内容摘要：A beluga whale swims through the Churchill River, Sunday, Aug. 4, 2024, near Churchill, Manitoba. (AP Photo/Joshua A. Bickel)

A beluga whale swims through the Churchill River, Sunday, Aug. 4, 2024, near Churchill, Manitoba. (AP Photo/Joshua A. Bickel)

Esther Bote, 14, walks to school with her friends on the periphery of Save Valley Conservancy, Zimbabwe on Wednesday, July 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi)The country’s parks agency is now pushing to initiate animal behavior and conservation training at schools countrywide in areas where people are increasingly being forced to co-exist with wild animals that make regular forays into communities for food and water due to climate change-related droughts, said Tinashe Farawo, the spokesman for the Zimbabwe National Parks and Wildlife Management Authority.

Aside from learning how to keep safe, schoolchildren can be a useful way to deliver the message home, he said.“We have established environmental clubs at many schools where we raise awareness and education,” added Farawo. “When children are taught about these dangers and animal behavior, they also go home and teach their parents. We have found that it’s easier for parents to listen when their children speak.”Esther Bote, 14, washes dishes outside her family home on the periphery of Save Valley Conservancy, Zimbabwe, Tuesday, July 9, 2024. (AP Photo/Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi)

Esther Bote, 14, washes dishes outside her family home on the periphery of Save Valley Conservancy, Zimbabwe, Tuesday, July 9, 2024. (AP Photo/Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi)He said the conflict is likely to worsen due to increased frequencies of droughts, noting that the parks agency received between 3,000 and 4,000 distress calls from communities battling confrontations with wildlife in the last three years, compared to about 900 calls in 2018.

For Esther, although the training has not eliminated the risk, she said it could come in handy when danger arises.

“It helps, we now know a lot of things about animals that we didn’t know before,” she said, adding that as long as the animals are still there, she won’t be able to fully enjoy school.First test flights are planned next year, but the grueling round-the-world trip is set for 2028. Made with lightweight composites, the plane is dependent on several untested innovations and is far from a sure bet.

Piccard says a major airplane manufacturer wouldn’t take on the risk of producing a prototype such as Climate Impulse in case it fails.”It’s my job to be a pioneer,” he said in an interview. “We have to show it’s possible, then it’s a big incentive for the others to continue.”

Even if the project is successful, experts say green hydrogen-powered flight on a commercial scale would be decades away at best. The project has lured tens of millions of euros of investment, and the team of dozens of staffers is growing.The solar-powered plane was a technological feat in 2015, but wasn’t scalable, said Climate Impulse engineer and co-pilot Raphael Dinelli. Limited in range, that plane had to make more than a dozen stops on its trip around the world.