1 . How to save planet earth

Have you ever held a product in your hands and considered the existential weight of your purchase? Beyond each price tag hides a ripple effect. It expands from soil to water ways, grocery aisle to kitchen plates, factories to fulfillment centers and mail slots to landfills. This global impact has become less hidden in the past decade, and ignoring the people downstream from us has grown increasingly difficult.

We’re more aware than ever of the mark our consumption leaves on planet Earth, which now sustains nearly 8 billion people. Somehow, humans are still pumping more than 30 gig a tons of carbon dioxide(CO₂)per year into the atmosphere, despite the mountain of evidence that CO₂ is the top contributor to greenhouse gases causing global warming.     1    We know we need to do better, but we feel helpless and overwhelmed. Let’s call this the eco-essential crisis; it applies on a deeply personal level for most environmentally aware humans, and on a global scale.

Climate journalist and author Tatiana Schlossberg says even a simple trip to the supermarket can feel paralyzing in 2021. “I want to buy the local thing, but it’s not organic. Or, maybe it’s in a plastic box,” she says. In her 2019 book Inconspicuous Consumption, she ventures way beyond the store aisle and into the web of less apparent ways that humans are damaging Earth. For example, your internet use is tied to extensive carbon emissions and energy consumption.     2     The world is more complicated than that.

In fact, being a good citizen on planet Earth with climate concerns, you’ve likely asked or agonized over this question: What should I do?     3     So, we took this question to five people who have immersed their careers, research and writing in the realities of climate science.

One of their most consistent insights may surprise you: Consumer responsibility misses the mark. “One of the major failings of the environmental movement is having everyone focus on these small things that everyone can do.” says Ayana Elizabeth Johnson-a marine biologist and co-host of the podcast How to Save a Planet.     4     There are just more meaningful and long-lasting ways to expend your energy in the climate fight. Most of them involve organization and collective action.

“Individuals join together to collectively have far more power changing the system than they can as individuals,” says Anthony Leiserowitz, director of the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication.

Now, Mount Everest is actually an interesting comparison of a new approach     1    how we deal with garbage produced in the course of space exploration, as it’s often given the dubious hono r(耻辱) of being the world’s highest garbage dump. Decades after the first conquest of the world’s highest peak, tons of rubbish left behind by climbers     2     (start) to raise concern, and you may have read in the news that there’s expectation     3    Nepal will crack down on mountaineers with stricter enforcement of penalties and legal obligations. The goal, of course, is to persuade climbers to clean up after themselves, so maybe local not-for-profits will pay climbers who bring down extra waste, or expeditions might organize voluntary cleanup trips. And yet still many climbers feel that independent groups     4    police themselves. There’s no simple or easy answer, and even well-intentioned efforts at conservation often run into problems. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do     5    is in our power to protect the environments that we depend on, and like Everest, the remote location and inadequate infrastructure (基础设施)of the orbital environment make waste disposal a challenging problem. But we simply cannot reach new heights and create an even higher garbage dump,     6    out of this world.

The reality of space is that     7    a component on a satellite breaks down, there really are limited opportunities for repairs, and only at great cost. But what if we were smarter about     8    we designed satellites? What if all satellites, regardless of what country they were built in, had to be standardized in some way for recycling, servicing or active deorbiting (脱离轨道)? What if there actually were international laws that enforced end-of-life disposal of satellites instead of moving them out of the way as a temporary solution? Or maybe satellite manufacturers need     9    (charge) a deposit to even launch a satellite into orbit, and that deposit would not be returned     10    the satellite was disposed of properly. Or maybe a satellite needs to have technology on board to help accelerate deorbit.

6 . 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.

7 . You don’t need to travel long distances to find pleasure in nature

The Greek historian Herodotus is said to have made one of the earliest lists of seven wonders of the world. These were man-made structures, including the still mysterious feat of ancient horticulture known as the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. More recent times saw natural alternatives to these marvels of classical architecture proposed: waterfalls, mountains, canyons, reefs.     1    

As environmental consciousness has risen in the west, attitudes to such sightseeing have changed. Yes, it is thrilling to visit remote forests or spot rare species. But travelling to far-flung destinations is carbon-intensive when flights or long road journeys are involved, and conservation can be made more difficult as well as assisted by sightseers. There is a balance to be struck, and ethical governments and businesses around the world try to maximize the benefits while minimizing the harms.     2    

Most of us, in the rich countries where people take most holidays, understand better than ever that there are costs as well as benefits associated with exploring. One of the six pledges proposed by an environmental campaign launched last month, The Jump, is to “holiday local”, taking short-haul flights once every three years and long-haul flights very rarely. Fortunately, the UK’s 15 national parks, 86 areas of outstanding natural beauty （known in Scotland as national scenic areas）, and countless other landscapes that are without formal status, but beloved nonetheless, mean that there is no shortage of special places for domestic nature tourists to visit—while a host of European beauty spots are accessible by rail.

