为什么谈论气候变化可能是你能做的最重要的事情

这就是为什么谈论气候变化可能是你能做的最重要的事情

Katharine Hayhoe often encounters people in the US and Canada who still regard climate change as an issue best left for the distant future.

凯瑟琳?海霍(Katharine Hayhoe)经常遇到美国和加拿大的一些人，他们仍然认为气候变化最好留给遥远的未来解决。

"That it affects future generations, not me, it affects others but not me, it affects people who live over there, but not me," she said. "And why is that dangerous? Because if it doesn't affect me, why do I care?"

她说:“它影响的是子孙后代，而不是我，它影响的是其他人，而不是我，它影响的是住在那里的人，而不是我。”“为什么这很危险?如果这对我没有影响，我又何必在意呢?”

Hayhoe, a Canadian and director of the Climate Science Center at Texas Tech University, said she found a different attitude among people in Alaska.

加拿大人、德州理工大学气候科学中心主任海霍(hayhoe)说，她发现阿拉斯加人的态度就不同。

"Alaskans can offer a master class in the indicators of a changing climate they've witnessed with their own eyes," she said on Twitter, following a speech to nearly 400 people at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

在阿拉斯加费尔班克斯大学(University of Alaska Fairbanks)对近400人发表演讲后，她在Twitter上说:“阿拉斯加人可以开设一个硕士课程，学习他们亲眼目睹的气候变化指标。”

In an exchange that featured audience members responding with messages on their phones, she learned that occasional periods of rain in the winter and an increase in summer smoke from wildfires are high on the list of the most obvious climate changes in Fairbanks.

在一场观众用手机回复信息的交流中，她了解到，费尔班克斯最明显的气候变化是冬季偶尔下雨，和夏季森林大火产生的烟雾增加。

And those specifics, along with a dozen or so others that are familiar to Alaskans, are more important than any accumulation of facts and figures.

这些细节，以及阿拉斯加人所熟悉的其他一些细节，比任何事实和数据的积累都更为重要。

Listening to Hayhoe speak and interact with a variety of audiences as she did on her Alaska tour, it's easy to see why she is renowned as an expert in blending the science of climate research and the art of communication.

听着海霍的演讲，并像她在阿拉斯加之旅中那样与各种各样的观众互动，很容易就能看出她为什么以融合气候研究科学和沟通艺术的专家而闻名。

She was the lead author of the fourth National Climate Assessment, the work of 13 agencies from the US government and 350 scientists.

她是第四次国家气候评估的主要作者，该评估由美国政府的13个机构和350名科学家共同完成。

In a paper published last year, Hayhoe and a colleague wrote about the importance of the Arctic and how the disappearance of the sea ice could lead to massive development of fossil fuel resources, which would mean "the absolute and utter failure of the Paris Agreement."

在去年发表的一篇论文中，海霍和他的一位同事写到了北极的重要性，以及海冰的消失将如何导致化石燃料资源的大规模开发，这将意味着“《巴黎协定》的彻底失败”。

The Arctic is really a key to the future, she said.

她说，北极确实是未来的关键。

The changes in people's lives and in the natural environment, which have become obvious in the Arctic, can open the way for an understanding that surpasses the statistics about temperature records, melting sea ice and vanishing permafrost.

人类生活和自然环境的变化在北极已经变得很明显，这可以为理解超过温度记录、海冰融化和永冻层消失等统计数据的数据开辟道路。

As she wrote in an essay in April, "Climate has never changed this fast and, because of that, we've become complacent. We've delineated outdated flood zones based on how rain used to fall; we've parceled out and over-allocated our arable land and water resources; and we've built nearly two thirds of the world's biggest cities within just a meter or so of sea level, which today is rising at nearly twice the rate of only 25 years ago."

正如她在四月份的一篇文章中所写，“气候从来没有这么快改变过，正因为如此，我们变得自满。我们根据过去降雨的情况划定了过时的洪水区;我们把可耕地和水资源进行了分拆和过度配置;我们在海平面一米左右的范围内建造了近三分之二的世界最大城市，而现在的海平面上升速度几乎是25年前的两倍。”