This is Scientific American's 60-second Science, I'm Steve Mirsky.
这里是科学美国人——60秒科学系列,我是史蒂夫·米尔斯基。
For this installment of our preelection podcast series I spoke to Andrea Thompson. She’s a Scientific American associate editor covering issues in sustainability and the environment with an emphasis on climate.
为了我们预选播客系列的这部分内容,我采访了安德里亚·汤普森。她是《科学美国人》的副主编,主要报道可持续性发展和环境问题,重点是气候问题。
“President Trump has called into question a lot of well-established climate science. He has denigrated the federal government’s own National Climate Assessment, as well as the work put out every few years by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which are the two documents that really bring together and summarize and synthesize all of the climate research that’s being done.
“特朗普总统对许多已经发展完善的气候科学提出了质疑。他诋毁了联邦政府的国家气候评估,以及政府间气候变化专门委员会每隔几年发布的工作,这两份文件真正地将所有正在进行的气候研究结合在一起并进行了总结和综合。
Whereas former vice president Biden has made it clear that he understands and respects climate science and that he thinks that climate change is a really existential threat.
而前副总统拜登明确表示,他理解并尊重气候科学,他认为气候变化是一个真正存在的威胁。
“In specifics, so one of the key things that President Trump did was: last year he put in a request to remove the United States from the Paris climate agreement, which is the global agreement for countries to gradually reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. If Biden wins, he has said he will immediately bring us back into that agreement.
“具体来说,特朗普总统做的一件关键的事情是:去年他要求美国退出巴黎气候协议,这是各国逐步减少温室气体排放的全球协议。如果拜登上台,他说过他会立即让我们回到气候协议中来。
“The National Climate Assessment that I alluded to earlier that comes out every four years, it’s mandated by Congress. There’s multiple federal agencies that put that together. And the last one that came out came out during the Trump administration. And it was very different from the one that came out during the Obama administration. The Trump administration put it out very quietly to try and minimize attention to it.
“我之前提到的国家气候评估每四年发布一次,由国会授权。这是由多个联邦机构共同负责的。 上一份气候评估报告是在特朗普执政期间发布的。这与奥巴马政府时期的情况大不相同。 特朗普政府非常低调地发布了这则消息,试图减少人们对它的关注。
So now we’re at the beginning of the process for the next one. But I think it would be pretty clear that a Biden administration would reprioritize that report. Whereas the Trump administration could be expected to affect what science gets included in it and what the conclusions are and how those were communicated.
现在我们正处于下一个阶段的开始。但我认为很明显拜登应该重新考虑那份报告的优先级。 而可以预期特朗普政府会影响科学的内容,结论的内容,以及这些内容是如何传播的。
And the reason that’s such an important document is because it sort of synthesizes all of this climate information about the changes we have observed and expect in the future across the whole United States.
这份文件如此重要的原因是它综合了所有气候信息,这些信息是关于我们在整个美国观察到的和预期的未来变化。
And that’s really valuable information for state and local governments to have as they tried to figure out how to respond to climate threats today and also plan for them in the future.
对于州和地方政府来说,这是非常有价值的信息,因为他们试图弄清楚如何应对当今的气候威胁,并为未来制定计划.
Because that’s not information you can necessarily get on your own if you’re a city government. So that’s kind of the resource that cities and states can use, so it’s a really critically important document.”
因为如果你是市政府,这不是您必须获得的信息。这是城市和州可以利用的资源,所以它是非常重要的文件。”
What about the scientists themselves and how they have been either supported or interfered with?
科学家们自己又如何呢?他们是如何得到支持或受到干涉的?
“Yeah, that’s one that varies, I think, from agency to agency, I think, in part, because of where the Trump administration put its energies.
“是的,我认为,不同机构的情况各不相同,我认为,部分原因是特朗普政府把精力放在了哪个地方。
So agencies like NASA, I think, have seen probably a little less interference than others—versus the Environmental Protection Agency, which has been a main focus of the Trump administration to date and where they have done a lot of rollbacks and overruling of agency scientists in terms of rulemaking.
所以像美国国家航空和航天局这样的机构,我认为,可能比其他机构受到的干涉要少一些——相对于环境保护署,环境保护署一直是特朗普政府迄今为止的主要关注焦点,他们在制定规则方面,已经推翻和否决了很多机构的科学家。
And they’ve also changed some of the rulemaking to limit what science can actually be included in some of those regulations and rule processes. I think NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, has probably been a little bit in the middle.
他们还改变了一些规则制定,以限制实际上可以包含在其中一些法规和规则过程中的科学。我认为美国国家海洋和大气管理局可能处于中间位置。
They’re still doing a lot of their traditional climate work. You know, they do a lot of work with satellites, they’re the main entity that does our record keeping on weather and climate.
他们仍然在做很多传统的气候工作。你知道,他们用卫星做了很多工作,他们是我们记录天气和气候的主要实体。
And so they’ve been continuing that. But there have been some appointments to that agency very recently that has scientists and environmentalists concerned because the people appointed have, in the past, made statements showing that they don’t accept climate science.
所以他们一直在继续这样做。但最近该机构的一些任命引起了科学家和环保人士的关注,因为被任命的人在过去曾发表声明,表明他们不接受气候科学。
And so there’s some concern if there’s a second Trump administration, that that could undercut some of the science and scientists at NOAA.”
所以有人担心,如果特朗普连任,可能会削弱和削减国家海洋和大气管理局的一些科学和科学家。”
For Scientific American's 60-second Science. I'm Steve Mirsky.
谢谢大家收听科学美国人——60秒科学。我是史蒂夫·米尔斯基。
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