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《经济学人》双语:个人在阻止气候变化方面可以做什么? Part 2

放大字体  缩小字体 发布日期:2025-01-15   来源:风力发电   作者:风电设备   浏览次数:98
核心提示:原文标题 :The green man’s burdenWhat responsibilities do individuals have to stop climate change?The nature of climate change makes that a tricky question环保人士的负担个人在阻止气候变化方面有什么责任?气候变化的本质让这个问题变得棘手[Paragraph 11]Attempts to answer that question empirically inevit

   

原文标题 :The green man’s burdenWhat responsibilities do individuals have to stop climate change?The nature of climate change makes that a tricky question环保人士的负担个人在阻止气候变化方面有什么责任?气候变化的本质让这个问题变得棘手[Paragraph 11]Attempts to answer that question empirically inevitably involve some arbitrary assumptions. 试图用经验来回答这个问题,不可避免地会形成一些武断的假设。
The first concerns how much greenhouse gas the planet can bear. 首先,我们需要考虑地球能够承受多少温室气体。
Harm occurs at any level. The effects of global warming are already fairly awful, and so producing any more emissions at all would be foolhardy. 任何水平的温室气体都会造成危害。
全球变暖的影响已经相当严重,因此再排放更多的温室气体是愚蠢之举。
The increase in global temperatures above the pre-industrial average reached almost 1.5°C in 2023—a threshold once thought of as the maximum acceptable rise. 到2023年,全球气温较工业化前平均水平上升近 1.5°C,这一阈值一度被认为是可接受的最大限度。
The Paris agreement calls for the rise to be kept “well below 2°C”.《巴黎协议》要求将升温幅度控制在“远低于2°C”。
[Paragraph 12]A further set of assumptions is required to estimate the volume of emissions that would lift global temperatures by that much. That is not straightforward. 要估算能让全球气温上升到阈值所需的排放量,还需要进一步假设。
这并非易事。
Most climate scientists think that by 2070 humans can pump only 1trn tonnes more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere if Earth is to stay below the 2°C target. 大多数气候科学家认为,如果地球的升温幅度要保持在2℃以下的目标,到2070年人类向大气中最多只能再排放1万亿吨二氧化碳。
Divide the trillion by the number of years between now and then and by the number of people on the planet and you end up with a volume of emissions—2 tonnes or so—that an individual can generate each year without pushing the planet towards perdition. 将这一万亿除以现在到2070年这段时间的年数以及地球上的人口数量,你最终会得到一个每人每年可以产生的排放量--2吨左右--而不会让地球走向毁灭。
[Paragraph 13]Divide the emissions generated in America each year by the number of Americans, and you get around 15 tonnes per person. Even virtuous Sweden is 3.6.将美国每年产生的排放量除以美国人的数量,得出每人15吨左右的排放量。
即使是了不起的瑞典也是每人3.6吨。
only poor countries meet the threshold. The global average is 4.7 tonnes. 只有贫穷国家才能达到这一标准。
全球平均水平为4.7吨。
One long-haul flight in a year leaves you no “carbon budget” for heating, eating, driving—or flying home.每年一次的长途飞行会耗尽你的“碳预算”,这意味着你将无法支付供暖、饮食、驾驶或飞回家所需的碳排放。
[Paragraph 14]What does it mean to share the costs of reducing these emissions fairly? 公平分担减排成本意味着什么?You might say that the rich, being rich, can better afford the extra expense of electric cars and heat pumps, so should have smaller budgets. 你可能会说,有钱人就是有钱,他们更有能力承担电动汽车和热泵的额外费用,所以他们的碳预算应该更少。
However, plenty of people in rich countries, although well-off by the standards of Mali or Laos, cannot afford to trade in their gas-guzzling car for an electric one, or to replace their inefficient boiler.然而,发达国家的许多人,尽管按照马里或老挝的标准来说已经很富裕了,但他们仍无力承担耗油量大的汽车换成电动汽车,更换效率低下的锅炉的费用。
