描写飞机的英语作文：the largest carbon footprint

The delegates meeting in Bonn, Germany next week for the U.N. climate conference recognize this. “The lion’s share of greenhouse gas emissions” from the COP23 conference, the organizers note, “is from long-distance air travel.” After the conference, a COP23 sustainability task force will tally up the overall carbon footprint and seek to offset as much as possible by buying certified emission reduction credits, many of which will go to green development projects in small island states in recognition of Fiji holding the presidency of this conference.

There are 7 billion people on our planet, but the billion with the largest carbon footprint includes the most frequent fliers. I belong to the top billion. So do many of you. If all 7 billion had a carbon footprint as large as ours, global carbon dioxide emissions would increase from the current 38 billion tons per year to 150 billion tons — a trillion tons every seven years, according to “Bending the Curve,” a 2015 University of California report. That trillion would translate into a catastrophic spike in global warming — an increase of 33 degrees Fahrenheit every seven years.

So for the love of the Earth, our common home, our only home, start conducting more remote work meetings and training sessions virtually. Inform those jet-setting friends that you won’t attend their destination wedding in the tropics — you’ll send a gift in the mail. Tell that conference organizer that while you’re honored to be invited, you would prefer to participate in live online sessions instead. Start taking vacations by train or car, rather than flying to Paris or beyond. Explain to your ecological public interest group that the Galápagos will be much better off without you. And please, all you professionals bouncing between New York City and Washington D.C., take a train, not a plane.

The 17th-century poet Andrew Marvell warned his “coy mistress” and himself that life was brief and youth briefer. They could wish it otherwise, but:

…at my back I always hear

Time’s winged chariot hurrying near;

And yonder all before us lie

Deserts of vast eternity.

In our day, the winged chariot that is hurrying near is species extinction. The deserts of vast eternity that lie before us are the wastelands of the planet itself as we send it to its death. But there is something you can do about all that — something big, something easily within reach, something that won’t cost you time or money.

Take a deep, slow breath, and throw away that bucket list for good. You are needed at home, my friend, urgently needed. For the love of the Earth and of those who will inherit it when you are gone, stay right where you are.

【(公众号：英语学习)】

本文为原创文章，版权归作者所有，未经授权不得转载!