雙語原稿 | 改造過的植物如何延緩氣候變化？

植物是了不起的機器——數百萬年來，它們從空氣中吸收二氧化碳，並將其儲存在地下，對全球氣候進行調節。植物遺傳學家Joanne Chory與同事一起，努力擴大植物的這種特殊能力，從而協助解決人類現今所面臨氣候變化的問題。

演講者：Joanne Chory

演講題目：改造過的植物如何延緩氣候變化？

中英文對照翻譯

I recently had an epiphany. I realized that I couldactually play a role in solving one of the biggest problems that faces mankindtoday,and that is the problem of climate change.

我最近有了頓悟。我發現，其實我可以扮演一個角色，協助解決人類現今所面臨最大的一個難題，那就是氣候變化的問題。

It also dawned on me that I had been working for 30years or more just to get to this point in my life where I could actually makethis contribution to a bigger problem.

我也開始明白，我已經工作了三十年，只是為了到達人生中的這個節點，讓我能為更大的問題貢獻心力。

And every experiment that I have done inmy lab over the last 30 years and people who work for me did in my lab over thelast 30 years has been directed toward doing the really big experiment, thisone last big experiment.

過去三十年，我在實驗室中做的每個實驗，以及過去三十年，在實驗室中手下人所做的實驗，都是為了這個非常大的實驗，最後一個大實驗。

So who am I? I&39;s too much CO2 in the atmosphere because of human activity.But I&39;ve been doingit for over 500 million years. And they&39;ve had Parkinson&39;re only going to have five people tryingto save the planet, you better like each other, because you&39;s talkabout CO2. CO2 is the star of my talk.

而且，如果你們只有五個人在試圖拯救地球，你們最好喜歡彼此，因為你們會花很多時間相處在一起。好，不要再談我了。咱們來談談二氧化碳。二氧化碳是我這場演說的明星。

Now, most of you probably think of CO2 as apollutant. Or perhaps you think of CO2 as the villain in the novel, you know?It&39;s because ofphotosynthesis, because what plants do is they use the energy in sunlight, takethat CO2 and fix it into sugars. It&39;m going to tell you today is that plants andother photosynthetic microbes have a great capacity for doing this twentyfoldor more than the amount of CO2 that we put up because of our human activities.

所以你們來自空氣，因為光合作用，因為植物所做的就是使用太陽的能量來吸取二氧化碳，放到糖類中。這是件好事。還有一件事，也對今天要談的主題很重要，那就是，植物和其他光合作用微生物做這件事的能力很強，比我們人類活動所產生出來的二氧化碳量還要高二十倍以上。

And so, even though we&39;re hoping that&39;ll do. But there&39;s a little more stable?

在生長季節要結束時，植物會死亡並分解，接著，它們之前做的所有工作：將二氧化碳從大氣中吸掉以及製造碳基生物質，現在基本上都以二氧化碳的形式回到大氣當中。所以，我們要如何讓植物重新分配它們所帶入的二氧化碳，製成稍微更穩定一點的東西？

And so it turns out that plants make this product,and it&39;s a carbon.

結果發現，植物會製造一項產物，叫做軟木脂。它是一種天然產物，在所有植物的根部都有。軟木脂非常酷，因為各位可以在這裡看到，我希望可以，凡是看到黑點的地方，就代表碳。

There&39;s a little bit better for the plant. Andso, why now? Why is now a good time to do a biological solution to thisproblem? It&39;s a longtime, you&34;Why now?&39;ll do the same thing. Andso that&39;m a biologist, so that&39;m proposing asolution to the climate change problem that really involves the best evolvedorganism on earth to do it -- plants. So how are we going to do it? Biologycomes to the rescue. Here we go. OK. You have to remember three simple thingsfrom my talk, OK?

我是生物學家，那就是為什麼我針對氣候變化問題提出的解決方案會需要依賴地球上演化得最好的有機體--植物。所以，我們要怎麼做？生物學來救援了。來吧。好的。請各位記住這場演說的三個簡單要點，好嗎？

We have to get plants to make more suberin than theynormally make, because we need them to be a little better than what they are.We have to get them to make more roots, because if we make more roots, we canmake more suberin。now we have more of the cells that suberin likes to accumulate in.

我們要讓植物製造出比正常量更多的軟木脂，因為我們需要它們比現在的狀態再更好一些。我們要讓它們製造更多根，因為，如果能製造多根，就能製造更多軟木脂。現在，我們有更多能夠聚集軟木脂的細胞。

And then the third thing is, we want the plants tohave deeper roots. And what that does is -- we&34;OK, make stable carbon, more than you used to, and then bury it for us inthe ground.&39;regoing to move it all we can and we we will, we&39;ll tell you why we&39;ve been able to find single genes that affect each of those three traits. Andin several of those cases, two out of the three, we have more than one way toget there. So that tells us we might be able to even combine within a trait andget even more suberin.

