2026-01-19 20:30:00
2025年11月24日，哈德森·威廉姆斯和康纳·斯托里在多伦多TIFF Lightbox影院出席电视剧《Heated Rivalry》（《炽热情仇》）首映礼。| Harold Feng/Getty Images
《Heated Rivalry》是一部基于畅销爱情小说作家瑞秋·里德作品改编的加拿大剧集，正在HBO Max上播出。这部剧引发了广泛讨论，不仅占据了社交媒体和算法推荐，也深深吸引了观众。剧情围绕一群隐藏性取向的专业冰球运动员展开，讲述他们在爱情中经历的挣扎与激情，同时也包含大量亲密场景。尽管有人将其称为“同性恋冰球情色剧”，但该剧的核心其实非常温暖感人。
艾玛·格拉斯曼-哈格斯是Popsugar的撰稿人、记者和编辑，她认为《Heated Rivalry》并非特例。她表示，该剧之所以成功，是因为它触及了人类普遍的情感体验——渴望。她在Vox的访谈中提到：“我认为人们现在都在渴望，无论是哪种形式。在更传统的意义上，我们已经看到《Heated Rivalry》和《夏日我心醉》的成功，这两部剧都是对真正心动的强烈渴望的完美体现。”
在Vox的每周播客《Explain It to Me》最新一期中，我们与格拉斯曼-哈格斯探讨了流行文化中“渴望”的现象，以及它对我们社会的意义。以下是访谈内容的节选，已进行删减和润色。完整版可在Apple Podcasts、Spotify或其他播客平台收听。如果你想提交问题，可通过电子邮件发送至[email protected]，或致电1-800-618-8545。
你是否在其他地方也看到这种渴望？比如在政治领域，像Mamdani在纽约的竞选活动，就充满了能量和热情，以及对更好未来的渴望。此外，TikTok上也出现了新年决心趋势，人们计划在2026年经历1000次拒绝，这代表了他们愿意尝试、展现脆弱并面对失败的决心。这种“渴望”能量非常强烈。在这一千次拒绝的过程中，你也会遇到一些肯定，无论是爱情、工作还是社区组织等目标。
我认为，将渴望仅限于浪漫层面是不全面的。如今，世界充满令人沮丧的新闻事件，渴望或许是一种逃避，但我觉得它更像是一种扎根的力量。渴望是一种深刻的身体体验，是对无法得到所渴望之物的绝望，以及在接近却无法触及时所承受的痛苦。我们都很熟悉“极致痛苦”的概念，而渴望也能带来一种自虐式的快乐，这种快乐在当下尤为重要。
心动是有趣的，但有时也让人痛苦。然而，它又是一种很棒的情感体验。很难描述这种既痛苦又愉快的感觉。当我想到渴望时，脑海中浮现的词是“吞噬一切”。回到浪漫主题，我目前处于一段长期关系中，所以很久没有真正心动过，但我其实非常怀念那种感觉。这种对某个人的强烈依恋有一种怀旧的色彩，仿佛回到了一个更简单、纯粹的年代，那时你只想着那个人，其他事情都不重要。
现在，如果我打开手机，很可能看到几条关于《Heated Rivalry》的短信。这部剧无处不在，也成为了Popsugar团队热议的话题。我本人是酷儿女性，我的许多酷儿女性朋友都非常喜欢这部剧，并且被剧中对男性脆弱面的描绘所吸引。这种描绘在现实中并不常见。
我想谈谈谁在渴望。《Heated Rivalry》之所以特别，是因为它聚焦于酷儿男性。我在文章中提出，女性常常是渴望的对象，但现实中我们很少看到女性渴望的描绘。我认为，我们看到的很多女性形象只是被动地希望或期待某些事物，但这并不是真正的渴望。自从Popsugar在Instagram上发布了我的文章后，我一直在思考这个问题。有位网友的评论让我印象深刻，他说我们总是看到那些渴望却得不到的女性形象，这让我深思。
我认为，被动的希望和真正的内心渴望是有区别的。我希望今年能看到更多来自女性和酷儿群体的内心渴望，而不仅仅是怀旧或感伤的情绪。我想要看到的是那种如风暴般强烈、如玻璃破碎般激烈的渴望。
Heated Rivalry, the Canadian series streaming on HBO Max based on the bestselling romance novels by Rachel Reid, has taken over group chats, algorithms, and brains. For those who have not watched, it follows queer, closeted professional ice hockey players as they navigate falling in love and all the angst that comes with it. There’s also a lot of sex. So. Much. Sex.
But for all the talk of gay hockey smut, the show at its core is very sweet.
Emma Glassman-Hughes is a writer, reporter, and editor at Popsugar, and she doesn’t think Heated Rivalry is an anomaly. She says the show is successful because it taps into a universal experience: yearning. “I think the people are yearning every which way,” she told Vox. “In a more classic sense, we’ve seen the success of Heated Rivalry and The Summer I Turned Pretty. Both those have blown up and really are good examples of how everyone is just excited right now about the burn of a true crush.”
On the latest episode of Explain It to Me, Vox’s weekly call-in podcast, we spoke with Glassman-Hughes about pining in pop culture and what it says about us.
Below is an excerpt of our conversation, edited for length and clarity. You can listen to the full episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get podcasts. If you’d like to submit a question, send an email to [email protected] or call 1-800-618-8545.
Are you seeing this yearning anywhere else, even beyond TV and movies?
Yeah, I think of yearning in a pretty broad sense around the Mamdani campaign in New York. My feeds were full of energy and enthusiasm and true yearning and aching for a better future for some new options. I’ve also seen this New Year’s resolution trend on TikTok, where people are aiming to receive 1,000 rejections in 2026. That means putting yourself out there at least a thousand times and proving to yourself that you’re willing to try and be vulnerable and face the prospect of failure. That’s big yearner energy. Along the way in between the thousand rejections, you’re bound to get some yeses, whether that’s romantic partners or jobs or community organizing or whatever it is that you’re chasing.
I think that’s so interesting, to think of yearning beyond just the romantic.
If we look around, it’s really hard to exist in the world right now, and we’re being inundated with distressing news event after news event. I think yearning could be seen as a distraction from that, but I actually think it’s a grounding force.
Yearning is this deeply bodily human experience to despair over not having what you want and to feel the pain of being so close yet so far. We’re all familiar with the concept of exquisite pain, and I think yearning can provide this sort of masochistic joy too — and we all need more joy in our lives right now.
Crushes are fun, but they can be excruciating. At the same time, they’re kind of great. It’s hard to describe how it’s both painful and enjoyable.
When I think of yearning, the phrase that comes up is all-consuming. Going back to the romance factor, I’m in a long-term relationship right now, so it’s been a long time since I’ve had a true crush, but I actually really miss that feeling. There’s a nostalgic quality to some person sort of taking over your entire world for however long. It’s [reminiscent] of a simpler time, when you’re 13 and that’s all you can think about, and nothing really matters beyond that.
If I open up my phone right now, I’ll probably see several text messages about Heated Rivalry. It’s everywhere.
It’s definitely a huge topic of conversation on the Popsugar team. I’m queer, and all of my queer female friends are very taken with this show and very drawn to these more vulnerable depictions of masculinity that we don’t really get to see very much of.
