1 . There is a kind of climate pollution that we can’t see clearly. It isn’t in our rivers, lands or skies, it is in our minds. When climate disinformation goes unchecked, it spreads like wildfire, undermining the existence of climate change and the need for urgent action.

Like the biosphere that sustains us, the health of our information ecosystems is vital to our survival. As an artist, I feel a responsibility to create new ways of seeing the disinformation that has come to define the age of fake news.

Social media sites are honed to grab our attention. Using sophisticated algorithms, the corporations behind them decide what billions of people see around the world, dictated by what keeps you hooked, but also by what the companies paying social media sites choose to put in front of you.

Powerful corporate actors deploy clever influence campaigns via ads targeted at specific users based on what social media firms know about those people. Major oil and gas companies have spent billions of dollars over the years persuading consumers about their green proofs, when only 1 per cent of their expenditure in 2019 was on renewable energy. This is known as corporate greenwashing. Still, fossil fuel firms maintain that their climate policies are “responsible” and “in line with the science”.

To expose the scale of corporate greenwashing online, I was part of a team that recently launched Eco-Bot.Net. Co-created with artist Rob “3D” Del Naja of the band Massive Attack and Dale Vince, a green entrepreneur, Eco-Bot. Net’s AI-powered website ran throughout the COP26 climate summit, exposing climate change misinformation by releasing a series of data drops for heavily polluting sectors, including energy, agribusiness and aviation.

Academic definitions of climate disinformation and greenwashing were used to unearth posts across Facebook, Instagram and Twitter and visualize them on our website. Eco-Bot.Net then flagged greenwashing ads and posts on the original social media site with a public health warning.

By digging into our data, journalists have already revealed that companies are targeting specific demographics in order to influence public perceptions about climate change – and even alter government policy.

One data drop focused on the 100 biggest fossil fuel producers, companies that have been the source of 71 per cent of global carbon emissions. It found that 16 of these companies ran 1705 greenwashing and climate misinformation ads globally on Facebook and Instagram this year. In total, they spent more than £4 million creating influence campaigns that generated up to 155 million impressions.

Social media companies could end most of the harms from climate disinformation on their platforms if they wanted to. Flagging systems were swiftly introduced to warn users of posts containing disinformation about covid-19. The scientific consensus on human-caused global warming has been resolute for decades, so why can’t a similar flagging system be implemented for related disinformation?

It is true that Twitter and Facebook have both introduced climate science information hubs, but these are little more than PR exercises that fail to directly tackle climate disinformation on any kind of scale.

This epidemic of climate change disinformation on social media is eroding collective ideas of truth. In this post-truth age of disinformation, we hope that the public, the press and policy-makers will be able to use our data findings to see what is hidden by what we see online.

For the first time, we can witness the regional scale of corporate greenwashing. The era of climate denial and delay is largely over — except, as Eco-Bot.Net has revealed, on social media.

2 . Growing up in the Philippines,construction worker Johnny Manlugay combs the beaches each night for the eggs of sea turtles. He knows exactly what to look for,as he was trained as a child by his grandfather on how to locate the animals and their eggs. Back then,his family traded or ate them. It wasn’t about getting rich as much as it was just a part of life.

Manlugay has since turned over a new leaf. Instead,he uses his tracking skills to protect the sea turtles that visit the beaches he lives by.

“I’ve learned to love this work,”Manlugay acknowledged in an interview.“We didn’t know poaching(偷猎)was illegal and that we should not eat turtle eggs and meat.”

Manlugay delicately transferred each egg into a bucket he brought with him,as well as some sand from the turtle nests,to be handed over to Coastal Underwater Resource Management Actions(CURMA)，the group leading the conservation program on the beaches.

Established in 2009,the CURMA conservation effort has gradually transformed sea turtle poachers into valuable allies(盟友). They manage this by offering training to ultimately save thousands of turtles and keep their eggs from ending up everywhere but their nests.

“We talked to the poachers,and it turned out poaching was just another means for them to earn a living,”explained Carlos Tamayo,the director of operations.“They had no choice.”

