[REBORN FROM THE ASHES][comment][12.18]

wunonomeiUID: 2717257

对 aladdin.ivy 的comment的修改。

First, I want to talk about the structure of this special report about climate changes (这里用单数更合适，因为这指的是一个概念) of The Economist. At the beginning, the speaker cites both the severity of global warming problem as well as the importance of this(特指，应该用the) conference in Copenhagen by describing the situation of pest outbreak and sea-level rise. Then he/she points (point out) that through the politic(political) ways could we solve this worldwide problems, rather than technological or economical ways. At last, the author claims that although it is difficult for most of the countries of the world(从简洁上来说，我觉得most countries in the world更合适) to meet the agreement for a particular negotiation(这里我不太理解), which could deal with the global warming problem effectively and efficiently. The trend to get to the threshold of a global agreement is a good start.

Now I will assert my owe(own) view about the reasons why it is difficult to make out an agreement that could acceptable by(be accepted by或者是be acceptable for) most of the country(countries).

For developed countries, the development of the economy(economic development) is contradicted with(这个用法我也不熟，不过查字典，似乎contradicts with更合适) the low CO2 emission as the promotion of many pillar industries of these countries, such as automotive industry, are accompanied by the high CO2 emission level. Thus, it seems impossible for governments to give up the development of those industries,(删去) because their recession would undoubtedly affect the development of the related industries. For instance, the recession of automotive industry would make negative impact on iron and steel industry as well as rubber industry.

For underdevelopment(undeveloped或developing) countries, since their low industry level make less responsible(responsibility) for the problem of global warming, and the cost on the problem solving throughout the world is inevitable(这一句中没有主句，成了dangling modifier). It seems that to find a balance point of expenditure ratio for all the countries is a difficult task. And new problems, such as the dates’ authenticity, will appear if we determine the proportion of the cost merely by the amount of CO2 emission of each country.

By and large, in the long journey of global climate-condition improvement, this conference is just a beginning step. To reach the goals, we still have a long way to go.

sunflower_irisUID: 2720580

接续“搭便车”问题的资料补充，看到一篇评论——哥本哈根没有童话，觉得写得不错。

哥本哈根会议还有寥寥十几小时就要结束，但参会各国已经吵成了一锅粥。显然，丹麦这个童话王国在现实中并不能达成完美的童话，而是充满人类的现实利益和政治、外交、经济计算。小岛国要全球激进减排，欧盟要保证就业率，美国要少减排、少掏钱，石油国家要保证自己的收入，发展中大国要保证自己的发展利益。这些都是本国的核心利益。目前，各项不论何种层面的提议或协议，都遭到不同程度的阻击。
包括中国在内的发展中国家，在向全球各国表明自己减排力度的时候，是以牺牲本国的发展速度为代价的。一般来说，在一个国家工业化发展的初期，其工业能耗往往非常高。而减排的直接后果，是降低发展速度。以中国为标志的减排承诺一旦实施，经济发展速度必然下降，所造就的清洁空气和更好的环境，本国人虽然能够享受，可是，减排也给全球其他国家的人带来了更清新的空气和更良好的环境。对于那些工业化已经完成的国家来说，即存在“搭便车”的机会。
“搭便车”是一个经济学基本概念，意思就是别人开车，你不用买票就可以搭车到达目的地。对于中国这样的发展中国家来说，减排是一个主动性的决策和承诺，也意味着一个还欠发达的国家对全球环境变好的一种贡献。美国等发达国家，曾经在其工业化的初期，完成了高比例的碳排放，如今再减排虽然的确有很高的成本，但是，这些国家必须要为减排更多的国家(如中国)提供补偿。也就是说，哥本哈根主要的议题之一，就是发展中国家要抑制像美国这样的发达国家“搭便车”，而美国等发达国家的意图，则是除了降低自己的减排力度之外，还要支付更少的车票费用。一拉一扯之间，发展中国家与发达国家的矛盾日深，票价也越来越不能确定，最后谈崩的几率日渐上升。
全球各国唯一能够达成一致意见的，是对森林国家的补偿。森林国家主要是指丹麦、瑞典、芬兰、挪威等北欧国家和加拿大等美洲国家。包括森林在内的制造氧气和抑制全球变暖的地球资源有限，而一旦对森林进行砍伐，往往能够带来巨额财富。上述这些森林国家，不砍伐森林，就意味着这些国家以减少本国财富迅速积累为代价，为全球的空气改善作贡献。所有国家都认同，其他森林面积相对少的国家和砍伐森林过度的国家，对森林国家不能不收费搭车。因此，在这一问题上，各国相对较为容易达成一致意见。
为什么以美国为首的发达国家和以中国为首的发展中国家，难以在碳减排等问题上的不收费搭车补偿达成一致意见？原因不仅在于美国等国家是已经完成了工业化的发达国家，如今的碳排放比例已经不高，再减排的成本却非常高；也在于美国等国家认为，发展中国家的碳排放正在污染全球的环境，因此减排是一种义务。但美国等发达国家却忘了，当他们在发展初期，进行高额的碳排放，全球其他国家却并没有向这些国家索赔。如果美国不愿意为发展中国家的自愿减排支付车票的话，至少也应该为曾经让全球变暖承担历史责任吧？因此，美国等发达国家所支付的，可能不仅仅是一张车票，而是一张欠款单。(每日新报 刘彦)

