双语原稿 | 现代版“温水煮青蛙”，比想象中更可怕
自1850年以来，全球平均气温上升了1摄氏度。听起来可能很多，但事实并非如此。为什么？1度是平均水平。许多地方已经变暖了，如果平均温度再升高一度，那么北极最冷的夜晚可能会变暖10度，那该怎么办呢？
演讲题目：The 'myth' of the boiling fro
中英对照翻译
Two frogs are minding their own business in the swamp when WHAM— they’re kidnapped.
两只青蛙在沼泽地里忙着自己的事，突然被抓起来了。
They come to in a kitchen, captives of a menacing chef. He boils up a pot of water and lobs one of the frogs in. But it’s having none of this. The second its toes hit the scalding water it jumps right out the window.
他们被一个凶残的厨师俘虏到厨房。他把一壶水煮开，把一只青蛙扔了进去。但它没有如厨师所愿。它的脚趾一碰到滚烫的水就跳出了窗外。
The chef refills the pot, but this time he doesn’t turn on the heat. He plops the second frog in, and this frog’s okay with that. The chef turns the heat on, very low, and the temperature of water slowly rises. So slowly that the frog doesn’t notice. In fact, it basks in the balmy water. Only when the surface begins to bubble does the frog realize: it’s toast.
厨师把锅加满了水，但这次他不开锅。他扑通一声把第二只青蛙放了进来，这只青蛙没问题。厨师把火打开，温度很低，水的温度慢慢上升。如此缓慢以至于青蛙没有注意到。事实上，它在温暖的水中晒太阳。只有当表面开始起泡时，青蛙才意识到：这是烤面包。
What’s funny about this parable is that it’s not scientifically true... for frogs. In reality, a frog will detect slowly heating water and leap to safety. Humans, on the other hand, are a different story. We’re perfectly happy to sit in the pot and slowly turn up the heat, all the while insisting it isn’t our hand on the dial, arguing about whether we can trust thermometers, and questioning— even if they’re right, does it matter? It does.
有趣的是，这个寓言在科学上并不真实，对青蛙来说。实际上，青蛙会慢慢探测到正在加热的水，然后跳到安全的地方。但是，人类恰恰相反。我们非常乐意坐在锅里，慢慢地把暖气调大，同时坚称不是我们的手在表盘上，争论我们是否可以相信温度计，并质疑——即使温度计是对的，这有关系吗？是的。
Since 1850, global average temperatures have risen by 1 degree Celsius. That may not sound like a lot, but it is.
自1850年以来，全球平均气温上升了1摄氏度。这听起来可能不多，但确实如此。
Why? 1 degree is an average. Many places have already gotten much warmer than that. Some places in the Arctic have already warmed 4 degrees. If global average temperatures increase 1 more degree, the coldest nights in the Arctic might get 10 degrees warmer. The warmest days in Mumbai might get 5 degrees hotter.
为什么？平均1度。许多地方已经变得比这更暖和了。北极的一些地方已经变暖了4度。如果全球平均气温再升高1度，北极最冷的夜晚可能会升高10度。孟买最热的日子可能会更热5度。
So how did we get here?
我们是怎么来的？
Almost everything that makes modern life possible relies on fossil fuels: coal, oil, and gas full of carbon from ancient organic matter. When we burn fossil fuels, we release carbon dioxide that builds up in our atmosphere, where it remains for hundreds or even thousands of years, letting heat in, but not out.
几乎所有使现代生活成为可能的东西都依赖于化石燃料：煤、石油和富含古代有机物碳的天然气。当我们燃烧化石燃料时，我们释放出在大气中积聚的二氧化碳，它在大气中停留了几百年甚至几千年，让热量进入，而不是排出。
The heat comes from sunlight, which passes through the atmosphere to Earth, where it gets absorbed and warms everything up. Warm objects emit infrared radiation, which should pass back out into space, because most atmospheric gases don’t absorb it. But greenhouse gases— carbon dioxide and methane— do absorb infrared wavelengths. So when we add more of those gases to the atmosphere, less heat makes it back out to space, and our planet warms up.
热量来自阳光，阳光穿过大气层到达地球，在那里被吸收并使一切升温。温暖的物体发出红外辐射，这些辐射应该会传回太空，因为大多数大气气体不会吸收它。但是温室气体——二氧化碳和甲烷——确实会吸收红外波长。因此，当我们向大气中添加更多的这些气体时，更少的热量使其返回太空，我们的星球就会变暖。
If we keep emitting greenhouse gases at our current pace, scientists predict temperatures will rise 4 degrees from their pre-industrial levels by 2100. They’ve identified 1.5 degrees of warming— global averages half a degree warmer than today’s— as a threshold beyond which the negative impacts of climate change will become increasingly severe. To keep from crossing that threshold, we need to get our greenhouse gas emissions down to zero as fast as possible.
如果我们继续以目前的速度排放温室气体，科学家预测到2100年，气温将比工业化前的水平上升4度。他们已经确定了1.5度的变暖——全球平均气温比今天高半度——这是一个临界值，超过这个临界值，气候变化的负面影响将变得越来越严重。为了不超过这个门槛，我们需要尽快把温室气体排放量降到零。
Or rather, we have to get emissions down to what s called net zero, meaning we may still be putting some greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, but we take out as much as we put in.
或者更确切地说，我们必须将排放量降到所谓的净零排放量，这意味着我们可能仍在向大气中排放一些温室气体，但我们的排放量和排放量是一样的。
This doesn’t mean we can just keep emitting and sequester all that carbon— we couldn’t keep up with our emissions through natural methods, and technological solutions would be prohibitively expensive and require huge amounts of permanent storage. Instead, while we switch from coal, oil, and natural gas to clean energy and fuels, which will take time, we can mitigate the damage by removing carbon from the atmosphere.
这并不意味着我们可以继续排放和封存所有的碳——我们无法通过自然方法跟上我们的排放量，技术解决方案将是昂贵的，需要大量的永久储存。相反，当我们从煤炭、石油和天然气转向清洁能源和燃料时，这当然也是需要时间的，我们可以通过从大气中去除碳来减轻损害。
Jumping out of the proverbial pot isn’t an option, but we can do something the frogs can’t: reach over, and turn down the heat.
跳出众所周知的锅不是一个选择，但我们可以做一些青蛙做不到的事情：伸手过去，把火关小。