I want to talk about who yearns. Heated Rivalry is special because it’s about queer men.
I argue in my essay that women are frequently the objects of yearning, but we see fewer depictions of female yearning out there. I think we see a lot of depictions of women passively wishing or hoping for something, but to me, that’s not true yearning.
I’ve been thinking about this a lot since Popsugar posted about the essay on our Instagram. Someone actually commented something that has stuck with me: They were saying that we’re always seeing depictions of women who want and never receive, and that really made me think. I think there is a difference between the passive wishing and the real gut-level yearning, and the latter is what I want to see more of from women and queer people this year. Not just wistful stuff, but the tornadoes and the storms and the shattered glass of it all.
2026-01-19 19:45:00
如今，没有一场美国悲剧是完整的，没有GoFundMe（众筹平台）的身影。仅仅不到一周时间，就有超过150万美元被筹集到，用于资助此前在明尼阿波利斯被移民与海关执法局（ICE）特工射杀的女子Renee Nicole Good的家属。与此同时，为她的凶手设立的另一项众筹也筹集了数万美元。去年，GoFundMe还曾被用于帮助洛杉矶野火后重建房屋的人们、德克萨斯州Camp Mystic洪水幸存者接受心理治疗、以及受食品券（SNAP）停摆影响的困难家庭等。然而，尽管有五分之一的美国人通过众筹平台直接向有需要的人捐款，但许多人对这类平台的兴起感到不安。根据美联社（AP）和NORC公共事务研究中心最近的一项调查，自2010年以来，GoFundMe已筹集了超过400亿美元。该调查对1146名全国成年人进行了采访，测量了美国人参与众筹的程度，以及他们如何看待这些活动。调查显示，不到10%的美国人——包括捐款者和未捐款者——对众筹活动的有效性感到非常有信心，许多人对这些活动是否真正有益持严重怀疑态度。超过一半的受访者表示，他们对GoFundMe等众筹网站收取的合理服务费缺乏信心。而几乎同样多的人则怀疑，众筹发起人是否真正负责任地使用他们筹集的资金，甚至是否能筹集到足够的金额来实现目标。正如我之前在10月份报道的那样，一些证据表明，这些担忧是有道理的。首先，就是这些平台的服务费问题。尽管GoFundMe作为营利性平台，技术上只收取小额处理费，但其默认设置会将捐赠者的一部分资金（至少17.5%）作为“小费”转给公司。对于像Good家属这样金额庞大的众筹活动，这些小费加起来可能相当可观。如果Good家属的150万美元众筹活动中的所有捐赠者都支付了17.5%的小费，GoFundMe将从中获得超过26万美元的收入。另一个令人质疑的点是，许多发起众筹的人其实并不需要这些钱，或者即使需要，也可能不会合理使用。关于这类欺诈行为的数据难以获取，虽然GoFundMe声称其影响仅占平台活动的千分之一，但众筹的分散性使得很难核实大多数活动是否真正用于其最初的目的。此外，美国人普遍认为，很少有众筹活动能实现其最初的目标，这一看法也得到了数据的支持。一些研究表明，按此标准，只有十分之一的众筹活动能成功。尽管每一美元都很重要，但真正需要帮助的人却常常难以启动他们的众筹活动。多项研究显示，医疗类众筹活动的成功率往往与发起人所在社区的财富和种族有关，这意味着许多真正需要帮助的人被忽视了。就在Good被枪杀前一周，另一名美国公民、洛杉矶的非裔父亲Keith Porter Jr.在圣诞节前夕被一名离岗的ICE特工射杀。Porter刚刚用AR-15式步枪向空中开了一枪庆祝新年，随后被特工拦住并射杀，而该特工就住在同一个公寓楼里。然而，几天来，Porter家属的众筹活动却难以获得与Good家属相同的关注和支持。尽管有人对这种差异表示不满，但Porter女儿们的GoFundMe众筹活动最终还是筹集了接近26万美元，目标是30万美元。尽管众筹可能是一种不完美的援助方式，但在危机时刻，它仍然是我们直接帮助有需要的个人的一种重要途径。根据AP-NORC调查，人们最常捐款的众筹类型是医疗费用和医疗服务，其次是纪念和丧葬费用。很多时候，这些众筹活动成为那些陷入极度困境、别无选择的人的救命稻草。对于受益人来说，即使只是稍微成功一点的众筹活动，也可能带来巨大的改变。当然，或许还有更高效、更公平的方式来处理医疗破产和丧葬费用问题，但直到这些解决方案出现之前，互相帮助——尽管不完美——可能是我们目前最好的选择。
Today, no American tragedy is complete without a GoFundMe.
It took less than a week to raise over $1.5 million for the family of Renee Nicole Good, the woman fatally shot by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent in Minneapolis earlier this month. At the same time, a parallel fundraiser for her killer raised hundreds of thousands of dollars. And last year saw GoFundMe campaigns for people rebuilding their homes after the Los Angeles wildfires, therapy for the Camp Mystic flood survivors in Texas, struggling families affected by the SNAP shutdown, and far more.
But even as one in five Americans donate directly to those in need through crowdfunding, many feel uneasy about the rise of platforms like GoFundMe, which has raised over $40 billion since 2010, according to a recent survey by the Associated Press and the NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. The poll of 1,146 adults nationwide measured the extent to which Americans now participate in crowdfunding, the details of what that participation now looks like, and the nature of how they perceive crowdfunding campaigns.
The survey found that less than 10 percent of Americans — including both donors and non-donors — felt very confident in the effectiveness of crowdfunding campaigns, and many harbored serious doubts about who really stands to profit from them. More than half of those surveyed said they had very little confidence that crowdfunding websites like GoFundMe charge reasonable service fees. And nearly as many doubted that crowdfunders themselves use the money they raise responsibly or raise enough to meet their goals at all.
As I previously reported in October, the evidence shows that some of their fears are justified.
Start with those service fees, which the highest share of survey participants had qualms about. While the for-profit GoFundMe, the biggest name in the game, technically only charges a nominal processing fee like any other fundraiser, the platform defaults donors into “tipping” some 17.5 percent (on my browser, at least) of their donation to benefit the company’s bottom line.
And for a fundraiser as big as the one for Good’s widow, those tips can really add up. If all donors tipped the full 17.5 percent on the $1.5 million campaign, GoFundMe would rake in over $260,000.
Another point of doubt was the idea that many who crowdfund don’t actually need the money and, even if they do, might not use it responsibly. The data on such fraud is difficult to come by, and while GoFundMe claims it affects only about one in 1,000 campaigns on its platform, the disperse nature of crowdfunding makes it virtually impossible to verify whether most fundraisers ultimately use their funds “wisely” or even for their intended purpose at all.
What’s more, Americans’ hunch that few crowdfunds ultimately reach their initial goals is also right on target. Some studies show that as few as one in ten crowdfunding campaigns succeed by that metric. And while every dollar counts, the people who need the most help often struggle to get their fundraiser off the ground at all.
More often than not, the wealthier and whiter the fundraiser’s neighborhood and network is, the more successful their campaign is likely to be, according to several studies measuring the success rate of medical crowdfunds, meaning that many people who need help get left behind.
