每日英語跟讀 Ep.K204: You Can Live to Fight Climate Change

Climate change can seem like such an enormous problem that individual actions would have little impact. Consider Europe’s wide-ranging proposals this week to reduce its reliance on fossil fuels, including eliminating sales of new gas- and diesel-powered cars in the next 14 years.

氣候變遷看似是個如此巨大的問題，個人行動幾乎產生不了任何影響力。看看本周歐洲為減少依賴化石燃料提出的廣泛提案，其中包括在14年內停止銷售汽柴油新車。

But people can have an impact, experts say, both by how they spend their money and how they spend their time.

但專家表示，人們可透過花錢與花時間的方式來產生影響。

Mary Weathers Case, for instance, chose to offset the carbon cost of a cross-country plane trip for her family through the site Gold Standard. Case, a psychiatrist who lives in South Salem, New York, with her husband and two children, said she had been reading and watching more news about climate change during the pandemic and had been motivated to do her part after hearing about the searing temperatures in the West.

例如瑪莉．威瑟斯．凱斯就透過「黃金標準網站」，為一家人選擇抵消搭機橫越美國旅行的碳成本。與丈夫和兩個小孩住在紐約南塞勒姆的精神病學家凱斯說，她在疫情期間讀到與看到更多關於氣候變遷的新聞，聽說美國西部酷熱高溫後，她受到激勵想盡一份力。

What surprised her, though, was that after spending $3,000 on plane tickets to Portland, Oregon, she could offset that carbon for $150.

然而，令她吃驚的是，在花了3000美元購買飛往奧勒岡州波特蘭的機票後，她可用150美元來抵銷碳排。

“I was surprised that it was so cheap,” Case said.

凱斯說：「我很驚訝竟如此便宜。」

Buying carbon offsets for a plane trip is one way to reduce your environmental impact. But people can allocate their money in other ways, both big and small, that reduce their contribution to climate change. Take how you invest.

為搭機旅行購買碳補償是減少環境影響的一種方法，但人們可透過大大小小的其他方式來分配金錢，減少助長氣候變遷。例如你的投資方式。

With certain investments — namely, those that reduce or remove carbon from the atmosphere — there are defined ways to measure their environmental impact. With others, like water conservation, the metrics are not as clear because there is not an agreed-upon unit to measure.

某些投資有明確的方法來衡量其對環境的影響，也就是能減少或消除大氣中的碳。另一些投資，如水資源保護，衡量標準就不那麼清楚，因為沒有一個商定好的度量單位。

“The improvement in measurement is growing by leaps and bounds,” said Sir Ronald Cohen, an early venture capitalist and the author of the book “Impact: Reshaping Capitalism to Drive Real Change.”

著有《影響：重塑資本主義以推動真正的變革》一書的早期創投家柯恩爵士說：「衡量方面的進步是突飛猛進的。」

He advocates using what are called impact-weighted accounts, an initiative led by Harvard Business School, to evaluate a company’s positive and negative impact on the environment.

他主張使用哈佛商學院帶領提出的影響加權會計帳目計畫，來評估一家公司對環境的正面與負面影響。

Yet he is also open to a less-bad approach. People invested in fossil fuel companies should consider that Exxon Mobil caused $39 billion in environmental damage from its carbon impact, according to Harvard Business School estimates, while BP caused $14 billion in damage. It is like deciding which energy bar is better for you to eat: Those that have less sugar have a better health impact.

不過，他也願意接受一種不太糟的方法。根據哈佛商學院估計，投資化石燃料公司的人應考慮埃克森美孚的碳影響，在環境方面造成390億美元損失，英國石油公司則造成140億美元損失。這就像決定哪種能量棒比較好：糖分較少對健康會有較好影響。

Individuals can make other environmentally conscious choices as well, beyond carbon offsets or investing in cleaner energy.

除了碳補償或投資清潔能源以外，個人還可以做出其他有環保意識的選擇。Source article: https://udn.com/news/story/6904/5672865