A Sea of Troubles 海洋的閱讀文章

A Sea of TroublesMan is attacking the oceans. They will beat him if he does not take care.NOT much is known about the sea, it is said; the surface of Mars is better mapped. But 2,000 holes have now been drilled in the bottom, 100,000 photographs have been taken, satellites monitor the five oceans and everywhere floats fitted with instruments rise and fall like moving yo-yos. Quite a lot is known, and very little is comforting.The worries begin at the surface, where an atmosphere newly laden with man-made carbon dioxide interacts with the sea water. The sea has thus become more acidic, making life difficult, if not impossible, for marine organisms with calcium-carbonate shells or skeletons. Worse, you may disturb entire ecosystem.That is also what acidification does to coral reefs, especially if they are already suffering from too much fishing, too much heating or pollution. Many are, and most are therefore gravely damaged. Some scientists believe that coral reefs, home to a quarter of all marine species, may virtually disappear within a few decades. That would be the end of the rainforests of the seas.Carbon dioxide affects the sea in other ways, too, notably through global warming. The oceans expand as they warm up. They are also enlarged by melting glaciers, ice caps and ice sheets: Greenlands ice is on track to melt completely, which will eventually raise the sea level by about seven meters (23ft). Even by the end of this century, the level may well have risen by 80cm, perhaps by much more. For the 630m people who live within 10km (six miles) of the sea, this is serious. Countries like Bangladesh, with 150 million inhabitants, will be inundated. Even people living far inland may be affected by the warming: droughts in the western United States seem to be caused by changing surface temperatures in the tropical Pacific.And then there are the red tides of algal blooms, and the dead zones where only simple organisms thrive. All of these are increasing in intensity, frequency and extent. All of these, too, seem to be associated with various stresses man inflicts on marine ecosystems: overfishing, global warming, fertilizers running from land into rivers.Some of the worrying changes may not be entirely the work of man. But one that surely has no other cause is the lack of fish in the sea: most of the big ones have now been hauled out and the rest will be gone within decades if the pillage continues at current rates. Indeed, over three-quarters of all marine fish species are below, or on the brink of falling below, sustainable levels. Another change is the appearance of a mass of discarded plastic that swirls round in two clots in the Pacific, each as large as the United States. And the sea has plenty of other ills, as our special report this week explains.Each of these changes is a disaster. Together they make for something much worse. Moreover, they are happening alarmingly fastin decades, rather than the millions of years needed for fish and plants to adapt. Many are irreversible. It will take tens of thousands of years for ocean chemistry to return to a condition similar to its pre-industrial state of 200 years ago, says Britains most outstanding body of scientists, the Royal Society. Many also fear that some changes are reaching limits after which further changes may speed up uncontrollably. No one fully understands why the cod have not returned to the Grand Banks off Canada, even after 16 years of no fishing. No one quite knows why glaciers and ice shelves are melting so fast, or how a lake on the Greenland ice sheet covering six square kilometers could drain away in 24 hours, as it did