A week before Good’s shooting, another American citizen, Keith Porter Jr. — a Black father from Los Angeles — was fatally shot by an off-duty ICE officer on New Year’s Eve. Porter had just fired a celebratory shot in the air from an AR-15-style rifle when he was confronted and killed by the agent, who lived in the same apartment complex. Yet, for days, a fundraiser for his family struggled to gain the same traction as the one for Good, who is white. Amid some outcry over the disparity, a GoFundMe for Porter’s daughters has managed to raise nearly $260,000 out of a goal of $300,000.
Still, even though crowdfunding can be a flawed way to give, it’s one of the only venues we have for directly helping individual people in need quickly during times of crisis. According to the AP-NORC survey, medical expenses and health care causes are the most common kind of crowdfunds people donate to, followed by memorials and funeral expenses. Oftentimes, these fundraisers act as a lifeline for people in intense distress who have no other options. For beneficiaries, even a mildly successful campaign can be transformative.
Sure, there are probably more efficient, more equitable ways to handle medical bankruptcies and funeral costs than an endless string of crowdfunds. But until those solutions materialize, giving to one another — however imperfectly — might be the best we’ve got.
2026-01-18 21:30:00
谁拥有公海？2010年春天，我受邀参加在厄瓜多尔海岸举行的海洋主题TED会议。与我一同乘坐国家地理科学船只的有海洋和气候科学家、水下摄影师、海洋活动人士、环保组织的CEO，以及许多环保意识强烈的富人，还有像莱昂纳多·迪卡普里奥和爱德华·诺顿这样的著名演员。我保证，接下来的内容不只是讲述我职业生涯中为数不多的与名人近距离接触的经历。几天时间里，我们游览了原始的加拉帕戈斯群岛，聆听了船上的专家和艺术家们的演讲。这就是我与迪卡普里奥一起在太平洋中浮潜，以及与好莱坞团队玩狼人杀游戏的由来。（细节有些模糊，但我确定诺顿很快就把我淘汰了。教训是：不要和获得奥斯卡提名的演员玩依赖演技的游戏。）
我们之所以齐聚一堂，是因为西尔维娅·艾尔的贡献。艾尔是一位传奇海洋学家和海洋保护倡导者。她发起的“蓝色使命”组织致力于创建全球海洋保护区（MPAs）网络，包括目前缺乏保护的公海。正如艾尔在2009年的一次演讲中所说：“公海——即不属于任何国家管辖的海域——覆盖了世界近一半的面积，但它们像‘无人之地’一样，任何事情都可能发生。” 目前不到1%的公海被划为高度保护区域。但现在，由于一项罕见的环保好消息，公海终于开始受到保护。2023年1月17日，联合国长期酝酿的《公海条约》正式生效，意味着已批准该条约的国家和缔约方现在必须遵守这一国际法律。这并非海洋保护倡导者如艾尔所长期呼吁的全部实现，但它为地球上最大的共享空间建立了一套新的规则和机构。
多年来，公海的治理一直由多个重叠的机构负责。航运主要由国际海事组织管理，渔业由区域渔业管理组织监管，深海床则由国际海底管理局处理。这些机构确实重要，但问题在于，它们各自并未设计出能够全面、协调地保护整个公海生物多样性的机制，尤其是在新的威胁如气候变化不断加剧，以及技术使得远离海岸的活动变得更加容易的情况下。海洋及其野生动物需要这种保护。以过度捕捞为例，全球483种商业鱼类的1320个种群中，有82%的鱼类被过度捕捞，其捕捞速度超过了自然恢复速度。即使渔业管理组织没有被商业利益所影响，它们也往往只关注特定地区或物种。没有人真正为整个海洋负责。
《公海条约》旨在填补这一治理空白，使“公海”不再意味着“缺乏有效管理”。该条约源自近二十年的联合国谈判，目的是弥补现有《联合国海洋法公约》中的不足。条约的官方目标是保护和可持续利用公海的海洋生物多样性，但其架构务实，聚焦于几个关键点以及能够将这些原则转化为实际决策的管理机构。尽管并非所有国家都完全支持——美国签署了条约但尚未批准——已有145个国家批准，这意味着一个相当可观的联盟承诺以新的方式管理全球海洋公域。
该条约不会立即创建一个庞大的海洋保护区，也不会神奇地结束非法捕鱼或逆转海洋变暖。它所做的，是建立法律和制度机制，使保护成为可能，并使“造成伤害”更难隐藏。条约的核心条款是环保主义者多年来一直在追求的：建立一个全球性流程，用于在公海设立基于区域的管理工具，包括海洋保护区。这很重要，因为如果设计和执行得当，海洋保护区可以有效运作，但全球海洋生物多样性目标无法实现，除非这些保护区覆盖了占全球海洋面积三分之二的公海区域。此外，条约还旨在建立一个生态代表性网络，这些保护区应符合海洋生态需求，而不是随机选择全球某些地点。
条约还规定，任何可能对海洋环境造成重大损害的活动，如工业捕捞，都应在事前进行评估，事后进行监控，并向公众公开。协议设想通过一个“信息交换中心”机制——即一种透明度基础设施——来分享这些环境影响评估报告，如果监测发现某些活动带来的损害超出了预期，该机制还能允许科学审查并提出建议。这是对地球上最大共享资源的正确处理方式。如果公海是地球最大的共有资源，那么它们也是拥有巨大遗传信息库的资源，具有实际的商业潜力：药品、化妆品、生物科技等。然而，到目前为止，这却成为了一个问题。如果商业价值的发现来自全球共有资源，谁会从中受益？该协议设定了公平和合理分享利益的期望，包括科学数据的开放获取，以及关于数据收集和使用的透明度。尽管一些关键细节（尤其是关于谁获得资金）将在新的条约机构中进一步商讨，但最终，这些资金将用于帮助发展中国家建立海洋科学研究项目，并用于创建和管理更多的海洋保护区。
像联合国制定的任何条约一样，该条约远非完美。美国的缺席虽然令人意外，但并不令人惊讶：近年来，美国参议院未能批准多项国际条约，尤其是环保相关的条约。尽管该条约已经获得足够批准而正式生效，但美国的参与将有助于其执行，提供更多的科学能力，并增加政治合法性。然而，公海仍然难以监管。要使该条约有效，需要政治意愿和慷慨的资金支持。此外，条约的执行者还需与现有管理渔业、采矿和航运的机构协调，这无疑会带来摩擦。但在环境问题持续恶化的背景下，当国际体系采取实际行动时，例如制定具有约束力的规则、建立机构并给予自己保护地球上所有人共同拥有的部分的机会，这值得我们关注。直到现在，这些区域往往被先到达的人所拥有。本文最初发表于Good News通讯，欢迎订阅！
In the spring of 2010, I was one of a few journalists invited to travel down to the coast of Ecuador to join an ocean-going TED conference. With me aboard a National Geographic science vessel were ocean and climate scientists, underwater photographers, marine activists, environmental group CEOs, a lot of green-minded rich people, and famous actors like Leonardo DiCaprio and Edward Norton.
