2 . Most people, if you quizzed them, probably wouldn’t know how much of all global trade is done by sea. It’s one of several reasons that the pollution and carbon emissions from shipping gain much less attention than those from road transport and other industries. It’s over the horizon, out of sight and out of mind.

Today, the international shipping industry is the main mode of transport for around 90 per cent of world trade. It’s powered almost entirely by fossil fuels. Studies show that alternative technologies and zero-emission fuels — including electrofuels such as hydrogen, ammonia and methanol — have the potential to significantly reduce the industry’s carbon footprint and thus require urgent implementation (实施). There’s just one catch: they don’t exist yet.

Even if the technology were available, the infrastructure (基础设施) for that technology or fuel is going to take time to develop. And an even bigger challenge is going to be whether that methanol or ammonia fuel is green, which touches on other industries such as renewable electricity. Do we even have enough renewable electricity in the world to be able to generate these fuels? It’s a complex supply chain that requires cooperation across the industry. It’s not something that one company can solve by itself.

According to Piotr Konopka, senior manager for energy and decarbonisation (碳减排) programs at DP World, there are some simple behavioral changes that can help cut down on fuel used in the meantime, from the regular maintenance and reduced idling of port equipment to the implementation of weather routing that helps ships avoid rougher, more fuel-intensive stretches of water. “Of course, efficiency is unlikely to ever reduce emissions by more than five or ten per cent, but it’s definitely a low-hanging fruit,” he says.

“This is the last moment for the IMO to act decisively to eliminate shipping emissions” says Delaine McCullough, shipping emissions policy manager at environmental NGO Ocean Conservancy. “We need countries to demand that the IMO set strong emission-reduction goals and take action at home if the IMO fails to do the right thing.”

3 . A forest after a wildfire

Throughout my career, I’ve had many chances to enter various wildfire areas. But I’ve ________ had the opportunity to see the immediate scene after a fire.

So when I ________ into a recently burned forest, my first reaction was the deathly ________ hung in the air. There were no birds, no breeze caught in the leaves of a tree, or animal noises. It felt as if life itself had totally ________ from this place. What was even worse, the burned-out forest meant that a large amount of ________ alongside the road was no longer ________ by the under-growth (灌木丛) . Oil cans, glass, plastic bags—you name it, and you can find it.

Knowing there was a story here that needed ________ , I raised my camera with a heavy heart, no matter how ________ . Photographing burned-out areas is ________ , since there is really only a bunch of burned-out wood. Through my lenses, I sought to connect viewers to the ________ of the disaster.

For a nature photographer passionate about environmental protection, it’s important to ________ the ugly as well as the beautiful. We need to put those two things together, so while ________ hope, we are aware of what has been taken from us, and how ________ that loss can be. Without that balance, we risk becoming used to a world shaped by destruction and not the one of ________ . Nature will regenerate, but now, we must consider what ________ we humans play in that process, too.

4 . Getting rid of(丢弃) old tyres(轮胎) has long been a problem. Every year many tyres are thrown. Some of the ways might be better than getting rid of them, but they are not especially green.

Energy recovery(回收利用) is one common way. This includes burning tyres to produce electricity, or as a way to provide heat for other industrial processes. But that produces planet-warming pollution. Tyres can be whole or broken in construction projects, such as repairing roads. There are, however, worries about chemicals from the tyres coming out and polluting the ground.

So some companies have begun exploring another pleasing idea. Since tyres are mostly made from hydrocarbons(碳氢化合物), it should be possible in principle to turn old tyres into environmentally friendly materials which can be used to run some cars they came from. One of the most thoughtful companies is based in Oslo, Norway. Later this year the company will start building a huge tyre-reused factory in Sunderland in northeastern England. In a couple of years, when the factory is fully operational, it will be able to turn 8 million old tyres into new products.

The process works by dividing a tyre into its three main parts. One is steel, which is used to support the structure of a tyre and which can be easily reused. The second is powder used to improve the continuous use of the tyre. The third is rubber. Some of that will be natural rubber from the rubber trees. The carbon black can be reused to make new tyres. That is of interest to tyre makers because it helps efforts to become carbon neutral(碳中和).

