My Life as a Climate Lukewarmer 作为一名气候问题温和派的遭遇 作者：Matt Ridley @ 2015-1-20

译者：陈小乖（@lion_kittyyyyy）

校对：Kyo(@Kyo先生和他的胡子)，小册子（@昵称被抢的小册子）

来源：Matt Ridley Online， http://www.rationaloptimist.com/blog/my-life-as-a-climate-lukewarmer.aspx The polarisation of the climate debate has gone too far 气候争议的两极化已经太过分了 This article appeared in the Times on January 19, 2015:

该文载于2015年1月19日《泰晤士报》（The Times）

（ http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/life/article4325798.ece ）

I am a climate lukewarmer. That means I think recent global warming is real, mostly man-made and will continue but I no longer think it is likely to be dangerous and I think its slow and erratic progress so far is what we should expect in the future.

我在气候问题上是个温和派。意思是，我认为当前的全球变暖问题确实存在，并且主要是人为因素造成的，同时，地球会持续变暖。但我不再认为变暖会造成危险，而且，我预期未来的气候变化将和现在一样，变暖的趋势是缓慢且飘忽不定的。

That last year was the warmest yet, in some data sets, but only by a smidgen more than 2005, is precisely in line with such lukewarm thinking.

虽然一些数据表明去年是最温暖的一年，但气温也仅比2005年高了一点点，这完全符合我对于气候问题的温和看法。

This view annoys some sceptics who think all climate change is natural or imaginary, but it is even more infuriating to most publicly funded scientists and politicians, who insist climate change is a big risk.

这一观点惹恼了一些怀疑论者，他们认为所有气候变化都是自然变化或是人们想象出来的；而大多数政府资助的科学家和政客则对此观点更为恼火，他们坚称气候变化是一个巨大的风险。

My middle-of-the-road position is considered not just wrong, but disgraceful, shameful, verging on scandalous. I am subjected to torrents of online abuse for holding it, very little of it from sceptics.

我的中间道路立场不仅被认为是错误的，还是可耻的、罪恶的、将被钉在历史耻辱柱上的。为此，我遭受了大量的网络攻击，其中仅有很小一部分攻击来自怀疑论者。

I was even kept off the shortlist for a part-time, unpaid public-sector appointment in a field unrelated to climate because of having this view, or so the headhunter thought.

因为持有这一观点——或者猎头认为我持有这样的观点，我甚至在一份无薪的公共部门兼职工作候选人名单中遭到封杀，该职位所在领域与气候问题毫不相干。

In the climate debate, paying obeisance to climate scaremongering is about as mandatory for a public appointment, or public funding, as being a Protestant was in 18th-century England.

为了获得公职任命或者公共基金资助，就必须在气候争议中遵从耸人听闻的气候变化言论，这就像在18世纪的英格兰必须当一名新教徒一样。【 译注：1672年的考验法案（Test Act）要求出任国会议员和担任公职者向国王宣誓效忠，并履行相应宗教仪式，1678年版的考验法案则将天主教徒排除在这一宣誓程序之外，从而剥夺了他们担任公职的机会，法案同时还对天主教徒的民事权利施加了限制，该法案直到1828年才被废除。 】

Kind friends send me news almost weekly of whole blog posts devoted to nothing but analysing my intellectual and personal inadequacies, always in relation to my views on climate.

善意的朋友们几乎每周都要给我发送批评我的博客帖子的消息，这些批评文章通篇都在分析我的知识和个人品行的不足之处，通常都和我对气候变化的看法有关。

Writing about climate change is a small part of my life but, to judge by some of the stuff that gets written about me, writing about me is a large part of the life of some of the more obsessive climate commentators. It’s all a bit strange. Why is this debate so fractious?

写文章谈论气候变化是我生活的一小部分，但从一些写我的文章来看，对我品头评足，倒成了一些更关注气候问题的评论家们的生活的一大部分。奇怪了，为什么这一辩论让人如此气急败坏？

Rather than attack my arguments, my critics like to attack my motives. I stand accused of “wanting” climate change to be mild because I support free markets or because I receive income indirectly from the mining of coal in Northumberland.

批评我的人更喜欢攻击我的动机而不是论点。我被指责为“希望”气候变化是温和的，而那是因为我支持自由市场，或是因为我从诺森伯兰郡的煤炭开采中间接获取了收入。

Two surface coal mines (which I do not own), operating without subsidies, do indeed dig coal partly from land that I own. They pay me a fee, as I have repeatedly declared in speeches, books and articles.

