It was, and still is, one scary movie. Thanks to global warming, in The Day After Tomorrow, the world literally freezes over. Yet how1 was the science behind one of the decade's big disaster movies?
"Climate change is a far greater threat to the world than international terrorism," says the science adviser to the British government. "Temperatures are getting hotter, and they are getting hotter more2 than at any time in the past, ""says the international weather expert. "Climate change is ready to3 our pattern of life," says an African ecologist.
The number of extreme weather events has4 from the decade before: heatwaves in Europe, floods in Africa, droughts in Asia and the United States. A record 300 million people flee their homes from natural disasters. Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere hits record levels. Trees5 in New England. There's a major influx (流入) of freshwater in the North Atlantic and a slowdown of ocean circulation below the Arctic Circle. Antarctic ice flows faster into the ocean.
Sounds6 , but these aren't scenes from The Day After Tomorrow. They're from the real world. The movie itself exaggerates(夸张) the speed with which global warming brings on a new ice age, but the idea that more heat might lead to more. 7 is real. If cold water from melting glaciers really does change ocean currents like the Gulf Stream, Manhattan could get colder pretty quickly——though in a decade, not a New York minute, as The Day After Tomorrow would have it. But all by itself, heat is already causing problems like drought, crop failures, disease, violent storms-and is 8 much more as the century proceeds.
9 , why haven't we noticed all this? While 72 percent of Americans said they were10 global warming in 2000, by 2004 this had gone down to 58 per cent and only 15 percent believed it had anything to do with fossil fuel consumption. The burning of fossil fuels (such as when you drive your car, or fly in a plane) produces carbon dioxide that contributes to the greenhouse effect and11 substances that are dangerous to breathe. Surely Mums and Dads, at least, should be worried about the effect on their children's health and their grandchildren's world? But perhaps it's hard to get upset about something that sounds so12 and nice as "global warming"? Even the "greenhouse effect" sounds decidedly unthreatening. Who's 13 a greenhouse?
Whatever the reason for our apathy (冷漠), the climate crisis is the keystone issue of our time. Addressing it means addressing14 every other significant environmental and energy problem and it must be done soon, because what is newest and most challenging about global warming is that once its15 are clearly apparent, it's too late to stop them.