5 . Every year the start of the Atlantic hurricane season is another reminder for Margarite August that she still doesn’t have a roof.

The 70-year-old retired teacher’s home on the small Caribbean island nation of Dominica was mostly wiped out by hurricane Maria six years ago.

Six years after hurricane Maria, Dominicans like Margarite August still haven’t been able to rehabilitate their homes.

August is not alone. Since Maria, the government of Dominica has built 7,000 new homes—about a quarter of its housing stock-with materials to fight another Category 5 hurricane. They’ve also relocated two communities. But an untold number of the island’s 70,000 or so residents are like August, rebuilding their homes in any way they can afford.

Hurricane Maria is often referred to as a once-in-a-lifetime disaster. Scientists put much of the blame on warming ocean temperatures that could make frequent (频繁的) storms like it.

Maria damaged a terrible 95% of Dominica’s housing stock and 226% of the nation’s GDP. Before the storm, the country’s economy had long struggled since its independence from Great Britain in 1978. Unlike its more famous touristy neighbors along the chain of eastern Caribbean islands it lies on, Dominica is more known for its rugged mountains and jungles (丛林) than white sandy beaches.

The jungle mountains that crash down to the coast are beautiful but disasters visit easily. “I don’t think anybody ever got over Maria,” says Christine John of the Dominica Red Cross. “There are a lot of persons today—if it just starts to rain outside, they get anxious.”

6 . Are you sure you know how to protect the environment? Many of us believe that we lead lives that respect nature but our consumption habits give us away.     1     Here are some everyday habits that you thought were harmless, or even ecological, but that cause considerable damage to the environment.

Eating too much meat and fruit

These foods are essential for our diet, although they are not very healthy for the natural environment. In a 2018 report, Greenpeace warned that 14.5% of all greenhouse gas (GHG ) emissions come from industrial stock farming. The meat industry, for example, negatively affects land use as between 75 and 80% of the world’s agricultural land is used for stock breeding. But if the same land was used for growing vegetables, there could be food for 4 billion people more.     2    

Using paper bags

We think that because they are made of paper they are not as harmful as the plastic bags that we use around the world, according to the UN.     3    . In addition, the amount of energy needed to produce a paper bag is four times more than for a plastic bag and its production requires a large amount of water and wood, emits harmful gases into the atmosphere and uses chemicals that pollute water courses and harm ecosystems.     4    

Drinking bottled water

Plastic bottles are a clear example of environmental pollution.     5    . These bottles, 500 billion of which are produced each year worldwide, can affect our health due to the microparticles that they leave in the bottled water. The only environmentally responsible option, therefore, is to drink tap water or use reusable glass bottles.

10 . Dry lightning(雷电)can still be harmful even when conditions aren’t so dry, said a study published in Geophysical Research Letters last month. Dry lightning during little to no rainfall was previously thought to cause wildfire danger only with less than 2.5mm of rain in a day. A Washington State University-led study of wildfires in the US West found dry lightning caused wildfires despite up to 7.7 mm of rain.

“The rainfall amounts we recorded should help provide a better understanding of just how much rain can cause a fire risk,” said Dmitri Kalashnikov, lead author of the study.

The researchers analyzed(分析)cases on more than 4,600 naturally caused fires from 2015 to 2020. They matched 3,726 of those to the lightning strikes that likely started them with the help of National Lightning Detection Network.

The study found that 15.3% of those were holdover fires which burn without smoke, bringing about over a hundred fires each year. Analyzing the rainfall amounts around the time of the lightning strikes showed greater rainfall than previously thought among the earlier found fires ranging from 1.7 mm to 4.6 mm.

While humans still cause most fires either by accident or on purpose, lightning-caused wildfires burn the most areas. Nearly 70% of the wildfire-burned land in the West was from lightning-caused fires according to the study. For example, the largest wildfire burn area in California history took place in August 2020 after dry lightning caused many wildfires at once.

Dry lightning can also start wildfires in places that are hard for firefighters to reach. This study found the places where holdover fires happened repeatedly were in the forested mountains of the Southwest as well as the middle and southern Rocky Mountains. Holdover fires cause the problem because they are so hard to notice.