美国国家公共电台 NPR It's 2050 And This Is How We Stopped Climate Change

 

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

Some Americans want to address a fundamental problem in fighting climate change. It's the problem of how to imagine solutions vast enough to make a difference. It is easy to dismiss almost any climate plan as too small or unworkable. Some experts are trying to think bigger about the future, as we will hear over the next few days from NPR's Dan Charles.

DAN CHARLES, BYLINE¹: I went looking for people who mapped out this zero-carbon world, and I found them in Silicon² Valley.

This is quite a beautiful spot.

SILA KILICCOTE: It is OK. Hi.

CHARLES: Good to meet you. Dan Charles.

KILICCOTE: Good to meet you too.

CHARLES: Sila Kiliccote is an engineer. From her back deck high in the hills, you look out over Cupertino, Calif. Through the mist, you can sometimes see Apple's big, circular headquarters. It is a long way from Istanbul in Turkey, where she grew up. It's a great place to dream the future.

KILICCOTE: Let's go in.

CHARLES: Sure. Sounds good.

KILICCOTE: And maybe you'd like some coffee.

CHARLES: Her coffee machine is powered by solar panels on the roof. So is her laptop, her Wi-Fi.

KILICCOTE: Everything's on electricity in this house most of the time.

CHARLES: Electricity from renewable sources. It's here, and it is the key to the future. Last year, Kiliccote quit her job at Stanford University and launched a startup, eIQ Mobility³, helping⁴ companies electrify⁵ entire fleets of vehicles, like delivery vans.

KILICCOTE: In order to have impact, timely impact, I figured that I need to leave the research and really focus on impactful things that I want to do, and fast.

CHARLES: It has to happen really fast. Scientists say to keep climate change from getting really bad, the world has to bring greenhouse emissions⁶ practically to zero by 2050 - to zero. It is a giant leap, but Sila Kiliccote and I are going to take that leap. With her solar panels on the roof, her electric car in the garage, we start imagining that it is 2050, and it's really happened. We've stopped climate change.

Any sense of how we did it?

KILICCOTE: Yes.

CHARLES: Siliccote (ph) says we electrified⁷ everything. Electric cars came first. That was actually pretty easy.

KILICCOTE: By 2025, the battery technology got cheaper.

CHARLES: Electric cars were no longer more expensive.

KILICCOTE: At that point, there was a massive shift to electric vehicles because they were quieter, and they were cleaner and less maintenance costs. No oil change - yippee, you know?

CHARLES: Heating and cooling in homes and office buildings went electric. People ripped out their gas furnaces, replaced them with heat pumps. So of course, we needed way more electricity right when we were shutting down the power plants that burned gas and coal. Replacing them took a huge expansion of solar and wind farms. Today, in 2050, they cover millions of acres, 10 times more than back in 2019.

This happened all over the world. Huge transmission lines now carry power back and forth⁸ between North and South America. Europe is connected to solar installations in the Sahara, which means sub-Saharan Africa now has cheap power for the first time.

KILICCOTE: It just changed Africa, actually fueled the economies in Africa.

CHARLES: And we store that electricity so it's always there when we need it with batteries and lots of other things too. Cities use extra power to heat up giant tanks of water that heat buildings later. Down in the valley at Stanford University, the director of the university's Climate and Energy Project, Sally Benson, is so ready to imagine this world of 2050, it's a little startling.

SALLY BENSON: I regularly take a helicopter, electric helicopter, from here to San Francisco.

CHARLES: You can run a helicopter on batteries?

BENSON: Oh, yes. Yes, of - oh, God, that happened such a long time ago. Yeah, that happened in the '30s. Yeah, that was great.

CHARLES: She means the 2030s. Like I said, she's in total future mode. But she says, even in this all-electric world, there were some holdouts, things that were hard to electrify. Some big steel and cement plants still are burning coal and natural gas. But they also had to build new plants that capture carbon dioxide from their furnaces and put it back underground.

BENSON: We just kind of had to bite the bullet and said, OK, if you're making cement or steel, you're capturing and sequestering⁹ that CO2. In some cases, we actually had to say, we're not going to make those things here anymore.

CHARLES: Big long-distance freight trucks were another problem.

BENSON: They're really heavy, and batteries are really heavy. And if you have to put a whole bunch of batteries on a truck, it's going to be inefficient¹⁰.

CHARLES: Here, I have to admit this picture of a world without climate change does get a little fuzzy. Different people see slightly different things. Some people see electric highways with wires running overhead and trucks tapping into the power in those wires the way electric trains do.

