About 97% of the world’s water is salty and is found in our oceans and seas. But, as we can’t drink sea water, how can it be important?

Every part of our seas and oceans contains an amazing number of animals that live at different ocean depths. Most of the different species of animals and fish depend on simple plants for their food. These simple plants called algae (海藻) drift near the surface of the ocean and use sunlight to turn carbon dioxide and water into food and oxygen. In fact, algae produce over half of the oxygen people breathe. How important sea water is!

Each plant or animal in our seas and oceans is an important link in a food chain. The algae are eaten in large amounts by microscopic (微小的) animals, which are in turn consumed by larger animals. These food chains are delicately balanced.

The bad news about the food chains in the oceans is that they are under threat because of man. People once thought that the oceans were so big that it didn’t matter if we dumped rubbish into them or caught huge quantities of fish and whales for food. But we now know this is not true and fish stocks in the oceans have started to drop.

Thankfully, the world is taking steps to protect the future of our oceans by introducing international agreements to protect marine habitats (海域). Most countries have introduced fishing restrictions to protect fish stocks in the oceans and new techniques are being pioneered (提倡) to cope with pollution. Finally, the importance of protecting oceans is being made known to more people. This is just the beginning of a long process to protect the oceans for our future. We depend on the oceans for fish which are an important part of the human diet. How important sea water is!

Coca -Cola, PepsiCo and Nestle have been accused of “zero progress” on reducing plastic waste, after being named the world’s top plastic polluters for the third year in a row.

Coca -Cola was ranked the world’s No. 1 plastic polluter by Break Free From Plastic in its annual audit, after its beverage bottles were the most frequently found discarded on beaches, rivers, parks and other litter sites in 51 of 55 nations surveyed. Last year it was the most frequently littered bottle in 37 countries, out of 51 surveyed.

The annual audit, undertaken by 15,000 volunteers around the world, identifies the largest number of plastic products from global brands found in the highest number of countries. 【小题1】

Coca -Cola came under fire from environmental campaigners earlier this year when it announced it would not abandon plastic bottles, saying they were popular with customers. In March, Coca -Cola, PepsiCo, Nestle and Unilever were found to be responsible for half a million tonnes of plastic pollution in six developing countries each year in a survey.

“ 【小题2】But instead they are continuing to pump out harmful single -use plastic packaging,” said Emma Priestland, Break Free From Plastic’s global campaign coordinator. Priestland said the only way to halt the growing global tide of plastic litter was to stop production, phase out single use and implement reuse systems. “Coca -Cola, PepsiCo, and Nestle should be leading the way in finding real solutions to reinvent how they deliver their products,” she said. Coca -Cola said it was working to address packaging waste, in partnership with others, and disputed the claim that it was making no progress. “ 【小题3】And the plastic can be recycled into new bottles,” a spokesperson said. “Bottles with 100% recycled plastic are now available in 18 markets around the world, and this is continually growing.” The spokesperson said Coca –Cola had also reduced plastic use in secondary packaging, and that globally ”more than 20% of our portfolio comes in refillable or fountain packaging“.

A spokesperson for PepsiCo said the company was taking action to tackle packaging through “partnership, innovation and investments”. They said it has set plastic reduction goals “including decreasing virgin plastic in our beverage business by 35% by 2025“, and was also ”growing refill and reuse through businesses like SodaStream and SodaStream Professional, which we expect will avoid 67 billion single -use plastic bottles through 2025”.

【小题4】But it recognised more was needed: “We are intensifying our actions to make 100% of our packaging recyclable or reusable by 2025 and to reduce our use of virgin plastics by one-third in the same period. So far, 87% of our total packaging and 66% of our plastic packaging is recyclable or reusable.”

On a normally peaceful residential road outside Hague, Dutch, the sound of machines and tools announces a not-so-quiet housing revolution. Four workers standing on a scissor lift guide a facade(立面)40 feet wide and one story tall into place against the existing wall. Its brickwork pattern and the windows, perfectly fit the building’s existing frame and openings.

This new building skin was one of a dozen such facades to be attached to local buildings. The project is part of a concerted effort to transform energy-inefficient public housing into a set of extremely low emission homes-without having to open a wall. The building was being wrapped in the equivalent of a winter jacket. A similarly premade, lightweight material, complete with solar panels, would be placed on the roof, too.

In Netherlands, a big number of greenhouse gas emissions result from energy loss in residential buildings. But retrofitting(翻新)homes to improve efficiency and reduce carbon footprint too often remains cumbersome and costly. The work requires a great many contractors(承包商)and up-front financing that is off-putting for homeowners, despite the long-term environmental and financial benefits.

The Dutch government began to face this climate challenge a decade ago by seed-funding, a nonprofit program known as Energiesprong. The initial investment helped bring together engineers, construction companies, financiers and house owners who figured out a way to mass-produce home retrofits.

House owners can now simply add an energy retrofit to that process, with attractive new facades and roofs. An automatic device takes precision measurements of a building’s entire outside in a matter of hours. The information is uploaded wirelessly to large factories where walls, windows, doors and solar roof’s are produced and fit together for the target building. Completed facades and roofs are trucked to the site and attached. Often, the building owner or residents see their annual energy costs fall to zero thanks to solar panels that sell extra power to the electricity supply in the country, at least during the summer.