in 2006. Such unexpected events make scientists nervous.What can be done to put matters right? The sea, the last part of the world where man acts as a hunter-gathereras well as bather, miner, dumper and general polluterneeds management, just as the land does. Economics demands it as much as environmentalism, for the world squanders money through its poor management of the oceans. Bad management and overfishing waste $50 billion a year, says the World Bank.Economics also provides some answers. For a start, fishing subsidies should be abolished in an industry characterized by overcapacity and inefficiency. Then governments need to look at ways of giving those who exploit the resources of the sea an interest in their conservation. One such is the system of individual transferable fishing quotas that have been shown to work in Iceland, Norway, New Zealand and the western United States. Similar rights could be given to nitrogen polluters, as they have been to carbon polluters in Europe, and to seabed miners on continental shelves. A system of options and futures trading for fish could also help.Notes:yo-yon. 悠悠球carbon dioxiden. 二氧化碳acidicadj. 酸的calcium-carbonaten. 碳酸鈣ecosystemn. 生態(tài)系統(tǒng) acidificationn. 酸化作用coral reefn. 珊瑚礁transferableadj. 可轉(zhuǎn)讓的droughtn. 干旱inlandn. 內(nèi)陸algal bloomn. 藻類(lèi)水華codn. 鱈魚(yú)irreversibleadj. 不可逆轉(zhuǎn)的glaciern. 冰川the Grand Banksn. 大淺灘environmentalismn. 環(huán)保主義ice shelfn. 冰架subsidyn. 補(bǔ)貼 nitrogenn. 氮Reading Comprehension1. What causes the sea to become more acidic according to the passage,?2. What kind of phenomenon can carbon dioxide bring about to the sea?3. Do you agree with the authors suggestion to protect the sea?參考譯文：人類(lèi)行為正傷害著海洋，如果不加檢點(diǎn)，將受到海洋的懲罰。據(jù)說(shuō)人們對(duì)海洋所知不多，對(duì)火星表面倒繪制了不少的地圖。但是人們已經(jīng)在海底打了兩千個(gè)洞，拍了十萬(wàn)張照片，用衛(wèi)星監(jiān)視著五大洋，并在各處設(shè)置了裝備有儀器的像不停的悠悠球一樣上下起伏的漂浮物。人們對(duì)海洋情況的掌握其實(shí)是很多的，但很少有令人心安的。令人擔(dān)憂的是海洋表面，那里的空氣近來(lái)充滿著人為造成的二氧化碳，并與海水相互作用，因而使海水的酸度變得更大，使得具有碳酸鈣外殼或骨架的海洋生物，即便不是不能生存，也是生存困難。更糟的是，可能使整個(gè)生態(tài)系統(tǒng)變得失去平衡。令人擔(dān)憂的還有導(dǎo)致珊瑚礁產(chǎn)生酸化作用物質(zhì)，尤其是已經(jīng)遭受過(guò)度捕撈、升溫過(guò)高或污染的珊瑚礁。很多或大部分珊瑚礁因而受到嚴(yán)重?fù)p害。有四分之一的海洋生物以珊瑚礁為家，一些科學(xué)家認(rèn)為，珊瑚礁實(shí)際上可能會(huì)在幾十年內(nèi)消失。這個(gè)令人擔(dān)憂的事將是珊瑚礁這一海洋雨林毀滅的原因。二氧化碳也在其他方面對(duì)海洋產(chǎn)生影響，最明顯的就是通過(guò)導(dǎo)致全球變暖。當(dāng)海洋變暖時(shí)，它的體積就會(huì)膨脹。海洋也會(huì)因冰川、冰蓋和冰盾的融化而膨脹：格陵蘭島的冰正在處于完全融化的進(jìn)程中，這將最終使海平面升高大約七米（23英尺）。甚至到本世紀(jì)末，海平面完全有可能升高80厘米，也許會(huì)更高。在距海岸線10公里（六英里）以內(nèi)，居住著六億三千萬(wàn)人，這是很?chē)?yán)重的。像孟加拉國(guó)（有一億五千萬(wàn)人口）這樣的國(guó)家，將會(huì)被淹沒(méi)。即使居住于深遠(yuǎn)的內(nèi)陸的人們，也可能被全球升溫所影響：美國(guó)西部的干旱，可能就是由熱帶太平洋的表面溫度變化導(dǎo)致的。全球變暖的這種影響會(huì)導(dǎo)致出現(xiàn)藻花水華的赤潮以及僅有簡(jiǎn)單生物體繁殖的死亡區(qū)域，所有這些在強(qiáng)度、頻度和范圍上都在不斷增加著，而且似乎也與人類(lèi)施加給海洋生態(tài)系統(tǒng)的各種壓力有關(guān)聯(lián)：過(guò)度捕撈、全球變暖、由陸地流入河流的化肥。有些令人擔(dān)憂的變化可能不是人為因素的結(jié)果，但是有一個(gè)變化確實(shí)是人為的，并沒(méi)有其他原因，就是海洋里魚(yú)類(lèi)的食物短缺：大魚(yú)大部分已被捕撈，如果掠奪以現(xiàn)在的速度進(jìn)行下去，剩下的部分也將在幾十年內(nèi)被撈光。的確，超過(guò)四分之三的海洋魚(yú)種數(shù)量正降到可承受的水平邊緣或之下。另一個(gè)人為的變化是大量被丟棄的塑料，它們以兩大團(tuán)在太平洋里盤(pán)旋，每一個(gè)都有美國(guó)那么大。海洋還有很多其它問(wèn)題，如我們這周的特別報(bào)到說(shuō)明的。這些變化的每一個(gè)都是災(zāi)難性的，它們結(jié)合在一起會(huì)導(dǎo)致更大的惡果。此外，它們發(fā)生的速度是令人吃驚的將是在幾十年內(nèi)，而不是動(dòng)植物適應(yīng)自然需要的幾十億年。很多變化是不可逆轉(zhuǎn)的。對(duì)海洋化學(xué)來(lái)說(shuō)，恢復(fù)到類(lèi)似二百年前工業(yè)化前的狀態(tài)，將需要數(shù)萬(wàn)年的時(shí)間，這是英國(guó)最杰出的科學(xué)家團(tuán)體皇家學(xué)會(huì)認(rèn)為的。很多人擔(dān)心，某些變化正在接近引起進(jìn)一步的不可控的加速變化的節(jié)點(diǎn)。沒(méi)有人理解，為什么即使在停止捕魚(yú)十六年后，鱈魚(yú)仍沒(méi)有返回加拿大大淺灘。沒(méi)有人明白為什么冰川和冰架正如此快地在融化，或者方圓六平方公里的格陵蘭島冰盾上的湖怎么會(huì)在二十小時(shí)內(nèi)枯竭，這是發(fā)生在年的事情。如此出乎意料之事使科學(xué)家們神經(jīng)緊張。人類(lèi)可以做些什么工作，以使這些情況恢復(fù)正常呢？海洋需要管理，正如陸地需要管理一樣，海洋是世界上人類(lèi)采集捕獵、沐浴、采礦、傾倒