Global warming
全球变暖
A lot of hot air
热浪滚滚，夸夸其谈
May 15th 2008
From The Economist print edition
Books about climate change are often flawed—some more so than others
有关气候变化的书时常让人不敢恭维——浮华之作中更见浮华者
ONE of the most troubling aspects of climate change is the feedback loop. As the world warms, so frozen earth begins to melt, which releases greenhouse gases, which warms the world up further. Something similar seems to be happening with the literature of climate change. As people write books on global warming, so they generate interest in the subject, which increases demand, which leads to the writing of even more books. Both these cycles result in a lot of hot air.
（应对）气候变化最棘手 的一点就是它的反馈循环（feedback loop）：随着全球变暖，冰冻的大地开始融化，所释放出来的温室效应气体又进一步加剧全球变暖。某种“类反馈循环”似乎也发生在气候变化文献的写作上 ———人们写书探讨全球变暖，于是激发了公众对此类问题的兴趣，而这又扩大了书市需求，结果就是大家一起炒冷饭，越来越多的重复建设由此而起。这边厢热浪 滚滚，那边厢夸夸其谈，循环效应绵延不绝。
Looking at four recent books, one can observe another familiar dynamic: as quantity increases, so quality declines. Earlier climate-change books were written mostly by unimportant obsessives. This crop is mostly written by important people whose co-writers presumably did much of the legwork. Some of the books suffer accordingly.
察看一下新近所出的4本书，你会发现另一种似曾相识的情形：书的数量在增加，结果质量反而下降了。早期有 关气候变化的写作主要是由那些无足轻重的“强迫症患者”来完成的，如今这组则多半出自权威之手。书中的大部分调查取证想必是由他们的搭档一手操刀的。因 此，某些书很糟糕。
Sir David King is an important person. He was the British government’s chief scientific adviser until 2007, and was instrumental in pushing Britain to take more seriously than any other nation Europe’s attempts to cut the continent’s carbon emissions and to commit itself to further, more ambitious, national targets.
David King爵士乃权威人士。这位英国政府的前首席科学顾问不仅在推动英国就削减欧洲大陆的碳排放量问题采取比任何其他欧洲国家更为严格的举措，同时也在敦促它承诺致力于更为雄心勃勃的国家目标上起着极其重要的作用。
Sir David’s is the layman’s handbook. It will not be regarded as an important step in the field of climate-change literature. It is a competent summary of where the subject has got to, in terms of science, government policy and business, and will be quite handy for those who need to mug up on sustainability for tomorrow’s board meeting. Anybody looking for anything that engages the imagination, however, need not trouble themselves with it.
他的书可谓非专业人士的指南。但难以被视为气候变化研究文献中的重要作品。就科学、公共 政策和商业发展而言，这本书对历来的气候研究作了专业性地总结。对那些临时抱佛脚的，亟需为明日董事会可持续性议题打突击战的人来说，此书有创可贴之疗 效，常备尤佳。不过，那些期待通过阅读激发想象力的人就没必要劳神而自讨没趣了。
Fred Krupp is also an important person. He runs the Environmental Defence Fund (EDF), which invented the cap-and-trade system for cutting carbon emissions. The mechanism involves putting a cap on overall emissions and allows companies to buy and sell emissions reductions, so that the cheapest cuts get made first. The EDF suggested this in the 1990s as a way of cutting sulphur-dioxide emissions from power stations. It worked; the idea spread. At America’s insistence and in the face of European reluctance, it was incorporated into the Kyoto protocol. America then walked away from Kyoto, but Europe introduced cap-and-trade in 2005 and the next American president is likely to adopt it.
Fred Krupp也是一位权威人士。为削减碳排放量，他所掌管的环保基金会（EDF）发明了“总量管制与排放交易系统”（the cap-and-trade system，以下简称C&T———译者）。此机制包括为整个排放量设置一个上限，然后允许公司买卖其中的排放差额①，因而最先付诸实施的减排方 案往往是最便宜的。上世纪90年代，EDF就开始力推此系统以削减发电站的二氧化硫排放量。它奏效了；而且这种理念也传播开来。在美国的坚持下同时亦在欧 洲的勉强下，它被纳入《京都议定书》（Kyoto Protocol）。美国随后戏剧性地从京都溜之大吉，而欧洲却于2005年引进C&T。下届美国总统很可能会批准美国加入《京都议定书》。
Mr Krupp’s book is the businessman’s guide. It starts from a promising point; if cap-and-trade is widely adopted, cleaner energy technologies will be in demand, so those who develop them will be the next energy billionaires.
