Hannah Maule-ffinch, “Wild Swimmers”, 2020, Hinksey Lake, Oxfordshire. Category: People. The series Wild Swimmers explores how humans are strongest when coming together in the face of adversity. In this photo, Emma and Emma have an amazing bond and friendship, built through their daily ritual of cold swimming in often bracing conditions. (Photo by Hannah Maule-ffinch/Earth Photo 2022)

A woman wearing a burqa begs on a street in Mazar-i-Sharif on December 22, 2021. (Photo by Mohd Rasfan/AFP Photo)

A model presents a creation by Obectra during Berlin Fashion Week in Berlin, Germany, January 15, 2020. The Berlin Fashion Week runs from​ 13 to 17 January. (Photo by Annegret Hilse/Reuters)

View of an oil-stained bird on the shore of a contaminated lake in Maracaibo, Venezuela on June 22, 2023. The Azul Ambientalistas foundation denounced on 22 June the “state of emergency” in which the Maracaibo Lake, the largest in Venezuela, finds itself, due to oil spills that, it assured, are affecting the lake economy and the health of the people. (Photo by Henry Chirinos/EPA)

People dance as they play with colored powder during celebrations marking Holi, the Hindu festival of colors, in Guwahati, India, Monday, March 25, 2024. (Photo by Anupam Nath/AP Photo)

Guests dance the Met Gala Party for Jean Paul Gaultier x Shayne Oliver Group held at Sapphire in Manhattan on May 7, 2024. (Photo by Jeenah Moon for The Washington Post)

A helicopter from the Venezuela's Army takes part in a military parade to celebrate the 207th anniversary of Venezuela's independence in Caracas, Venezuela July 5, 2018. (Photo by Marco Bello/Reuters)

Growing cities, overuse of fertilizers and factory wastewater have degraded China's water supplies to the extent that half the nation's rivers and lakes are severely polluted. China aims to spend $850 billion to improve filthy water supplies over the next decade, but even such huge outlays may do little to reverse damage caused by decades of pollution and overuse in Beijing's push for rapid economic growth. Photo: Fishermen row a boat in the algae-filled Chaohu Lake in Hefei, Anhui province, June 19, 2009. (Photo by Jianan Yu/Reuters)