On average,sea turtles lay 100 eggs in a nest. The number of nests in the area ranges between 35and 40 each season,which runs from October to February. Tamayo noted that the figures had doubled during the first year of the COVID pandemic.“Last season alone,for example,we had 75 nests and we released close to 9,000 hatching,”he shared.

Once collected,the eggs are then transferred to CURMA’s hatchery(孵化场)to be reburied in protected areas. Another former poacher,Jessie Cabagbag,grew up eating turtle meat and eggs like many people there.“I stopped poaching when we underwent training and were taught that what we have been doing was illegal and that these species of turtles are endangered,”he explained. Now,he admits,“I am truly proud. I am happy that I get to contribute to the conservation of the turtles.”

5 . The last time Jack Hanson took an airplane, he was a junior at the University of Vermont. To return from a term abroad in Copenhagen, he flew from Denmark, ________ in Iceland, and landed in New York.

But the next term, one of his professors asked students to ________ their individual energy usage. And when Mr. Hanson did the ________, he realized that just one leg of that international flight ________ more energy, and more greenhouse gas emissions(排放), than all the other things that year ________ — the driving and heating and lighting and eating and everything else.

He was ________. “I just couldn’t ________ it,” he says. “It really is an extreme. It’s an extreme amount of energy, an extreme amount of ________.”

So Mr. Hanson decided to stop ________. Since then, he has traveled by train and bike and car, and has even written a song about the ________ of getting home to Chicago on an overnight bus. But he has not been on an airplane.

And he has never found travel more ________, he says. He knows that some people find this hard to ________, including many friends and family members. They decide Mr. Hanson’s approach is ________.

Go more ________, and travel begins to return to what it once was: a slow change of one place to another, a sense of space, an unwinding of time.

6 . Ways to Reduce Plastic Waste

Plastic has been found virtually in everything these days. Your food is packaged in it. Your car, phone and computer are made from it.     1    . While most plastics are advertised as recyclable, the reality is that they’re “downcycled”. 

Luckily, there are simple steps you can take to dramatically decrease the amount of plastic waste you produce.

    2    

One of the easiest ways to keep plastic out of the landfill is to refuse plastic straws. Simply inform your waiter or waitress that you don’t need one, and be sure to state this clearly when ordering at a drive-through. Can’t stand giving up the convenience of plastic straws?     3    . Restaurant workers will be less likely to bring you a plastic one if they see that you’ve brought your own. 

Use reusable bags

About one million plastic bags are used every minute. A single plastic bag can take 1,000 years to degrade(降解). If you’re already bringing reusable bags to the grocery store, you’re on the right track. Purchase some reusable bags and help keep even more plastic out of the landfill. However, you should avoid those bags made from nylon or polyester (聚酯纤维).     4    . 

Use matches

    5    , if you need to light a candle, build a campfire or start a fire for any other reason. These cheap plastic devices can sit in landfills for years and have been even found in dead birds’ stomachs. If you can’t bear to part with your lighter, pick up a refillable metal one to help cut down on waste.

China’s accumulated experience in reducing food loss and waste is being shared with the world. This knowledge will help many countries improve their ability    1     (reduce) food loss and ensure food security, experts and officials said.

About 14 percent of the world’s food is lost during from    2    (produce) to retail (零售). Reducing that loss by 1 percentage point would be equal to a 28 million metric ton increase in grain output,     3    could feed 70 million people for a year. This is according to the State of Food and Agriculture 2019 report released by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization.

According to the FAO, over 155 million people experienced serious food insecurity in 2020, the    4    (high) number in the past five years. This was caused by conflict, extreme weather events and economic shocks    5    (relate) to COVID-19.

Wu Laping,     6    professor at China Agricultural University’s College of Economics and Management, said food loss and waste is    7    (large) affected by economic development. They noted that    8    (develop) countries lose food mainly before it is retailed, whereas developed countries mainly lose it after retail.

    9    example, food loss and waste mostly occurs in harvesting and storage in Africa and South Asia. Up to 30 percent of food loss was found during farmers’ storage in some areas in Africa, and 21 percent of food in the United States    10    (waste) during daily consumption, Wu told Economic Daily.