A composting (堆肥) program at The Wesley School in Los Angeles is helping students get hands-on experience and ways     1     (handle) human-driven climate change. For the past year, all the leftover food waste from the school has gone into composting containers rather than a landfill     2     it would be buried and would produce planet-warming gases.

The school’s composting program     3     (come) into being in 2022, and this year, the school held a     4    （celebrate) to reveal what happened inside a series of five-foot-tall containers. Steven Wynbrandt, a local farmer     5     composting consultant who has helped the school with its program, broke the ties that held the container closed. Rich black compost spilled out from the container.

The school will use the compost on plants around campus. Some will     6     (offer) to families that want to use it at home, and whatever is left will be donated.

It takes two hours for the container to be emptied and prepared to receive     7     next day’s lunch leftovers. The other containers remain full of food waste that is in the process of     8     (break) down. Decorated     9     (poster) on the outside of each container indicate when they can be opened so that the next generation of plants on campus can benefit     10     the rich soil.

China drives world renewables capacity addition in 2023

China was the major driving force behind the world’s rapid     1     (expand) of renewable power generation capacity last year, which grew by 50 percent to 510 gigawatts, the International Energy Agency said.

    2     (drive) by rapid growth in China, renewable energy capacity surged globally last year, generating green power faster than at any time during the last few decades. China, which has become     3     dominant force in the field of renewable energy,     4     (see) its position further consolidate in the next five years, as lower costs make utility-scale solar power generation more attractive compared to coal and gas power generation.     5     (additional), China has outlined and clarified regulations for green power certificates,     6     will bring additional income for solar and wind energy developers, and further accelerate its renewable energy development.

China’s installed capacity of renewable energy exceeded 1.45 billion kilowatts in 2023,     7     (account) for more than 50 percent of the country’s total installed power generation capacity. Power generated from renewable energy sources such as wind and solar now accounts for more than 15 percent of China's total electricity consumption.

China has several advantages that others do not possess, including the ability     8     (approve) and build transmission grids and renewable energy projects     9     (efficient) and finance projects more easily thanks    10     policy priorities.

7 . Using CRISPR genome (基因组) editing on a few common crops, a team of plant and soil scientists seeks to greatly increase and speed up carbon storage to help fight climate change.

To prevent dangerous levels of global warming, scientists say it won’t be enough to just stop burning fossil fuels that release carbon into the air. Because it’s nearly impossible for humanity to do that as fast as is now required, we will also need to pull carbon out of the air and secure it.

Plants are among the best tools we have to do this, since these living solar collectors already capture billions of tons of carbon dioxide each year from the atmosphere through photosynthesis (光合作用). About half of that carbon winds up in roots and eventually the soil, where it can stay for hundreds to thousands of years.

But what if we could create plants and soils that are better at capturing carbon? With CRISPR genome editing—a new molecular (分子的) biology tool that allows scientists to make edits to the DNA code that underpins all life—that might be possible.

Last month, the Innovative Genomics Institute (IGI), a research team founded by CRISPR pioneer Jennifer Doudna, began to explore the idea. With an $11-million donation from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, a team of researchers made a three-year effort using CRISPR to create new crop varieties that photosynthesi ze more efficiently and transport more carbon into the soil. Eventually, the researchers hope to create gene-edited rice and sorghum seeds that could—if planted around the globe--pull more than a billion extra tons of carbon out of the air annually.

It’s an ambitious goal, and the team is likely to face numerous challenges in the lab before its CO2-cleaning plants can be put in the ground. Additional social, policy, and ethical considerations will determine whether those crops are widely accepted by farmers. But the researchers believe their ambitious project is beneficial to cope with climate crisis.

8 . When trash sculptor Stephanie Hongo meets friends for drinks or dinner, it’s not unusual for one of them to hand her shopping bags full of lids, empty soap bottles, and even a Barbie leg or two. By now, she’s used to neighbors, friends and even strangers giving her their recyclable rejects.

But Hongo doesn’t need any more garbage. She has a large collection of her own at home. “You don’t need to be a trash picker to do this,” she says. “Trash is everywhere.” And for Hongo, where there is trash, there is art. Since 2017, Hongo has crafted complex sea creatures, realistic-looking jungle animals and other creatures out of everything from plastic forks to plastic tubing as well as a hair dryer, a purse, a tooth brush, and even a hair straightener.

