炎炎夏日 远离假草

Hotter

Imagine how grim those bright white slabs and plastic lawns are in this heatwave. Artificial lawns get hotter than bitumen and concrete. Without a blade of grass, and no shading vegetation, they are furnaces, emitting an unpleasant smell of melting plastic.

想象一下，在这样的热浪中，那些明亮的白色石板和塑料草坪有多么可怕。人造草坪比沥青和混凝土更热。没有一株草，没有遮阳的植被，它们就像火炉一样，散发着塑料融化时的难闻气味。

Artificial “lawns” turn out to be high maintenance in fact. They need to be watered to cool them down. They need special cleaning products to get rid of smells and stains. You even have to vacuum them to get rid of leaves.

事实上，人工“草坪”需要大量的维护，要浇水来冷却，要用特殊的清洁产品来去除气味和污渍，甚至需要用吸尘器来清除树叶。

Recent research found that “tree-covered areas in cities have a much lower land surface temperature compared with surrounding areas”. The cooling effect of trees comes largely from shading and transpiration, which is when water within the tree is released as water vapour through their leaves. However, hard surfaces, typical of “urbanised” areas, are much hotter than areas of natural vegetation. Destroying vegetation changes how the land absorbs and releases energy, contributing to temperature rises. 

最近的研究发现“城市中树木覆盖地区的地表温度比周围地区低得多”。树木的降温效果主要来自遮阳和蒸腾作用，即树木内部的水分通过树叶以水蒸气的形式释放出来。然而，“城市化”地区的典型坚硬地表比覆盖有自然植被的地表要热得多，破坏植被会改变土地吸收和释放能量的方式，导致气温上升。

The loss of biodiversity

With rampant development destroying the countryside, urban gardens are even more critical in providing a habitat for birds and insects.

由于大规模开发破坏了农村，城市花园在为鸟类和昆虫提供栖息地方面更为关键。

Newcastle city council has just agreed to “avoid” fake grass in landscaping. More boldly, Quebec prohibits plastic grass, and several German cities, including Nuremberg, have recently banned what they call “horror gardens”. There is “no cooling effect in gravel gardens”, the council said, “the hard surfaces contribute to flooding risk”, and “horror gardens” are disastrous for biodiversity.

(澳大利亚)纽卡斯尔市议会前不久决定在景观美化中“避免”人造草。更为大胆的是，(加拿大)魁北克省禁止塑料草。包括纽伦堡在内的几个德国城市最近也明令禁止了所谓的“恐怖花园（自然植被被人造草坪取代的花园）”。该委员会说，“砾石花园没有冷却效果”，“坚硬的表面增加了洪水的风险”，“恐怖花园”对生物多样性的影响是灾难性的。

Last week, Sir James Bevan, chief executive of the Environment Agency, invoked Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring and warned of the catastrophe facing Britain’s wildlife.

上周，英国环境局首席执行官James Bevan爵士援引了Rachel Carson的《寂静的春天》，警告英国野生动物面临巨大灾难。

The biodiversity crisis, he said, “poses just as great an existential risk to humanity as climate change”, and called for nature-based solutions to reverse shocking declines in wildlife.

他说，生物多样性危机“和气候变化一样，给人类的生存带来了巨大的风险”，并呼吁以自然为基础的解决方案来扭转野生动物数量急剧下降的趋势。

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