Others see trucks running on hydrogen fuel. We make the hydrogen using solar power. But Sally Benson says really the hardest part of this journey was not finding technical solutions. They existed. The hardest part was handling the social disruption.

BENSON: The transformations¹¹ required were so profound that it really needed to be a collective effort.

CHARLES: Entire industries died. Others were born. People didn't know what would happen. They were scared. The change only happened when people were convinced they weren't getting ignored and left behind. It was the political challenge of a generation. Now, in 2050, there is a sense of accomplishment¹².

Are there children who look around at all the old buildings and say, what are those things they call chimneys? What were they for?

BENSON: They do. You know, it's like a historical artifact. But, you know, they find it very touching¹³. They are really appreciative¹⁴ because they're living in a world where they don't need to worry about climate change anymore.

CHARLES: It wasn't easy, and it wasn't free, Benson says. But it was absolutely worth it. The air is so much cleaner. Cities are quieter. And we're not heating up the planet anymore. Dan Charles, NPR News.

(SOUNDBITE OF NIFTY EARTH'S "PINECREST")

1 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

2 silicon   

n.硅(旧名矽)

参考例句：

• This company pioneered the use of silicon chip.这家公司开创了使用硅片的方法。
• A chip is a piece of silicon about the size of a postage stamp.芯片就是一枚邮票大小的硅片。

3 mobility   

n.可动性，变动性，情感不定

参考例句：

• The difference in regional house prices acts as an obstacle to mobility of labour.不同地区房价的差异阻碍了劳动力的流动。
• Mobility is very important in guerrilla warfare.机动性在游击战中至关重要。

4 helping   

n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的

参考例句：

• The poor children regularly pony up for a second helping of my hamburger. 那些可怜的孩子们总是要求我把我的汉堡包再给他们一份。
• By doing this, they may at times be helping to restore competition. 这样一来, 他在某些时候,有助于竞争的加强。

5 electrify   

v.使充电；使电气化；使触电；使震惊；使兴奋

参考例句：

• The country is now making effort to electrify and informationize manufacture.国家正在致力于制造业的电气化和信息化。
• He needs money to electrify his surface lines.他需要钱把他的地面线路电气化。

6 emissions   

排放物( emission的名词复数 )； 散发物（尤指气体）

参考例句：

• Most scientists accept that climate change is linked to carbon emissions. 大多数科学家都相信气候变化与排放的含碳气体有关。
• Dangerous emissions radiate from plutonium. 危险的辐射物从钚放散出来。

7 electrified   

v.使电气化( electrify的过去式和过去分词 )；使兴奋

参考例句：

• The railway line was electrified in the 1950s. 这条铁路线在20世纪50年代就实现了电气化。
• The national railway system has nearly all been electrified. 全国的铁路系统几乎全部实现了电气化。 来自《简明英汉词典》

8 forth   

adv.向前；向外，往外

参考例句：

• The wind moved the trees gently back and forth.风吹得树轻轻地来回摇晃。
• He gave forth a series of works in rapid succession.他很快连续发表了一系列的作品。

9 sequestering   

v.使隔绝，使隔离( sequester的现在分词 )；扣押

参考例句：

• Once installed the wood at further reducing carbon through the sequestering process. 本木料一旦植入，将通过一系列物理化学过程进一步有效降低碳量。 来自互联网
• Sequestration and dispersion force of different kinds of sequestering a-gent are tested. 本文分别测定了几种不同类型络合剂的络合能力和分散能力。 来自互联网

10 inefficient   

adj.效率低的，无效的

参考例句：

• The inefficient operation cost the firm a lot of money.低效率的运作使该公司损失了许多钱。
• Their communication systems are inefficient in the extreme.他们的通讯系统效率非常差。

11 transformations   

n.变化( transformation的名词复数 )；转换；转换；变换

参考例句：

• Energy transformations go on constantly, all about us. 在我们周围，能量始终在不停地转换着。 来自辞典例句
• On the average, such transformations balance out. 平均起来，这种转化可以互相抵消。 来自辞典例句

12 accomplishment   

n.完成，成就，（pl.）造诣，技能

参考例句：

• The series of paintings is quite an accomplishment.这一系列的绘画真是了不起的成就。
• Money will be crucial to the accomplishment of our objectives.要实现我们的目标，钱是至关重要的。

13 touching   

adj.动人的，使人感伤的

参考例句：

• It was a touching sight.这是一幅动人的景象。
• His letter was touching.他的信很感人。

14 appreciative   

adj.有鉴赏力的，有眼力的；感激的

参考例句：

• She was deeply appreciative of your help.她对你的帮助深表感激。
• We are very appreciative of their support in this respect.我们十分感谢他们在这方面的支持。