GlobalWeirdingIsHere.doc

Op-Ed Columnist - Global Weirding Is Here - NYTimescom
Of the festivals of nonsense that periodically overtake American politics, surely the silliest is the argument that because Washington is having a particularly snowy winter it proves that climate change is a hoax and, therefore, we need not bother with all this girly-man stuff like renewable energy, solar panels and carbon taxes. Just drill, baby, drill.

When you see lawmakers like Senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina tweeting that "it is going to keep snowing until Al Gore cries 'uncle,'" or news that the grandchildren of Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma are building an igloo next to the Capitol with a big sign that says "Al Gore's New Home," you really wonder if we can have a serious discussion about the climate-energy issue anymore.

The climate-science community is not blameless. It knew it was up against formidable forces - from the oil and coal companies that finance the studies skeptical of climate change to conservatives who hate anything that will lead to more government regulations to the Chamber of Commerce that will resist any energy taxes. Therefore, climate experts can't leave themselves vulnerable by citing non-peer-reviewed research or failing to respond to legitimate questions, some of which happened with both the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia and the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Although there remains a mountain of research from multiple institutions about the reality of climate change, the public has grown uneasy. What's real? In my view, the climate-science community should convene its top experts - from places like NASA, America's national laboratories, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford, the California Institute of Technology and the U.K. Met Office Hadley Centre - and produce a simple 50-page report. They could call it "What We Know," summarizing everything we already know about climate change in language that a sixth grader could understand, with unimpeachable peer-reviewed footnotes.

At the same time, they should add a summary of all the errors and wild exaggerations made by the climate skeptics - and where they get their funding. It is time the climate scientists stopped just playing defense. The physicist Joseph Romm, a leading climate writer, is posting on his Web site, climateprogress.org, his own listing of the best scientific papers on every aspect of climate change for anyone who wants a quick summary now.

Here are the points I like to stress:

1) Avoid the term "global warming." I prefer the term "global weirding," because that is what actually happens as global temperatures rise and the climate changes. The weather gets weird. The hots are expected to get hotter, the wets wetter, the dries drier and the most violent storms more numerous.

The fact that it has snowed like crazy in Washington - while it has rained at the Winter Olympics in Canada, while Australia is having a record 13-year drought - is right in line with what every major study on climate change predicts: The weather will get weird; some areas will get more precipitation than ever; others will become drier than ever.

2) Historically, we know that the climate has warmed and cooled slowly, going from Ice Ages to warming periods, driven, in part, by changes in the earth's orbit and hence the amount of sunlight different parts of the earth get. What the current debate is about is whether humans - by emitting so much carbon and thickening the greenhouse-gas blanket around the earth so that it traps more heat - are now rapidly exacerbating nature's natural warming cycles to a degree that could lead to dangerous disruptions.

3) Those who favor taking action are saying: "Because the warming that humans are doing is irreversible and potentially catastrophic, let's buy some insurance - by investing in renewable energy, energy efficiency and mass transit - because this insurance will also actually make us richer and more secure." We will import less oil, invent and export more clean-tech products, send fewer dollars overseas to buy oil and, most importantly, diminish the dollars that are sustaining the worst petro-dictators in the world who indirectly fund terrorists and the schools that nurture them.

4) Even if climate change proves less catastrophic than some fear, in a world that is forecast to grow from 6.7 billion to 9.2 billion people between now and 2050, more and more of whom will live like Americans, demand for renewable energy and clean water is going to soar. It is obviously going to be the next great global industry.

China, of course, understands that, which is why it is investing heavily in clean-tech, efficiency and high-speed rail. It sees the future trends and is betting on them. Indeed, I suspect China is quietly laughing at us right now. And Iran, Russia, Venezuela and the whole OPEC gang are high-fiving each other. Nothing better serves their interests than to see Americans becoming confused about climate change, and, therefore, less inclined to move toward clean-tech and, therefore, more certain to remain addicted to oil. Yes, sir, it is morning in Saudi Arabia
气候变“异”来了
每隔一段时间，美国政治就会被大批谬论裹挟，当然其中最可笑的一条是：今冬华盛顿下了这么大一场雪，证明气候变化论纯属危言耸听，因此，我们不用操心去管什么可再生能源、太阳能电池板和碳排放税。开钻石油吧，伙计们，钻吧。