那两个地表煤矿（并非我所拥有）没有收过补贴，他们的部分煤矿确实是从我所拥有的土地上开采出来的。我在演讲、书籍和文章中已经不断声明，他们有向我支付费用。

I do think that coal, oil and gas have been a good thing so far, by giving us an alternative to cutting down forests and killing whales, by supplying fertiliser to feed the world, by giving the global poor affordable energy, and so on.

我确实认为，迄今为止煤炭、石油和天然气一直是个宝。它们让我们不用再砍伐森林、捕杀鲸鱼，它们提供肥料养活这个世界，它们为全球的贫困地区提供廉价能源，等等。

But instead of defending the modern coal industry I write and speak extensively in favour of gas, the biggest competitive threat to coal’s share of the electricity market. If we can phase out coal without causing too much suffering, then I would not object.

但我在文章与演讲中大力支持天然气——煤炭在发电能源市场上最大的威胁，而不是为现代煤炭业辩护。我并不反对淘汰煤炭，如果那么做不会让我们吃太多苦头的话。

Besides, I could probably earn even more from renewable energy. As a landowner, I am astonished by the generosity of the offers I keep receiving for green-energy subsidies.

此外，我甚至可能从可再生能源中赚得更多。作为一个地主，我不断收到背后有绿色能源补贴的报价，其慷慨程度让我震惊。

Wind farm developers in smart suits dangle the prospect of tens of thousands of pounds per turbine on my land — and tens of turbines.

风力发电厂的开发商们穿着笔挺的西装，想用安装风力发电机的前景收买我——每个风力发电机能带来数万英镑的收益，而我的土地上能装几十个。

A solar developer wrote to me recently saying he could offer more than a million pounds of income over 25 years if I were to cover some particular fields with solar panels.

一个太阳能开发商最近给我写信说，如果我在一些指定区域内安装太阳能板，他能在25年内给我超过一百万英镑的收入。

Many big country houses have installed subsidised wood-fired heating to the point where you can hear their Canalettos cracking. I argue against such subsidies, so I don’t take them.

许多乡村大宅装上了有补贴的烧木头暖气，你能从中听到他们收藏的名画的断裂声【 译注：Canaletto为意大利画家，画作为英国皇家所收藏，此处作者讽刺政府补贴的是一种并不可持续的能源，并且补贴对象是有钱人 】。我反对这类补贴，所以我不接受这些报价。

I was not always a lukewarmer. When I first started writing about the threat of global warming more than 26 years ago, as science editor of The Economist, I thought it was a genuinely dangerous threat.

我并非一直是个气候变暖温和派。当我在26年多前作为《经济学人》科学栏目编辑，刚开始写关于全球变暖威胁的文章时，我认为它是个真正危险的威胁。

Like, for instance, Margaret Thatcher, I accepted the predictions being made at the time that we would see warming of a third or a half a degree (Centigrade) a decade, perhaps more, and that this would have devastating consequences.

比如，像撒切尔夫人一样，我认同当时的预测——未来每10年气温就会升高1/3到1/2摄氏度甚至更多，这将会带来灾难性后果。

Gradually, however, I changed my mind. The failure of the atmosphere to warm anywhere near as rapidly as predicted was a big reason: there has been less than half a degree of global warming in four decades — and it has slowed down, not speeded up.

然而，我逐渐改变了我的想法。一大原因是，气候完全没有像预测的那样快速变暖：在40年中气温升高了不到半度，而且气温升高的趋势有所减慢，而非加快。

Increases in malaria, refugees, heatwaves, storms, droughts and floods have not materialised to anything like the predicted extent, if at all. Sea level has risen but at a very slow rate — about a foot per century.

疟疾、难民、热浪、风暴、干旱和洪水就算有所增多，其幅度也完全没有达到所预测的程度。海平面有所上升，但上升速率非常缓慢——大约每世纪1英尺。

Also, I soon realised that all the mathematical models predicting rapid warming assume big amplifying feedbacks in the atmosphere, mainly from water vapour; carbon dioxide is merely the primer, responsible for about a third of the predicted warming. When this penny dropped, so did my confidence in predictions of future alarm: the amplifiers are highly uncertain.

我还很快意识到：所有预测气候快速变暖的数学模型都假设了大气有巨大的反馈放大效应，主要来自于水蒸气；二氧化碳仅仅起到诱导作用，大约三分之一的气温升高由二氧化碳引起。当这点确定后，我对预测未来气候危机的信心也发生了动摇：大气的反馈放大效应是非常不确定的。

Another thing that gave me pause was that I went back and looked at the history of past predictions of ecological apocalypse from my youth – population explosion, oil exhaustion, elephant extinction, rainforest loss, acid rain, the ozone layer, desertification, nuclear winter, the running out of resources, pandemics, falling sperm counts, cancerous pesticide pollution and so forth.

