In November 2014, LeeAnne Walters turned on the tap in her kitchen in the city of Flint, Michigan. Disgusting, brown water streamed out. Over the following weeks, its color ranged from “light yellow to nasty, dark-looking
cooking grease,” she recalls.
污染水—弗林特河与公共健康危机的故事 Continue reading »
Flattened homes. Crumpled cars. Broken trees . Emergency shelters filled with shaken, distraught victims. This was what the Abaco Islands of the Bahamas looked like in the days after Hurricane Dorian struck in September 2019. “Everything is gone,” survivor Robert Cornea told CBS news . He and his wife had lived on the islands for more than fifty years. They lost everything they owned in the storm but escaped with their lives . Many others didn’t. Officially, seve nty people died , b ut some estimate that the actual number was in the hundreds. “People lost family members, they watched people slip away right out of their arms into the water,” June Russell, a fishing guide who lives in the Bahamas, told NBC news.
预测风暴——气旋与反气旋的科学研究和历史 Continue reading »
Wild nature seems to be the opposite of a human city. In nature, curvy and messy lines dominate, while in a city, most lines are straight and neat. In nature, the weather changes from rain to heat to cold, while in a city, roofs and heating and cooling systems keep people comfortable. In nature, growth happens chaotically, while in a city, growth is planned and controlled. In a city, people often pave over nature or fence it in. They tame it to the point that it may be hard to notice. But nature is always there. In fact, it is essential.
When you think of a city, you probably think of busy streets and towering skyscrapers . But the city doesn’t just reach up into the sky. It also extends down below the earth. Hidden beneath buildings and roads, a complex network of wires and pipes brings residents electricity, water, and gas and also removes their waste. Underground tunnels house subway systems, storage rooms, or other structures. In many cities, space above ground is so precious and crowded that engineers are finding new, creative ways to use underground space. Singapore is one of those cities. Here, the underground is already used for many purposes, and the city government is looking into ways to build even more underground structures. “You can build up, but there is a limit,” said John Keung when he was CEO of Singapore’s Building and Construction Authority. “The only thing left is to go underground.”
The next big thing in nuclear energy is small. Designs for dozens of small modular reactors have been developed or are in progress . And a few small reactors are already operating in India, Pakistan, Russia, and elsewhere. A small modular reactor can produce up to 300 megawatts (MW) of electricity (many designs produce much less). But size isn’t the only thing that makes these new, advanced reactor designs stand out.
Have you ever considered what the world would look like without waste? A world free from garbage dumps, landfills and pollution? For some people, this may feel like a pipe dream given the era of consumerism and throwaway products that we live in. For others, there is great ambition and hope as the world is starting to respond to the global rise in waste, offering possible ways to address this challenge.
On a winter morning in New York City in 2017, workers tossed a duct- taped box into a garbage truck. When the truck crushed the box, it exploded. The quick-thinking workers stopped the compactor, retrieved the burning box, and tossed it in a puddle, putting out the fire.
废旧电器的归宿废旧电器的归宿——我们该如何处理那些“危险”的电子垃圾？废旧电器的归宿 Continue reading »
