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今日主題：Climate change and geoengineering  氣候變化與地質工程學

 康康精選GRE&GMAT會考的主題，堅持每天精讀一定會進步的哦!!
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http://xia2.kekenet.com/Sound/2015/…/ecow0106_5507203Men.mp3

 只有音檔怎夠，聽不懂地方，不用怕，康康幫你準備好中英文稿了：

 中英文稿：
Climate change and geoengineering
氣候變化與地質工程學

Fears of a bright planet
地球發光，令人擔心

Experiments designed to learn more about ways of geoengineering the climate should be allowed to proceed
為更好地利用工程學手段研究氣候問題所設計的實驗應該獲准進行下去。

SHINY things absorb less heat when left in the sun. This means that if the Earth could be made a little shinier it would be less susceptible to global warming. Ways to brighten it, such as adding nanoscale specks of salt to low clouds, making them whiter, or putting a thin haze of particles into the stratosphere, are the province of “geoengineering”. The small band of scientists which have been studying this subject over the past decade or so have mostly been using computer models. Some of them are now proposing outdoor experiments—using seawater-fed sprayers to churn out particles of the exact size needed to brighten clouds, or spewing sulphur particles from underneath a large balloon 20km up in the sky.
發光的物體放在太陽下面會吸收較少的熱量。這就意味著如果讓地球發一點光的話，受到全球變暖的影響就會小一些。讓地球發光的方式，比方說在低空雲層上添加 納米級的鹽微粒，讓雲變得更白，或者是將一層薄的霧狀物灑向平流層，這些都屬於地質工程學的範疇。過去十年左右研究這一領域的一小批科學家主要使用電腦模 型，其中一些人現在提出要做室外實驗――就是用裝有海水的噴霧器射出大量使雲彩發光所需的相同大小的粒子，或者從升到距地面20公里處的大型氣球下噴灑硫 粒子。

The aims are modest. The scientists hope to understand some of the processes on which these technologies depend, as a way of both gauging their feasibility (can you reliably make tiny puffs of sea salt brighten clouds?) and assessing their risks (how much damage to the ozone layer might a stratospheric haze do, and how might such damage be minimized?). The experiments would be far too small to have any climatic effects. The amount of sulphur put into the stratosphere by the experimental balloon would be 2% of what a passenger jet crossing the Atlantic emits in an hour.
這樣做的目標並不宏偉。科學家們希望能夠瞭解這些技術所依託的一些過程，也是作為衡量其可行性（能否可靠使用微小的海鹽粒子讓雲彩發光？）和評估其風險 （附著在平流層的霧狀物會給臭氧層造成多大危害，如何把危害降到最低？）的方式。這些實驗對氣候變化的影響微乎其微。實驗所用的氣球投入平流層的硫總量相 當於橫越大西洋的噴氣式客機一小時噴射氣體總量的2%。

Nonetheless, these experiments—and this whole line of research—are hugely controversial. Many scientists are skeptical about geoengineering and most greens are outraged. Opponents object to them for a range of reasons. Some are against the very idea of geoengineering and any experiments in the area, even those which pose no immediate risk to the environment. They abhor the hubris involved in trying to affect the mechanics of the climate and despair at the potential diversion of attention from controlling carbon emissions as the route to countering climate change. They find the idea of some–possibly many—countries having the power to change the climate for the whole planet a geopolitical nightmare. Even modest experiments in geoengineering, according to this logic, are the beginnings of a slippery slope, one that will engender a false sense of security and domesticate an idea that should have always remained outrageous.
儘管如此，這些實驗以及整個研究領域存在巨大爭議。許多科學家懷疑地質工程學，多數綠党成員感到很氣憤。反對的原因很多。一些人反對地質工程學這一學科和 涉及該領域的實驗，甚至對環境不會立即造成風險的實驗也遭到了反對。他們討厭盡力影響氣候機制而產生的傲慢行為，並對應對氣候變化過程中可能將注意力遠離 控制碳排放的行為感到絕望。他們發現，一些（也可能是許多）國家有能力改變全球氣候的想法是一個地緣政治的夢魘。根據這一邏輯，即使是很小的地質工程實驗 也是大災難的開端，會產生不真實的安全感，並滋生一種永遠都令人氣憤的想法。