I promise that what follows is not just a chance to tell one of the few close brushes with celebrity in my journalistic career.
For several days, we toured the pristine Galapagos Islands and listened to presentations from the experts and artists on board. That’s how I ended up snorkeling in the Pacific with DiCaprio, and, one night, playing the party game Werewolf with the Hollywood contingent. (The details are fuzzy, but I’m pretty sure Norton eliminated me right away. The lesson here is don’t play a game that depends on acting ability with Academy Award-nominated actors.)
We were all there because of the work of Sylvia Earle, a legendary oceanographer and advocate for marine conservation. Earle was launching Mission Blue, an organization dedicated to creating a global network of marine protected areas (MPAs), including the largely unprotected high seas or international waters. As Earle put it in a 2009 speech, “The high seas — the areas beyond national jurisdiction — cover nearly half of the world, but they’re a kind of ‘no-man’s-land’ where anything goes.” Less than 1 percent of the high seas are classified as highly protected.
But now, thanks to a rare piece of environmental good news, the high seas are finally getting some protection. On January 17, the UN’s long-gestating international High Seas Treaty entered into force, meaning it became binding international law for the countries and parties that have ratified it.
It’s not a complete fulfillment of what ocean advocates like Earle have long called for. But it is a new rulebook — and, more importantly, a new set of institutions — for the largest shared space on the planet.
For decades, the high seas have been partially governed at best by a patchwork of overlapping authorities. Shipping is largely handled through the International Maritime Organization. Fisheries are overseen by regional fisheries management organizations. The deep seabed is handled through the International Seabed Authority. Those bodies matter. The problem is that none of them, on their own, were designed to deliver broad, coordinated biodiversity protection across the open ocean — especially as new threats like climate change grew and technology made it easier to operate farther from shore.
The oceans and their wildlife need that protection. Take overfishing. Across 1,320 populations of 483 species of commercial fish, 82 percent are being removed faster than they can repopulate. Even when fishery management organizations aren’t captured by commercial interest, they’re too narrowly focused on specific territories or species. No one is looking out for the oceans as a whole.
The High Seas Treaty is an attempt to fix that governance gap, to make “beyond national jurisdiction” stop meaning “beyond meaningful stewardship.” The treaty, which emerged from nearly two decades of UN negotiations to close gaps in the existing Law of the Sea, has a sweeping official objective — conservation and sustainable use of marine biodiversity beyond national jurisdiction — but its architecture is practical, focusing on a handful of major points, plus the governing bodies that can turn those principles into real decisions.
And while not every country is fully on board — the US signed the treaty but never ratified it — 145 nations have, which means there’s a substantial coalition committing to a new way of governing the global ocean commons.
Here’s what the treaty will not do: It will not instantly create a vast ocean park next week, nor will it magically end illegal fishing or reverse warming seas.
What it will do is create the legal and institutional machinery that makes protection possible — and makes “doing harm” harder to hide.
The headline provision is the one conservationists have been chasing for years: a global process to establish area‑based management tools, including marine protected areas, in the high seas.
That matters because MPAs can work when designed and enforced well, but global ocean biodiversity goals can’t be met unless they’re extended to the two-thirds of the oceans that make up the high seas. And importantly, the treaty aims for an ecologically representative network of MPAs — areas that map to the needs of the ocean, rather than just random spots on the globe.
The treaty also insists that activities that may significantly harm the marine environment, like industrial fishing, should be assessed in advance, monitored afterward, and disclosed publicly. The agreement envisions such environmental impact assessment reports being shared through a “clearing‑house” mechanism — essentially, a transparency infrastructure — that allows scientific review and recommendations if monitoring suggests harms from those activities that weren’t predicted. That’s the right approach for what is the ultimate shared resource.
If the high seas are the planet’s largest commons, they’re also a library of genetic information with real commercial potential: pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, biotech. So far, that’s been a problem. If commercially valuable discoveries come from a global commons, who benefits?
The agreement sets expectations for fair and equitable benefit‑sharing, including open access to scientific data, along with transparency about collection and use, though it anticipates key details (especially around who gets the money) will be hammered out through the new treaty bodies. Ultimately, monetary benefits will go to a shared pool for helping developing countries build marine science programs and for the creation and management of more MPAs.
The treaty also aims to balance out one of the reasons that high-seas governance has been so unbalanced towards rich nations: the high cost of both ocean science and enforcement. (That’s one reason why waters near impoverished African countries are being exploited by illegal fishing fleets from China and Europe.) Capacity‑building and technology sharing is a core element of the treaty, intended to help developing countries participate in decision‑making and implementation that directly affects them.
Like anything hammered out through the UN, the treaty is far from perfect. The absence of the US is important, if unsurprising: The Senate has failed to ratify numerous international treaties in recent decades, especially environmental ones. The treaty has enough ratifications to enter into force anyway, but US participation would have made it easier to enforce, provided more scientific capacity to implement it, and added political legitimacy.
And the high seas will still be hard to police. The treaty will need political will and generous funding to be effective. And its agents will have to coordinate with existing bodies that govern fishing, mining, and shipping, which is sure to create friction.
But amid relentless environmental bad news, it’s worth noticing when the international system does something concrete: creating binding rules, building institutions, and giving itself a chance to protect the parts of the planet that belong to everyone — and that, until now, have too often been treated as belonging to whoever gets there first.
A version of this story originally appeared in the Good News newsletter. Sign up here!
