2 . Gardeners who use pesticides (杀虫剂) are contributing to the decreasing population of British songbirds, a study suggests. Researchers have advocated stopping using poisonous chemicals in gardens in order to reduce the loss of birds and adopt wildlife-friendly practices instead. The results of the University of Sussex study, which researchers call the first of its kind, were published in the journal Science of the Total Environment.

The study, which examined information on pesticide use and garden management from 615 garden owners in Britain, found 32 percent of gardens used pesticides, and the number of house sparrows was 25% lower when glyphosate-based herbicides was used regularly. Slug pellets (鼻涕虫杀虫剂) also seemed to have an impact on bird sightings; in gardens where Slug pellets were used, house sparrow numbers were down by almost 40%.

Prof. Dave Goulson, of the school of life sciences at the University of Sussex, said, “The UK has 22 million gardens, which collectively could be a fantastic shelter for wildlife, but not if they are overly tidy and sprayed with poisons. We just don’t need pesticides in our gardens. Many towns around the world are now pesticide free. We should simply ban the use of these poisons in cities, following the example of France.” The Royal Horticultural Society, the UK’s leading gardening charity, said the use of pesticides and herbicides should be avoided if possible and they should only be used, if ever, in small and targeted applications.

The research also found that those who adopted wildlife-friendly practices such as planting native bushes and flowers, or digging a wildlife pond, saw more birds than those who did not. Cannelle Tassin de Montaigu, a PhD researcher within the school of life sciences and an author of the study, said, “It’s encouraging to find that simple measures, such as planting native bushes and trees and creating a pond, together with avoiding the use of pesticides, really make a measurable difference to the number of birds you will see in your garden.”

4 . Darrell Blatchley, a marine biologist and environmentalist based in the Philippine city of Davao, received a call from the Philippines, Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (渔业与水产资源局) early Friday morning reporting a death of a young whale.

When the necropsy (尸检) was performed, Blatchley told NPR, he was not prepared for the amount of plastic they found in the whale’s stomach. “It was full of plastic nothing but nonstop plastic.” he said “It was filled to the point that its stomach was as hard as a baseball.” That means that this animal has been suffering not for days or weeks but for months or even a year or more,” Blatchley added.

Blatchley is the founder and owner of the D’Bone Collector Museum, a natural history museum in Davao. In the coming days, the museum will display all the items found in the whale’s system. Blatchley and his team work with the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources and other organizations to assist in rescue and recovery of marine animals.

“Within the last 10 years, we have recovered 61 whales and dolphins just within the Davao Gulf,” he said. “Of them, 57 have died due to man whether they took plastic or fishing nets or other waste, or gotten caught in pollution — and four were pregnant.”

Blatchley said he hoped that the latest incident would launch the issue of plastic pollution in the Philippines and across the globe. “If we keep going this way, it will be more uncommon to see an animal die of natural causes than it is to see an animal die of plastic,” he said.

5 . Pioneers like Harvard social ecologist Stephen Kellert were among the first to champion modern biophilic design. Kellert believed that weaving nature into living and workspaces is critical for good physical and mental health.

Humans have evolved to gravitate towards nature, Kellert noted. His principles include access to natural light, air, water, and plants. Using materials such as wood and stone, biophilic designs such as leaf or shell patterns help humans to feel closer to nature.

Biophilic designs can be seen all over the world. Examples include the Changi Airport in Singapore, with its four-storey forest garden and world’s largest indoor waterfall fed by rainwater, and the Swedish Mirror Cube Tree House Hotel, mainly made of used plywood and a lightweight aluminum frame wrapped around a tree. Incredible biophilic homes include One Central Park in Sydney, apartment blocks featuring hanging gardens on the outside. The buildings recycle their own water and a suspended (悬浮的) motorized mirror system reflects sunlight down onto gardens below. Milan’s Bosco Vertical block is perhaps even more eye-catching with its vertical forest.

