来源：《科学美国人》2022年7月号
Science can be expensive, and recently some researchers have raised challenging questions about one particular cost: its carbon footprint. Large-scale scientific research uses a lot of carbon-based energy and emits a very large amount of greenhouse gases, contributing to our current climate crisis. So, even while scientists are helping us to understand the world, they are also doing some damage to it.
科学研究可能是昂贵的，最近一些研究人员就一项特殊成本提出了具有挑战性的问题：碳足迹。大规模的科学研究使用了大量的碳基能源，并排放了大量的温室气体，加剧了当前的气候危机。因此，即使科学家在帮助我们了解世界的同时，他们也在对世界造成一些破坏。
In a recent case study of computer science, Steven Gonzalez Monserrate—a researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology—argues that the environmental costs of this research field, particularly computer cloud storage and data centers, are huge and rising. The cloud, he contends, is a “carbonivore”: a single data center can use the same amount of electricity as 50,000 homes. The entire cloud has a greater carbon footprint than the entire airline industry.
在最近的一项计算机科学案例研究中，麻省理工学院的研究员史蒂文·冈萨雷斯·蒙塞拉特认为，该研究领域的环境成本，尤其是计算机云存储和数据中心，是巨大的，而且还在上升。他认为，云计算是一种“碳食者”：一个数据中心的用电量相当于5万个家庭的用电量。整个云计算的碳足迹比整个航空业都大。
And the carbon problem in research is hardly limited to computer science. Large astronomical observatories and space-based telescopes are big emitters. One study found that over the course of their lifetimes the world’s leading astronomical observatories will produce about 20 million metric tons of carbon dioxide. Authors of the study said that if the world is to meet the challenge of net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, astronomers will have to reduce the carbon footprint of their research facilities by up to a factor of 20. That might mean building fewer big observatories.
研究中的碳问题并不局限于计算机科学。大型天文台和天基望远镜都是大型发射器。一项研究发现，世界领先的天文台在其一生中将产生约2000万公吨的二氧化碳。该研究报告的作者表示，如果世界要在2050年之前实现温室气体净零排放的挑战，天文学家就必须将研究设施的碳足迹减少20倍。这可能意味着建造更少的大型天文台。
Other scientists have focused on the carbon footprint of research conferences. One of climate science’s most important gatherings is the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union (AGU), usually held in San Francisco. Climate modeler Milan Klöwer and his colleagues calculated the travel-related carbon footprint of the 2019 AGU meeting at 80,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide—about three metric tons per attending scientist. That per person output was almost as much as the annual output of an average person living in Mexico. Klöwer offered footprint-reducing ideas: moving the meeting to a central U.S. city to shorten travel, holding the conference biennially and encouraging virtual participation. Taken together, these changes could reduce the travel footprint by more than 90 percent.
其他科学家则专注于学术会议的碳足迹。气候科学最重要的集会之一是通常在旧金山举行的美国地球物理联盟（AGU）年会。气候建模师米兰·克洛沃和他的同事计算出，2019年AGU会议上与旅行相关的碳足迹为80000公吨二氧化碳，每位与会科学家的碳足迹约为3公吨。几乎相当于墨西哥人均年碳足迹。克洛沃提出了减少碳足迹的想法：将会议移至美国中部城市以缩短行程，每两年举行一次会议，并鼓励远程参与。总之，这些变化可以将旅行碳足迹减少90%以上。
But as the analyses of astronomy and computer science show, it’s the research, not just travel, that enlarges the scientific carbon footprint. Emma Strubell, a computer scientist at Carnegie Mellon University, and her colleagues concluded that from a carbon budget standpoint, the extreme amount of energy spent training a neural network “might better be allocated to heating a family’s home.” Similar complaints have been raised about bioinformatics, language modeling and physics.
但是，天文学和计算机科学的分析表明，是研究，而不仅仅是旅行，扩大了科学的碳足迹。卡耐基梅隆大学的计算机科学家艾玛·斯特鲁贝尔和她的同事们得出结论，从碳预算的角度来看，训练神经网络所花费的大量能量“最好分配给一个家庭取暖”。类似的抱怨也出现在生物信息学、语言建模和物理学上。
This is a hard reality to face. But as time runs out to prevent a climate disaster, scientists will have to find a way to do more of their work with much less of our energy.
这是一个要面对的严酷现实。但是，随着防止气候灾难的时间越来越少，科学家们将不得不找到一种方法，以更少的能源完成更多的工作。