2026-01-18 20:15:00
叔叔山认为你可能饮食不当，并给出了他的建议：少吃加工碳水化合物和添加糖，多吃脂肪和蛋白质，尤其是动物性蛋白质。这些是美国卫生部长罗伯特·F·肯尼迪 Jr. 本月宣布的新版——并反转了传统——食物金字塔中的一些主要观点。虽然“让美国再次健康”运动是当前饮食习惯变化的主要驱动力之一，但并非唯一因素。近日，《Explained》节目采访了Consumed通讯的作者丽兹·邓恩，探讨了她对2026年饮食趋势的预测。一些趋势得到了“让美国再次健康”运动的认可（如更多补充剂），而另一些趋势则可能让肯尼迪 Jr. 惊讶不已（如含糖饮料将变得更加甜腻）。以下是采访内容的节选，已进行删减和润色。完整播客内容更丰富，可在Apple Podcasts、Pandora和Spotify等平台收听。
预测一：蛋白质热潮将持续升温。随着年末临近，我收到最多的问题是：蛋白质之后还会有什么？人们似乎对未来的蛋白质趋势充满期待。原因之一是超市已经重新定位为蛋白质供应中心，无论是无糖酸奶、肉条还是蛋白质强化华夫饼，蛋白质无处不在，人们依然将其与健身、力量和活力联系在一起。此外，新的联邦饮食指南也提高了蛋白质的推荐摄入量，这无疑会进一步推动蛋白质消费的增长。
预测二：含糖饮料将更加流行。这听起来似乎有些矛盾，因为现在很多人讨厌糖。但美国并非铁板一块，仍有大量人群喜欢喝汤、含糖快餐和咖啡连锁店的饮料。这些饮料自Frappuccino问世以来就存在，但Dutch Brothers这家咖啡连锁店的迅速发展则很好地体现了这一趋势。它并非靠咖啡取胜，而是靠这些甜美的冷饮。同时，我们还看到“脏饮料”（dirty soda）趋势的兴起。从塔可贝尔到麦当劳，各大快餐品牌都在尝试所谓的“饮料创新”，以增加菜单中的饮品种类。原因有两个：一是消费者正在收紧钱包，他们希望在不点整餐的情况下享受一些小奢侈；二是这些饮料利润丰厚，制作成本低，售价却可以很高，尤其是在咖啡和牛肉价格不断上涨的背景下。因此，我预计快餐连锁店将继续大力推广这些饮品。
预测三：补充剂市场将迎来最大年份。美国补充剂市场价值达700亿美元。这一市场迅速扩张的原因之一是“让美国再次健康”运动，该运动非常重视补充剂的概念。我认为这类似于制药和大健康产业的结合，人们普遍相信通过合适的补充剂可以解决各种健康问题。例如，罗伯特·F·肯尼迪曾建议用维生素A作为麻疹疫苗的替代品。此外，社交媒体也极大地推动了这一行业的发展。如果你关注的网红说她坚信镁元素有助于睡眠，你很可能也会尝试。因此，我预计2026年补充剂市场将继续快速增长。
预测四：杂货业将经历V型重塑。在我小时候，我们每周都会去Stop and Shop购物，那里有各种品牌的产品，价格适中。但现在，中等价位的杂货店如Kroger、Stop and Shop和Albertsons正在失去市场份额，被折扣店如沃尔玛、Costco、Aldi和Dollar General等取代。人们愿意为了极低的价格而牺牲品牌、熟食柜台或商品种类。而在另一端，高端市场也在迅速扩张，比如Erewhon这家高端超市，计划在未来几年内扩展到20个城市。此外，Sprouts这类主打天然水果的超市也在快速扩张。因此，我们可以看到，消费者一方面追求极低价格，另一方面又愿意为高端商品支付更多。
预测五：餐厅将越来越重视“拍照友好”。人们选择餐厅时，会考虑其是否适合拍照，这并非新鲜事。但最近OpenTable发布的一份趋势报告显示，77%的Z世代和79%的千禧一代在决定是否去某家餐厅用餐时，会考虑其Instagram或TikTok的吸引力。这表明，餐厅在设计菜单和装修时，将越来越注重“拍照友好”元素，以吸引顾客。因此，预计未来将出现更多具有病毒传播潜力的菜品和适合拍照的装饰风格。
预测六：餐厅需适应GLP-1药物的影响。目前估计，约有八分之一的美国人尝试过GLP-1类药物，而未来几个月可能会有更多基于药片的版本推出，这将推动使用率的上升。如果一家餐厅发现有十分之一甚至五分之一的顾客正在服用这种药物，而这种药物会减少他们对大份量食物的渴望，那么餐厅就必须调整菜单设计，以确保在顾客减少食量的情况下，仍能维持收入水平。
预测七：大型食品公司将面临巨大挑战。多年来，大型包装食品公司一直能够通过产品配方的调整来应对各种饮食趋势，如低脂、低碳水化合物、无麸质等。他们总能找到一种既符合趋势又能盈利的产品。但如今，消费者对高度加工食品持更加怀疑的态度。此外，GLP-1药物的使用也可能导致部分人群减少食量。这对大型食品公司来说是一个全新的挑战。如果他们无法生产出既不加工又能盈利的产品，那么将不得不重新思考如何在股东利益和市场变化之间取得平衡。
Uncle Sam thinks you’re probably eating wrong, and he’s got some advice.
Out: processed carbohydrates and added sugar.
In: fat and protein, especially the animal-flesh kind.
Those are some of the biggest takeaways from the new — and newly inverted — food pyramid announced by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. earlier this month.
While the Make America Healthy Again movement is one of the biggest drivers of change in how we eat now, it’s not the only one. Today, Explained recently spoke with Liz Dunn, author of the newsletter Consumed, about her predictions for how we will eat in 2026. Some trends are MAHA-approved (more supplements) while others would give RFK Jr. a conniption (sugar-laden drinks are going to get even sweeter).
Below is an excerpt of the conversation, edited for length and clarity. There’s much more in the full podcast, so listen to Today, Explained wherever you get podcasts, including Apple Podcasts, Pandora, and Spotify.
The question that I get more than any other as the year came to a close is: What’s next after protein? What’s the next protein? And I really feel like we’re not ready for what’s next yet for a few reasons.
One is that the supermarket has sort of reinvented itself for protein delivery. So, whether it’s zero sugar yogurts, or meat sticks, or protein boosted waffles, the protein is out there, and it’s everywhere calling to us, people really continue to associate protein with fitness and with strength and power — all great, positive things.
And maybe, most importantly, the new federal dietary guidelines up the recommended allowance of protein. So this is just going to add fuel to the fire.
This one does seem a little paradoxical, because there is a lot of sugar hating out there, but the country is not a monolith. And so, there are a really sizable number of people who are drinking and enjoying soup or sugary fast food and coffee chain beverages.
Drinks like this have been around since the Frappuccino, but I think, probably, the best example of how they’ve really grown is a chain called Dutch Brothers. It’s a coffee chain. It’s one of the fastest growing restaurant chains in America. And its growth is being driven not by coffee, but by these big, sweet, cold coffee drinks. And at the same time, we’re seeing the dirty soda trend. I don’t know if you’re familiar with dirty sodas.
Everybody from Taco Bell to McDonald’s is experimenting with what they call beverage innovation — how to add more of these drinks to their menus — and that is for two reasons.
One is consumers are really tightening their wallets, and they’re looking for ways to have an indulgence without maybe ordering an entire fast food meal. So a sweet soda, a sweet coffee drink is a great way to get that kind of fun pick me up without spending a ton of money. And then, on the business end, these drinks are really, really profitable.
They’re cheap to make. You can charge a fair amount for them, and especially at a time when coffee and beef are two commodities that are more expensive than they’ve ever been. These drinks make really good business sense for fast food chains. And so, I expect to see fast food chains to continue to really push them.
So, supplements are a $70 billion market in the US.
There’s a few reasons why this market has been exploding, and again, why I think it will really continue to explode in 2026. One is the Make America Healthy Again movement, which really buys into supplements as a concept.
I like to say that it’s pharma, big wellness. So there’s a lot of faith in the idea that the right mix of supplements in your diet could cure really anything. I mean, you may remember Robert F. Kennedy suggesting that Vitamin A was a good alternative to vaccination for measles. So, this is an example of this kind of thinking.
And then, social media has just been a real accelerant for this industry. If an influencer that you follow says that she swears by magnesium to help her sleep, that’s probably really going to encourage you to give it a try.
When I grew up, my family shopped at Stop and Shop; we went once a week. It was something for everyone — grocery store carried all the big packaged food brands. The prices are good, but they’re not great. But they’re kind of your main-street grocer.
Now, those mid-price grocers like Kroger, or Stop and Shop, or Albertsons, they’re really losing share to discounters. So Walmart sells about a quarter of the groceries in America today. Costco, Aldi, Dollar General, all of those discounters are really growing as people are willing to sacrifice name brand groceries or having a deli counter or maybe a larger selection for really, really deep value. And then, the other end of the V is the very premium end of the market. I’m thinking about places like Erewhon.