Putting biophilic design to work for society could prevent millions in healthcare costs, with one study estimating annual savings of $93 million in the US alone. Hospital design in particular has historically been influenced by access to sunlight and views of nature. Modern buildings like the Khoo Teck Puat Hospital in Singapore, with its position next to the waterfall of the Yishun Pond, are closely linked with their surroundings. The hospital channels outdoor air to cool the inside, and uses reflective sunshades to direct light into the wards to brighten them and save energy.

The aim of these designs is to emphasize the human connection to nature by integrating buildings with the local environment. But how do we bring biophilia into our homes? Start with house plants. New smart home apps can also provide sensory nature experiences such as birdsong and a projected forest canopy, helping people to carve out a restful space indoors.

But perhaps the best way to transform society with biophilic designs is to start with schools. Children learn better and feel more relaxed in biophilic settings. So the Children and Nature Network is working with schools across the US to create green schoolyards for better physical and mental health and to increase opportunities for outdoor learning.

Biophilic designers are bringing nature into classrooms through natural patterns, shapes and colors, nature photography, artwork and materials like timber and stone. Fresh air flow, green walls, and aquariums all become part of a recipe for improving health and academic success.

6 . Back in Brisbane, Australia, for the Christmas break, I found myself in a public transport dead zone. Bikeless, 7 kilometers from where I was meeting friends and unwilling to get a taxi, I decided to borrow an electric scooter. The trip took far longer than it would have by bike, mainly because of a major spill halfway there. A rock, hit at speed, is a terrible thing: weeks later, I still had the red knees of a primary schooler.

E-scooters have appeared in Brisbane like a rash. In the UK, they are legal only on private land, but the Department for Transport is discussing how to regulate them on public roads and pathways, with the potential for legalisation later this year.

Other cities that have e-scooter rental programs have had teething problems. In Paris, mayor Anne Hidalgo described the situation last year as messy. She has announced that the city is reducing its number of e-scooters to 15,000 and plans to create laws banning them from pavements (人行道). France has put into force laws limiting e-scooter speeds to 25 kilometres per hour.

Similar to dockless (无桩的) hire bicycles, e-scooters are parked on pavements and people leave them up trees or throw them into rivers. Rough handling shortens their lifetime, which is bad for both profitability and the environment. Analysis suggests that the average e-scooter’s lifetime is just three months.

I think e-scooters are an essential part of the effort to make city transport greener. They are seen as a solution to the “last mile” problem — a potential way to reduce transport jam by rapidly getting someone to their final destination. Cars can take up 28 times the space of a person riding a bicycle.

As far as the environmental effect goes, recent research suggests that e-scooters are not as green as walking or cycling, but they are still better than cars. And despite numerous reports of serious accidents, scooting is about as safe as cycling.

Stephen Gossling at Lund University in Sweden has suggested we build car-free “micromobility” streets, where cyclists, pedestrians (行人) and e-scooters could share the road. He thinks this will reduce accident risks and invite more vulnerable (易受伤害的) traffic participants, such as children, to become active transport users.

If more e-scooters mean fewer cars on roads, an improvement in local air quality is also a likely outcome. When 20 kilometers of roads in central London closed for World Car-Free Day last September, a temporary air quality monitor in Regent Street reportedly registered a 60% drop in nitrogen dioxide.

7 . The earth is dying before us, yet we sit and watch. If the TV or the game system breaks, we run off to the stores to get it fixed immediately no matter what the cost. Why aren’t we willing to fix our earth? Are our televisions and game systems more important to us than where we live? Where shall we continue to live, until the end of time?

The earth is our home and cannot be replaced. We must take care of it. We have come up with so much technology that limits us instead of helping us. Take that game system we run to repair. What does it do? It occupies kids’ time! The earth has already given kids plenty of entertainment in the forms of fields and hills, forests and plains, water and land. However, instead of using what the earth has given us, and helping kids by giving them exercise as they run around, we decide to ruin kids’ minds with game systems that glue them to the screen for hours, and make them ignore their homework and chores. We have polluted this earth by making these things which do not even help in any way!