另一个让我（对之前的看法）感到迟疑的原因是，我回顾了从我年轻时到现在，人们对生态灾难的预测——人口爆炸、石油枯竭、大象灭绝、雨林减少、酸雨、臭氧层、荒漠化、核冬天、资源耗尽、流行病、精子数量减少、致癌农药污染等等。

There was a consistent pattern of exaggeration, followed by damp squibs: in not a single case was the problem as bad as had been widely predicted by leading scientists. That does not make every new prediction of apocalypse necessarily wrong, of course, but it should encourage scepticism.

它们表现出一种固有模式：先是夸大后果严重性，随后发现不过是一场虚惊：问题从来都没有像著名科学家们所广泛预测的那么严重，一次都没有。当然，这并不是说每个对灾难的新预测都必然是错的，但理应鼓励我们对类似预测持怀疑态度。

What sealed my apostasy from climate alarm was the extraordinary history of the famous “hockey stick” graph, which purported to show that today’s temperatures were higher and changing faster than at any time in the past thousand years.

让我彻底改变对气候危机论的看法的，是那副著名的“曲棍球棒”曲线图的奇特历史，该曲线旨在表明，如今的气温不仅高于过去一千年中的任何时刻，而且变化速度也更快。

That graph genuinely shocked me when I first saw it and, briefly in the early 2000s, it persuaded me to abandon my growing doubts about dangerous climate change and return to the “alarmed” camp.

当我在21世纪初初次看到该曲线时，曾被它深深震撼，并一度让放弃了对气候变化危险论的日益加深的怀疑，把我带回了“惊耸”阵营。

Then I began to read the work of two Canadian researchers, Steve McIntyre and Ross McKitrick. They and others have shown, as confirmed by the National Academy of Sciences in the United States, that the hockey stick graph, and others like it, are heavily reliant on dubious sets of tree rings and use inappropriate statistical filters that exaggerate any 20th-century upturns.

然后我开始阅读Steve McIntyre和Ross McKitrick这两名加拿大学者的论文。他们以及其他一些学者的研究得到了美国国家科学院（National Academy of Sciences）的肯定，这些研究表明，曲棍球棒曲线以及其他类似的曲线都严重依赖于不可靠的年轮数据，并使用了不恰当的统计筛选方法，从而夸大了20世纪气温上升的趋势。

What shocked me more was the scientific establishment’s reaction to this: it tried to pretend that nothing was wrong. And then a flood of emails was leaked in 2009 showing some climate scientists apparently scheming to withhold data, prevent papers being published, get journal editors sacked and evade freedom-of-information requests, much as sceptics had been alleging. That was when I began to re-examine everything I had been told about climate change and, the more I looked, the flakier the prediction of rapid warming seemed.

更让我震惊的是科研机构对此的反应：他们试图假装这没什么问题。后来，大量邮件于2009年遭外泄，这些邮件显示，一些气候学家显然在费尽心机隐瞒数据、阻止论文发表、让期刊编辑被解雇，还逃避信息自由获取的请求，就像怀疑论者所指控的一样。这时，我开始重新审视所有我了解到的关于气候变化的信息。我看得越多，就越觉得气候快速变暖的预测有蹊跷。

I am especially unimpressed by the claim that a prediction of rapid and dangerous warming is “settled science”, as firm as evolution or gravity.

有些人宣称，“气候变暖迅速，并且十分危险”这一预测就像进化论和万有引力一样确凿，是“公认的科学”， 我对这一论调尤其不以为然。

How could it be? It is a prediction! No prediction, let alone in a multi-causal, chaotic and poorly understood system like the global climate, should ever be treated as gospel.

这怎么可能？它是一个预测！没有一个预测应该被看做是真理，更不用说是在一个像全球气候这样多成因、无序的、人们对其缺乏了解的系统里。

With the exception of eclipses, there is virtually nothing scientists can say with certainty about the future. It is absurd to argue that one cannot disagree with a forecast. Is the Bank of England’s inflation forecast infallible?

除了日食，基本上科学家不能对未来的预测有任何保证。认为一个人不能否定预测是荒谬的。英格兰银行对通胀的预测不会出错吗？

Incidentally, my current view is still consistent with the “consensus” among scientists, as represented by the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The consensus is that climate change is happening, not that it is going to be dangerous.

顺便说一句，目前我对气候变化的看法仍与政府间气候变化专门委员会（IPCC）报告中所提到的科学界“共识”保持一致。这一共识是气候变化正在发生，而不是气候变化将带来危险。

The latest IPCC report gives a range of estimates of future warming, from harmless to terrifying. My best guess would be about one degree of warming during this century, which is well within the IPCC’s range of possible outcomes.