And Erewhon says it’s going to be expanding into as many as 20 cities in the coming years. And not quite as high end as Erewhon, but also in the more premium space, there’s brands like Sprouts, which is a natural fruits grocer, which is also really expanding rapidly. And so, that’s sort of the other end of this V where you see people seeking really deep discounts on one end, then, on the other end of the spectrum, splurging on sort of high-end premium grocery categories.
Listen: It’s not new that people choose where they eat in part based on the Instagramability or they’re taking pictures of their food or pictures of the interiors.
But I was really shocked to see a recent trend report released by the online bookings platform, OpenTable, which had a little tidbit that I just thought was staggering. 77 percent of Gen Zers and 79 percent of millennials said that they consider a restaurant’s Instagram or TikTok worthiness when deciding whether to eat there.
That’s a lot, and I think that it will likely be reflected in the types of decisions that restaurants make if a person is choosing where they dine based on what kind of content they can make out of it. I mean, I would expect to see really sort of viral appealing menu items and, I guess, decor touches that really lend themselves to photography.
So this is going to continue to be a really important factor in how people think about where they’re dining.
The latest estimates are that about one in eight Americans has tried a GLP-1 drug, and we’d expect to see that number grow, because they’re going to be some pill based versions of these drugs coming out in the coming months. So we think that this will probably spread adoption.
Now, if you’re a restaurant, and something like one in 10 or one in five, potentially, diners are on a drug that cuts their desire for big portions, that’s something that will have to really influence how you design your menu, because restaurants need to continue to try to make the same amount of revenue — even if people want smaller portions.
Over the years, the big packaged food companies have really been able to reformulate their way out of pretty much any diet trend — low fat, low carb, gluten-free. There’s a way to make a very profitable packaged food that fits all of those trends.
What we’re seeing now in terms of how people are thinking about the food they’re eating is that they’re really skeptical of highly processed foods. And again, on the GLP-1 front, they also are just potentially eating less or, at least, a sizable share of the population is eating less.
So that’s a really new and different challenge. If you’re a packaged food company, how do you continue to make profitable products that are not processed, which is sort of the whole engine of how you made them profitable to begin with. I think that there’s going to have to be a real reckoning at these companies to figure out how they continue to perform for shareholders and remain profitable as these eating habits are changing dramatically.
2026-01-17 20:45:00
2026年1月14日，丹麦哥本哈根美国大使馆外聚集了举着格陵兰旗帜的抗议者，他们举行名为“格陵兰属于格陵兰人”的抗议活动。| Martin Sylvest Andersen/Getty Images 自美国宣布将“接管”委内瑞拉并逮捕总统尼古拉斯·马杜罗以来，特朗普政府就公开在拉丁美洲其他地区提出类似的干预行动。然而，特朗普最关注的国家并不是他的对手，而是他的盟友——格陵兰。格陵兰是北约成员国，长期以来都是美国的合作伙伴，但该国多次成为特朗普的攻击目标。这些主要通过单方面行政行动实施的威胁，再次引发了关于国会是否应作为总统权力的制衡机制的讨论。而随着特朗普进入他的最后一个任期，甚至一些共和党人也开始表现出一些明显的担忧。
今天，《今日解释》节目主持人Astead Herndon与CNN高级记者Annie Grayer进行了对话，探讨国会如何回应这些情况，以及共和党内部的分歧可能如何发展。以下是他们对话的节选（已删减部分内容以提高清晰度和简洁性）。完整版节目内容更丰富，欢迎在Apple Podcasts、Pandora和Spotify等平台收听。
在2026年，而不是2025年，我们是否可以期待更多共和党人与特朗普划清界限？当然，共和党人知道这是选举年，他们正受到关注，我们开始看到一些裂痕的迹象。但我要强调的是，每当有真正的共和党分裂迹象出现时，比如我们在国会山看到的战争权力投票情况，特朗普及其团队都非常擅长通过公开和私下压力来保持共和党人的团结。然而，随着共和党人开始竞选并需要考虑如何在竞选中阐述他们目前在国会所采取的行动，特朗普这样做会变得越来越困难。许多温和派共和党人正在审视日程安排，意识到他们必须在2026年为自己找到一条不同的道路。
特朗普的对外干预主义显然成为共和党与其关系中的最新焦点。我们确实看到有五位共和党人与白宫划清界限，支持了战争权力决议。这是什么变化导致的？许多共和党人公开表示支持特朗普的行动，并认为不需要国会干预。但显然在幕后，有五位共和党参议员强烈认为，这种行动确实需要国会的介入。我们看到的是特朗普真正的压力策略，以及成为他党派成员意味着什么。投票后，特朗普立即在Truth Social上点名了这五位共和党人，并表示他们不应再被选入国会。这些是他的党内成员。
现在，有些共和党参议员已经公开反对特朗普，比如兰德·保罗、丽莎·默克沃思和苏珊·柯尔森，但托德·杨和乔什·霍利却让总统和其团队感到意外。因此，这两位成为了他们试图拉拢的对象。但事实证明，特朗普团队对这些参议员施加了巨大压力，特别是前参议员鲁比奥，他与这些参议员有个人关系，能够与他们会面，提供更多信息并给予他们保证，确保他们不会越过红线。杨和霍利都表示，他们的红线是不希望美军在委内瑞拉地面作战。因此，共和党人从这次事件中获得了一些好处。但你也可以问，到底发生了什么变化？答案就是特朗普及其团队对这些共和党人施加的全方位压力。
目前，国会中的共和党人对在格陵兰使用军事力量持什么态度？我们看到的分歧可能比委内瑞拉更大，而且这些反对者并非特朗普的常规批评者。共和党参议员们似乎在问：“我们为什么要在格陵兰这样做？”显然，人们并不支持军事行动：众议院议长和共和党参议院领袖都表示，对格陵兰采取军事行动并不是个好主意。至于购买格陵兰的提议，参议院武装部队委员会主席、来自密西西比州的罗杰·威克（Roger Wicker）在与丹麦官员会面后表示，我们不应该谈论购买格陵兰的问题。这并不是丹麦官员所希望的。许多共和党人，甚至更多地在私下，都希望特朗普不要真的采取行动。因此，我认为共和党人试图不提前与特朗普的立场划清界限，他们不想在看到特朗普具体行动之前就明确表态。但与此同时，他们也有些忐忑，甚至在暗中希望特朗普会放弃这个想法，不再继续推进，而他所说的关于格陵兰的事情最终不会实现。
目前，国会是否有意愿限制总统的这种权力？如果超越战争权力决议来看，是否有关于国会自身角色的讨论？成员们是否在谈论这个问题？这是一个非常重要的议题。我认为这就是为什么战争权力决议投票如此重要，因为这个问题已经成为民主党和共和党共同关注的焦点。这不再是一个党派问题，而是关于保护国会这一立法机构的机构本身，尤其是在对外干预方面。更具体地说，当我向共和党人提出这个问题时，他们指出近年来的一些历史事件表明，国会，尤其是涉及战争权力方面，已经逐步让渡了权力。例如，奥巴马时期对利比亚的轰炸和前往巴基斯坦追捕本·拉登，这些行动都是在没有国会批准的情况下进行的。因此，现在的情况确实将这一问题再次推到了聚光灯下。但要真正理解这一点，我们还得回溯更久远的历史。国会已经逐步让渡权力，而我们现在正面临这种潜在的危机。我认为我一直在报道中的真正问题是：什么红线会让人们真正说“够了”？到目前为止，我还没有找到答案。
Since the United States announced it would “run” Venezuela and captured President Nicolás Maduro, the Trump administration has openly floated similar interventions elsewhere in Latin America.
