We already know the fastest, least expensive way to slow climate change: Use less energy. With a little effort, and not much money, most of us could reduce our energy diets by 25 percent or more—doing the Earth a favor while also helping our wallets.

    Not long ago, my wife, PJ, and I tried a new diet—not to lose a little weight but to answer an annoying question about climate change. Scientists have reported recently that the world is bending up even faster than predicted only a few years ago, and that the consequences could be severe if we don't keep reducing emissions(排放) of carbon dioxide (CO₂ ) and other greenhouse gases that are trapping heat in our atmosphere.

    We decided to try an experiment. For one month we recorded our personal emissions of CO₂. We wanted to see how much we could cut back, so we went on a strict diet. The average US household(家庭) produces about 150 pounds of CO₂  a day by doing common-place things like turning on air-conditioning or driving cars. That's more than twice the European average and almost five times the global average, mostly because Americans drive more and have bigger houses. But how much should we try to reduce?

    For an answer, I checked with Tim Flannery, author of The Weather Makers: How Man is Changing the Climate and What it Means for Life on Earth. In his book, he had challenged readers to make deep cuts in personal emissions to keep the world from reaching extremely important tipping points, such as the melting(融化) of the ice sheets in Greenland or West Antarctica. "To stay below that point, we need to reduce CO₂  emissions by 80 percent," he said.

    Good advice, I thought. I'd opened our bedroom windows to let in the wind. We'd gotten so used to keeping our air-conditioning going around the clock. I'd almost forgotten the windows even opened. We should not let this happen again. It's time for us to change our habits if necessary.

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    A Kickstarter launched Friday will allow interested parties to set up a camera and pet toys in their home for anyone to play with their pets remotely. It's called the ipet Companion, an Internet-connected camera and device that streams video online and allows basic commands from people watching. They can move the camera, look at their pet and press a button to swing a toy around.

    Obviously, demand is strong. The Kickstarter proved so popular that Scott Harris, iPet Companion's founder, said that thousands of people started asking for it.

    The reason why people keep talking about this is the emotional(情感的) connection they have from a thousand miles away. If you want, you can enter a queue to move the camera and play with the pets. Each room has toys that are hooked(钩住) into Internet-connected devices, and you can move them by pressing a button.

    But there's sort of a problem: Pets get bored easily. Young pets will stay more interested than adult pets, but finally even a baby pet will get bored, too. To stop that from happening, you'd better limit the pets' access(接近) to the boys and change the place where they're located in the room.

Harris understands this and said you can plug anything into that adapter(适配器) —toys that you can get on your own. And that's where the iPet Companion really gets interesting. Harris explained that the device is actually sort of a Trojan horse to bring the “Internet of things” to more homes. You don't really have to use it for pets. The adapter could be used for any device with an electrical plug—a sprinkler, say, that you'd be able to activate to water your grass.

    “Our whole goal, our whole purpose is to let anyone control any physical object that they want to while they travel anywhere in the woorld,” Harris said.

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    Half an hour into a cooking competition at Green Street Academy, Tyana Givens, 15, dipped a plastic spoon into a pot with tomatoes, bell peppers, onions, garlic and mushrooms over a burner in a science classroom. She and the two other students, Kalimah Ball and Maya Smith, were making meat sauce.

    The girls had spent the past five weeks learning how to grow their own produce using food computers-tabletop greenhouses controlled by computer programs-at Green Street Academy, a charter school in Baltimore. The course, which weaved together lessons on programming, food systems and agriculture, ended with an “Iron Chef”-style cooking contest.

    With the help of instructor Melanie Shimano, the girls finished their contest successfully using the food they planted in tabletop greenhouses. The tabletop greenhouses can control temperature, light and water inside using the computer code that the students wrote by themselves. Shimano, a 26-year-old entrepreneur, piloted(试行)the course as part of Green Street Academy's junior biotechnology class in the spring and will expand the program to other schools in the fall.

    “Technology is not something that a lot of teachers have a lot of resources for all the time, but it's something that's not difficult to do with a relatively low amount of funding,” Shimano said. “Baltimore is a center for startups and food, so kind of fostering that culture of being into technology and into design and seeing all the pieces fit together is really cool.”

    While her course is unique to Baltimore, it's part of a broader program born at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Media Lab called the Open Agriculture Initiative, or OpenAg, which aims to create inventive, sustainable food systems through open-source technology. In addition to 10 full-time staff and researchers, OpenAg is primarily an online community of about 1,400 educators, growers, chefs and retailers in 47 countries, according to Hildreth England, OpenAg's assistant director.

    “The interest level across the board generally comes from folks who are concerned about food systems and concerned about the environment, and it's usually a combination of the two,” England said.

    One of the features of a successful business is its ability to employ creativity to constantly push into new territory. Without growth and innovation, businesses eventually fade away. Those with staying power, however, have mastered an often-overlooked factor that allows them to focus on the future clearly: empathy (共情). While that may surprise many, I am certain that the ability to connect with and relate to others—empathy in its purest form—is the force that moves businesses forward.