We have already messed up this world, we have ruined the air, water, and animals that it has so willingly provided for us. We need to stop this destruction of life and bring back the world we had before. It will not be easy, but everybody can help! What about something as simple as turning the lights off when you leave a room? Recycling what can be recycled? Picking up litter? Donating money to an environmental organization? None of these things are very hard. We can’t just always say, “Oh, the earth is a mess. Ah, well, those big companies that are polluting so much can stop and fix it.” Instead, we need to help out. It’s not only those big companies; it’s everyday things that we do too that are ruining the earth. So, stop and think about what you can do to make a difference to our world!

9 . Astypalea, a butterfly-shaped island in the central Aegean, hopes to become Greece’s first carbon-free tourist destination. Under a deal with the government, Volkswagen (大众汽车), has donated several new electric vehicles for use by Astypalea’s public services. It will sell others at cost price to its 1, 200 residents. In return, the government has largely increased subsidies (补贴) for the islanders to buy electric cars and will build a hybrid(混合的) solar and wind power plant to replace those polluting generators.

Unlike other nearby islands, Astypalea is not connected to Greece’s electricity system. With only 3, 000 rooms for visitors in small hotels or flats, tourism is still low-key. Many residents make a living in the old-fashioned way: raising goats, keeping bees and fishing. The island was selected for Volkswagen’s e-mobility experiment after Nikos Komineas, the go-ahead mayor, contacted the transport ministry for help in finding an electric bus to try out on its rough roads.

Most islanders sound enthusiastic about the project. Mr. Komineas expects the number of private cars on Astypalea to fall by a third over the next five years. Its residents, he says, will get around on e-scooters and electric minibuses, which will be free, linked to a mobile-phone app and available round the clock.

Some observers find a bit of green washing. Building a solar park that would produce the island’s electricity will not get started before the tourist season ends. A single wind turbine (涡轮) will not be fixed before 2026 even if the licensing process-goes smoothly. On the other hand, the islanders worry that tourists will go elsewhere if the view is destroyed by a turbine 200 meters high. And even then, the hybrid power unit is planned to cover only about 80% of summer demand. But it is a start.

10 . A major new facility to pull CO₂ out of the atmosphere has started operating in Iceland, which is a boost to an emerging technology that experts say could eventually play an important role in reducing greenhouse gases.

The plant in southwest Iceland is the biggest of its kind, its builder says. It is able to capture 900 tons of CO₂ every year but it needs heat and electricity to work. It is using energy produced from waste and is built on the roof of a waste incineration plant, and through the burning of rubbish, energy is generated.

Human-sized fans are built into a series of boxes. They take CO₂ out of the air, catching it in spongelike filters (过滤器). The filters are blasted with heat, freeing the gas, which is then mixed with water and pumped deep into deep underground basalt caves, where over time it turns into dark-gray stone. Pumping CO₂ into the ground is just one way to deal with it. The makers are also selling the gas to be used again. The CO₂ can be captured just a few 100 miles away. It is pumped through an underground pipeline directly into a greenhouse. Vegetables and plants love CO₂ and higher concentrations of the gas within the greenhouse improve the growth of plants.

By 2050, humanity will need to pull nearly a billion metric tons of CO₂ from the atmosphere every year through direct air capture technology to achieve carbon neutral goals, according to International Energy Agency recommendations. The plant in Iceland will be able to capture 4000 metric tons annually — just a small amount of what will be necessary, but an engineer in Climeworks, the company that built it, says it can grow rapidly as efficiency improves and costs decrease.

“This is a market that does not yet exist, but a market that urgently needs to be built,” said Christoph Gebald who co-founded Climeworks. “This plant that we have here is really the blueprint to further increase the size and really industrialize.”