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Science and Technology Peat bogs and climate change Wet, wet, wet
科技 泥炭沼澤及氣候變化 濕！濕！濕！
Forests are not the only habitat whose conservation matters to the climate
森林并不是唯一事關氣候保護的棲息地
RUSSIA does not normally spring to mind as being in the forefront of the fight against climate change. The citizens of Moscow, however, need no explanation of one aspect of the problem—the importance of wetlands. Earlier this year they had an abrupt and lethal lesson on the dangers of peat-bog fires. An unusually hot summer set such fires across the country and the peatlands around Moscow generated a smog that blanketed the city with carbon monoxide and soot. By August 9th the daily death rate had climbed to 700, twice the normal level for that time of the year.
俄羅斯通常并不想沖在應對氣候變化斗爭的最前線。但是莫斯科公民不需要任何解釋，就知道濕地的重要性。今年早些時候的泥炭濕地火災給他們上了一課，火災地發生讓人措手不及卻關系生死。一個不同尋常的酷暑在全國各地引發了多起類似火災，而莫斯科周圍的泥炭濕地火災更是讓整個城市籠罩在一氧化碳和煤灰的煙霧中。 8月9日的日死亡人數上升到700人，是往年這個時候的2倍。
Whether peat-bog fires are being encouraged by climate change is debatable. But it is clear that they release prodigious quantities of climate-changing carbon dioxide when they happen. And even in the absence of fire, draining peatlands—for example, for agriculture—liberates a lot of carbon dioxide. In Russia such drainage is reckoned to free 160m tonnes of the gas every year. In Indonesia the figure is 508m tonnes. All told, the global total is about 1.3 billion tonnes—6% of man-made carbon-dioxide emissions even without the effect of fire. That is far more than the contribution made by aviation, for example.
雖然泥炭濕地大火是否是由氣候變化所引發的仍有爭議，但當火災發生時，它們會釋放出大量致使氣候變化的二氧化碳卻顯而易見。即使在沒有火災發生的情況下，排水后的泥炭地（比如讓地于農業）就會釋放出大量二氧化碳。在俄羅斯，這類排水后的泥炭地估計每年釋放出1600萬噸的氣體，而在印度尼西亞，該數字是5080萬噸。全球排放總量約為13億噸，即使在沒有火災發生的情況下依然占人類二氧化碳排放總量的6%，遠高于航空業所作的"貢獻"。
This is both a problem and an opportunity, as climate negotiators now realise. The solution to those fires (and, indeed, to all peat-related carbon-dioxide emissions) is simple and relatively cheap: stop draining wetlands and allow water to accumulate in them again. On December 11th climate negotiators at the United Nations' meeting in Cancún, Mexico, agreed that peatland "rewetting", as it is rather inelegantly known, could be a way for some countries to offset emissions of carbon dioxide from other sources, under the Kyoto protocol or any agreement that follows it.
氣候談判代表普遍認為，這既是一個問題，又是一個機遇。解決這些火災（包括所有泥炭地相關的二氧化碳排放）的方法很簡單，也很便宜：停止濕地排水，讓水重新聚集。在12月11日，聯合國在墨西哥坦坤舉行的氣候大會上，氣候代表都同意泥炭濕地"恢復濕潤"，這種做法可以讓有些國家不需要通過其它手段就可以達到京都議定書及其它相關協議關于二氧化碳減排的要求，因而難免有些難登大雅之堂。
Guidelines for doing so will now be developed. But for these to have any practical effect, a final agreement will be needed over how more general changes in land use will be treated within any new climate deal. The next global climate gathering, in South Africa in December 2011, will attempt to arrive at one.
關于這項措施的指導方法正在制定中。不過要想產生任何實際效果，又有多少土地使用將會在其它新的氣候合約中被糾正，還需要一個最終協議。下一次全球氣候聚會將于2011年12月在南非舉辦，人們希望至少能達成一項協議。
As Susanna Tol of Wetlands International, an environmental lobby group, observes, only a portion of the world's wetlands will eventually be rewetted. Exactly which bits are restored to pristine sogginess will depend on local questions, such as the availability of land, the alternative uses for drained peatland and the price of carbon-dioxide offsets.
國際濕地組織（一個環境游說團體）的Susanna Tol指出，全世界只有部分濕地將最終被"恢復濕潤"。究竟是哪些部分將被恢復到原始濕地狀態取決于當地的一些問題，比如土地供應，排干的泥炭濕地的其它用途，以及降低二氧化碳排放的成本等。
In poor and boggy Belarus, for example, Ms Tol says it costs a mere
