2019年经济学人 木质房屋更环保(1)

木质房屋更环保(1)

Leaders

社论

Construction

建筑

The house made of wood

木制房屋

Buildings produce a huge amount of carbon. Using more wood would be greener

建筑物产生大量碳。使用更多木材会更环保

The second little pig was unlucky. He built his house from sticks. It was blown away by a hu?ng, pu?ng wolf, which promptly¹ gobbled him up. His brother, by contrast, built a wolf-proof house from bricks. The fairy tale could have been written by a ?ack for the construction industry, which strongly favours brick, concrete and steel. However, in the real world it would help reduce pollution and slow global warming if more builders copied the wood-loving second pig.

第二只小猪很不走运。他用树枝盖房子。房子很快被一只狼呼哧呼哧地吹走了，然后小猪被吞了。而他的兄弟用砖块建造了一所防狼的房子。这个童话故事可能是建筑业的推销员写的，而建筑业大力支持砖、混凝土和钢铁。然而，在现实世界中，如果更多建筑商模仿热爱木材的第二只猪，将有助于减少污染、减缓全球变暖。

In 2015 world leaders meeting in Paris agreed to move towards zero net greenhouse-gas emissions² in the second half of this century. That is a tall order, and the building industry makes it even taller. Cement-making alone produces 6% of the world’s carbon emissions. Steel, half of which goes into buildings, accounts for another 8%. If you factor in all of the energy that goes into lighting³, heating and cooling homes and o?ces, the world’s buildings start to look like a giant environmental problem.

2015年，各国领导人在巴黎举行会议，就本世纪下半叶实现温室气体零排放达成一致。这是一个很高的要求，而建筑行业更难达到。仅水泥制造就产生了全球6%的碳排放。钢铁，其中一半进入建筑，占另外8%。如果把所有用于照明、供暖和制冷的家庭及办公室能源都考虑在内，世界上的建筑似乎有很大的环境问题。

Governments in the rich world are now trying to promote greener behaviour by obliging developers to build new projects to “zero carbon” standards. From January 1st 2019 all new public-sector buildings in the European Union must be built to “nearly zero-energy” standards. All other types of buildings will follow in January 2021. Governments in eight further countries are being lobbied to introduce a similar policy.

发达国家正试图通过强制开发商建造符合“零碳”标准的新项目来促进绿色行为。从2019年1月1日起，欧盟所有新公共建筑必须按照“接近零能耗”的标准建造。所有其他类型的建筑都将于2021年1月建成。另外8个国家也被游说引入类似的政策。

These standards are less green than they seem. Wind turbines and solar panels on top of buildings look good but are much less productive than wind and solar farms. And the standards only count the emissions from running a building, not those belched⁴ out when it was made. Those are thought to account for between 30% and 60% of the total over a structure’s lifetime.

这些标准并不像看上去那么环保。建筑顶部的风力涡轮机和太阳能电池板看起来不错，但其生产率远远低于风力和太阳能发电厂。这些标准只计算建筑运行过程中的排放量，而不计算建筑建成时的排放量。而建成过程占建筑总周期的30%到60%。

1 promptly   

adv.及时地，敏捷地

参考例句：

• He paid the money back promptly.他立即还了钱。
• She promptly seized the opportunity his absence gave her.她立即抓住了因他不在场给她创造的机会。

2 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。

3 lighting   

n.照明，光线的明暗，舞台灯光

参考例句：

• The gas lamp gradually lost ground to electric lighting.煤气灯逐渐为电灯所代替。
• The lighting in that restaurant is soft and romantic.那个餐馆照明柔和而且浪漫。

4 belched   

v.打嗝( belch的过去式和过去分词 )；喷出，吐出；打（嗝）；嗳（气）

参考例句：

• He wiped his hand across his mouth, then belched loudly. 他用手抹了抹嘴，然后打了个响亮的饱嗝。
• Artillery growled and belched on the horizon. 大炮轰鸣在地平面上猛烈地爆炸。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》