IPCC的最新报告给出了对未来气温升高的范围估计，这一范围低至无伤大雅，高至骨寒毛竖。我认为最有可能发生的情况是，在本世纪内气温将升高一度，这完全在IPCC给出的范围内。

Yet most politicians go straight to the top of the IPCC’s range and call climate change things like “perhaps the world’s most fearsome weapon of mass destruction” (John Kerry), requiring the expenditure of trillions of dollars.

然而，大多数政客只关注IPCC所给出范围的上限，把气候变化说成类似“可能是世界上最可怕的大规模杀伤性武器”（John Kerry语），要求政府支出数万亿美元来解决这一问题。

I think that is verging on grotesque in a world full of war, hunger, disease and poverty. It also means that environmental efforts get diverted from more urgent priorities, like habitat loss and invasive species.

我认为，在一个充满了战争、饥饿、疾病和贫困的世界里，这一要求近乎怪诞。这也意味着放在更至关重要的环保问题上的精力，比如栖息地减少和物种入侵，将被转移到气候变化上。

The policies being proposed to combat climate change, far from being a modest insurance policy, are proving ineffective, expensive, harmful to poor people and actually bad for the environment: we are tearing down rainforests to grow biofuels and ripping up peat bogs to install windmills that still need fossil-fuel back-up.

那些应对气候变化的政策提议，并不是一份防患于未然的适度保险，这些提议被证明是无效的、昂贵的、损害穷人利益的，并且事实上有害环境：我们通过破坏雨林来开发生物能源，我们毁坏泥炭沼来安装仍然需要化石能源做后备支持的风车。

These policies are failing to buy any comfort for our wealthy grandchildren and are doing so on the backs of today’s poor. Some insurance policy.

这些政策不仅无法为我们富足的子孙后代带来帮助，而且还让今天的穷人们为此付出代价。还是来点能带来保障的政策吧。

To begin with, after I came out as a lukewarmer, I would get genuine critiques from scientists who disagreed with me and wanted to exchange views. I had long and time-consuming email exchanges or conversations with several such scientists.

首先，在我成为一名气候温和派之后，我愿意接受不同意我的观点以及想和我交换想法的科学家们的诚恳建议。我同数名这样的科学家进行了长篇电邮交流或者长时间交谈。

Yet I grew steadily more sceptical as, one by one, they failed to answer my doubts. They often resorted to meta-arguments, especially the argument from authority: if the Royal Society says it is alarmed, then you should be alarmed.

然而，随着他们一个个都未能回答我的疑问，我对他们的说法越来越充满怀疑。他们总是采取后设论证，尤其是来自于权威的论证：如果皇家学会（Royal Society）说气候变化问题是令人恐慌的，那你就应该感到恐慌。

If I want argument from authority, I replied, I will join the Catholic Church. “These are just standard denialist talking points” scoffed another prominent scientist, unpersuasively, when I raised objections — as if that answered them.

我回答道，如果我想要得到基于权威的论证，那我就加入天主教了。当我提出反对意见时，另一位杰出的科学家嘲笑道“这是典型的拒绝主义者的观点，什么都不接受”，如同这就是问题的答案——但这毫无说服力。

My experience with sceptical scientists, many of them distinguished climatologists at leading universities, was different. The more I probed, the better their data seemed. They did not resort to the argument from authority.

我与对气候问题持怀疑态度的科学家们的交流经历就大不相同了，他们中的许多人都是一流大学的杰出气候学家。我与他们探讨得越多，就越觉得他们的数据可靠。他们没有诉诸权威的论证。

Sometimes I disagreed with them or thought they went too far. I have yet to be convinced, for example, that changes in the output of the sun caused the warming of the 1980s and 1990s — an idea that some espouse.

有时我不同意他们的意见，或者认为他们太极端。比如，有些人相信太阳热量释放的变化导致了1980年代和1990年代的气候变暖，但他们还没能说服我。

So for the most part, I found myself persuaded by the middle-of-the-road, “lukewarm” argument – that CO2-induced warming is likely but it won’t be large, fast or damaging.

所以在大多数情况下，我认同中间道路、“温和派”的观点，这观点就是，二氧化碳很可能导致了气候变暖，但气候变暖的幅度不大，速度不快，产生的破坏也不严重。

Then a funny thing happened a few years ago. Those who disagreed with me stopped pointing out politely where or why they disagreed and started calling me names.

于是在几年前，一件有趣的事情发生了。那些与我持不同观点的人不再礼貌地指出哪里不同意或者为什么不同意，他们开始辱骂我了。

One by one, many of the most prominent people in the climate debate began to throw vitriolic playground abuse at me. I was “paranoid”, “specious”, “risible”, “self-defaming”, “daft”, “lying”, “irrational”, an “idiot”.

