2 . Transport is undergoing a massive transformation so it can meet society’s demands for a low- carbon economy. Introducing electric vehicles (EV) and declining gasoline use are helping, but zero-carbon hydrogen can speed up both the transition (转变) and long-term decarbonization of transport.

In the US, transportation produces the largest share of all greenhouse gas emissions (排放) in the economy at 29%, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. More than 90% of transport fuel is petrol based, but if more vehicles used hydrogen, emissions of this kind would plummet.

However, hydrogen is not considered an ideal replacement for gasoline as an engine fuel for cars because it is harder to store safely. And while fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs) that turn hydrogen into electricity can compete with EV performance-and even out-compete them on range and refill time, extra energy is needed to produce the hydrogen needed for fuel. Also, finding investment for storage, pipelines and fuel stations is still a challenge for many nations.

Currently, governments worldwide are backing green hydrogen projects to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in heavy industries like freight (货运), steel, and energy storage. But hydrogen transport will need rapid production methods to create the fuel needed for the world’s road fleet.

Thankfully, research is advancing all the time. Nanoscale (纳米级的) thin films are applied to improving the chemical process to rapidly harvest hydrogen from the seawater. The same technology has been successfully used in solar power devices with higher efficiency-to-cost rates. Since hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe and as seawater makes up about 96% of all water on Earth, there is a virtually limitless supply.

Even wastewater and solid waste can create green hydrogen. Researchers at Princeton University are using sunlight to separate hydrogen from industrial wastewater. Chemical plants that currently face high costs for cleaning wastewater could transform it into clean hydrogen supplies.

4 . The world produces around 359 million tons of plastics each year. Plastics are certainly a big problem, but they don’t necessarily have to be. There are many ways we could set plastics on a different lifecycle. One that I have been working on is turning plastics into a hardy, reliable and sustainable building material.

Most people believe that plastics recycling is severely limited: only a few types can be recycled at all. This is unsurprising. The proportion(比例)of plastics that are recycled is minimal. But all polymers(聚合物)are, technologically, recyclable. Some of them can be used again and again to produce the same goods. Some can technically be reprocessed into new materials for different applications.

The problem is that recycling much of this plastic waste is currently unprofitable. But the amount of these materials all over the world is large and keeps on growing. What if this plastic waste could be used to produce something useful to the society? Many universities and business people are attempting to do this. Most solutions target mixed plastic waste and suggest applications different from the original ones. For example, several groups have developed building materials made of plastic waste. Plastics are strong, durable, waterproof, lightweight and recyclable—all key properties for construction materials. So what if all of this plastic waste could be turned into building materials for low-income populations? Existing initiatives are promising, but not yet reproducible on an industrial scale.

I study plastic waste with the aim of finding interesting ways to remove it from the environment. From agricultural waste to concrete waste, mixed with recycled plastics, there are many ways to obtain materials to produce bricks and other useful elements for buildings. So perhaps plastics are not necessarily the problem. They can be part of a pathway towards a more sustainable way of living.

5 .    

Endangered Species Youth Art Contest

2023 Contest Now Open!

Join us for our 6th annual Endangered Species Youth Art Contest! In celebration of Endangered Species Day (May 19, 2023), Roger Williams Park Zoo is accepting art entries from local K-12 grade students in the New England area showing threatened and endangered species. Together we hope to raise awareness about the importance of saving endangered species and their wild habitats.

Winners will be formally announced by May 2023.

Rules & Art Submission Instructions:

▲All entries are to be submitted electronically. Web form will be made available beginning February 1,2023.

▲Students’   artworks must be original. Computer-produced images will NOTbe judged.

▲All artworks must be about threatened/endangered species.

▲Each art entry must also include a short explanation (3-5 sentences) as to why saving your chosen species from extinction is important.

Deadline: Entries must be received by Sunday, April 2,2023. Late entries will not be judged.

2023 Art Contest Prizes

GRAND PRIZE(Judges Choice)

▲One Family RWPZoo membership (a S149 value; or extra year added to current Zoo membership)

▲An adopt-an-animal package of your choice

▲One $100 gift card

GRADE CATEGORY WINNERS (Grades K-2, Grades 3-12)

Each grade-winner shall receive:

★Six General daytime admission tickets to RWPZoo

★One $25 gift card

HONORABLE MENTIONS (Grades K-2,Grades 3-12)

Each grade-honorable mention shall receive:

·Four General daytime admission tickets to RWPZoo

·An award certificate

All winning artworks will be highlighted on the Zoo’s website and social media pages, and in the Zoo’s summer WILD Magazine issue.

6 . A leaked IPCC draft reports, “Widespread use across millions of square kilometers globally of tree-planting and bioenergy crops could have potentially serious consequences for food security and land degradation (退化).” In other words, more massive monocultures (单种栽培) and more bioenergy crops, fueled by more fertilizers, could damage the structure of the environmental soil and its capacity to absorb carbon.