    Though the concept of empathy might go against the modern concept of a traditional workplace competitive, the reality is that for business leaders to experience success, they need to not just see or hear the activity around them, but also relate to the people they serve.

    Some may think they want the results from doggedly (顽强地) pursuing their goals without much thought for other people. This attitude works for some, but at some point often sooner rather than later everyone needs to rely on their relationships and established personal and professional connections. These relationships are the product of taking an honest and dedicated interest in others and their businesses. Successful people do not operate alone; each of us needs the support of others to achieve positive results that push us toward our goals. True empathy combines understanding both the emotional and the logical rationale(根据) that goes into every decision.

    Effectively understanding empathy involves viewing it as each person's connection to the people and marketplace that surround them. A biological principle known as co-evolution explains that the adaptation of an organism is caused by the change of a related object. Similarly, businesses and their leaders participate in co-evolution-type relationships. Business success depends on empathetic leaders who are able to adapt, build on the strengths around them, and relate to their environment. When businesses fail, it is often because leaders have stopped focusing on understanding their environment and instead stay separated in their own operations. Successful business leaders are receptive to disturbance and aware of what is going on in their organizations both internally and externally.

    To develop an effective workforce, we must be willing to give in and meet people where they are. This can be frustrating and uncomfortable, particularly when you feel like your position makes more sense or offers a better solution. A critical part of developing empathy, however, is learning to understand, respect and implement another individual's point of view rather than forcing your own.

    Two Chinese sisters have landed a dream trip to Buckingham Palace and the Peppa Pig World theme park in the UK. Lately, their mother helped them express their wish online to meet Queen Elizabeth II, which not only caught millions of social media users' attention but also the attention of the British ambassador (大使) to China.

    Five-year-old twins Mi Ai and Mi Ni, who live in Beijing, appeared in a video on social media platform Weibo last week, where they spoke of their love of British cartoon Peppa Pig and their keen interest to visit the Buckingham Palace. Mi Ni said she and her sister wanted to visit the gardens at Buckingham Palace, just like Peppa Pig and her friends did in the cartoon program.

    The British Ambassador answered their call with her own video, inviting the twins to her house in Beijing. "Hello Mi Ni and Mi Ai," she said. "I'm the British ambassador. I'd like you to come and visit me in my house in Beijing and we can perhaps have tea and cookies in a British style." The twins accepted the ambassador's invitation and joined her for a traditional afternoon tea on Monday, when they ate cake and drew pictures of their favorite characters from Peppa Pig.

    The ambassador has made arrangements for the girls and their parents to tour the UK. They are going to tour the studios where Peppa Pig is made, take a trip to Peppa Pig World in Hampshire and visit Buckingham Palace. The queen has not yet said if she will have time to welcome the girls.

    The Peppa Pig series, introduced in the mid-2000s in China, has become extremely popular among Chinese children and adults. As this year is the Year of the Pig according to Chinese tradition, the country has set to mark the Chinese New Year with a film starring Peppa Pig, where audiences can see a number of Chinese cultural elements (元素).

    For the first time, China's South Pole researchers can eat fresh vegetables grown regularly, according to Wang Zheng, the grower, who came home last month after a 400-day mission in Antarctica.

    "Growing vegetables in Antarctica reminded me of The Martian, a sci-fi movie about an astronaut who survives alone on Mars by eating potatoes he grows there," Wang said on Friday. "I totally understand the main character of the movie, I understand how he feels when he watches a small green plant grow in a fragile man-made environment,'' said the 40-year-old doctor. But he admitted that the conditions he faced in the Antarctic were much better than those in the film.

    Wang said the growth chamber(生长室) at the Zhongshan Station, had only a low yield when it was established in 2013. The amount was too small to make it possible for researchers to have vegetable dishes. To increase the yield, he reduced the number of vegetable varieties and focused on only some fast-growing ones, which makes the output stable. As a result, during much of his stay there, at least one vegetable dish, such as cucumbers, lettuce or cabbage, was served at every meal for a group of 18 researchers.

    Wang, an orthopedist, said he knew nothing about botany or farming before he arrived at the station in December, 2014. "I was given this job probably because my office is next to the growth chamber, and as a doctor, I had more spare time than others," Wang said. He considered many factors, such as light, temperature and humidity. Light music is played in the 16-square - meter greenhouse around the clock. "Mild music is good for vegetable growth," he said. "We also played Buddhist music, which has soft melody."

    "Growers before me did very good work. My job was to maintain the chamber and keep everything working." Before the  harvest, researchers had a very limited vegetable supply—mostly potatoes and cabbage, which taste awful after months of storage. "Because of our success in growing vegetables, we can have fresh vegetables every day," he said. "The Russian station is no more than one kilometer away from ours. We even had enough vegetables to invite our Russian colleagues for dinner."