海角大神

After the worst regional flooding in a century, the main task in India鈥檚 Kerala state, which saw some 250 percent more monsoon rain than normal last week, is rescuing the .聽That hasn鈥檛 stopped people there, as elsewhere, from also reflecting on and other tangible signs of too heavy a human footprint.

As this weekend, one man posted an image of a bridge piled with . He wrote: 鈥淎 friend from Kerala said, as the water recedes, this is how bridges look ... 鈥榯he river has thrown back at us what we have been putting into it for years.鈥� 鈥�

Some of India鈥檚 schoolchildren have thrown it back, too. Last month one group collected and mailed them to food packagers. It's one small piece of a pushback that also includes plastic bans and initiatives in some states.

The kids have role models: Last year a young Mumbai lawyer completed a to remove more than 11 million pounds of mostly plastic trash from a beach there.聽And it isn鈥檛 by accident that some of them are setting up to be drivers of change. (Others , though poverty rates have plunged.)聽Three years ago聽 required its 1.3 million schools and more than 650 universities to teach about the environment and sustainability.聽

Bijal Vachharajani聽 from an Indian perspective. The topics of the books run from seasonal eating 鈥� which can help counter food insecurity 鈥� to climate issues. 鈥淸Children] believe in change,鈥� she told an interviewer recently. 鈥淭hey are extremely enthusiastic about working on the environment.鈥�

Now to our five stories for today.