许多在气候辩论中最为著名的人物开始一个接一个地刻薄而幼稚地骂我，说我是“偏执的”、“假内行”、“荒唐可笑的”、“自取其辱的”、“愚蠢的”、“不诚实的”、“不理性的”，总之“白痴”一个。

Their letters to the editor or their blog responses asserted that I was “error-riddled” or had seriously misrepresented something, but then they not only failed to substantiate the charge but often roughly confirmed what I had written.

他们给编辑的邮件或者博客回帖声称我“错得千疮百孔”，或者严重歪曲了什么，但随后他们不仅没能证实这些指控，反而常常大致肯定了我的观点。

I have seen bad-tempered polarisation of scientific debates before, for example during the nature-nurture debates of the 1970s and 1980s between those who thought genes affected behaviour and those who thought upbringing was overwhelmingly important. That debate grew vicious.

在以前的科学辩论中，我也看见过脾气暴躁走极端的人。例如20世纪70和80年代关于先天-后天的辩论，一些科学家认为基因影响行为，另一些认为后天的训练至关重要。那场辩论最后变得相当粗暴。

What caused the polarisation, I realised then, was not just that people on one side read the articles they agreed with, reinforcing their prejudices, but something more. They relied on extreme distortions of their enemies’ arguments, written by self-appointed guardians of the flame on their own side, so they were constantly attacking straw men.

那时我意识到，引起两极分化的，不仅仅是一方的人读了他们认同的文章，加深了他们的偏见，还有其他原因。他们依赖于同自己站在一边、自命为星火护卫者【 译注：guardians of the flame是一部著名英国漫画，讲述了一群大学生保卫地球的故事，此处作者暗讽那些气候危机论者自命为地球拯救者。 】的人所写的文章来极度扭曲对手的见解，所以他们只是在不断攻击稻草人。

It’s the same here. Most of the people who attack me seem to think I am a “denier” of climate change because that’s what a few hyperventilating bloggers keep saying about me. It’s not, of course, true. It’s these flame guardians who polarise such debates.

在气候问题上也是如此。大多数攻击我的人似乎认为我是一个气候变化的“否认者”，因为这是许多上气不接下气拼命攻击我的博客作者一直以来对我的描述。当然，这不是真的。就是这些星火护卫者致使这种辩论两极分化。

The most prolific of them is a man named Bob Ward. Although employed at the London School of Economics, he is not a researcher or lecturer, but policy and communications director, somebody whose day job is to defend the climate orthodoxy in the media. Some might call him a spin doctor.

他们中最多产的是一个叫Bob Ward的人。虽然他供职于伦敦政治经济学院，但他既不是研究员也不是讲师，而是政策与传播总监，他每天的工作就是在媒体上捍卫气候问题的正统观点。一些人可能会把他叫做政治化妆师【 译注：政治化妆师（spin doctor）是指政治公关顾问，其典型工作是，在危机公关中，通过以投合公众喜好的方式表述事实，而影响媒体报道和公众舆论 】。

It appears to me that he feels compelled to write something rude about me every time I publish on this topic and although his letters to editors are often published, he throws an online tantrum if they are not .

在我看来，每次我一发表有关此话题的文章，他就一定要写一些针对我的无礼文章。尽管他写给编辑的信通常都会被发表，但如果它们没被发表的话他就会在网上大发雷霆。

He is hilariously obsessed with my peerage, lovingly reciting my title every time he attacks me, like a Bertie Woosterish snob.

他欢乐地痴迷于我的贵族地位【 译注：作者是第七代Ridley子爵，并据此身份当选为上院议员 】，每次攻击我时他都要满怀深情地提及我的头衔，好像我是个Bertie Wooster式的势利小人【 译注：Bertie Wooster是在英国作家P.G.Wodehouse的小说 Jeeves 中反复出现的一个虚构人物，是位懒散无聊的富裕绅士 】。

As an example of playing the man and not the ball, Ward and Lord Deben, chairman of the government’s official committee on climate change, are both wont to mock the fact that my Oxford DPhil thesis in 1983 was on the behaviour of birds.

作为一个对人不对事的例子，Bob Ward和气候变化官方委员会主席Deben上议员都常常嘲笑我于1983在牛津大学完成的博士论文是关于鸟类行为的。

Good luck to them but I notice they don’t mock the fact that the DPhil thesis of Lord Krebs was also on birds, earned in the very same research group as me: the Edward Grey Institute of Field Ornithology.

