As we count the cost of the freeze, Government prepares for global warming
The authorities continue to prepare for 'rising temperatures' despite a succession of unprecedentedly cold winters, says Christopher Booker
當局繼續為'上升氣溫'準備，儘管一連串空前的寒冷冬天，克里斯托弗布克說
By Christopher Booker
7:00PM GMT 01 Jan 2011
Translation by Autumnson Blog
A water main ruptured in the December freeze gushes out on a street in Perth Photo: Fraser Band一條在十二月的冰凍破裂的水管在珀斯的街上湧出 圖片：弗雷澤樂隊
As we emerge, temporarily perhaps, from weeks of the coldest weather since records began – with snow disasters right round the northern hemisphere, from the US and Europe to China and Mongolia – more examples come to light of how the cost of extreme cold is far greater than that of warming. We already have a £9.6 billion backlog to cover repairs to roads damaged in previous winters, and the price of repairing the potholes and crumbling asphalt caused by this winter’s even more intense cold threatens to raise that by billions more (even though Government cuts will trim that budget by 15 per cent).
當我們出現，也許暫時地，數星期最寒冷的天氣自記錄開始以來 - 有雪災圍繞北半球，從美國和歐洲至中國和蒙古 - 更多的例子見光極端寒冷的成本是如何遠大於那氣候變暖的。我們已經有九十六億英鎊的積壓，以支付維修之前冬天損壞的道路，和修復坑洞和搖搖欲墜的瀝青的代價，由這冬天的更嚴寒造成，威脅升高那數額約數十億美元（即使政府削減將減少那預算約百分之十五）。
In Northern Ireland, 80,000 households were deprived of water by burst mains operated by the state-owned Northern Ireland Water. Yet as recently as October it published a strategic plan wholly obsessed by the need to transform its infrastructure to meet the challenge of global warming.
在北愛爾蘭，80,000住戶被剝奪用水，由於國有北愛爾蘭水經營的水管爆裂。然而就在最近的10月份它公佈了一項策略性計劃，完全以需要為本去改造它的基礎設施，以滿足全球變暖的挑戰。
Another frozen chicken which came home to roost was the crisis confronting many of the eight million homes now heated by condensing boilers, made compulsory by John Prescott in 2005 as a way of reducing Britain’s carbon footprint. What Mr Prescott failed to do was impose, on this tightly regulated industry, any requirement that the pipes to take away the resulting water should not be placed on the outside of buildings. (Responsibility for this crucial system failure has since been passed to the Health and Safety Executive.)
The result is that up to a million external pipes froze in December, shutting off the heating. In Yorkshire alone, British Gas reported 60,000 emergency call-outs, at up to £300 a time – costing householders a fortune thanks to Mr Prescott’s obsession with global warming.
Meanwhile, two days before Christmas, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs published a 130-page document warning how Britain’s infrastructure will “struggle to cope with climate change” between 2030 and 2100, as our road, rail and water networks are threatened by “floods, rising temperatures and higher sea levels”.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/8235283/As-we-count-the-cost-of-the-freeze-Government-prepares-for-global-warming.html
德國拋棄全球變暖 - 氣候崩潰是最後的綠喘息
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