美国山火释放超三千万吨二氧化碳，数十万候鸟或因此死亡
美国西海岸的山火已经持续燃烧了大半个月。
Smoke from wildfires and fog obscure the view of the ocean from Grand View Park in San Francisco, September 14, 2020. /AP
U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday approved a disaster declaration for Oregon, the latest and most concentrated hotspot in an outbreak of fires across the western United States, the White House said.
The fires roared to life in California in mid-August and erupted across Oregon and Washington around Labor Day last week. Many of them were sparked by catastrophic lightning storms and stoked by record-breaking heat waves and bouts of howling winds.
People in the states of Oregon, Washington and California have been struggling for a week or longer under some of the most unhealthy air on the planet. And now the smoke from the wildfires is spreading across the U.S. and moving across the Atlantic Ocean to Europe.
A view of downtown Portland from the East Bank Esplanade, Oregon, U.S., on September 14, 2020. /AP
同时，有报道称自8月下旬开始，新墨西哥州、得克萨斯州、科罗拉多州等地陆续发现大批候鸟死亡，数量多达数十万只。专家称原因之一或因加州山火迫使候鸟提前迁徙，但它们尚未做好迁徙的准备，没有足够的脂肪存活下去，鸟类也会因吸入浓烟损伤肺部。
目前，针对这一现象的研究正在进行。
Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of migratory birds have been reported dead in New Mexico, Texas, Colorado and other places since late August. Some experts say one reason may be that wildfires in California are forcing birds to migrate early when they're not ready. And their lungs might be damaged by the smoke. Research into this phenomenon is underway.
然而依照往年的经验，美国真正的山火季应该在10到11月。也就是说，最糟糕的局面，甚至还没到来。
为什么会这么反常？
与一贯否认全球变暖并让美国退出了《巴黎协定》的总统特朗普不同，一些美国媒体认为，气候变化是山火频发的主要原因。
《外交事务》杂志近日发文表示，美国近年来一直为气候变化所苦，极端气候让山火、飓风等天灾更加频繁。
Screenshot via Foreign Affairs
文章写道，20世纪时美国的决策者们可以不把气候变化当回事，但现在即使只考虑气候变化在未来30年可能对美国造成的直接破坏，代价也是巨大的。文章引用了忧患科学家联盟(Union of Concerned Scientists) 2018年的一份报告称，未来30年美国将有30多万户沿海房屋面临长期洪水的风险，这意味着每年至少发生26次洪水，平均每两周发生一次。
The United States has been suffering from climate change in recent years, with extreme weather causing frequent wildfires, hurricanes and other natural disasters, Foreign Affairs magazine reported recently.
Citing a 2018 report by the Union of Concerned Scientists, the article said that more than 300,000 coastal homes in the United States will be at risk of long-term flooding over the next 30 years, which means flooding at least 26 times a year, or once every two weeks on average.
而文中观点表示，要想应对这样后果严重的气候变化，美国需要中国的参与。
文章充分肯定了中美关系在解决气候问题上的作用，同时表示，美国应该建立一个由主要经济体组成的“气候俱乐部”，并利用调整关税等手段来限制各国的碳排放。
当然这个俱乐部一定要有中国加入，所以这一切都要建立在中美贸易关系不被切断的前提之下。
“This success of this strategy would depend on the size of the economies inside the club. Only a large group would make sufficient dearbonization possible – and that means that any successful climate club must include China…This approach would work, however, only if the United States did not decouple its economy from that of China.”