kulewy531UID: 2603031

A special report on climate change and the carbon economy

Getting warmer

Dec 3rd 2009 From The Economist print edition

So far the effort to tackle global warming has achieved little. Copenhagen offers the chance to do better, says Emma Duncan (interviewed here)
Illustration by M. Morgenstern

THE mountain bark beetle is a familiar pest in the forests of British Columbia. Its population rises and falls unpredictably, destroying clumps (A thick grouping, as of trees or bushes) of pinewood as it peaks which then regenerate as the bug recedes. But Scott Green, who studies forest ecology at the University of Northern British Columbia, says the current outbreak is “unprecedented in recorded history: a natural background-noise disturbance has become a major outbreak. We’re looking at the loss of 80% of our pine forest cover.”* Other parts of North America have also been affected, but the damage in British Columbia is particularly severe, and particularly troubling in a province whose economy is dominated by timber.

Three main explanations for this disastrous outbreak suggest themselves. It could be chance. Populations do fluctuate dramatically and unexpectedly. It could be the result of management practices. British Columbia’s woodland is less varied than it used to be, which helps a beetle that prefers pine. Or it could be caused by the higher temperatures that now prevail in northern areas, allowing beetles to breed more often in summer and survive in greater numbers through the winter.

The Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which the United Nations adopted at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, is now 17 years old. Its aim was “to achieve stabilisation of greenhouse-gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic（人为的）interference with the climate system”. The Kyoto protocol, which set about realising those aims, was signed in 1997 and came into force in 2005. Its first commitment period runs out in 2012, and implementing（执行） a new one is expected to take at least three years, which is why the 15th conference of the parties to the UNFCCC that starts in Copenhagen on December 7th is such a big deal. Without a new global agreement, there is not much chance of averting serious climate change.

Since the UNFCCC was signed, much has changed, though more in the biosphere than the human sphere. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the body set up to establish a scientific consensus on what is happening, heat waves, droughts, floods and serious hurricanes have increased in frequency over the past few decades; it reckons those trends are all likely or very likely to have been caused by human activity and will probably continue. Temperatures by the end of the century might be up by anything from 1.1ºC to 6.4ºC.

In most of the world the climate changes to date are barely perceptible or hard to pin on warming. In British Columbia and farther north the effects of climate change are clearer. Air temperatures in the Arctic are rising about twice as fast as in the rest of the world. The summer sea ice is thinning and shrinking. The past three years have seen the biggest losses since proper record-keeping started in 1979. Ten years ago scientists reckoned that summer sea-ice would be gone by the end of this century. Now they expect it to disappear within a decade or so.

Since sea-ice is already in the water, its melting has little effect on sea levels. Those are determined by temperature (warmer water takes up more room) and the size of the Greenland and Antarctic ice caps. The glaciers in south-eastern Greenland have picked up speed. Jakobshavn Isbrae, the largest of them, which drains（翻译为集中） 6% of Greenland’s ice, is now moving at 12km a year—twice as fast as it was when the UNFCCC was signed—and its “calving（裂冰） front”, where it breaks down into icebergs, has retreated by 20km in six years. That is part of the reason why the sea level is now rising at 3-3.5mm a year, twice the average annual rate in the 20th century.

As with the mountain bark beetle, it is not entirely clear why this is happening. The glaciers could be retreating because of one of the countless natural oscillations in the climate that scientists do not properly understand. If so, the glacial retreat could well stop, as it did in the middle of the 20th century after a 100-year retreat. But the usual causes of natural variability do not seem to explain the current trend, so scientists incline to the view that it is man-made. It is therefore likely to persist unless mankind starts to behave differently—and there is not much sign of that happening.