But the country Donald Trump has fixated on most isn’t an adversary — it’s an ally. Greenland, a NATO member and longtime partner of the United States has repeatedly found itself in the president’s crosshairs.
These threats, delivered largely through unilateral executive action, have once again raised questions about Congress’s role as a check on presidential power. And with Trump in his final term, even some Republicans are showing small but notable signs of concern.
Today, Explained co-host Astead Herndon spoke with Annie Grayer, a senior reporter at CNN, about how Capitol Hill is responding — and where those fractures inside the GOP may be heading.
Below is an excerpt of their conversation, edited for length and clarity. There’s much more in the full episode, so listen to Today, Explained wherever you get podcasts, including Apple Podcasts, Pandora, and Spotify.
Do we expect more Republicans breaking more with Trump to change now that it’s 2026 and not 2025?
Well, certainly Republicans know it’s an election year. The spotlight is on them, and I think we’re starting to see some openings for cracks. But I put so many caveats there because whenever we think there could be an opening for a real Republican split, as we saw play out on the Hill with the war powers vote, Trump and his team are really good at keeping Republicans in line through a public and private pressure campaign.
But his ability to do that is going to get increasingly more difficult as Republicans start campaigning and have to figure out how to run on what Republicans in Congress have done so far. There are a lot of moderates who are looking at the calendar, looking at what’s coming in 2026 and know that they have to carve out their own lane here.
Trump’s foreign interventionism definitely seems like the latest flash point in the GOP relationship with him. We did see five Republicans break with the White House and support that war powers resolution. What changed?
A lot of Republicans were publicly saying, I fully support how this operation went down and that this does not need an intervention from Congress. Clearly behind the scenes there were five Republican senators who felt very strongly this actually does require an act of Congress and congressional intervention. What we saw play out is Trump’s true pressure campaign and what it means to be a Republican in Donald Trump’s party.
Immediately after the vote, Trump took to Truth Social and name-checked all five of those Republicans and said they should not be elected to Congress again. These are members of his own party. Now, some of these Republican senators are in opposition to Trump, like Sens. Rand Paul, Lisa Murkowski or Susan Collins, but Todd Young and Josh Hawley — that really took the president and his team by surprise. So those were the two that they focused on, thinking that they were going to be the ones they could peel off.
But what we saw here was the role that Secretary Rubio played, who’s a former senator, who has personal relationships with all of these individuals and was able to sit with these senators, give them more information and give them assurances on their red line. Both Todd Young and Josh Hawley said that their red line was they did not want boots on the ground in Venezuela.
So Republicans did get something out of it. But you can ask yourself what really changed, and it really is the full-court press that these Republicans received from Trump and his team.
What have Republican members in Congress been saying about the military use of force in Greenland?
So Greenland, we are seeing an even bigger break potentially than what we saw with Venezuela and from a cast of characters that aren’t the usual critics of Trump.
Republican senators specifically are sort of like, what are we doing here with Greenland? Certainly people are not on board with military force: the speaker of the House, the leader of the Republican Senate, have said military action in Greenland would not be a good idea.
And then even when it comes to the purchase of Greenland, you have the chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS), who came out of a meeting with Danish officials and said, we should not be talking about the purchase of Greenland. That’s not what these officials want.
And there’s a lot of Republicans, even more so privately who I’m talking to who are kind of hoping that Trump isn’t serious about this. And so I think Republicans are trying to not get ahead of where the president is here. They don’t want to draw a firm line until they see exactly what Trump is going to do. But there is this sort of trepidation in this sort of, I don’t know, maybe even quiet finger crossing that Trump is going to drop this, he’s going to move on, and that what he’s saying about Greenland isn’t actually going to come to fruition.
Is there any kind of willingness for Congress to reign in that power right now, if we think even beyond the war powers resolution? How much is there discussion of Congress’s own role? How much are members talking about that?
It’s a huge topic of conversation.I think that’s why the war powers resolution votes were such a big deal because this question is front and center for both Democrats and Republicans. This is no longer a partisan question, but this is about protecting the institution of Congress, the legislative branch, and when it comes to the foreign intervention.
More specifically, when I’ve been asking this question to Republicans, they are pointing to a number of examples in recent history that show that the degradation of Congress, specifically when it comes to war powers, has been happening for a long time. If you go back to Obama and the bombing of Libya and going into Pakistan to get Osama bin Laden, those were things that happened without congressional approval.
And so yes, what’s happening right now is putting a real spotlight on the issue. But I think for people to really understand this, we have to go way back. This is something that Congress has sort of been ceding power bit by bit, and it finds us in this potential crisis that we’re in now.
And I think the real question that I continue to ask in my reporting, and I still don’t find an answer to, is what is going to be the red line that gets people to actually say, okay, enough is enough.
