the Atacama Desert, where water is in great demand.

There was little water in the area where the frogs were found, the conservation group reported. The frogs’ environment had mostly dried up because water is being taken away and used for human activities, the group said. The activities include mining (矿业), agriculture and land development. “All of the frogs had been pushed into a tiny pool of muddy water,” the organization said. “The team collected the last 14 individuals and brought them to the National Zoo of Chile to start a conservation breeding (繁殖) program.”

Zoo specialists are closely watching the small creatures and trying to give them everything they need to survive and be healthy. Conservation groups have called on Chile’s government to take steps to halt any illegal water usage that threatens the frogs’ natural environment. They would also like to see creation of a government-supported shelter to protect the animals.

Jon Paul Rodriguez heads the IUCN’s Species Survival Commission. He suggested that an emergency plan be developed to prepare the Calama area for the frogs’ return.

“We need to work very hard to restore their environment because it’s pointless to breed them if they don’t have a home to go back to in the wild,” Rodriguez said.

7 . The endangered pandas in the Qinling Mountains might face a new threat: the loss of their food, bamboo, which makes up 99% of their meals.

Adult pandas spend most part of the day eating bamboo and have to take in at least 40 pounds a day to stay healthy. However, a new study published in Nature Climate Change warned that they may soon find their food gone because most of the bamboo in the Qinling Mountains might disappear by the end of the century as a result of rising temperature worldwide.

A team made up of researchers from Michigan State University and the Chinese Academy of Sciences has studied the effects of climate change on the bamboo in the Qinling Mountains. They have found that bamboo is very sensitive to climate changes. “80% to 100% of the bamboo would be gone if the average temperature rises 3.5 degrees worldwide by the end of the century,” said Liu Jianguo, one of the report’s authors.

He added, “This is how much the temperature would rise by 2100 even if all countries will keep their promises in the Paris Agreement. But you know what is happening all around the world.”

In recent years, China has been trying its best to protect the endangered pandas by setting up more and bigger natural reserves.

“But it is far from enough and the endangered pandas need cooperation from the rest of the world, because their future is not just in the hands of the Chinese,” said Shirley Martin from the World Wildlife Fund but not a member of the team.

The Qinling Mountains, in the southwest of China, are home to about 260 pandas. That is about 13% of China’s wild panda population. In addition, about 375 are living in research centers and zoos in China.

8 . My sister Alice and I have been trying to get people to stop dropping cigarette butts (烟头) for seven years. One day, we were walking in our hometown and saw hundreds of cigarette butts on the ground. They made the town look so ugly that we decided to start a group to make people stop dropping butts. We called it “No Butts About It”.

At first, we drew pictures with “The Earth is not your ashtray (烟灰缸)” written on them. We put the pictures around our hometown — in parks, on beaches, and along roads. We wanted to make people understand that dropping butts hurts the environment. Most smokers don’t think that dropping butts hurts the Earth. But it does, and all rubbish does!

Later, we wrote to companies and asked them for money to help us. We used the money to buy ashtrays and gave them to smokers. We wanted smokers to carry the ashtrays with them so they didn’t have to drop butts.

At the moment, we are trying to get cigarette companies to put an ashtray in each pack of cigarettes. Some companies want to do it. Many people have started to join our group since it began. Today there are 45 other “No Butts About It” groups in America.

Now there are even groups in England, Australia, and India! Many newspapers have written about my sister and me over the last seven years. And we have won many prizes for what we do. But we are not interested in prizes. We just want to make the Earth a better and cleaner place for animals, plants and people. One day, it will be.