祝他们好运吧！我发现他们并不嘲笑John Krebs议员的博士论文，那同样是关于鸟类的，而且和我的论文在同一研究机构完成：爱德华·格雷野生鸟类研究所（Edward Grey Institute of Field Ornithology）。

Lord Krebs is the chairman of the adaptation subcommittee of the committee on climate change.John Krebs, a fine scientist and superb lecturer, was the internal examiner of my thesis, which he praised at the time, after telling me to correct a couple of silly mistakes he had spotted in the calculation of a probability result. I did so.

Krebs是气候变化委员会适应性分委会主席，是位优秀科学家，还是位杰出的讲师。他是我那篇论文的内部审阅者，他当时称赞了我的论文，只是要我修正他所发现的我计算概率时犯的一些低级错误。我照做了。

Imagine my surprise when he recently told several separate people (who reported it to me) that I should not be listened to on climate change because my DPhil thesis, all those years ago, contained mathematical errors.

最近他分别告诉一些人（他们转告了我）别听信我在气候变化上的见解，因为我多年前的博士论文中存在数学错误，你可以想象一下我对此有多惊讶。

Lord May even used this argument against me in a debate in the House of Lords: that because I got a number wrong in a calculation 31 years ago, I cannot ever be right again. This is the kind of hilarious thing that happens to you if you come out as a lukewarmer.

May议员甚至在上院辩论中拿这点来攻击我：因为我在31年前犯了一个计算错误，我就永远没有正确的时候了。这就是当你以温和派的姿态出现时会发生在你身上的搞笑事。

Talking of the committee on climate change, last year Lord Deben commissioned an entire report to criticise something I had said. Among other howlers, it included a quotation from the IPCC but the quote had a large chunk cut from the middle. When this cut was restored the line supported me, not Lord Deben.

说到气候变化委员会，去年Deben议员写了一整份报告来批评我所说过的一些话。在各种愚蠢的错误中包括了一个对IPCC的引用，但这段引文中间被截去了一大部分。当被截去部分补上后，其立场是支持我而非Deben议员的。

When I pointed this out politely to Lord Deben, he refused to restore the excision and left the document unchanged on the committee’s website. Presenting quotations so they appear to mean something different from what they do is quite a sin in journalism. Apparently not in Whitehall committees.

当我礼貌地向Deben议员指出这点后，他拒绝补上被截去的部分，在委员会的网站上保留了删节后的文件。以展示与作者原意不符的方式进行引用在新闻工作中是相当不道德的。显然，在白厅（Whitehall）【 译注：泛指英国政府 】委员会并不这么认为。

I suppose all this fury means my arguments are hitting home. If they were easily demolished they would demolish them rather than try to demolish me. Many of the things that I was abused for saying have since proved to be right.

我想，所有这些愤怒意味着我的论点正中要害。如果这些论点能够被轻易击破，那么他们就会攻击论点而不是试图攻击我。许多使我遭到辱骂的观点随后被证明是正确的。

I was one of the first to write an article in the mainstream media (in The Wall Street Journal in 2012) arguing that the latest data supported much lower estimates of climate sensitivity (the amount of warming induced by a doubling of carbon dioxide levels) than those being assumed by the models used by the IPCC.

我是最先在主流媒体上（2012年《华尔街日报》）提出，最新数据所显示的气候敏感性（二氧化碳浓度翻倍导致的升温幅度）比IPCC所用模型的估计值要低得多的人之一。

This produced the usual vituperation online from about a dozen high-profile science commentators with nothing better to do. Since then four papers (the latest being this one ) have appeared in the scientific literature, authored by very prominent climate scientists, giving low estimates of climate sensitivity, some even lower than I had said. I am waiting for my critics to acknowledge that my story was sound.

这一如既往地在网上招来了大约十多个无所事事的知名科学评论家的谩骂。此后，四篇论文（最新一篇在此）出现在了科学期刊上，作者都是非常杰出的气候学家。他们都提出了低气候敏感性的估计，有些甚至比我说的还要低。我正在等着批评我的那些人承认我文章所说的是正确的。

I have never met a climate sceptic, let alone a lukewarmer, who wants his opponents silenced. I wish I could say the same of those who think climate change is an alarming prospect.

我从来没有遇到过一个气候问题怀疑论者会希望他的对手闭嘴，温和派更加不会。可惜的是，那些认为气候变化对未来是个危机的人做不到这一点。 Update: 更新： Marlo Lewis has provided a handy list of the range of opinions that come under the "lukewarmer" label. I subscribe to each of these in some form or to some degree:

Marlo Lewis提供了一份“温和派”观点的速览表。我或多或少同意这些观点：

"In general, I would describe a ‘lukewarmer’ as someone who:

