unit5thevillainintheatmosphere课文翻译大学英语二.docxVIP

UNIT 5 The Villain in the Atmosphere There is one gas present in the air we breathe that is essential to life. Unfortunately, one can have too much of a good thing and the growth in carbon dioxide threatens to warm up our planet to a dangerous extent. Isaac Asimov introduces us to this villain in the atmosphere, explaining how it works and what can be done about it. The villain in the atmosphere is carbon dioxide. It does not seem to be a villain. It is not very poisonous and it is present in the atmosphere in so small a quantity — only 0.034 percent — that it does us no harm. What’ smore, that small quantity of carbon dioxide in the air is essential to life. Plants absorb carbon dioxide and convert it into their own tissue, which serve as the basic food supply for all of animal life (including human beings, of course). In the process they liberate oxygen, which is also necessary for all animal life. But here is what this apparently harmless and certainly essential gas is doing to us: The sea level is rising very slowly from year to year. In all likelihood, it will continue to rise and do so at a greater rate in the course of the next hundred years. Where there are low- lying coastal areas (where a large fraction of the world ’ s population lives) the water will advance steadily, forcing people to retreat inland. Eventually the sea will reach two hundred feet above its present level, and will be splashing against the windows along the twentieth floors of Manhattan ’ skyscrapers. Florida will disappear beneath the waves, as will much of the British Isles, the crowded Nile valley, and the low-lying areas of China, India, and Russia. Not only will many cities be drowned, but much of the most productive farming areas of the world will be lost. As the food supply drops, starvation will be widespread and the structure of society may collapse under the pressure. And all because of carbon dioxide. But how does that come about? What is the connection? It