Around the world, people are more and more worried about the environment. Many people now prefer products and companies (公司) that care about the earth and cause less pollution. This need for green products has led large companies to change their business.

Before, customers used cheap plastic (塑料) bags, and then threw them away. But now most supermarkets and stores usually provide reusable shopping bags for them. This causes less waste.

They also offer more local products, because less energy is needed for carrying them from one place to another.

To help lower air pollution, big car factories are looking for other ways to control the amount of oil. Cars that use much less oil are very popular. Many companies are also developing fully electric cars. They produce no air pollution at all. Both kinds of cars have another advantage: They are cheaper to run and people don't need to worry about oil prices.

The airline companies face an even greater green challenge. Airplanes use much more oil than cars. So many airlines are now developing planes that can run on some other kinds of oil. They create less pollution and cost less. The companies are also developing a new kind of planes, and some of them use only solar panels (太阳能板) to fly!

Green businesses used to be popular with only a small group of people. But now, more and more companies have to show they care about the environment. Many products are marked “green” in order to look nice. However, people still have to be careful when choosing green products. It’s important to make sure the products are as environmentally friendly as the businessmen say.

Rising Temperatures

If the temperature rises by 5 degrees tomorrow, you will probably take off just one coat. But such a change in the average world temperature would be a serious problem. Many animals and plants would not be able to deal with these changes, and would die.

The UNEP (联合国环境规划署) released the Report 2018 on November 21, 2018. It says that if we don’t take action now, the world temperature will have risen by 3 to 5 degrees by the end of this century.

The report was written by 55 scientists from 20 countries. Scientists have set a goal for greenhouse gases sending out to limit the world temperature rise to only 2 degrees this century. But according to the report, people have already let out 14 percent more greenhouse gases than they should have done.

A large rise in temperatures could be terrible for us and for many other living things on Earth. Sea levels will rise because higher temperatures will cause melting ice flow into the sea. Large coastal cities in countries such as the Netherlands (荷兰) and Bangladesh (孟加拉共和国) could be flooded.

Some plants such as corn and sugarcane (甘蔗) will not grow well in higher temperatures. Some countries, such as Brazil and parts of Africa, will not have enough food. The change may cause less rain and even make some places very dry.

On November 26, people from around 200 nations and regions gathered again in Doha (多哈) for the annual UN climate talks. “Climate change is coming to all human beings and effective actions need to be taken to deal with it,” president of the conference said at the opening ceremony.