Everyone knows that to help ease the increasing climate crisis, we need to plant new trees. It’s said that the earth could support an additional 9,000,000 square kilometers of forest, potentially hosting 500 billion trees capable of capturing more than 200 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide at maturity. It would be a serious help to the environment.

Bioenergy now holds a 50 percent share of the world’s renewables consumption—as much as hydro, wind, solar and all others combined. It’s good news, but not entirely. If we consider that increasing desertification and rising ocean levels will take away more arable (可耕种的) land, we arrive at a crucial “trilemma”(三难困境). Should we use our spare soil for agriculture, reforestation or bioenergy?

Such a question would make sense in a multilateral, harmonious world, not on a planet where the richest country cancels an environment-saving agreement, thus encouraging the most tropically-forested nation to set about cutting trees.

Last year, 36,000 square kilometers of forest was cut down. Wouldn’t it be better to start by stopping deforestation altogether? Animal farming takes up 77 percent of the world’s arable land and provides us with 18 percent of the calories. Shouldn’t we cut back on global meat consumption? Modern bioenergy is already available. Shouldn’t we get rid of first-generation biofuels, which are produced from food crops?

8 . Open an app at your smart phone and scan the code bar on the garbage can. When you throw garbage into the garbage can, it will show the weight of the garbage and the points you can get from doing so.     1     It will become more popular in the future. Yes, we are talking about the smart garbage can.

    2     The environmental problems have become constant headaches in the development of those cities. Encouraging garbage classification has become an effective way.

In some cities, a variety of multifunctional smart garbage cans are being put into use. In Beijing, for example, a smart garbage can is equipped with an LED screen, which not only shows national policies on garbage classification but also shows the correct steps for garbage sorting. It can also calculate the weight of the garbage and the accumulated points one can get. They can be traded for some articles of daily use.     3     Its body is actually a screen. It is equipped with some Internal sensors. When people throw garbage into it, the internal sensors can automatically tell the types of the garbage. Meanwhile, people can see how to deal with them.     4    

Garbage disposal is a small issue that involves everybody each day. However, it is also a big issue.    5     With smart garbage cans in our daily life, the idea of garbage sorting will become more established. Our dream of building a greener and more beautiful China will come true so long as we start to make small changes right now.

9 . After being driven to near extinction, wolves are back in Washington state.

Wolf 32M, called The Old Guy by wolf specialist Ben Maletzke, lived some 12 years as the patriarch (族长) of the Teanaway Pack, kicking off the recovery of wolves in Washington. The pack’s territory was roasted by wildfire in 2014. But wolf 32M and his family remained in existence, bringing the call of the wild back for the first time in a century. These wolves are what Maletzke calls stepping stones in recovery — the animals that could help lead the way to new territory not yet repopulated by wolves.

Wolves spread to new territory to find mates and begin packs of their own. It is this pack dynamic that wildlife biologists are counting on, in time, to urge wolves into areas where they do not presently live. “We just need a couple to pick up and go,” Maletzke says.

All along, the Teanaway pack has stayed mostly out of trouble probably, helped by a lot of range riding (牧区巡逻) intended to help reduce conflicts over wolf recovery by keeping wolves away from cattle. “He is an example of wolves living and doing what they do, even around people,” Maletzke says of wolf 32M.

Story Warren, a student at the University of Montana, was just a girl when she first saw 32M’s tracks in the Teanaway River Valley — an exciting encounter that helped generate a serious interest in wildlife that now fuels her studies. To her, the return of the wolf is about more than the species; it is about recovering something even bigger: hope.

“Growing up in my generation, there is so much bad ecological news, a lot of hopelessness about climate change and loss of biodiversity and extinctions,” Warren says, “To have something as wild as wolves coming back to Washington is very encouraging for me — just to know such an amazing and powerful creature exists.”

10 . A future where insects make up a large part of the world’s diet is on the horizon. Despite the unpleasant nature of such cuisine, insects have been considered a delicacy in some parts of world for centuries. Their being low-fat and high-protein makes them a perfect choice for reducing hunger.     1    

Animal protein from livestock (家畜), such as cows, chicken and pigs, takes up 80 percent of the entire world’s farmland, despite only making up less than one-fifth of calories consumed globally.    2    Thus it would support a variety of biodiversity as nature intended.

Insects such as grasshoppers, meal worms and crickets are packed full of protein with much higher vitamin levels than pork or beef.    3    Greenhouse gas emissions through this process are also very little, with insect waste making excellent fertilizer (肥料) for agricultural soil.

It seems that insects are an ideal solution for many issues the world today is faced with.    4    Urban areas of Asia, Europe and North America are most likely to associate insects with dirt instead of as a tasty meal.

Times are changing. The European Union last year declared that meal worms were safe for human consumption. Cricket protein powder is also increasing greatly in popularity, with Canada rapidly becoming the largest market for the product.

    5    As we explore our solar system, efficient means of producing animal based-proteins will become vital. None are more efficient space-wise than insects. And the colonies of the future could well find themselves enjoying fried crickets with a pint of beer while watching the Martian sunset.