Carbon-dioxide emissions are now 30% higher than they were when the UNFCCC was signed 17 years ago. Atmospheric concentrations of CO2 equivalent (carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases) reached 430 parts per million last year, compared with 280ppm before the industrial revolution. At the current rate of increase they could more than treble by the end of the century, which would mean a 50% risk of a global temperature increase of 5ºC. To put that in context, the current average global temperature is only 5ºC warmer than the last ice age. Such a rise would probably lead to fast-melting ice sheets, rising sea levels, drought, disease and collapsing agriculture in poor countries, and mass migration. But nobody really knows, and nobody wants to know.

Some scientists think that the planet is already on an irreversible journey to dangerous warming. A few climate-change sceptics think the problem will right itself. Either may be correct. Predictions about a mechanism as complex as the climate cannot be made with any certainty. But the broad scientific consensus is that serious climate change is a danger, and this newspaper believes that, as an insurance policy against a catastrophe that may never happen, the world needs to adjust its behaviour to try to avert that threat.

The problem is not a technological one. The human race has almost all the tools it needs to continue leading much the sort of life it has been enjoying without causing a net increase in greenhouse-gas concentrations in the atmosphere. Industrial and agricultural processes can be changed. Electricity can be produced by wind, sunlight, biomass or nuclear reactors, and cars can be powered by biofuels and electricity. Biofuel engines for aircraft still need some work before they are suitable for long-haul flights, but should be available soon.

Nor is it a question of economics. Economists argue over the sums (see article), but broadly agree that greenhouse-gas emissions can be curbed（抑制） without flattening the world economy.
A hard sell

It is all about politics. Climate change is the hardest political problem the world has ever had to deal with. It is a prisoner’s dilemma, a free-rider problem and the tragedy of the commons all rolled into one. At issue is the difficulty of allocating the cost of collective action and trusting other parties to bear their share of the burden. At a city, state and national level, institutions that can resolve such problems have been built up over the centuries. But climate change has been a worldwide worry for only a couple of decades. Mankind has no framework for it. The UN is a useful talking shop, but it does not get much done.

The closest parallel is the world trading system. This has many achievements to its name(属于自己), but it is not an encouraging model. Not only is the latest round of negotiations mired（陷入泥潭） in difficulty, but the World Trade Organisation’s task is child’s play compared with climate change. The benefits of concluding trade deals are certain and accrue（自然增加） in the short term. The benefits of mitigating climate change are uncertain, since scientists are unsure of the scale and consequences of global warming, and will mostly accrue many years hence. The need for action, by contrast, is urgent.

The problem will be solved only if the world economy moves from carbon-intensive to low-carbon—and, in the long term, to zero-carbon—products and processes. That requires businesses to change their investment patterns. And they will do so only if governments give them clear, consistent signals. This special report will argue that so far this has not happened. The policies adopted to avoid dangerous climate change have been partly misconceived and largely inadequate. They have sent too many wrong signals and not enough of the right ones.

That is partly because of the way the Kyoto protocol was designed. By trying to include all the greenhouse gases in a single agreement, it has been less successful than the less ambitious Montreal protocol, which cut ozone-depleting gases fast and cheaply. By including too many countries in detailed negotiations, it has reduced the chances of agreement. And by dividing the world into developed and developing countries, it has deepened a rift that is proving hard to close. Ultimately, though, the international agreement has fallen victim to domestic politics. Voters do not want to bear the cost of their elected leaders’ aspirations, and those leaders have not been brave enough to push them.

Copenhagen represents a second chance to make a difference. The aspirations are high, but so are the hurdles. The gap between the parties on the two crucial questions—emissions levels and money—remains large. America’s failure so far to pass climate-change legislation means that a legally binding agreement will not be reached at the conference. The talk is of one in Bonn, in six months’ time, or in Mexico City in a year.

To suggest that much has gone wrong is not to denigrate（毁誉） the efforts of the many people who have dedicated two decades to this problem. For mankind to get even to the threshold of a global agreement is a marvel. But any global climate deal will work only if the domestic policies through which it is implemented are both efficient and effective. If they are ineffective, nothing will change. If they are inefficient, they will waste money. And if taxpayers decide that green policies are packed with pork, they will turn against them.

体会：
The reason why the environmental problem defies solution can be concluded that it is a complex prisoner’s dilemma which involves the relationships between the developed countries and the developing countries, the government and the citizens. The case significantly reflects the lack of credits around the world. Since that, the key to the solution is to establish the confident of various individuals, groups and nations. However, stable trusts, which can never be set up without fundamentals, are always connected to common interests. Consequently, to find out the potential benefits of environmental protection can serve as the best prelude of the play of promoting a zero-carbon-dioxide economy.

qisaimanUID: 2703629

the article first demostrates several observations which reveals human activities have been impacting the global climate ,resulting in glaciers retreating,carbon-dioxide emission rapidly increasing and rising sea level-- all these lead to a disaster.
the board scientific consensus is measures should be taken to avert this danger. And difficulty lies neither in technology nor economics according to the newspaper. it is all about politics.
there is no framework to which mankind can rely on, the UN and WTO do little helpful. what is to be changed is the migration of carbon-intensive products to cabron-low ones. but the hurdles remain there. to achieve an effective agreement , the newspaper suggests that seperating some greenhouse gas from others in a single agreement, and limit the agreement to several countries temporary.
the paper argues that any climate deal that works must be both efficient and effective ,and the author 's attitude is not so optimistic.