当你看到南加州议员Jim DeMint这样的立法者在Twitter上说：“雪会一直下到阿尔·戈尔哭着喊‘叔叔’。”或者看到新闻里说俄克拉荷马州议员James Inhofe的孙子在国会大厦旁边建了间爱斯基摩小屋，挂了块大牌子上书“阿尔·戈尔新家”，你会怀疑今后将不再有针对气候、能源问题的严肃讨论。
（注：阿尔·戈尔：美国前副总统，著名环境学家，主张保护环境，防止气候变暖）

气候学界并非毫无过错。他们一直清楚自己在同数股凶悍的力量抗衡——从石油、煤炭公司（他们出钱资助气候变化质疑论的研究），到保守派（只要政府想要制定规章，他们就会反对），再到商会（他们抵制所有的能源税）。因此，气候专家不应该引用那些不经同行承认的研究，不应该在别人提出合乎常理的问题时保持沉默——这意味着坐以待毙。东安格利亚大学气候研究中心和联合国政府间气候变化委员会都是前车之鉴。

尽管证明气候变化真实性的研究在多家机构里堆积如山，公众却已经变得不安。真相是什么？依我之见，气候学界应该从美国航天局、美国国家实验室、麻省理工、斯坦福、加州理工、英国哈德莱气候中心等地召集顶尖专家，出具一份通俗易懂的50页报告。该报告可以命名为《气候知多少》， 用小孩子都能读懂的语言，可靠的同行认证的脚注，总结关于气候变化问题我们所知道的一切。（本句后半段参考scwindarea版翻译）

同时，他们应该顺便汇总一下气候变化怀疑论者的谬误观点和夸大言辞——以及这些人背后的资金来源。气候学家是时候转守为攻了。著名气候问题作家、物理学家Joseph Romm在他的网站climateprogress.org上，发布了自己的最佳科学论文排名，内容涉及气候变化的各个方面。想迅速一览概况的人可以去一睹为快。

我想着重强调的是如下几点：

1) 避免使用“全球气候变暖”的措辞。我更喜欢”全球气候变异”这个说法。原因是：全球范围内的气温上升和气候变化，实际上应该用“变异”来形容。天气正在变得异常。热的地方更热了，多雨的地方雨更多了，干旱的地方更干旱了，极端风暴更频繁了。

华盛顿的雪简直下疯了，加拿大的冬奥会却阴雨连连，澳大利亚则遭遇了13年一遇的大旱——这恰好与气候变化主流研究的预测相吻合：天气会变得异常；有些地方的降水量将创下纪录；有些地方则干旱得史无前例。

2) 从历史的角度我们知道，气候变暖与变冷一直在缓慢进行，从冰河时代过渡至变暖时期，部分原因应归于地球轨道变化及其造成的地表阳光分布不均。现在争议的问题在于：人类是否——由于过度碳排放，导致地球周围的温室气体层变厚，圈住了更多热量——正在使自然界的正常暖化周期急剧加快，以至于到了可能导致紊乱的危险地步。

3) 行动者说：“既然人类现正经受的气候变暖不可逆转，而且是一场潜在灾难，就让我们未雨绸缪吧——我们可以投资可再生能源，提高能源效率，鼓励公共交通——这样做，也会使我们事实上更加富有和安全。”我们应该少进口石油，多研制和出口清洁技术产品，少在海外用美元换石油，最重要的是，少把美元花在那些万恶的石油独裁国身上，是它们暗中资助恐怖分子和恐怖主义培训学校。

4) 即便气候变化的灾难性并不像有些人想的那么严重，地球现有人口67亿，2050年可能增至92亿，越来越多的人将像美国人一样生活。可再生能源和清洁水的需求将会飙升。显然这将成为下一个巨大的全球性产业。

中国人自然领会到了这一点，这就是为什么他们要大量投资清洁技术、能源效率和高铁。中国预见到、并且看好这一未来趋势。确实，我怀疑中国现在正在看着我们偷笑。而伊朗、俄罗斯、委内瑞拉和所有欧佩克的强盗们正在击掌相庆。没有什么比美国在气候变化上犯糊涂更让它们有利可图了。所以，还是不要往清洁技术方面发展，更加坚定地依赖石油吧！没错，先生们，沙特阿拉伯的黎明到来了。