Topic Reading-Vol.4000-4/7/2023

Dear MEL Topic Readers,  
Airfares across Asia are sky-high this year. Here’s why
As borders reopened for travelers after three years of Covid restrictions, many people are so eager to travel abroad. But even with their unused travel budget during the Covid period, some people find it too expensive to fly especially across Asia Pacific regions where travel restrictions were lifted just recently, much later than in Europe and North America. The main problem is the flight capacity, which had been significantly reduced in the last three years. It takes time for airlines to position crew and ground staff, coordinate with airports, and relocate aircraft to increase capacity. Now, demand is higher than supply, so prices become higher accordingly. Then, higher fuel costs, inflation, and labor shortages all increase ticket prices. Furthermore, as Russian airspace has been closed to many countries since the invasion of Ukraine, flights between Europe and Asia have been forced to reroute, which takes longer distance, flight time, and fuel. For instance, a flight from Tokyo to London now takes 2.4 hours longer and burns 20% more fuel. All in all, airfares have become more expensive than pre-Covid era, especially in Asia Pacific regions, and don’t seem to get back to the pre-Covid levels anytime soon or never.
Enjoy reading the 4,000^th topic reading and think about your next travel strategy to cope with the rising airfare and most likely, ground transportation and accommodations.
https://edition.cnn.com/2023/03/24/business/asia-airfares-flights-travel-recovery-intl-hnk/index.html

Topic Reading-Vol.3999-4/6/2023

Dear MEL Topic Readers,  
New cars sold in EU must be zero-emission from 2035
In 27 European Union countries, all new cars sold from 2035 will not emit exhaust gas or other pollutants on the road. This landmark agreement has just recently been reached, with one vote against it and three abstentions, in a bit to reduce carbon dioxide emissions to zero. New cars in the EU, whose present population is about 450 million, will only be electric, fuel cell vehicles powered by hydrogen, bio-fuel, or e-fuels vehicles. The share of electric vehicles, the most popular zero-emission vehicle today, has risen to 12 percent of the total new car market in 2022, up from 1.9% in 2019. As electric vehicles become more economically affordable and charging stations become more easily accessible, they are expected to increase their share quite rapidly. What about e-fuels? E-fuels or electro fuels are synthetic fuels that are made from carbon dioxide captured from the atmosphere and hydrogen from clean energies. They are thought of as an option for reducing greenhouse gas emissions in transportation but haven’t been commercially mass-produced yet. Car manufacturers, new ventures, and their suppliers are now making in their investments in clean energy vehicles around the world. Do you want to drive a car that is run on gasoline in 2030? Will there be enough gas stations then?
Enjoy reading the article and thinking about what type of vehicles driving on the road in the near future.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-65105129

Topic Reading-Vol.3998-4/5/2023

Dear MEL Topic Readers,  
Climate change: trees grow for extra month as planet warms – study
We know that trees are sensitive to local climate conditions, such as rain and temperature. For example, tree rings usually grow wider in warm, wet years and they are thinner in years when it is cold and dry. Indeed, tree rings give us some information about that area’s local climate in the past and recent years. Recently, scientists have studied trees in a forest in Ohio, USA, and compared the data with an old record kept by a local farmer between 1883 and 1912, when the climate hadn’t been affected so much by global warming. They found that leaves nowadays stay on trees about 15% longer than they did in those pre-industrial days. This means trees nowadays have a substantially longer growing season than about a century ago. Can you imagine human activities have extended trees’ growing period by 15% just in 100 years? Though this means those leaves absorb carbon dioxide more from the atmosphere, such temperature fluctuation might cause stress to the trees as well as the biodiversity of the surrounding environment. As we’ve already witnessed cherry blossoms bloom a week or two earlier than decades ago, global warming seems to cause much more significant impacts on flora than we’ve realized, or admitted.
Read the article and learn about the impact on trees by global warming.
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-65037659