“通常而言，我所认为的“温和派”： Thinks anthropogenic climate change is real but very far from being a planetary emergency . 认为人为因素引起的气候变化真实存在，但远不至于造成全球性危机 Takes due notice of the increasing divergence between climate model predictions and observations and the growing body of scientific literature challenging IPCC climate sensitivity estimates. 注意到气候模型的预测与实际观测值之间越来越大的差异以及越来越多的科学论文挑战IPCC关于气候敏感性的估计。 Regards the usual pastiche of remedies — carbon taxes, cap-and-trade, renewable energy quota, CO2 performance standards – as either an expensive exercise in futility or a ‘cure’ worse than the alleged disease (depending how aggressively those policies are implemented). 把常用的补救措施——碳税、限额和交易、可再生能源配额、二氧化碳排放标准——看做是昂贵的徒劳之举。或是比所谓的疾病更糟糕的“疗法”（糟糕程度取决于这些政策执行得有多激进）。 Is impressed by — and thankful for — the immense albeit usually unsung benefits of the CO2 fertilization effect on global agriculture and green things 谨记并感激二氧化碳对全球农业及所有绿色植物的巨大生长促进作用，虽然这一好处通常得不到称颂。 Recognizes that poverty remains the world’s leading cause of preventable illness and premature death . 认识到贫困仍然是世界上造成可预防疾病和过早死亡的主要原因。 Understands that plentiful, affordable, scalable energy (most of which comes from CO2-emitting fossil fuels ) is essential to poverty eradication and progress towards a healthier, safer, more prosperous world ." 理解到丰富的、廉价的、可量产的能源（大多数来自于释放二氧化碳的化石能源）对消除贫困和逐步走向一个更健康、更安全、更繁荣的世界至关重要。 Update 2: 更新2： The main point of my article was to draw attention to how ad-hominem, vicious and personal the attacks on lukewarmers now are from the guardians of the flame of climate alarm. Though I had a huge and overwhelmingly positive response, I could not have wished for a better example of my point than some of the negative reactions to this article.

我的文章的主要目的，是让人们注意到目前气候危机论的星火护卫队对温和派的攻击有多么对人不对事和卑鄙，而且是人身攻击。虽然我得到了大量热情和正面的回应，然而就证明我的观点而言，没有比对本文的一些负面回应更有说服力的了。

An egregious example was the death threats I received from a Guardian contributor and Greenpeace "translator", Gary Evans.

一个极端的例子是我从《卫报》作者兼绿色和平组织翻译Gary Evans那里收到的死亡威胁。

On 21 January The Guardian published an article by Dana Nuccitelli, specifically criticizing me. The article was illustrated with a picture of the severed head of a zombie. Beneath the article appeared the following comment from “Bluecloud”:

1月21日，《卫报》发表了Dana Nuccitelli的文章，特别对我提出批评。文章的配图是被砍下的僵尸头颅。文章下方有来自于网名为Bluecloud的网友的如下评论：

“Should that not be Ridley's severed head in the photo?”

“照片里难道不是Ridley被砍下的头颅吗？”

Bluecloud was challenged by another commenter with:

“Do you recommend that for all people that have a different world view than you?”

Bluecloud被另一名评论者质问道：

“你是建议对所有世界观与你不同的人都这样吗？”

Bluecloud replied:

Bluecloud回复说：

“We would actually solve a great deal of the world's problems by chopping off everyone's heads.

Why are you deniers so touchy? Mere calls for a beheading evolve such a strong response in you people.

Ask yourself a simple question: Would the world be a better place without Matt Ridley? Need I answer that question?”

“事实上，把每个人的头都砍下来能解决世界上的很多问题。你们这些“否认派”怎么那么敏感？只是呼吁一下斩首就让你们这群人有那么大的反应。

问你自己一个简单的问题：没有了Matt Ridley的世界会变得更好吗？还用我回答这个问题吗？”

This showed that Bluecloud had not been misunderstood in his death threat. It occurred a few days before the beheading of a Japanese hostage in Syria.

这表明人们读懂了Bluecloud的死亡威胁。这发生在日本人质在叙利亚被斩首前几天。

At this stage a number of comments below the article had already been censored or deleted, including one from Professor Richard Tol of Sussex University, which read as follows:

如今该文章下的不少评论已被屏蔽或删除，包括一条来自萨塞克斯大学教授Richard Tol的评论，内容如下：

“Dr Ridley claimed that his writings inspire others to write about what he wrote. To illustrate his point, Ken Rice, Greg Laden and Dana Nuccitelli write about Ridley’s writings.

“Ridley博士声称他的作品能激发其他人围绕他的观点继续讨论。为了阐释他的观点，Ken Rice、Greg Laden和Dana Nuccitelli就写了关于Ridley作品的文章。

Dr Ridley claimed that there have been more attempts on his character than on his arguments. To underline this point, Pitchfork Anonymous smears his name.