原因是因為，就在去年，我們分別找出了影響那三項特性的個別基因。在許多情況中，大概有三分之二的比例，我們都有不只一種方法可以辦到。那就表示，我們甚至可以在單一項特性中做組合，來取得更多軟木脂。

This shows one result, where we have a plant here onthe right that&39;s just because of the way we expressed one gene that&39;s just one example I wanted to showyou. And now I want to tell you that, you know, we still have a lot ofchallenges, actually, when we get to this problem, because it takes ... We haveto get the farmers to actually buy the seeds, or at least the seed company tobuy seeds that farmers are going to want to have.

好，這只是我想給各位看的一個例子。現在，我想要跟各位談的是，我們其實還要面對很多挑戰，才能解決這個問題，我們得要讓農夫真的去買這些種子，或至少讓種子公司去買農夫想要買的這些種子。

And so when we do the experiments, we can&39;s population will be even morethan it is right now.

所以，當我們做實驗時，我們其實無法承受產出損失，因為，當我們在做這些實驗時，比如，從現在開始算起十年，地球的人口將會比現在還多。

And it&39;treally going to be able to handle all the load they have to take fromagriculture. And then we also have this competition for land.

人口仍然在快速成長。到這個世紀末，我們將有一百一十億人，我們未能有效利用的生態系統，將無法處理來自農業的所有負荷。接著，還有土地競爭。

And so we figure, to do this carbon sequestrationexperiment actually requires a fair amount of land. We can&39;s goingto impact yield? So we&39;re going toalways have checks and balances that says go or no go on that experiment.

而氣候變化其實已經在世界各地造成了產出損失。所以，農夫怎麼會想要買會影響產出的種子？所以，我們不能讓它影響產出，我們得要一直有制衡原則，來決定實驗要不要進行。

And then the second thing is, when a plant actuallymakes more carbon and buries it in the soil like that, almost all the soils onearth are actually depleted of carbon because of the load from agriculture, tryingto feed eight billion people, which is what lives on the earth right now.

第二點，當植物真的製造出更多碳，並這樣將碳埋入土壤時，地球上幾乎所有的土壤的碳可能都已經耗盡了，原因是農業的負擔，現在地球上有八十億人，要提供他們食物所造成的負擔。

And so, that is also a problem as well. Plants thatare making more carbon, those soils become enriched in carbon. Andcarbon-enriched soils actually hold nitrogen and they hold sulphur and theyhold phosphate all the minerals that are required for plants to grow and have agood yield.

所以，那也是個問題。製造更多碳的植物，那些土壤就會更富含碳。富含碳的土壤其實也含有氮，還有硫以及磷酸鹽，這些都是植物成長並盛產所需要的礦物質。

And they also retain water in the soil as well. Sothe suberin will break up into little particles and give the whole soil a newtexture. And as we&39;s going to be the hardthing for us, I think, because we&39;re people who liketo Google a person rather than meet them, you know what I mean?

我們的挑戰包括需要使用很多土地，要讓農夫去購買，我認為，那對我們來說會很困難，因為我們不是推銷員，我們這種人比較喜歡去Google別人而不是去和別人見面。你們能懂吧？

That&39;s here and it&39;s serious, and we need to dosomething about it.

大部分科學家都是這樣子的。但是我們知道，沒有人能否認--氣候正在變遷，大家都知道。事情發生了，狀況很糟，很嚴重，而我們得要採取行動。

But I feel pretty optimistic that we can do this. SoI&39;reso extraordinary. Just to be sure we heard this right: you believe that withinthe next 10 years you may be able to offer the world seed variants for themajor crops, like -- what? -- wheat, corn, maybe rice, that can offer farmersjust as much yield, sequester three times, four times, more carbon than theycurrently do? Even more than that?

謝謝。我終於把它說完了。哇。喬安妮，你真了不起。讓我確認一下我們有聽對：你認為在接下來的十年間，你們將會為世界創造出主要作物種子的變種，比如小麥、玉米，也許還有稻子，而且農夫還是能保持產量，並捕捉到比目前還要高三倍或四倍的碳量？甚至更多？

We don&39;s already scale.

我們其實不知道確切數字。但是它們會產出更多。並且，同時，讓那些農夫的土壤更肥沃？是的，沒錯。那好驚人。並且非常天才，這個解決方案能夠將已經有的規模再擴大規模。

Yes, thank you for saying that. No, no, you said it,you said it. But it almost seems too good to be true. Your Audacious Project isthat we scale up the research in your lab and pave the way to start some ofthese pilots and make this incredible vision possible. That's right, yes, thankyou. Joanne Chory, thank you so much. Godspeed. Thank you.

是的，謝謝你這麼說。不，不，是你說的，你說的。但聽起來太好了，不太像真的。你的「大膽項目」是要把你的實驗室研究擴大規模，並為一些試點計劃鋪路，讓這了不起的遠景成為可能。沒錯，是的，謝謝你。喬安妮·喬裡，非常謝謝你。祝成功。謝謝你。

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