[Paragraph 15]How green was my basket?我的篮子有多环保?Part of the problem with the notion of carbon budgets is that individuals cannot fully control the volume of emissions they cause. 碳预算概念的部分问题在于,个人无法完全控制自己造成的排放量。
In most societies it is hard to participate in everyday life without joining in some carbon-belching activities. 在大多数社会中,如果人们不参与一些碳排放活动,日常生活都难以进行。
Where public transport is bad, it is difficult not to drive. 在公共交通不发达的地方,不开车就寸步难行。
Most individual customers cannot pick whether they want their electricity generated using wind or coal. 大多数个人客户无法按照意愿选择风力发电还是煤炭发电。
And given that few supermarkets systematically distinguish between carbon-intensive and climate-friendly products, it is hard to know what is best to buy. 鉴于很少有超市系统地将高碳排放和气候友好型产品区分开来,因此个人很难知道什么才是最好的购买选择。
Even if painstaking research might reveal the least damaging choice, it is not reasonable to expect a single mother working two jobs, say, to spend hours pondering the optimal course for the climate for every purchase. 即使艰苦的研究可能会发现破坏性最小的选择,但指望一个打两份工的单身母亲每次购物都花几个小时来思考对气候最有利的选择,这是不现实的。
Nor is it fair to hold her responsible for the social structures that leave her with little practical choice but to cause emissions.让她对社会结构负责也是不公平的,因为社会结构使她别无选择,只能造成排放。
[Paragraph 16]What is more, argues Julia Nefsky of the University of Toronto, talk of budgets makes sense only within an overarching regulatory system.此外,多伦多大学的朱丽亚·内夫斯基认为,只有在全面的监管体系中,谈论预算才有意义。
Every individual should definitely do their bit, but making detailed prescriptions about how big that bit must be and what shape it should take is the job of governments. 每个人都应该尽自己的一份力量,但详细规定这一份力必须有多大,应该采取什么形式,则是政府的工作。
That is in part because it is a political decision, like designing a tax code. 这部分是因为这是一项政治决定,就像设计税法一样。
Ideas about distributive justice may inform the design, but cannot determine the rates.关于分配公正的理念可以为设计提供参考,但不能决定税率。
[Paragraph 17]Walter Sinnott-Armstrong of Duke University maintains that those who condemn racing around in an SUV are confused about the nature of climate change. 杜克大学的沃尔特·辛诺特-阿姆斯特朗认为,那些谴责开SUV的人对气候变化的本质存在误解。
Each tiny emission of greenhouse gases does not have a tiny effect, he argues, trillions of which can be aggregated into a giant effect. 他认为,尽管温室气体的每一次微量排放量非常小,但数万亿次这样的微量排放可以聚集成巨大的影响。
It is only society-wide, aggregated emissions that clearly harm the planet, he says; the whole is more than the sum of its parts. 他说,只有全社会的总排放量才会明显损害地球。
整体的作用大于部分之和。
[Paragraph 18]Mr Sinnott-Armstrong does not deny that individuals have moral duties regarding climate, in particular to press their leaders to tackle the problem. 辛诺特-阿姆斯特朗先生并不否认个人在气候问题上负有道德责任,尤其有责任敦促领导人解决这一气候问题。
The idea that lobbying governments to change the rules is an individual’s main duty when it comes to climate change is widespread among climate activists. 气候活动人士普遍认为,在气候变化问题上,游说政府改变规则是个人的主要责任。
If social and economic structures make it hard for people to reduce their emissions, they argue, it makes sense to focus on changing those structures.他们认为,如果社会和经济结构使人们难以做到减排,那么集中精力改变这些结构是有意义的。
(恭喜读完,本篇英语词汇量805/2490左右,有删减)原文出自:2023年12月23日《The Economist》Christmas Specials版块精读笔记

 
 
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