Yet caving in to this opposition would raise, rather than reduce, the dangers to the planet. Geoengineering is not an alternative to mitigating climate change by cutting carbon emissions, but it may be needed as a complement to it. Although pressure for cuts in carbon emissions through negotiations such as those currently taking place in Lima is yielding results—witness the recent agreement by China and America on new reduction targets—it has so far been insufficient to the task, and emissions look set to rise for decades yet.
然而，向這種反對聲音投降會增加而非減少對地球造成的危險。通過減少碳排放來緩解氣候變化，地質工程學並不是其備用方案，但可能是一種補充方案。儘管通過 協商來解決減少碳排放問題的壓力會帶來好的結果（例如目前在利馬召開的氣候變化峰會見證了中美兩國制定新的減排目標）,但是到目前為止，這麼做是遠遠不夠 的，而且排放量還會在幾十年裡有所增加。

Even if emissions do eventually start to fall, the cuts will take decades to have any effect so temperatures are likely to go on going up for some time. Although they have not soared in the past couple of decades as they did in the 1980s and 1990s, there is a fair chance that this year will tie with the hottest on record. The planet is not getting cooler and the pressures on the climate are unlikely to go away. It is therefore not too hard to imagine a world, decades hence, in which emissions are falling but temperatures are rising steeply and the ability to adapt to them has been stretched too far. An additional way to stabilize temperatures might then seem in order. Geoengineering offers that possibility.
即使排放量最終真的會開始減少，也要在幾十年之後才會見到成效，所以在一段時間內溫度還是可能會上升的。儘管過去幾十年溫度不像上世紀八九十年代那樣上升 得那麼厲害，但是今年很有可能追平過往的最高溫度紀錄。地球不會降溫，氣候帶來的壓力也不可能消失。所以不難想像，幾十年後的世界，排放量減少，但是溫度 陡升，適應這樣的環境無法做到。到那時，讓溫度穩定下來的額外方式似乎可能成形，而地質工程學就會實現這一目標提供可能。

Knowledge can be dangerous; ignorance can be worse
知識有危險，無知更危險。

Research on a question of such gravity will have implications beyond its scientific results. But that is a reason to hold the scientists to high standards, not to duck the experiment entirely. If the research consists of safe, well-conceived experiments designed to improve scientific understanding of the processes involved; if it is conducted by people who openly discuss with the public the implications of their research; if it is funded by bodies that take the need for transparency and debate about the risks inherent in such research seriously: then it deserves to be approved.
關於這一嚴重性問題的研究可能會帶來科學以外的結果。但是這是讓科學家保持高標準要求而不是完全回避實驗的一個原因。如果研究是由安全的，構思縝密的，旨 在增強對操作過程的科學理解的實驗組成，如果做研究的人公開討論過研究的意義，如果為實驗提供資金的機構能夠認真對待研究本身的透明度和所造成風險的討 論，那樣的話實驗才能獲得批准。

There are all sorts of reasons why geoengineering may prove impossible, either politically or scientifically. It may be too dangerous to countenance, and the circumstances which might make it an appealing complement to cutting emissions may never arise. But to treat research into the subject as taboo on the basis that ignorance is a viable defense against folly would be a dangerous mistake.
地質工程學不可能實現有各種各樣的原因，有政治上的原因或者科學上的原因。地質工程的做法太危險，無法獲得批准，而將其作為減少碳排放的補充方案也無法實現。但是如果忌諱這一研究領域，原因是無知可以切實地捍衛愚蠢的話，那這就是一個很危險的錯誤了。