英语外刊精读｜词汇量暴涨｜英语阅读｜英语听力｜英文写作｜《纽约客》文章精读
Is It Hot Enough Yet(到目前为止) for Politicians to Take Real Action(采取行动)？
The lastest(最近的，最新的) record temperatures are driving, again precisely(adv. 恰好，正如) as scientists have predicted(v. 预测), a cascading(adj. 瀑布般的) series of(一系列) disasters around the world. We've crushed(v. 打破，压碎) so many temperature records recently--the hottest day ever measured by average global temperature, the hottest June, the highest ocean temperatures, the lowest sea--ice levels--that it would be easy to overlook(v. 忽略) a couple of additional(adj.额外的) data points from this past weekend. But they're important, because they help illuminate(v.说明，阐明) not just the size(n.规模) of our predicament(n.困境) but the political weaknesses that make it so hard to confront(v.遭遇，比较，面对).
Fort Good Hope(好望堡),at 66.2 degrees(n. 角度，度数) north latitude(n. 维度), in Canada's Northwest Territor(y)ies(n. 领土，管区，范围)(which is to say, just a few miles below the Arctic Circle(北极圈)), hit 99.3 degrees Fahrenheit(n. 华氏度) on Saturday afternoon, surpassing(v. 超过，胜过) the old record by four degrees. The town of Norman Wells, a little to the south, topped(v. 达到) a hundred. These are close to the high-temperature record anywhere that far north; it was hotter there over the weekend than it has ever been in the Canadian capital of Ottawa, which is twenty degrees latitude to the south. Canada was far from alone: Beijing experienced more than a week straight(adj. 连续的，不间断的) of temperatures higher than ninety-five degrees in a record heat (n. 热度，高温)wave affecting hundreds of millions of people( authorities(n.当局，官方) opened air-raid(空袭) shelters(防空洞),some dating from(追溯于) the Japanese invasion(n. 入侵，侵犯) in 1937, as cooling centers); temperatures were a hundred and twenty-two degrees in Kuwait and Iraq; on Thursday, Africa recorded its hottest nighttime ever, with the temperature at one site in Algeria failing to(未能够) drop below 103.3 degrees Fahrenheit.
Remember one of the essential(adj. 必不可少的，重要的) facts of our century: warm air holds more water vapor(n. 蒸汽) than cold. In dry areas that leads to drought(n. 旱灾), but once that water is in the atr it's going to come down. In the past few days, we've seen devastating(adj. 毁灭性的) flooding(v. 泛滥 n. 洪水) and mudslides(n. 泥石流) in Japan( Al Jazeera reported that the rain had brought "southwestern Japan to a halt(n. 停止，停滞)"), China( where more than a dozen people died in seasonal mountain floods, even amid(prep. 在其中) a heat wave), northern India ( where bridges and buildings were washing into rivers), Spain ( cars were swept away(sweep away 清除，一扫而空) down narrow(adj. 狭窄的) streets), and the Hudson Valley, where roads disappeared and the historic buildings at West Point are feared to have sustained(v. 遭到) damage.
So the crisis is everywhere-that's why it's called global warming.But the case of Canada is interesting, because it's a liberal(adj. 自由的) democracy(n. 民主国家) with a strong environmental sentiment(n. 情绪)-polling(n. 民意调查) earlier this year found that seventy-five percent of Canadains were anxious(adj. 担忧的，焦虑的) about climate(n. 气候) change;twenty-one percent of the population was having fewer or no children as a result(结果). And the nation has a absolute front-row seat(首席) to the crisis(n. 危机): the Arctic is warming faster than any other place on Earth. As a result of(作为...的结果，由于) an extraordinary(adj. 非同寻常的) spring heat wave, wildfires have already burned more of the country this year than in any full year on record--so far(到目前为止，迄今为止), the fire season has consumed(v. 烧毁，毁灭) fourteen hundred percent more forest than usual.The costs of this kind of change are enormous(adj. 巨大的，庞大的).