Ridley博士说针对他人品的攻击多过针对他论点的攻击。为了强调这一点，Pitchfork Anonymous隐去了他的姓名。

Anyone who points out the irony of all this receives the same treatment.”

任何指出其中讽刺之处的人会受到同样的待遇。”

This was “removed by a moderator because it didn’t abide by our community standards”, though how it caused offence is hard to imagine. This shows that Bluecloud’s comment could have been removed by moderators had they wished.

该帖“已被版主删除，因为它没有遵守我们的社区准则”，虽然很难想象它是怎么引起冒犯的。这说明如果版主愿意的话，Bluecloud的评论可能已经被删除了。

Another commenter, “Adamke", then pointed out that Bluecloud is Gary Evans, an environmental activist who works with Greenpeace and writes occasionally for the Guardian (where his profile states clearly that he posts as Bluecloud).

另一位评论者“Adamke”随后指出Bluecloud就是Gary Evans，他是一名环保行动主义者，与绿色和平组织有合作关系，偶尔向《卫报》供稿（其简介清楚地表明他用Bluecloud这一网名发文）。

Incredibly, this comment, outing Mr Evans, was then removed by the moderators, because apparently it was more offensive to the Guardian community than the recommendation that I be beheaded.

难以置信的是，这条揭露Evans先生身份的评论随后被版主删除了，显然是因为这条评论对《卫报》集团的打击大于将我斩首的建议。

Astonished by this turn of events, I wrote to Alan Rusbridger, the editor of The Guardian, complaining of the extraordinary double standard. He replied that the zombie picture had now been changed and the beheading comments removed. He said that he was “of course” sorry if I had been distressed.

震惊于这一变故，我写信给《卫报》主编Alan Rusbridger，投诉他们严重的双重标准。他回复我说那张僵尸的图片已经改掉了，斩首的评论也已被删除。他说如果我感到被冒犯了的话，他“当然”感到抱歉。

He refused to answer my question as to whether he had contacted Mr Evans with a view to finding out how serious his threat was, and refused to say whether the Guardian would in future use Mr Evans as a contributor. He said I should now appeal to the “readers’ editor” if I was unhappy with his reply.

他拒绝回答我关于他是否已经同Evans先生取得联系，让他知道他的威胁有多么严重的问题，同样，他也拒绝回答未来《卫报》是否仍会使用Evans先生的供稿。他说如果我对他的回复表示不满，现在我应该向“读者编辑”申诉。

I did so. I also drew Greenpeace’s attention to the actions of their associate and they issued a statement that read as follows: “The content and tone of the comments are completely at odds with the principle of non-violence written into our organisation's DNA, and we would never condone that kind of language from someone working for Greenpeace or indeed from anyone else."

我这么做了。我还提请绿色和平组织留意他们合作伙伴的所作所为，他们发表了如下声明：“评论中的内容与语气与写入我们组织DNA的非暴力原则完全相悖，我们绝不会容忍绿色和平组织的工作者或其他人说出此类言语。”

No such statement emerged from the Guardian. Chris Elliott, the readers’ editor, took eleven days to reply to my email. He referred to the death threat as a “joke” and defended some of the actions of the Guardian, though said they should not have used that picture or allowed the death threats to go undeleted.

《卫报》没有发出此类声明。读者编辑Chris Elliott用了11天时间来回复我的邮件。他把死亡威胁说成是一个“玩笑”，还为《卫报》所采取的行动辩护，尽管他说他们不应该使用那张图片或者允许死亡威胁留在网页上。

Eventually, he published an article in which the Guardian apologised to me for not deleting the beheading tweet sooner, and quoting Mr Evans as apologising "for any trouble this may have caused to anyone involved". This was approximately three weeks after the original comments had appeared.

最终，他发表了一篇文章，文中《卫报》对没有及时删除斩首言论对我表示歉意，同时引用了Evans先生“为这一评论给任何受到影响的人所引起的任何麻烦”道歉。这大概是在原评论出现后三周。

This episode began with me noting that anybody who refuses to subscribe to the view that climate change is a very dangerous threat is treated as some kind of heretic to be persecuted, rather than a sceptic to be debated. The reaction has confirmed my point precisely.

这整个事件始于我注意到任何拒绝赞同“气候变化是十分危险的威胁”这一说法的人都会被认为是某种异端而受到迫害，而不是被视为质疑者而与之辩论。这些反应完全证实了我的看法。

（编辑：辉格@whigzhou） *注：本译文未经原作者授权，本站对原文不持有也不主张任何权利，如果你恰好对原文拥有权益并希望我们移除相关内容，请私信联系，我们会立即作出响应。 ——海德沙龙·翻译组，致力于将英文世界的好文章搬进中文世界——