-------------useful words and sentences --------------
avert :
curb :
denigrate:

But the broad scientific consensus is that serious climate change is a danger,

Mankind has no framework for it.
he world economy moves from carbon-intensive to low-carbon—and, in the long term, to zero-carbon—products and processes.
any global climate deal will work only if the domestic policies through which it is implemented are both efficient and effective.

qisaimanUID: 2703629

good sentences
1. Since the UNFCCC was signed, much has changed, though more in the biosphere than the human sphere.

2. Three main explanations for this disastrous outbreak suggest themselves.
3 ...
windandrain2004 发表于 2009-12-19 12:56

comments:[先谢谢那三个例子的解释]
This article makes me think of the story of the Tower of Babel. The Tower of Babel was never built, as God confused people's languages and scattered them throughout the world. And now fighting the climate change and reducing the emission of carbon dioxide is another Tower of Babel for modern people as a whole to build. However, the climate change is such a huge and complex problem that no people or country can understand its effect completely. Moreover, it's human's nature to consider themselves first[太中式了] and overweight the short-term benefit over the long-term one. Maybe the Tower of Babel will never be built without people's realising that we all live in the same fragile water ball.[最后抒情，感觉不太好]

miki7catUID: 2533330

Comment:
In the beginning of the article, the author quotes a statemen, said by Emma Duncan, which asserts Copenhagen offers the chance to do better. However, it can be inferred from this special report that the assertion is lack of conviction.

On the one hand, it is admittedly increaced that the atmospheric concentrations of CO2 and other so-called greenhouse gases, but nobody really knows what such a rise would lead to. Even scientists could reckon the trends in "likely", "probably", or "50% risk of", which is means nothing.

On the other hand, since the UNFCCC was signed, disasters have increased in frequency, Carbon-dioxide emissions have been 30% higher, and the glaciers in south-eastern Greenland have picked up speed. Then, what is the aim of UNFCCC？

I agree with the statement that "any global climate deal will work only if the domestic policies through which it is implemented are both efficient and effective". Being effective means we must have knowledge about what is the crucial reason of global warming and being efficient means we must have a framework for climate change. The reality, unfortunately, is we have neither.

emteddybearUID: 2699606

good sentences:
1.so scientists incline to the view that it is man-made. I love this word "incline"
2.Biofuel engines for aircraft still need some work before they are suitable for long-haul flights, but should be available soon.
3.Nor is it a question of economics
4.Not only is the latest round of negotiations mired in difficulty, but the World Trade Organisation’s task is child’s play compared with climate change.
5.The aspirations are high, but so are the hurdles.


sentences which i can't understand:
1. It could be chance. Here chance means 偶然
2. The closest parallel is the world trading system. what's the meaning of "closest parallel"?
3. To suggest that much has gone wrong is not to denigrate the efforts of the many people who have dedicated two decades to this problem.  Although I can understand the meaning of this sentence, but I really can't make certain the stucture of this sentence.

My comments:
     Obviouslly, this issue talks something about the climate chang problem. Acording to the total structure of this issue, there are three parts. At the begining of the this article, the writter use the mountain bark beetle to lead out the climate problem. I think this is one of the bright spots in this essay. Secondly, the writer talk somthing about the sea-ice with statistic data to describ the effects of the warmor climate.Finnally, use a phrase "A hard sell" , the writter pointed out the difficulty to deal with the climate change, such as politcs, economics.

