随着全球变暖，海平面正在逐渐升高。其发展过程非常缓慢，但是由于其速度会变得越来越快，地势较低的滨海土地最终将会被淹没。世界上的许多城市和大片肥沃的农垦区都面临着这种风险。到本世纪末，海水会升高一米或更多，届时，许多重要设施将会被淹没，数亿人将会无家可归（《新科学家》，2009年7月1日，第28页）。而这仅仅只是开始。“任何人都无法预测，除非排放标准很快发生翻天覆地的变化，下一个世纪的情况会比本世纪更加严重”，美国国家航空航天局Goddard航天飞行中心（马里兰州Greenbelt市）的冰河学家Bob Bindshadler说俄语翻译。

As the world gets warmer, sea levels are rising. It has been happening at a snail's pace so far, but as it speeds up more and more low-lying coastal land will be lost. At risk are many of the world's cities and huge areas of fertile farmland. The sea is set to rise a metre or more by the end of this century, swamping much vital intrastructure and displacing hundreds of millions of people (New Scientist, 1 July 2009, p 28). And that's just the start. "Unless there is a rapid and dramatic about-face in emissions - which no one expects - the next century will be far worse than this century," says glaciologist Bob Bindshadler of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

投入数万亿美元或许可以解救诸如纽约、伦敦和上海之类的大型城市，但保护地势较低这滨海区域和岛屿的任务似乎毫无希望。是这样吗？或许，我们并不需要就海洋侵占陆地问题采取消极应对措施，但我们可以从根本上解决海平面上升问题吗？我们可以找到减缓冰河融化速度、将海水排至沙漠地区或者扩大格陵兰岛和南极洲冰川规模的方法吗英语口译？

Throwing trillions of dollars at the problem could probably save big cities such as New York, London and Shanghai, but the task of defending all low-lying coastal areas and islands seems hopeless. Or is it? What if, instead of fighting a rearguard action against the encroaching oceans, we stopped sea levels rising at all? Could we find a way to slow the accelerating glaciers, drain seas into deserts or add more ice to the great ice caps of Greenland and Antarctica?