此君的大作可视为生意人的指南。起笔处，前途一片光明：如果C&T能得到广泛应用，更清洁的能源技术就会供不应求，如此一来，那些发明者改良者将会成为靠能源发财的新式亿万富翁。
The book explains those technologies through the people trying to bring them to market. Some of the details are nice, such as the work of scientists trying to create enzymes to do the difficult job of breaking cellulose down to make ethanol. They go round collecting “extremophiles”—bacteria that can do tough jobs in difficult circumstances—from volcanoes and deep-sea vents. But the book is a tiring list with no narrative or analytical structure. And it is not helped by the silly title: “Earth: The Sequel”. The battle is to preserve the current planet, not to move on to the next one.
借那些急于交易的 技术持有者之口，此书发挥了依次介绍各种技术的说明书功能。其中一些细节阐释地很美，比如科学家如何设法合成那些可分解纤维素的酶以制造乙醇，这项科技攻 关难度极大。他们常常从火山口和深海喷口处搜集“极端微生物”（extremophiles）——— 一种可在险境下完成艰苦任务的细菌。但总体而言，这是一本令人昏昏欲睡的书。它就像一份枯槁的目录清单，不讲叙事技巧抑或根本就没有分析性的结构。并且， 它还取了个极其愚蠢的纯粹帮倒忙的书名———《地球：结局》。环保战的焦点是如何保护现在我们身处其间的地球，而不是好高骛远，幻想下一个它的替代品。
Nigel Lawson is another important person. Margaret Thatcher famously called him her “brilliant chancellor” shortly before a painful recession that was caused in part by his monetary policy. Lord Lawson’s offering is the refusenik’s book. He is one of the few remaining serious people who argue against the current consensus on global warming. The resulting slim volume, produced without the aid of a co-writer, is clear, analytical and compelling: it has all the virtues of a book written by a very clever, very cross man.
第三位权威人士Nigel Lawson出场了。玛格丽特·撒切尔曾称他为麾下一名“才华横溢的大臣”，当然，这一著名称谓随即遭遇尴尬，因为一场令人痛苦不堪的经济衰退袭击了当时 的英国，而此君的货币政策正是元凶之一。某种程度上，Lawson勋爵的作品犹如“异端邪说”②。他是在当前已达成共识的全球变暖问题上持反对立场且抱有 严肃观点的极少数派。这本没有合作者的薄册子思路清晰，阐述得当，读之令人心旷神怡：惟有才思敏捷且又愤世嫉俗之人方才写得出如此激情澎湃的文字。书之所 长可谓尽集于此。
It does, however, have shortcomings. Lord Lawson sets up straw men (“it is popularly supposed by politicians and the media”), credits them with beliefs that nobody serious holds (“that the sole cause of global warming is the growth in man-made carbon-dioxide emissions”), then knocks them down. He relies on old evidence to attack the consensus (such as an apparent disparity between temperatures on the earth’s surface and in the troposphere, which was resolved two years ago).
然而，短处亦可见。他先举出某些丝毫经不起推敲的观点（“政治家和媒体普遍如此假定”），以常人不可理喻的方式来捍卫它 们，（“全球变暖的惟一原因是人造二氧化碳排放量的增加”），接着又将它们彻底打倒。为驳斥这种共识，他所倚赖的论据也是陈旧老套的（比如地表和对流层③ 之间存在着明显的温度差，而这两年前就已经被证明了）。
There is also something peculiar in the book’s argument. The policy conclusion of the consensus against which Lord Lawson rails is that the world needs a carbon tax or cap-and-trade system to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions. Having marshalled some powerful (though ultimately unconvincing) arguments against such measures, Lord Lawson suddenly announces: “I believe the case can be made for the introduction of an across-the-board carbon tax,” on the grounds that “if people like to feel that they are helping to save the planet by paying a carbon tax, they should not be deprived of the opportunity to do so.” But if Lord Lawson thinks people are wrong to believe that they should pay a carbon tax in order to save the planet, why doesn’t he argue against it? And if he doesn’t argue against it, why has he bothered to write this book?
此外，该书的某些论据似乎有些莫名其 妙。依据Lawson所怒斥不已的那种共识，我们导出的政策结论就是世界需要施行碳税④或C&T系统以减少温室气体的排放。在整理一些强有力的 （尽管基本上难以令人信服）论据以反对如此举措时，Lawson突然宣告：“我认为那种引进一项全面征收碳税的方案是可行的”，他的理由是“如果人们觉得 通过缴纳碳税有助于拯救地球，那他们就不应当被剥夺如此行事的权利。”但是，假如Lawson勋爵真的认为那种为拯救地球而应强制人们缴纳碳税的想法是错 误的，那他又为何不反对它呢？既然不反对，为何他又要如此煞有介事地写这本书呢？
Wallace Broecker is not as important as the other authors, but he is well-known in the surprisingly gripping field of palaeoclimatology. He has spent his career investigating the climate in prehistoric times and, in particular, the role that the oceans have played in the way it changed.