PS:the forgoing analysis is my sum-up about the issue. I know it's quite simple. Actually I want to write it longer. But I find that my reading habit is very bad. When I read a article (even in Chinese), I always can only got its roughly meaning. But I almost can't  repeat it with detail. I think this problem is quit urgent and serious for me, and I hope someone can give me some advice. What's more some of my classmates told me that when reading a English text, you should think it in English, that means you translate English words into English. But still now, I havn't got this method. so sad~~~~~~~~


what's more, as to the good sentences, I find that I don't know what kind of sentence is a good sentence. Maybe I should look over other gters' choice, and then borrow some ideas.
     

jinziqiUID: 2387034

8# 敛寒影

The article begins with an example of a pest called mountain bark beetle destroyed pinewood, (and) then the author analyze the causes for this disastrous outbreak. This example elicit (elicits) the topic about warming climate change. The author explain (explains) the conception of Framework Convention on Climate Change, and indicate (indicates) that anthropogenic activities influence the climate system, with the description of the phenomenon of the rising temperature in Arctic and melting sea-ice causing the rising of sea level. Following, the author turns to the example of mountain bark beetle in order to emphasize the human beings should start to behave in a different way. The author directly points out that the increasing carbon-dioxide emissions would means a 50% risk of a global temperature increase of 5℃.Furthermore, the author claimed  that we should adjust behavior to avert that threat. In the second part of this article the author analyze (analyzes) the reason of climate change, which  is neither a technological nor a economics problems (problem) but a policy problems (problem). At last he give (gives) some suggestion(suggestions) on(suggestions用on吗?)solving this problems such as strengthen international co-operation, come to international agreement,(and) change economical mode.
Climate warming is a global problem, (and) we all should pay close intention on the Copenhagen climate talks. We should raising (raise) our awareness on this topic and behave in a different way from now on like doing little things around us. It is a complex problem involving economy, political and technological aspects, and it is not enough only relying the policy of governments. In my opinion the non-government organization and the authority should work together fighting(to fight) for protecting our unique earth, especially(用because比较好吧，especially后面不接句子吧) everyone play an important role in solving this crisis phase.

感觉总结的挺好的呵呵 我的总结就没对文章总结 以后可以试试~

jinziqiUID: 2387034

My comment
This is the first time that I have ever read such a long article inEnglish word by word which really takes me a lot of time. Althoughthere is not too much unfamiliar word to me, it is still hard tounderstand and remember the whole idea. As far I am concerned, I haveto practice to use those familiar words more frequent such as outbreakand fluctuate. Only reciting those words will not help us much inwriting. I should pay attention to the pronoun used in the article toavoid misusing them in my own. To say more about the main idea of thearticle, I could say that it made me know about the Copenhagen. Hopingthe issue could be resolved with the help of all nations.

Good sentences
It could be the result of management practices.
it reckons those trends are all likely or very likely to have been caused by human activity and will probably continue.
If so, the glacial retreat could well stop, as it did in the middle of the 20th century after a 100-year retreat.

Hard words
THE mountain bark beetle is a familiar pest in the forests of British Columbia.
Its population rises and falls unpredictably, destroying clumps树丛 of pinewood as it peaks which then regenerate as the bug recedes后退.
a natural background-noise disturbance打扰 has become a major outbreak.
Or it could be caused by the higher temperatures that now prevail(盛行) in northern areas, allowing beetles to breed more often in summer and survive in greater numbers through the winter.
Its aim was “to achieve stabilisation of greenhouse-gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic 人为的interference with the climate system”.
The Kyoto protocol(外交礼仪), which set about realising those aims, was signed in 1997 and came into force in 2005.
it reckons 认为 those trends are all likely or very likely to have been caused by human activity and will probably continue.
In most of the world the climate changes to date are barely perceptible感知的or hard to pin钉住 on warming.
Economists argue over the sums (see article), but broadly agree that greenhouse-gas emissions can be curbed控制without flattening the world economy.
Not only is the latest round of negotiations mired使陷于泥坑 in difficulty, but the World Trade Organisation’s task is child’s play compared with climate change.
The benefits of concluding trade deals are certain and accrue增大 in the short term.
The benefits of mitigating 使缓和climatechange are uncertain, since scientists are unsure of the scale andconsequences of global warming, and will mostly accrue many years hence.
The aspirations are high, but so are the hurdles障碍.
To suggest that much has gone wrong is not to denigrate污蔑,诽谤 the efforts of the many people who have dedicated two decades to this problem.
And if taxpayers decide that green policies are packed with pork, they will turn against them.

emteddybearUID: 2699606

After reading this supplementary materials, I find I didn't undertand this issue
Tradedy!!!!!!!!!
32# sunflower_iris

ginorUID: 2610959

Economist reading comments---12.18

Sentences extracting：
1. Without a new global agreement, there is not much chance of averting serious climate change.

2. But nobody really knows, and nobody wants to know.

3. Some scientists think that the planet is already on an irreversible journey to dangerous warming.

4. Predictions about a mechanism as complex as the climate cannot be made with any certainty.
5.Not only is the latest round of negotiations mired in difficulty, but the World Trade Organisation’s task is child’s play compared with climate change.

