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Bloomberg Philanthropies launches $50M fund to help cities tackle global issues_我的网站

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A | NEW YORK -- Bloomberg Philanthropies unveiled a $50 million initiative Wednesday to help cities address global issues, including climate change, by launching programs proven effective in other cities around the world.The Bloomberg Cities Idea Exchange will give city governments grants for startup costs and technical support, as well as sponsor trips and webinars to inform leaders about new programs.“Cities are a force for change on all of the big challenges we’re facing, and we’ve long worked to spread the best ideas globally,” Michael R. Bloomberg, founder of Bloomberg LP and Bloomberg Philanthropies, said in a statement. “This new Bloomberg Cities Idea Exchange will intensify and expand those efforts, bringing new muscle and rigor to the replication process.”The new initiative, announced at the Bloomberg CityLab conference in Washington on Wednesday, formalizes a process that CityLab has used for years. As former mayor of New York City, Bloomberg knows the importance of seeking out ideas that other cities have already proven, said James Anderson, who leads Bloomberg Philanthropies’ Government Innovation Program.“He understood the unique opportunity that city leaders have to drive progress locally, but also contribute to driving around global issues like climate change,” Anderson told The Associated Press in an interview. “We looked around and we understood very quickly that many city halls did not have the capacity they needed to find solutions and to implement them locally, to make them more ambitious and move their cities and the world forward.”They decided that philanthropy could play an important role in helping cities launch innovative programs and then unlock further funding from governments or other donors, Anderson said.The Bloomberg Cities Idea Exchange builds on the success of programs like an environmental initiative in Lincoln, Nebraska, that turns wood waste into a charcoal-like material called biochar that reduces the amount of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere.In 2022, the city received a $400,000 grant from Bloomberg Philanthropies to launch the program and it has already made a difference in the city, said Lincoln Mayor Leirion Gaylor Baird. The biochar — which the city produces from trees blown down in storms or damaged by the emerald ash borer beetle — traps carbon, conserves water and improves the soil.“We have ambitious climate action goals,” Gaylor Baird said. “And we’re looking for innovative solutions to help us sequester carbon and improve quality of life and also just deal with some of the impacts of changing weather patterns.”Without the Bloomberg Philanthropies grant, Lincoln would not have been able to launch the biochar initiative so quickly, Gaylor Baird said. Or receive a $100,000 grant from the Nebraska Forest Service.Mattias Gustafsson, co-founder of the consulting firm EcoTopic and the project manager of the Stockholm Biochar Initiative, which the Lincoln project is modeled after, said he is “proud and amazed” to see the idea replicated around the world. In the United States, Cincinnati and Minneapolis have also launched biochar projects, along with Helsinki, Darmstadt, Germany, Helsingborg, Sweden, and Sandnes, Norway – all with help from Bloomberg Philanthropies.“Cities are really crucial for fighting climate change because they have a different angle coming in,” Gustafsson said. “Cities are not trying to make a profit. They are trying to do something good for their citizens.”The Bloomberg Cities Idea Exchange is designed to help cities in that effort, Anderson said. Numerous projects, highlighted by Bloomberg Philanthropies' Global Mayors Challenge, have already been replicated by cities around the world.The Providence Talks program in Rhode Island, which helps young children learn by increasing the number of words they hear each day, has been adopted by Birmingham, Alabama. The Visor Urbano program in Guadalajara, Mexico, which allows businesses to receive licenses completely online, has already expanded to 100 other cities in Mexico and will soon launch in other Latin American cities. Anderson said that city officials receive so much real time feedback from their residents that they are always looking for new ideas to help them do their jobs better.“They don’t spend as much time giving speeches and engaging in partisanship because they’re in the business of delivering services that people count on every single day,” he said. “There’s an accountability to residents to bring solutions that make a difference in their lives that are visible and measurable. And the cities understand that sometimes those ideas can come from entrepreneurs at home and other times it’s great to steal those ideas from the city down the street.”____Associated Press coverage of philanthropy and nonprofits receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content. For all of AP’s philanthropy coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/philanthropy.。近日，在新余市分宜县亚林中心年珠实验林场，工作人员发现国家近危级珍稀植物——水晶兰。

B | 图源：“江西发布”微信公众号　　水晶兰，这个名字如梦如幻，在生物界中也有着独特而神秘的地位。它是武侠小说“幽灵之花”的原型，其形酷似一株洁白无瑕的水晶，散发着诡异而迷人的光芒。水晶兰虽然分布广泛，但其个体数量在同一地区却极为很少，是名副其实的珍稀植物。　　当天上午，年珠实验林场的工作人员在林区野外作业时，无意中发现路边生长着几株奇特植物，植物高10至15厘米，为白色半透明鳞片，花朵微微下垂。后经辨认，该植物为水晶兰。

C | 　　据了解，水晶兰虽然名字带“兰”却不是兰花，而属于鹿蹄草科植物。多年生，草本，腐生；茎直立，单一，不分枝，高10厘米至30厘米，全株无叶绿素，白色，肉质，干后变黑褐色。

D | 水晶兰八九月份开花，主要分布于俄罗斯、日本、印度、东南亚、北美等国家及地区；在我国主要分布于山西、云南、四川、贵州、广西等省份。　　水晶兰对海拔、气候、土壤等生长环境尤为苛刻，分布在中高海拔的针阔混交林和阔叶林下，大多生长在海拔800米至3200米的幽暗潮湿的环境里，只有在人迹罕至、阳光稀缺、生态环境非常好且落叶重重的深山丛林里才有机会见到，非常罕至。　　水晶兰经过千万年的进化，叶子已经蜕变成白色的鳞片，浑身晶莹剔透如水晶一般，没有一点叶绿素，无法进行光合作用，依靠腐烂的植物获得养分。

E | 因其特殊的腐生方式，水晶兰被称作“幽冥之花”，或称“梦兰花”“腐生花”等，是一种无毒植物。在武侠小说中，水晶兰被神化成能够起死回生的仙草，要么被视为具有灵异力量，可以无形中致人毙命的邪物，甚至将它的幽香也描写得令人毛骨悚然。其实水晶兰既没有回天的魔力，更不会伤人致命，而是一味性草味淡，可医治体虚久咳的民间良药。　　水晶兰虽属多年生草本腐生植物，即其正常生命周期超过两年，但一年365天，有300多天都隐藏在地下，只有40多天露出地面，开花结果。