An environmental advocacy groups have launched Cut Carbon Not Forests, a campaign to expose the UK’s wasteful subsidies for companies that burn trees for electricity and to put pressure on policymakers to support reform. In the face of the climate emergency, and as the UK government seeks a “green recovery” from the coronavirus pandemic, the campaign led jointly by Biofuelwatch, Dogwood Alliance, NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council) and the Southern Environmental Law Center, calls for an end to these money, redirecting billions of pounds to fill a critical funding gap for genuinely clean and renewable energy solutions like solar and wind.

The UK is the largest user of biomass electricity in Europe, backed by more than £1 billion a year in government subsidies, paid out via a fee on energy bills. However, burning wood in power stations is no better for the climate than burning coal. Further, much of the wood in question is cut down and shipped in from sensitive forests overseas, destroying habitats and wildlife.

“The climate emergency requires us to build a genuinely clean-energy economy and end wasteful subsidies for dirty biomass energy,” said Almuth Ernsting, Co-Director of Biofuelwatch. “Cutting down trees, shipping them from forests overseas and burning them in power plants was never compatible with the need to keep global warming to 1.5 degrees; that’s even clearer today. It’s long past time to redirect this aid to genuine climate solutions like wind and solar energy.”

Research shows British public opinion aligns with a push toward biomass subsidy reform. YouGov polling found 82% of respondents were worried about the impact on wildlife if trees in forests were being cut down to supply power plants. Only 3% of respondents thought the government should promote biomass energy using trees shipped in from overseas forests, which is the UK’s primary source of supply. By contrast, a large majority said the government should promote solar and wind power.(332 words)

Nanako Hama gets a lot of mail, mostly from strangers who live in her home city of Tokyo. In light envelopes, they send locks of their hair, hoping to recycle it.

People generate a huge amount of hair waste. Nearly all of that waste ends up in landfill, where it can release harmful greenhouse gases that contribute to climate change.

But hair possesses useful qualities and it’s a shame to simply throw it away. That’s why people all around the world, like Hama, have been collecting hair and finding innovative ways to recycle it, including making mats (垫子) out of it for removing oil leaks,

Hama is part of the nonprofit Matter of Trust (MoT) members working at more than 60 centers dotted across 17 countries, using machines to make hair donated from local salons and individuals into square mats, which are then used to clean up the floating oil.

“Hair is particularly well-suited for this,” says MoT co-founder Lisa Gautier, “That’s because its rough sort of outer layer lets oil stick to it.” MoT’s mats have been used in major oil leaks, including the 2010 Deepwater Horizon and 2007 Cosco Busan incidents.

In a 2018 study, Murray, an environmental scientist at the University of Technology Sydney, in Australia found that mats made of recycled human hair could absorb 0.84 grams of oil onto its surface for every gram of hair — significantly more than polypropylene (聚丙烯), a type of plastic that’s typically used to clean up floating oil.

Besides, hair is also useful as fertilizer (化肥). Hair contains a relatively high nitrogen (氪), a chemical element crucial for plant growth, and each lock of hair is made of roughly 16 percent of this essential nutrient. Last year, more than 560 gallons of liquid fertilizer made from human hair was sold to farmers in northern Tanzania and the feedback from the farmers has been very encouraging.

“It’s just a great way to use hair in a productive way. Hair is an answer literally hanging in front of our eyes-for oil and soil, ” Hama says.

After hours sitting inside Deep Worker, it feels good to get back. While you’re stretching on the deck, others on the ship are at work studying the data you have collected.

The rock samples you collected are taken to a laboratory on board the ship. Tests performed on ocean rocks can show the age of the seafloor. Many people will study the videotapes of the swordfish. There is nothing like a video to show others exactly what you saw and experienced in the deep. Videos capture details of how animals move and behave-details that a person sitting inside Deep Worker could easily miss. Those details can help scientists better understand the role each kind of animal plays in its deep-sea community.

While you were below, Deep worker's exact location was being tracked. Thus, detailed maps of the seafloor, showing underwater canyons canyons and mountains far beneath the surface can be made with the help of this information. Dive by dive, Sylvia Earle and her fellow scientists are piecing together remarkable pictures of the deep sea-a world that until recently was as unknown as a distant planet.

Since Sylvia first began exploring the waters around Florid ,she has seen changes- trash on the seafloor, fewer fish, polluted water. These ocean problems in Florida and in many other part of the world make people like Sylvia anxious. They want to know how to protect the ocean, and how to restore it to good health where damage has been done.

Sylvia and other scientists are learning more about the ocean, especially the deep sea, than ever before. The more we know about a place, the better we understand it. As Sylvia says, “With knowing comes caring. If people care about something, they will work to protect it.”