2026-01-17 20:00:00
2026年1月12日，德黑兰举行了一场支持政府的集会，安全人员在场。由于伊朗政府在1月8日切断了互联网，使9000多万人口陷入数字黑暗，因此很难了解该国的真实情况。镇压反政府抗议活动已导致至少2600人死亡，一些估计则高达20000人。根据美国的人权活动组织“人权活动家新闻社”（Human Rights Activists News Agency）的报告，已有超过18000名抗议者被捕。抗议活动始于12月底，最初是由于经济状况恶化，后来演变为更广泛的反政府运动，人们要求结束阿利·哈梅内伊的统治。目前，伊朗里亚尔是世界上最不值钱的货币，该国的通货膨胀率约为40%，使大多数民众难以负担基本生活必需品。伊朗正经历一场长期的经济危机，主要由制裁、政府紧缩政策以及去年与以色列的战争引发。许多地区，包括首都德黑兰，都面临严重的、持续的干旱，我在11月曾对此做过报道。政府还在1月8日切断了电话线路。尽管政府在周二放宽了一些限制，允许部分伊朗人本周进行国际通话，但许多人仍然合理地担心政府的监控。境外人士仍无法拨打伊朗国内的电话。周二，德黑兰的一些人向美联社表示，短信服务仍然中断，互联网用户只能连接到政府批准的本地网站，而无法访问国际网站。因此，埃隆·马斯克的星链（Starlink）——通过卫星接收地面终端的无线电信号，为难以到达的地区提供高速互联网接入——已成为伊朗人分享地面情况的重要工具。SpaceX已将星链服务对伊朗的数万用户免费开放，但由于伊朗政府去年将使用卫星互联网服务如星链定为犯罪行为，因此使用它的人面临重大风险。然而，许多伊朗人仍在使用星链。正如伊朗互联网权利组织Filter. Watch所指出的，政府试图干扰星链卫星信号，并积极搜捕他们认为在使用该服务的人。星链终端的新更新部分抵消了政府的干扰企图。自2022年星链启动以来，活动人士已将数万个终端走私进入伊朗。开发者还创建了工具，使星链连接可以超越单个终端。政治科学家、卡内基国际和平基金会高级研究员史蒂夫·费尔德斯坦（Steve Feldstein）通过电子邮件告诉我：“星链的一大问题是，它最终代表了通信的一个单一故障点。”尽管如此，星链仍然是伊朗人目前的最佳选择。“没有其他工具能像星链一样为伊朗公民提供如此广泛的可扩展性和经济性。”费尔德斯坦说。在虚假信息和故意模糊真相可能掩盖死亡人数或隐藏暴行发生的情况下，卫星——不仅仅是星链——正在证明其在揭露人道主义危机中的重要性。没有它们，世界将陷入黑暗。
卫星是人权问题
在信息封锁或无法进出的时期，卫星是唯一能够追踪人道主义危机的方式。11月，我的同事萨拉·赫尔施兰德（Sara Herschander）报道了苏丹内战，其中暴力程度之高，甚至可以从太空看到。由于通信中断，只有卫星图像和带有地理定位的社交媒体帖子提供了暴行的证据。目前，约有15000颗卫星在地球轨道上运行，近年来随着公司推出大规模卫星网络（称为“巨型星座”）以提供宽带互联网接入，这一数字迅速增长。其中大多数卫星位于近地轨道，距离地球表面最高可达1200英里。近地轨道上活跃的卫星中，超过三分之二属于星链巨型星座。请稍等一下，但如果你关心地球上的事，我们有一个必须担心的问题：太空交通。据预测，到2040年，地球轨道上将有超过56万颗卫星。我们发射的卫星越多，它们相互碰撞或碎片相撞的风险就越大。这可能导致大规模的服务中断，最坏的情况下，甚至引发所谓的“基瑟尔综合症”（Kessler syndrome）。这是一种连锁反应的碰撞现象，可能导致近地轨道变得无法使用，这意味着卫星发射将停止，我们的太空探索梦想也将终结，同时GPS、天气警报和卫星互联网等技术将受到严重干扰。但这是最坏的情况，SpaceX已经意识到这一点。该公司于1月1日宣布，计划在本年度内将4400颗卫星从距离地球表面342英里降低到298英里，以减少碰撞风险。2023年，联合国国际电信联盟估计，全球约有26亿人——占世界人口的三分之一——无法接入互联网。联合国认为互联网接入是一项人权。低轨道卫星变得越来越难以使用的一个被忽视的后果是，失去卫星互联网和图像，这将使我们无法看清真实情况。卫星图像是我们了解乌克兰、苏丹等冲突地区局势的重要手段。如果卫星受到威胁，真相也将受到威胁。
It’s difficult to know exactly what is happening in Iran since the government shut down the internet on January 8, plunging a nation of more than 90 million people into digital darkness.
Crackdowns against anti-government protesters have led to at least 2,600 deaths, although some estimates put the death toll at upward of 20,000. According to the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency, more than 18,000 protesters have been arrested.
The protests began in late December in response to dire economic conditions and took on a broader anti-government character as people demanded the end of Ali Khamenei’s rule. The Iranian rial is now the least valuable currency in the world. The country has an inflation rate of about 40 percent, making necessities unaffordable for most people. Iran is struggling through a long-lasting economic crisis, driven by sanctions, government austerity measures, and last year’s war with Israel. Many parts of the country, including the capital of Tehran, face severe and unrelenting drought, as I reported in November.
The government also cut phone lines on January 8. While the government eased some of these restrictions on Tuesday, allowing some Iranians to make international calls out of the country this week, many reasonably fear government surveillance. People outside the country remain unable to call Iranians. Several people in Tehran called the Associated Press on Tuesday, saying that text messaging services remain down and that internet users could connect to local government-approved websites but not to international ones.
So Elon Musk’s Starlink — which provides high-speed internet access in difficult-to-reach places via satellites that receive radio signals from user terminals on the ground — has become a lifeline for Iranians trying to share what is happening on the ground. SpaceX has made Starlink free for its tens of thousands of Iranian users, but since the Iranian government criminalized the use of satellite internet services like Starlink last year, they face substantial risk in accessing it illegally.
And yet many Iranians are using it anyway.
If satellites are in jeopardy, so is the truth itself.
According to Iranian internet rights group Filter.Watch, the government has attempted to jam signals from Starlink satellites and is actively hunting down people they believe to be using the service.
New updates to the Starlink terminals thwarted some of the government’s efforts to jam the signal. Since Starlink launched in 2022, activists have smuggled terminals into the country, and there are now about 50,000 hidden in the country. Developers have created tools to share Starlink connections beyond a single terminal.
“A big problem with Starlink is that ultimately it represents a single point of failure for communications,” Steve Feldstein, a political scientist and senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told me over email. Despite this, Starlink is the best option Iranians have. “No other tool provides as much scalability and affordability to Iranian citizens,” Feldstein said.
At a time when disinformation and intentional obfuscation can downplay the scale of death or hide that atrocities are occurring at all, satellites — and not just Starlink’s — are proving their place in uncovering humanitarian crises. Without them, the world will be left in the dark.
Satellites are effectively the only way to follow humanitarian crises during information blackouts or when no one can get in or out. In November, my colleague Sara Herschander reported on the Sudanese civil war, in which the violence is so severe the bloodshed is visible from space. Only satellite imagery and geolocated social media posts provided evidence of the atrocities due to a communication blackout.
Around 15,000 satellites currently orbit the Earth; the number has rocketed up in recent years as companies launch large satellite networks called megaconstellations to provide broadband internet access. Most of them are in low Earth orbit, up to 1,200 miles above the Earth’s surface. More than two-thirds of active satellites in low Earth orbit belong to the Starlink megaconstellation.
Bear with me for a second, but if you care about what’s happening on Earth, there’s one thing we have to worry about: space traffic.
By 2040, there will be more than 560,000 satellites in orbit. The more satellites we send up, the greater the risk that they will collide into one another or bits of space junk. This could lead to massive service disruptions, or in the worst case, lead to a phenomenon known as Kessler syndrome. That’s when a cascade of new collisions happens in a chain reaction, potentially rendering low Earth orbit unusable — meaning no more satellite launches, an end to our space exploration ambitions, and the severe disruption of technologies like GPS, weather alerts, and satellite internet.
But that’s a worst-case scenario, and SpaceX is aware of it. The company announced on January 1 that it plans to lower 4,400 of their satellites from 342 to 298 miles above the Earth’s surface over the course of the year to reduce collision risks.
In 2023, the United Nations’ International Telecommunications Union estimated that 2.6 billion people — a third of humanity — lack internet connectivity. The UN considers internet access to be a human right. An underappreciated consequence of low Earth orbit becoming increasingly unusable is losing satellite internet access and imagery that allows us to see past rhetoric.
Satellite imagery is how we know what is happening in conflict zones like Ukraine and Sudan. If satellites are in jeopardy, so is the truth itself.