诺贝尔奖得主:不必担心全球变暖

　　"The Earth doesn't care about any of these governments or their legislation," Prof. Laughlin writes. "It doesn't care whether you turn off your air conditioner, refrigerator and television set. It doesn't notice when you turn down your thermostat and drive a hybrid car. "

　　“地球才不在乎什么政府和立法，”劳克林写道，“它不在乎你是不是关掉空调、冰箱和电视机。你即使关掉恒温器，改开混合动力车，它也不会注意到。”

　　"These actions simply spread the pain over a few centuries, the bat of an eyelash as far as the Earth is concerned, and leave the end result exactly the same: All the fossil fuel that used to be in the ground is now in the air and none is left to burn."

　　“这些行动只不过是把痛苦分散到几百年里，而对地球来说那顶多是一眨眼的工夫，最后的结果都是一样的：地下所有的矿物燃料都跑到了空气里，没有可供燃烧的了。”

　　Prof. Laughlin concedes that excess carbon dioxide could – "in a handful of examples" – contribute to the extinction of species. He cites corals as an example. But he insists that keeping carbon in the ground for a little while longer won't make much difference to animal or to organism.

　　劳克林承认，过多的二氧化碳会导致物种灭绝—可以找到一些例子。他举了珊瑚的例子。但他又坚持说，让碳在地下多保留一会儿对动物或有机物来说并不会有什么不同。

　　The real extinction problem, he says, is human population pressure: habitat destruction, pesticide abuse, overharvesting, and species invasion. This is a distinction of great importance because it might help direct environmental concern to goals that people can actually achieve: forget Gaia, save a marsh; forget the planet, save a frog.　　

　　他说，真正的灭绝问题是人类的人口压力：居住地的破坏、滥用杀虫剂、过度捕杀、物种入侵等。分清楚这一点是非常重要的，因为它也许能使环保工作朝着人们能够实现的目标努力：忘记地球，去拯救湿地；忘记行星，去拯救青蛙。