Topic Reading-Vol.3997-4/4/2023

Dear MEL Topic Readers,  
‘World’s longest’ bus journey will take 56 days to cross Europe
As more people are choosing land travel over air travel these days, old services are being resumed like sleeper trains in Europe (Vol.3985) and new services are emerging. What about a 56-day trip from Istanbul, Turkey to London? To your surprise, this isn’t a cruise trip but a 12,000-kilometer bus trip! With up to 29 fellow passengers, you can board the bus in Istanbul and travel through the Balkans, Eastern Europe, Scandinavia, and Western Europe, and reach London. Also included in the trip is a ferry ride along the Scandinavian region. You can enjoy the trip without worrying about local transportation, accommodation, breakfast, documentation, or permits at a price of $24,300, or just around $430 a day, including 30 lunches and dinners.
While a cruise trip is pretty much around coastal regions, this bus trip seems to offer broader travel options. This amazing bus journey is planned by an Indian expedition company and is scheduled to leave Istanbul on August 7.
Enjoy reading the article and learning about the world’s longest bus journey.
https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/worlds-longest-bus-journey-istanbul-to-london/index.html

Topic Reading-Vol.3996-4/3/2023

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Food pods and vertical farming could help us grow crops on Mars
Vertical farming grows crops in vertically stacked layers under a controlled environment including lighting, temperature, humidity, and watering. It uses nutrient-rich water straight to a plant’s roots, which uses much less water and fertilizer than conventional outdoor agriculture while creating much less waste. Since the environment and nutrients are fully under control in vertical farming, what plants and where they are grown are at the grower’s discretion. In fact, there is the world’s largest vertical farming facility in Dubai, UAE that produces a thousand tons of crops annually. If vertical farming can produce that many plants in such a harsh desert environment, it might be able to do the same on Mars, our next frontier. Interestingly, NASA is considering if vertical farming could help feed astronauts on the red planet, where there is 100 times thinner air, half sunlight, and no fresh water. Whether vertical farming will grow plants on Mars or not, it is expected to provide environmentally friendly agricultural produce even in extremely arid, cold, or hot places on Earth.
Enjoy reading the article and learn how to feed people on Mars.
https://edition.cnn.com/2023/03/24/world/mars-food-interstellar-lab-climate-scn-spc-intl/index.html

Topic Reading-Vol.3995-4/2/2023

Dear MEL Topic Readers,  

The French are up in arms over retiring at 64. How do other countries compare?

King Charles III’s state visit to France, which was scheduled to start on the 26^th of March, was postponed after a request by France’s President Emmanuel Macron because of the widespread unrest caused by pension reform protests and strikes. A series of general strikes and demonstrations started in January to oppose the 2023 pension reform bill, which would raise the retirement age from 62 to 64 years old. That sounds like a big hit for those who are retiring soon but it would be still younger compared with other developed countries. In fact, France’s public pension is quite generous, whose public spending per GDP is about 14%, the world’s third highest only after Greece and Italy, and much higher than Germany’s 10% and UK’s 6%. The government wants to reform the pension and retirement system to cope with the increasing number of senior citizens, and thus the beneficiaries. It is of course one of the least favored measures to propose and impose, for any governments of democratic or autocratic. Even if people understand the necessity of such a painstaking reform, no one wants to pay for it.

Read the article and learn why French people are so angry with the pension reform.

https://edition.cnn.com/2023/03/24/business/pension-age-developed-countries-oecd/index.html

Topic Reading-Vol.3994-4/1/2023

Dear MEL Topic Readers,  
Rare print of Hokusai's 'Great Wave' sets new auction record
Ukiyo-e (pictures of the floating world) was one of the most important genres of art between the 17th and 19th centuries in Japan. Its artists produced woodblock prints and paintings of such subjects as female beauties, kabuki actors and sumo wrestlers, scenes from history and folk tales, travel scenes and landscapes, flora and fauna, and erotica. However, after the economic reform in the mid-19th century, the landscape genre came to a dominant category, which is also well-perceived by western art lovers because the Japanese landscape differed from the Western tradition. Hokusai (1760-1849) was one of the most renowned artists of that time, especially with 36 views of Mount Fuji, which includes The Great Wave off Kanagawa, one of the world's most widely reproduced images. Ukiyo-e is not painting but printing and the process of making Ukiyo-e is painstaking, demanding utmost precision. The artist dampens the washi paper before applying paint and rice glue to the woodblock. Each side of every block represents a different color that will be layered into Ukiyo-e. In those days, labor cost was cheap so popular ukiyo-e works were printed as many as thousands of copies until the woodblocks wore out. Now, one of the well-preserved, early copies of the print was sold at $2.76 million at an auction in New York. Though the print is rare, it is still one of the mass-produced prints. This is no April-fool joke.
Enjoy reading the article and watching the video to learn about what Japan’s ukiyo-e is like.
https://edition.cnn.com/style/article/hokusai-great-wave-auction-christies/index.html