One recent survey found that Windsor Great Park and Kew have become Britain’s most popular attractions, while Covid has created difficulties for indoor spaces which do not apply to outdoor ones.     3     Some companies that formerly ran foreign trips have adapted to the pandemic by taking people to watch dolphins and other marine life off British coasts instead.

    4     Sewage outflows are out of control due to failed water industry regulation. The owners of a popular rewilded estate in West Sussex—Knepp—have warned that plans to build 3,500 homes next to their land would be catastrophic for the species that live there. But as we confront an environmental emergency that grows ever more dangerous, it is essential to cultivate appreciation for the nature that surrounds us. In a small way, holiday outings to watch dragonflies, kingfishers or seals, or be surrounded by trees that are coming into leaf, could help us to focus on what matters.

8 . A new survey by non-profit No Meat May has revealed that old-fashioned attitudes towards meat and manliness have not changed. Out of 1000 Aussies questioned, almost 1 in 2 associated a diet high in meat with manliness, including 47% of women. Moreover, 73% of the men surveyed said they would rather die 10 years earlier than give up eating meat. This shocking statistic corresponds to the figure of 90% of previous No Meat May participants being women. Men are significantly less likely to try plant-based options, and it is apparent that doubts about masculinity are at the root cause.

No Meat May co-founder Ryan Alexander explained, “Australian men are still being fed a lie that meat-eating makes them more masculine, when in reality, what’s more masculine than protecting the planet, sparing innocent lives and ensuring you live a long and healthy life for the people you love?”

What was perhaps the most ironic statistic was that 81% of men considered themselves someone who cares about the environment, yet when asked whether they would give up meat if it meant would reduce their impact on the environment, 79% said ‘no’.

This demonstrates the huge power that the media has in convincing men that they would lose their masculinity if they stopped eating meat. Moreover, it shows how much of a barrier it is to making more climate-positive choices.

Significant research over many years has shown that eating meat and other animal products increases the risk of developing certain cancers, heart disease, obesity and having a reduced life expectancy, not to mention being one of the biggest contributors to global warming and the destruction of our environment.

“Yet our survey alarmingly shows that Australian men are either not aware of any of these facts, don’t believe them, or simply don’t care,” Alexander continued.

This data is certainly worrying, not only for global public health but also for the impending climate crisis. It seems that we still have a long way to go in reversing the damage done by overwhelming toxic masculinity plugged by the mainstream media, which is why we need initiatives like No Meat May.

We hope that more men sign up this year, and give meat-free options a go whether it be for health, environmental, or animal welfare reasons!

9 . Do you celebrate Earth Day? There are a few things you probably don’t know about this global environmental celebration.

The first Earth Day was held on April 22, 1970. It has been celebrated on this day annually since. Every year people across the world come together to celebrate Earth Day. The celebration is marked by lots of different activities, from festivals to running races. Earth Day events typically have one theme in common: to show support for environmental issues and increase future generations’ awareness about the need to protect our planet.

In 1962, Gaylord Nelson began trying to convince the authorities to establish a festival about environmental protection after his election to the Senate（参议院）, but he was repeatedly told that Americans were not concerned about environmental issues. As a result, Nelson focused his attention on college students. He proved authorities wrong when participants from 2,000 colleges and universities, 10,000 primary and secondary schools and hundreds of communities across the United States got together in their local communities to mark the occasion of the very first Earth Day in 1970, showing their support for environmental issues across the country. Events were focused on pollution, oil spill damage, the loss of wilderness and the extinction of wildlife.

Over the years, Earth Day has grown from local people’s efforts to a global network of environmental activity. Events can be found everywhere from tree planting activities at your local park to online Twitter parties that share information about environmental issues. Earth Day is now celebrated in 192 countries, and by billions of people around the world.

How can you get involved? The possibilities are endless. Pick up trash in your neighborhood. Go to an Earth Day festival. Make a commitment（承诺）to reduce your food waste or electricity use. Organize an event in your community. Plant a tree. Plant a garden. Visit a national park. Talk to your friends and family about environmental issues such as climate change and pollutions.

The best part? You don’t need to wait until April 22 to celebrate Earth Day. Make every day Earth Day and help to make this planet a better place for all of us to live and enjoy.