The world's brightest city 世界上最明亮的城市

媒体英语会带大家一起学习 BBC 撰稿人在报道世界大事时常用到的单词和短语。

本周发表的一份学术报告调查显示，香港是全世界最严重的照明污染城市之一。香港某些地区的照明度检测结果为普通黑夜天空光亮程度的1,200倍。有关调研专家表示，照明污染危害健康。BBC记者 Jennifer Pak 报道：

This is the Central District and it's 11 o'clock at night time but if I put on my sunglasses it wouldn't be too dark at all and that's because there are lights everywhere. There's a neon sign across the street at an old antique shop. It's closed but there are one, two, three signs lit up and it's the same thing all down the street.

Now, researchers say that the signs are contributing to what is known as light pollution - you can tell by looking up into the sky. Not a single star in sight. In fact the sky is a light shade of grey because of the amount of light in this area and this is affecting people's lives because above these businesses and signs are apartment blocks. So these neon lights are reflecting off of the windows and bouncing into people's homes. Christine Siu lives near the area. She says sometimes the lights are so bright it makes it hard to fall asleep.

Well, researchers are asking businesses to dim their lights and to turn them off earlier in the evening. Except it's not going to be an easy thing to do. Hong Kong is a place where businesses can offer the same services or sell the same products side-by-side.

The only way they can distinguish themselves from their competitors are through these neon signs to grab customers' attention. The bigger, the brighter, the better. Hong Kong is known to be a place that never sleeps. Well now it seems that's because they never allow the sky to go dark.