与上述三位作者相比，Wallace Broecker就不算太权威了。但在引人注目的（这点是否让读者极其惊讶？）古气候学领域，他却声名显赫。其研究生涯主要是调查史前时代的气候变化，他尤其醉心于海洋的特定变化在其中所起的作用。
His book is the oddest, and the nicest, of the bunch. He is clearly a rather delightful man, with a penchant for practical jokes; through his life-story, the book explains how scientists have come to understand the history of the world’s climate. That helps illuminate the future. Knowing that sea levels have varied by more than 100 metres in the past, as ice-sheets have melted and re-formed, lends a certain weight to the argument that serious climate change is best avoided.
4本书中，他的书 最是古怪，也最迷人。显然，这还是一个相当讨人喜欢的捣蛋鬼（极爱恶作剧）。通过主人的生平事迹，此书向我们揭示了科学家是如何一步步解读全球气候变迁史 的。这有助于我们更好地预测未来。伴随着冰盖的融化和生成，海平面在过去变动了100多米———这有力地支持了我们应竭力避免恶劣气候变化的观点。
In this case the presence of a co-writer adds to the charm of the story, for Robert Kunzig seems to have fallen for Mr Broecker and his world. It is easy to see why. Palaeoclimatology is full of people obsessing about fabulously obscure wrinkles in the climate’s history, and investigating them by drilling cores thousands of metres into the Arctic ice, or counting the oxygen atoms in minuscule foraminifer shells to learn just when the world froze and warmed: “the planet in a grain of sand”, says Mr Kunzig, who has a lovely appreciation of the poetry of science. Buy this one. Forget the rest.
在这部书中，合著者的存在并未导致风格的 失衡，反而增加了故事的精彩性。因为搭档Robert Kunzig似乎已深深迷恋上Broecker和他的世界。原因嘛，很简单。古气候学研究者净是那些对气候史中令人痴迷难以细察的纹路（如岩石纹、树纹或 冰层波纹）而念念不忘的家伙，为了解它们的来龙去脉，他们会在北极冰盖钻取几千米深的冰芯。又或者，计算渺如朱砂的有孔虫⑤壳体上的氧原子数目，仅仅是想 搞清楚这个世界的冰冻肇于何时，它的回暖又起于何时。“这个星球细如发丝，它是一粒沙的世界”，陶醉于科学诗情画意之中的Kunzig如此说道。亲爱的读 者，就买这本，别的全忘掉。
注释：
①即未达上限的企业可以把手中的污染限额出售给其他愿意花钱为污染买单的企业。随后政府会降低排放上限，进而提高继续超标污染的成本。这种商业理论与环保主义的奇妙结合在欧洲似乎比较流行。
②refusenik，字面意思是“被拒绝移民者”，尤指前苏联境内的犹太公民，他们往往遭受主流社会的排挤和打压。这或许与宗教因素相关，东正教尚且与天主教兄弟相残，对犹太教就更不会客气。
③ 大气圈是因地球引力而聚集在地表周围的气体圈层，是地球最外部的一个圈层。而对流层是大气圈最下面的一层，随高度依次分布平流层（对流层顶至 35~55km高空的大气层）、中间层、暖层和散逸层。对流层与此文相关的主要特征大致有两点：1、温度随高度增加而降低，一般平均升高1km温度降低6 摄氏度。大气的主要热源是在地球表面，距离地面越高，气温也就越低。2、因为最接近地表，所以受人类活动影响最显著。人类生产活动排放的大气污染物绝大部 分集中在该层。
④为减少温室气体排放的重要税收制度，最早由英国经济学家庇古在代表作《福利经济学》中提出。二氧化碳是引起全球气候变化的最重要 的温室气体，因而碳税也常常被认为是成本有效的碳减排政策工具。丹麦是世界上最早征收碳税的国家，而经济学家考虑到征收碳税或会严重影响到GDP增长，所 以在中国减排大计中，是否征收碳税现仍存争议。
⑤具有壳和网状伪足的单细胞动物，大小近似海边的一粒细沙，壳常多房室，房室间隔板具孔相通，故得名有孔虫。祖祖辈辈以海洋为家，生死不离。在研究沧海桑田的地质学家眼中，它是海洋最有力的“见证人”。
译者：alex147 http://www.ecocn.org/forum/viewthread.php?tid=11435&extra=&page=1