6.The need for action, by contrast, is urgent.
7.By including too many countries in detailed negotiations, it has reduced the chances of agreement. And by dividing the world into developed and developing countries, it  has deepened a rift that is proving hard to close.
8.But any global climate deal will work only if the domestic policies through which it is implemented are both efficient and effective.

不太懂这一句——And if taxpayers decide that green policies are packed with pork（填满猪肉？？贬义吗？）, they will turn against them

Comments:
In recent years,people are no longer surprised by extreme weather.Faced with such variety, most people think of is only "unusual weather", while the according officials of National Climate Center said, the source of increasing extreme weather is climate changing.In brief,climate change has changed people's daily lives.

We all know, in recent years, global warming caused air quality reduces and serious pollution increases,ultraviolet becomes stronger than before,the sky is always gray.And even who live above 20 layers,their home is still often covered with thick dust as well.

Let us take a broader view: the world's glacicers are shrinking in an unprecedented rate, sea level is rising, typhoons and hurricanes are landing more frequently,the mortality of plants and animals is increasing... ... Such events remind us that climate change is increasingly affecting people's lives.

Climate warming has increased from the forecast turned into tangible reality.The emergence of warm winters and extreme  weather has constrained a forestry production  and impacted on human's lives.As someone who live in south China, an outstanding change takes place in my major study is that the plants season do no obvious as usual, which result in the increased warming days in the whole year, those non-native plants cannot able to conscious of degree changing.Therefore ,many landscape designs cannot achieve the ideally effects after carrying out,which might result to a great loss in forestry  and landscape such kinds alike industries.

Global warming is not only national goverment's matter,but also an universal thing which need everyone to pay attention to and take full participate in it.

KiKi~淇水滺滺UID: 2679824

From Dec.6th to 18th, the world’s eyes turn to Copenhagen, a small nation in Northern European. The climate change conference 2009 is processing there.It was partly because the environment becomes worse and worse in the report from the IPCC and there are leaders from more than 189 countries attended in this conference, trying to make an agreement. It was also partly a growing acknowledgement of the fact that 2009 represents more or less the last chance to achieve an agreement, if this agreement is to be approved and ratified in time for it to come into force after the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012.

Like what is showed in this article, the environmental disasters become much more often and unpredictable, the climate changes become serious and the ecosystem becomes weaker. However, still like what the author said, the climate problem is not about technologies or economics, it’s about politics. During the Copenhagen conference, all the leaders are arguing with each other, trying to defend their own interests. It seems to me that this conference is a mirror to show that we human beings are all selfish when things involve our own interests.

The most comforting thing about this conference may be that people all over the world realize the serious environmental problem now and try to do something to improve it.

KiKi~淇水滺滺UID: 2679824

介绍下哥本哈根会议的背景~

Developments in the world since the Kyoto Protocol was negotiated in 1997 show that a new agreement is needed. China has replaced the USA as the largest emitter of greenhouse gases, and the price of oil has soared. This is a reminder of the fact that fossil fuels do not merely pollute; they are also a source of energy whose reserves are constantly being reduced.

The UNFCCC’s history shows that countries can quickly move forward together, but also that they risk coming to a standstill because of internal disagreement. The ambition of the Danish government is that the COP15 conference in Copenhagen will result in an ambitious global agreement including all the countries of the world.

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A special report on climate change and the carbon economy

Getting warmer

Dec 3rd 2009 From The Economist print edition
红字部分为不懂的句子或新单词
绿色部分为我认为比较好的句子
So far the effort to tackle global warming has achieved little. Copenhagen offers the chance to do better, says Emma Duncan (interviewed here)
Illustration by M. Morgenstern

THE mountain bark beetle is a familiar pest in the forests of British Columbia. Its population rises and falls unpredictably, destroying clumps of pinewood(成片的针叶林) as it peaks which then regenerate as the bug recedes. But Scott Green, who studies forest ecology at the University of Northern British Columbia, says the current outbreak is “unprecedented in recorded history: a natural background-noise disturbance has become a major outbreak. We’re looking at the loss of 80% of our pine forest cover.”* Other parts of North America have also been affected, but the damage in British Columbia is particularly severe, and particularly troubling in a province whose economy is dominated by timber.

Three main explanations for this disastrous outbreak suggest themselves. It could be chance. Populations do fluctuate dramatically and unexpectedly. It could be the result of management practices. British Columbia’s woodland is less varied than it used to be, which helps a beetle that prefers pine. Or it could be caused by the higher temperatures that now prevail in northern areas, allowing beetles to breed more often in summer and survive in greater numbers through the winter.

The Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which the United Nations adopted at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, is now 17 years old. Its aim was “to achieve stabilisation of greenhouse-gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic（a.人为的，人类活动产生的） interference （n.冲突，干涉）with the climate system”. The Kyoto protocol, which set about realising those aims, was signed in 1997 and came into force（开始实施，开始有效） in 2005. Its first commitment period runs out（V.跑出, 离开, 完成, 被用完, 伸向, 流逝, 逐出, 放出去） in 2012, and implementing（v贯彻，实施） a new one is expected to take at least three years, which is why the 15th conference of the parties to the UNFCCC that starts in Copenhagen on December 7th is such a big deal. Without a new global agreement, there is not much chance of averting serious climate change.

Since the UNFCCC was signed, much has changed, though more in the biosphere than the human sphere. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the body set up to establish a scientific consensus on what is happening, heat waves, droughts, floods and serious hurricanes have increased in frequency over the past few decades; it reckons （vt.计算, 总计, 估计, 猜想）those trends are all likely or very likely to have been caused by human activity and will probably continue. Temperatures by the end of the century might be up by anything（？？？）from 1.1C to 6.4C.

In most of the world the climate changes to date are barely perceptible （adj.可察觉的, 显而易见的, 感觉得到的）or hard to pin on warming. In British Columbia and farther north the effects of climate change are clearer. Air temperatures in the Arctic are rising about twice as fast as in the rest of the world. The summer sea ice is thinning and shrinking. The past three years have seen the biggest losses since proper record-keeping started in 1979. Ten years ago scientists reckoned that summer sea-ice would be gone by the end of this century. Now they expect it to disappear within a decade or so.

Since sea-ice is already in the water, its melting（融化） has little effect on sea levels. Those are determined by temperature (warmer water takes up more room) and the size of the Greenland and Antarctic ice caps. The glaciers（冰河） in south-eastern Greenland have picked up speed（加速）. Jakobshavn Isbrae, the largest of them, which drains 6% of Greenland’s ice, is now moving at 12km a year—twice as fast as it was when the UNFCCC was signed—and its “calving front”, where it breaks down into icebergs, has retreated by 20km in six years. That is part of the reason why the sea level is now rising at 3-3.5mm a year, twice the average annual rate in the 20th century.


As with the mountain bark beetle, it is not entirely clear why this is happening. The glaciers could be retreating because of one of the countless natural oscillations（n摆动，振动） in the climate that scientists do not properly understand. If so, the glacial retreat could well stop, as it did in the middle of the 20th century after a 100-year retreat. But the usual causes of natural variability do not seem to explain the current trend, so scientists incline to the view that it is man-made. It is therefore likely to persist unless mankind starts to behave differently—and there is not much sign of that happening.

Carbon-dioxide emissions are now 30% higher than they were when the UNFCCC was signed 17 years ago. Atmospheric concentrations of CO2 equivalent (carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases) reached 430 parts per million last year, compared with 280ppm before the industrial revolution. At the current rate of increase they could more than treble（a,三倍的v.成三倍） by the end of the century, which would mean a 50% risk of a global temperature increase of 5ºC. To put that in context, the current average global temperature is only 5ºC warmer than the last ice age. Such a rise would probably lead to fast-melting ice sheets, rising sea levels, drought, disease and collapsing（崩塌） agriculture in poor countries, and mass migration. But nobody really knows, and nobody wants to know.（人的惰性啊惰性...）

Some scientists think that the planet is already on an irreversible （adj.不能撤回的, 不能取消的）journey to dangerous warming. A few climate-change sceptics think the problem will right itself. Either may be correct. Predictions about a mechanism as complex as the climate cannot be made with any certainty. But the broad scientific consensus is that serious climate change is a danger, and this newspaper believes that, as an insurance policy against a catastrophe that may never happen, the world needs to adjust its behaviour to try to avert that threat.

The problem is not a technological one. The human race has almost all the tools it needs to continue leading much the sort of life it has been enjoying without causing a net increase in greenhouse-gas concentrations in the atmosphere. Industrial and agricultural processes can be changed. Electricity can be produced by wind, sunlight, biomass or nuclear reactors, and cars can be powered by biofuels and electricity. Biofuel engines for aircraft still need some work before they are suitable for long-haul flights, but should be available soon.

Nor is it a question of economics. Economists argue over the sums (see article), but broadly agree that greenhouse-gas emissions（n.散发） can be curbed without flattening the world economy.
以上两段话的下划线首句用nor联系起来了，写aw可借鉴（但是说实话，联系全文就没看懂了...）
A hard sell

It is all about politics. Climate change is the hardest political problem the world has ever had to deal with. It is a prisoner’s dilemma, a free-rider
免费搭车者(享受其他国家最惠国待遇而不进行相应减让的国家)
problem and the tragedy of the commons all rolled into one. At issue is the difficulty of allocating the cost of collective action and trusting other parties to bear their share of the burden. At a city, state and national level, institutions that can resolve such problems have been built up over the centuries. But climate change has been a worldwide worry for only a couple of decades. Mankind has no framework for it. The UN is a useful talking shop, but it does not get much done.