Starting with her first piece—a blue deer named Yandoo that she fashioned out of odds and ends laying around her flat, which she screwed together and spray painted in a makeshift basement art studio—she’s gone on to create more than 160 trash sculptures.

“I feel very fortunate,” says Hongo, who loves making a living as an artist. “I care about our environment. The upcycling aspect of it is a lovely byproduct.” Though she doesn’t consider herself a true eco-artist, she hopes she’s inspiring others to reuse items that usually end up in landfills. But for her, she says, “The art comes first.”

Before starting each project, Hongo figures out exactly what pieces of scrap (废旧的) metal, tubing and plastics she’ll need to transform the pile of junk on her worktable into something fantastic, like a majestic octopus (章鱼) rocketing through the coral or a cute koala hugging a tree.

Since her funky creations sell on line at prices starting at $400, she’s been fortunate enough to make trash sculpting her full-time career. “It’s so much more than I ever expected,” she says.

9 . From solar panels to electric cars, clean energy has become a bigger part of our lives in recent years. A new report from the International Energy Agency (IEA) predicts that it will only develop a stronger foothold in the decades to come, with more solar panels, electric cars, and renewable energy by 2030.

The IEA analyzed the current policies and added that there will likely be two-thirds more clean energy ten years from now with a decreased dependence on fossil fuels. “The transition to clean energy is happening worldwide and is unstoppable. It’s not a question of ‘if’, but a matter of ‘how soon’—and the sooner, the better for all of us,” says the IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol.

“Governments, companies, and investors must support clean energy transitions rather than hinder them. There are immense (巨大的) benefits on offer, including new industrial opportunities and jobs, greater energy security，cleaner air, universal energy access and a safer climate for everyone. Considering the ongoing strains and volatility (波动) in traditional energy markets today, claims that oil and gas represent safe or secure choices for the world’s energy and climate future look weaker than ever,” Biral adds.

Although this is welcome news for many, the IEA stresses that more improvement will be needed for the 200 countries in the Paris Agreement to meet the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celcius (34.7 degrees Fahrenheit). Governments must triple renewable capacity, reduce methane emissions from fossil fuel operations by 75%, and triple clean energy in developing economies.

“Every country needs to find its own pathway, but international cooperation is crucial for accelerating clean energy transitions,” Birol asserts. “In particular, the speed at which emissions decline will be largely determined by our ability to finance sustainable solutions to meet rising energy demand from the world’s fast-growing economies. This all points to the importance of redoubling cooperation, not retreating (逃避) from them.”

10 . In the summer of 2021, an unseasonal event took place. More than 100 miles of Florida’s coast around Tampa Bay became an oxygen-depleted (缺氧的) zone containing dead fish along the nearby shoreline.

Much of the conversation around our climate crisis highlights the emission of greenhouse gases and their effect on warming, sea-level rise and ocean acidification (海洋酸化). We hear little about the effect of climate change on oxygen levels, particularly in oceans and lakes. But water without adequate oxygen cannot support life. For the three billion people who depend on coastal fisheries for income, declining ocean oxygen levels are devastating.

As ocean and atmospheric scientists focus on climate, we believe that oceanic oxygen levels are the next big victim of global warming. To stop the situation from worsening, we need to expand our attention to include the dangerous state of oceanic oxygen levels — the life-support system of our planet. We need to accelerate ocean-based climate solutions that boost oxygen. Examples include nature-based solutions such as those discussed at the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) held in Glasgow.

Enhanced monitoring of oxygen and the establishment of an oxygen-accounting system are a must. Putting oxygen into the climate story motivates us to do the work to understand the deep systemic changes happening in our complex atmospheric and oceanic systems. We celebrated the return of humpback whales in recent years to an increasingly clean New York Harbor and Hudson River. However, dead fish blocked the Hudson in the summer as warmer waters carried less oxygen.

Ecosystem changes connected to physical and chemical system-level data may point the way to new approaches to climate solutions. It includes an enhanced understanding of the life-support system of our planet. Roughly 40 percent of the world’s people depend on the ocean for their livelihoods. If we do not save marine life from oxygen starvation, we starve ourselves.