More affordable electricity would transform Africa.

It's no surprise that economies around the world need electricity for economic growth and job creation — not just for keeping the lights on. But Liberia, a West African nation of 4 million people, has installed electricity of just 126 megawatts.    1    If this isn't bad enough, Liberians pay more than three times the average rate for electricity than Americans. This lack of affordable energy dooms the country to poverty and unemployment.

Liberia is not alone. In fact, systemic power problems are chronic across Africa: Nearly every economy on the continent is constrained by energy gaps and high costs.

Africa's power future has largely been framed around access. People who rely on wood or kerosene for lighting and heat all deserve to have electricity at home, whether it is delivered through the national grid or by new off-grid home systems. But power for lighting and basic appliances is not enough.    2    

That's why all countries need energy for growth. In addition to access, availability is necessary. If Africa's economies are going to create jobs for the 12 million young people who enter the job market every year. The majority of the world's electricity is used, not in homes, but on farms, in factories, mines and office buildings.     3     The energy systems being deployed today across Africa must be large enough to support economic growth and competitiveness.

Affordability is a third big issue.    4    We need to find ways of making energy available to low-income consumers while also ensuring that the markets encourage long-term investment in the power sector. Cost is crucial to the competitiveness of business, especially in energy-intensive industries, like steel or concrete, or those that depend on uninterrupted supply, such as banking, cold storage and IT.

If the aim of Africans is, like everyone else on the planet, to permanently escape poverty and achieve prosperity, then every country needs energy for growth.

【推荐2】“Give us back our stolen hour！” Britons demanded as they objected to the introduction of Daylight Saving Time(DST) in 1916. The idea of setting the clocks to move an hour of daylight from the morning to the evening during summer has been controversial throughout its history. People have argued that the practice saves energy, reduces crime, and prevents traffic accidents. Others are not so convinced, and studies conducted over the past decade have shown mixed results.

The idea was first put into operation in Germany during World War I(1914­1918) in an attempt to reduce coal supply during wartime. Britain soon followed with its own Summer Time but so did confusion and chaos, with some institutions following the changes and some simply ignoring them. One writer felt angry at the laws in a more poetic manner, expressing his dislike for being forced to favor the sun over the moon.

Despite the early controversy, 82 countries currently use DST. The United States moves its clocks forward an hour at 2 a．m. on the second Sunday in March and back an hour on the first Sunday in November. Some states, however, still do not apply DST, and in the past even some areas within individual states refused to observe DST while the rest of the state did.

It was originally thought that DST would reduce energy consumption as people would use less electric lighting in the evening due to the increased hours of daylight. However, recent studies have suggested that this benefit has been canceled out by the increased use of home air conditioners, which people use for longer on long summer evenings.

Brighter evenings have reduced the number of traffic accidents in countries which observe DST, but studies have also noticed a spike(剧增) in the number of accidents during the week after the clocks change, possibly due to the sudden interruption of people's sleeping patterns.

One certain good thing to come out of DST, however, happened in 1999, when a group of West Bank terrorists(on DST) delivered bombs to a cell in Israel(not on DST) but ignored the time difference when setting the timers for their bombs. The bombs went off one hour earlier than planned, killing three terrorists instead of the intended civilians.

【推荐1】As Shanghai prepared to introduce mandatory(强制的) garbage sorting on July 1, games and toys that examined fun ways to spread information about the garbage sorting were to encourage younger people to take action.

A 15-second video of a game went on Chinese social media. In the video, players wearing VR(虚拟) headsets saw four different types of trash can in front of them, and had to throw different types of garbage into the right buckets(桶) to get points. Although it was not the only VR game in the place, visitors lined up around the booth to explore it because of the garbage-sorting theme.

“As a Shanghai, I am in great need of this game. Maybe I won’t need to check how to categorize(分类) each piece of garbage on my phone while going through all my garbage every day if I play this game more often, ” said ZhouZhou, a young Shanghai. But some social media users in Shanghai have complained about the difficulty of sorting different types of garbage.

Wu Xia, founder and CEO of VitrellaCore, the company that created the game, said the idea was to provide an interesting way of learning about garbage sorting. “It’s simple and easy to understand. People can practice sorting garbage without actually going through their trash, and it is a more effective method than using paper materials when training volunteers,” Wu said.

【推荐3】A project in Gambia is empowering women and reducing dangerous waste at the same time.

The   Waste   Innovation   Center,   funded   by the   European   Union’s   Global   Climate   Change Alliance，shows women in the Brikama area how to recycle waste into useful materials and products, which they can then sell in local markets.

Wood-like waste is recycled into charcoal (木炭)，for example，which can be used to supersede firewood and reduce the number of trees that are cut down for firewood. Food waste is recycled into compost(混合肥料）to function as environmentally friendly fertilizers and plastic is turned into many useful things.

Supported by WasteAid UK and the Gambia Women’s Initiative (GWI), among others, the project provides women with skills they can use to become self-sufficient (自给自足的). Women learning at the center come from five communities, and some of them travel as far as 12 miles to learn these important skills that will provide them with an income, according to The Guardian.

Isatou Ceesay, who now leads the GWI，highlighted the need to focus on economic equality in her country, telling The Guardian, “In terms of education, women are the ones who are always behind. Boys are chosen to go to school. When we conduct our training, we find women can do a lot，but don’t know who they are, or how to implement (实施）things. ”

According to the World Health Organization’s Country Cooperation Strategy 2008—2013 report, the main environmental issue facing Gambia is poor waste management in urban areas.

Ndey Sireng Bakurin, executive director of the National Environment Agency, has voiced concern over health and environmental risks, such as water pollution, the increase of insects as well as flooding that occur as a result of poor waste management.