The closest parallel is the world trading system. This has many achievements to its name, but it is not an encouraging model. Not only is the latest round of negotiations （n.商议, 谈判, 流通）mired in difficulty, but the World Trade Organisation’s task is child’s play compared with climate change. The benefits of concluding trade deals are certain and accrue in the short term. The benefits of mitigating climate change are uncertain, since scientists are unsure of the scale and consequences of global warming, and will mostly accrue many years hence. The need for action, by contrast, is urgent.

The problem will be solved only if the world economy moves from carbon-intensive to low-carbon—and, in the long term, to zero-carbon—products and processes. That requires businesses to change their investment patterns. And they will do so only if governments give them clear, consistent signals. This special report will argue that so far this has not happened. The policies adopted to avoid dangerous climate change have been partly misconceived（v.误解） and largely inadequate. They have sent too many wrong signals and not enough of the right ones.

That is partly because of the way the Kyoto protocol was designed. By trying to include all the greenhouse gases in a single agreement, it has been less successful than the less ambitious Montreal protocol, which cut ozone-depleting gases fast and cheaply. By including too many countries in detailed negotiations, it has reduced the chances of agreement. And by dividing the world into developed and developing countries, it has deepened a rift that is proving hard to close. Ultimately, though, the international agreement has fallen victim to domestic （adj.家庭的, 国内的, 与人共处的, 驯服的）politics. Voters do not want to bear the cost of their elected leaders’ aspirations, and those leaders have not been brave enough to push them.

Copenhagen represents a second chance to make a difference. The aspirations are high, but so are the hurdles （n.篱笆, 栏, 障碍, 跨栏, 活动篱笆.） The gap between the parties on the two crucial questions—emissions levels and money—remains large. America’s failure so far to pass climate-change legislation means that a legally binding agreement will not be reached at the conference. The talk is of one in Bonn, in six months’ time, or in Mexico City in a year.

To suggest that much has gone wrong is not to denigrate（v.毁誉） the efforts of the many people who have dedicated（devote） two decades to this problem. For mankind to get even to the threshold （n.开始, 开端, 极限）of a global agreement is a marvel. But any global climate deal will work only if the domestic policies（国内政策） through which it is implemented are both efficient and effective. If they are ineffective, nothing will change. If they are inefficient, they will waste money. And if taxpayers decide that green policies are packed with pork, they will turn against them.
http://www.economist.com/specialreports/displayStory.cfm?story_id=14994872

看此文花了两个多小时...

comment:
The article is begined with a phenomenon of a familiar pest called the mountain bark beetle in the forests of British Columbia, and extends other example such as sea-ice's melting. Even though they partly are resulted from the natural element, the man-made reason should be not ignored.
confronted with the recent problem that Carbon-dioxide emissions are higher year by year, such a rise would probably lead to fast-melting ice sheets, rising sea levels, drought, disease and collapsing agriculture in poor countries, and mass migration. But the climate change such laggardly that few people focus on it unless it leads a series of catastrophe. The higher Carbon-dioxide emission is a global problem, since there is much chance of averting serious climate change after the agreement of counties all over the world. But when the emissions levels connected the economy, the means to solve the problem are be more complex. So the new words called "prisoner’s dilemma" and "a free-rider" have been born to describe the phenomena that some countries do not want to toe the mark.

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Comments：
The topic of this article is very popular in recent days. As we all know, the climate conference in Copenhagen attracted the focus all over the world. A new agreement is expected to sign for avert the threat of climate change.  In this article, the author cites a typical example that the mountain bark beetles destroy the pine forest in British Columbia due to the high temperature. Actually human activity should be responsible for the increased frequency of climate change. Especially the concentration of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas is much higher than before, which may result in a global temperature increase. Furthermore, the aberrant temperature may increase the frequency of serious climate changes that are dangerous. To avert this situation people should adjust its behavior. Technological tools and economics are not limitation for taking action. However, politics plays key role in promoting improve recent situation. Instead of signing a huge protocol that would never work, the government should implement a pragmatic deal efficiently and effectively. This passage is very well-organized to illustrate the author’s idea. The key point is that the author calls for taking practical action to prevent the bad trend of global warming.

不太理解的句子
It is a prisoner’s dilemma, a free-rider problem and the tragedy of the commons all rolled into one.