The Amazon and climate change 亚马逊雨林砍伐与气候变化的关系

学习要点

有关 “climate change （气候变化）” 的词汇

边看边答

What happens to the Earth's climate if trees are cut down and burned?

文字稿

This must be the hardest way to investigate why the trees of the Amazon are so important - climbing right up into them. Down on the ground a scientist, Erika Berenguer, is asking for samples of the leaves.

这一定是为了研究亚马逊树木的重要性而采用的最困难的方法：直接爬上去。站在地面上的科学家艾瑞卡·贝伦格尔正在索要树叶的样本。

Erika has studied the same batch of trees for ten years now, measuring exactly how they're growing and how they affect the climate. This matters to the whole world because of sheer size of this forest.

艾瑞卡十年来一直研究同一批树木，测量它们究竟是怎样生长的，怎样影响气候变化的。这事关全世界，因为这片森林的面积非常庞大。

We've used graphics to show how the billions of leaves are breathing in carbon dioxide - a gas which is heating up the planet.

我们用插图展示了数十亿片树叶吸收二氧化碳的方式，二氧化碳是一种使地球升温的气体。

As human activity keeps adding more and more carbon dioxide to the air, magnificent trees like this pull a lot of it in. But chop it down and burn it, and all the carbon that's been stored inside over the many years is suddenly released back to the atmosphere, which of course increases the speed of global warming.

随着人类活动不断向空气中添加越来越多的二氧化碳，像这样高大的树木会吸收大量的二氧化碳。但砍伐、燃烧树木会使积存多年的碳突然重新释放回大气中，这自然会加快全球气候变暖的速度。

In the last few months, the rate of deforestation here has suddenly increased. The new government of Brazil wants to encourage development. So Erika's research is all the more urgent.

在过去的数月里，这里的森林滥伐率激增。巴西新政府想鼓励当地的发展。因此，艾瑞卡的研究愈显紧迫。

In this lab, she studies the leaves collected from the forest, to work out how much carbon the Amazon holds. It's the equivalent of America burning fossil fuels for nearly a century.

在这个研究室里，她通过研究从森林中收集到的树叶，算出了亚马逊雨林中的碳含量。结果相当于美国燃烧了近一个世纪的化石燃料。

Dr Erika Berenguer, Oxford Environmental Change Institute
We're never going to be able to build an Amazon. It's going to be gone forever. So once it's gone, it's just gone.

艾瑞卡·贝伦格尔博士     牛津大学环境变化研究所
“我们永远也没法建造出一个亚马逊雨林。它将一去不复返。所以它一旦消失了，就再也回不来了。”

All that's left where forest once stood. A stark reminder of what's vanishing, and of consequences for the rest of the world.

这是昔日的树林所剩无几的模样。这幅景象提醒人们关注日益消失的树林，以及这对世界其它地区所带来的严重后果。

词汇

carbon dioxide 二氧化碳

heating up 加热、使……升温

global warming 全球气候变暖

deforestation （大面积）滥砍滥伐森林

fossil fuels 化石燃料

问题答案

The carbon stored inside the trees will be released back to the atmosphere which speeds up global warming.