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1、Southwest's Conifers Face Trial by Climate Change气候变化危害多As you sit round the Christmas tree, consider the TLC you give O Tannenbaum: plenty of water and a relatively comfortable climate. Wouldn't want to dry out the tree, after all. Now consider that in the house we all live in—the planet—we‟re hardly giving the same courtesy to your Christmas tree's wild cousins. (Who, I might add, are actually still alive.)当你围着圣诞树而坐，想着自己对它的体贴照料：足量的水、舒适的环境。

你从不会想到它会干枯而死。

现在想想我们居住的房子——地球——我们从未向对待圣诞树的野生堂兄妹(补充一下，如果它们实际上还活着)那样礼待它。

As the planet warms, droughts are getting even drier—and they're getting hotter too. In fact it's getting so bad that researchers are now forecasting that conifers in the arid southwestern United States could be completely wiped out by the end of the century. No more pinyon pines, ponderosas or junipers. No more forests.随着地球变暖，干旱变得越来越严峻——天气也愈加炎热。

实际上，情况变得非常糟糕，研究人员预测，美国西南部的针叶树可能会在本世纪末彻底灭绝。

那时候没有矮松树、黄松树、还有刺柏。

也没有森林。

"It's definitely a distressing result for all of us. None of us want to see this happen. It's a bummer, honestly." Sara Rauscher, a climate scientist and geographer at the University of Delaware. She and her colleagues gathered data on how real-world evergreens in the southwest respond to drought and heat—they basically starve, unable to carry on photosynthesis or transport water.“那对我们来说，是一个令人心痛的结果，我们都不想要看到这种情况发生。

真的。

”Sara Rauscher是特拉华大学气候学家和地理学家。

她和同事们搜集美国西南部常青树如何应对干旱和高温的数据——树木在饥饿时，不能够进行光合作用和运输水分。

The researchers then combined those physiological data with a half dozen projections of how climate change might proceed. "But no matter what model we used, we always saw tree death." Specifically, 72 percent of the trees dead by 2050, and a near-complete annihilation by the year 2100. The results are in the journalNature Climate Change.研究人员将这些树木的生理数据和未来气候变化的预测相结合。

“无论我们使用何种模型，得到的结果都是树木会死亡。

确切地说，截止到2050年”72%的树木会死亡，2100年，所有的树木都会消失。

该研究结果发表在《气候变化》杂志上。

But we'll always have Paris, right? "Even if we used a scenario similar to what the Paris accords have agreed upon—so limiting global warming to 2 degrees—we still saw widespread die-off. It happened later in the century, but it still happened." That said, the study does not account for trees' ability to adapt, or whether new populations could find friendlier climes. That is, whether conifers in the southwest can pull up roots fast enough to beat climate change.但是未来，我们还有巴黎存在。

即使我们应用巴黎协定规定的类似的场景——将全球变暖的温度控制到2度，在本世纪末，这上述局面才会出现。

也就是说，以上研究没有考虑树木的适应能力或者未来种类能够找到更适合自身生长的地方。

即美国西南部的针叶树可转移阵地击败气候变化。

What’s the influence that climate change will take to us? What will you do and what have china done2、New African Highways Have a High Environmental Price铺设新非洲高速公路环境代价高By the end of the century, the United Nations reckons the population of Africa could hit 4.3 billion people—four times today's numbers. It's the fastest-growing spot on the planet, which inevitably means growing pains: “We're seeing a real rush, almost a feeding frenzy of foreign mining investment, and in some cases, land grabs." Bill Laurance, an ecologist at James Cook University in Australia.截止到本世纪末，联合国估计非洲人口将达到43亿——是当今数量的4倍。

这是地球上人口增速最快的地区，而不可避免，这意味着增长烦恼：“在这里我们看到人口激增，同时外国矿业投资疯狂增长，在一些区域出现了土地争夺的现象。

”Bill Laurance，讲述了这番言论，他是澳大利亚詹姆斯库克大学的生态学家。

"We're living in the most active era of infrastructure and road expansion in human history. We're projected to see 25 million kilometers of new paved roads on the planet by the middle of the century, which is enough to go around the world more than 600 times." Thirty-three of those roads—spanning 53,000 kilometers—are already planned in Africa. So Laurance and his colleagues examined the pros and cons of the new projects. They measured potential benefits, like more agricultural opportunities, and weighed those gains against environmental impacts.“我们生活在人类历史上基础设施以及道路扩展最活跃的时代。

在本世纪中叶，估计我们将看到地球上将会铺设25百万千米的新公路。

这个长度足够绕地球600多圈。

”其中有33条道路——长达5.3万千米——已经计划在非洲铺设。

所以Laurance和同事们调查了新项目的利弊。

并估量了这些项目可能会带来的益处，例如增加农业机遇，同时，他们也衡量了这些成果对于环境的影响。

The research team determined that the planned roads and railways would slice through more than 400 protected areas. And if you include a 25-kilometer buffer zone on each side of the road—where Laurance says new hunting, poaching, farming, logging and mining are bound to pop up—the tally of violated protected areas rises to more than 2,000. The researchers do endorse five of the 33 roads as promising—good for humans, not so bad for the environment. And they identify the six worst planned roads, which they say probably should not be built at all. The study is in the journal Current Biology.研究团队认为，计划修建的道路和铁路将会穿越400多个保护区。