To the naked eye, there was nothing to be seen at a natural gas well in eastern Texas but beige pipes and tanks baking in the sun.
以肉眼來看，在德州東邊這口天然氣井邊只看到米色的輸送管與儲存槽在大太陽底下，除此之外就沒有什麼特別的。
But in the viewfinder of Terry Gosney's infrared camera, three black plumes of gas gushed through leaks that were otherwise invisible.
然而在泰瑞高斯尼的紅外線攝影機的視窗裡，卻有3縷黑色的氣體自裂縫噴出，而這肉眼是看不見的。 (然而在葛斯尼的紅外線攝影機取景器下，3股黑色氣體自裂縫噴出的景象卻清晰可見。)
" Holy smoke, it's blowing like mad," said Mr. Gosney, an environmental field coordinator for EnCana, the Canadian gas producer that operate the year-old well near Franklin, Texas. " It does look nasty."
加拿大能源公司(EnCana)負責經營這口位於德州法蘭克林市郊區，一年前啟用的天然氣井，葛尼斯是該公司環境現場協調員，他說：「天啊這煙，吹的超狂野!看起來真的滿嚴重的。」
Within a few days, the leaks had been sealed by workers.
幾天內，這些漏洞就補好了。
Efforts like EnCana's save energy and money. Yet they're also a cheap, effective way of blunting climate change that could potentially be replicated thousands of times over, from Wyoming to Siberia, energy experts say. Natural gas consists of almost entirely of methane, a potent heat-trapping gas that scientist say accounts for as much as a third of the human contribution to global warming.
像EnCana這樣的努力可以保留能源及減少花費。專家指出，這也是減緩氣候變遷既便宜又有效的方式，很有潛力在各地如法炮製從美國懷俄明州到西伯利亞。科學家說，天然氣大部分是由甲烷組成的，是一種強效溫室氣體，人類活動導致的全球暖化，高達三分之一是甲烷造成。
"This ? for me is an absolute no-brainer, even more so than putting in those compact fluorescent bulbs in your house," said Al Armendariz, an engineer at Southern University who studies pollutants from oil and gas fields.
在南美以美大學研究油井及天然氣田釋放的汙染物的工程師阿曼帶瑞茲說：「我覺得這是絕對該做的事，比在家裡安裝省電燈泡還該做。」
Acting quickly to stanch the loss of methane could substantially cut warming in the short run, even as countries tackle the tougher challenge of curbing the dominant green house emission, carbon dioxide, studies by researchers at the Massachusettes Institude of Technology suggest.
由麻省理工學院的研究顯示，當各個國家忙著如何減排首要溫室氣體二氧化碳這個更嚴峻的考驗時，迅速阻止甲烷逸出可在短期內使暖化大幅減緩。
Unlike carbon dioxide, which can remain in the atmosphere a century or more once released, methane persists in the air for about 10 years. So aggresively reining in emission now would mean that far less of the gas would be warming the earth in a decade or so.
甲烷在空氣中約停留10年時間，不像二氧化碳，一但釋放到空氣中就會存在長達一世紀以上。因此現在積極的控制其排放就表示在未來10年導致全球暖化的甲烷就會少很多。
Methane is also a valuable target because while it is far rarer and more fleeting than carbon dioxide, ton for ton, it traps 25 times as much heat, researchers say.
研究人員指出，雖然甲烷和二氧化碳相較起來少很多噸，且停留時間較短，但仍然是一個值得的減量目標，因為它攔截(鎖住)的熱是二氧化碳的25倍。
Yet while federal and international programs have encouraged companies to seek and crub methane emissions from gas and oil wells, pipelines and tanks, aggressive efforts like Encana's are still far from the industry norm.
當美國聯邦及國際計畫等都鼓勵企業致力抑制氣油井，管線，及油槽等的甲烷逸出，儘管如此，Encana積極主動卻遠非業界的常態。
As a result, some three trillion cubic feet of methane leak into the air every year, with Russia and the United States the leading sources, according to the Environmental Protection Agency's official estimate. And government scientist and industry officials caution that the real fugure is almost certainly higher.
根據美國環保署統計，每年大約3兆立方呎的甲烷逸入大氣，以俄國及美國為主要來源。而政府科學家及業界人士也都警告實際的數據應該是更高。
Unless mononitoring is greatly expanded, they say, such emissions could soar as global production of natural gas increases over the next few decades.
他們說除非監控擴大範圍，不然在未來幾十年內排放量一定會隨著全球天然氣製造量增加而升高。 But the industry has been largely resistant to an aggressive cleanup.
然而業者大都反對雞及整治。 In April the Obama administration signaled that it could adopt rules requiring the biggest American companies to report all of their greenhouse gas emissions. Oil and gas industry groups countered that the cost and complexity of dealing with some 700,000 wells were too great.
歐巴馬政府在4月示意他們可能採用一些條款，要求全美一些最大的企業報告他們所有的溫室氣體排放量。石油與天然氣業者反駁道處理這70萬口油、氣井的花費及複雜度太龐大了(成本太高也太複雜)。
In Spetember the E.P.A announced that the obligatory reporting would begin in 2011 but that it excluded oil and gas operations, at least for the time being.
美國環保署9月宣布，強制性報告自2011年開始，但是就目前來說會先排除石油及天然氣產業。 Some scientists reject the industry arguments(?). " Further delay on finding and stopping such releases would be irresponsible, given the financial and environmental benefits," said F. Sherwood Rowland, a Nobel laureate in chemistry at the university of California, Irvine.
部分科學家反對將這些行業排除在外。曾獲頒諾貝爾化學獎的爾灣加州大學教授F. Sherwood Rowland說：「找出並遏止這種逸洩對財務及環保兩方面都有好處，在拖下去是不負責任的行為。」Internationally, the amount of methane escaping from the gas and oil operations can be only crudely gauged.
全球從天然氣井及油井逸出的甲烷總量只能做粗略的估計。
But in 2006 the E.P.A. estimated that Russia, the world's largest gas producer, ranked highest, with 427 billion cubic feet of methane escaping annually, followed by the United States at 346 billion, Ukraine at 225 billion and Mexico at 191 billion.
美國環保署2006統計世界最大天然氣生產國，俄國，每年將漏出4270億立方尺的甲烷，位居全球第一，美國以3460億位居次，乌客蘭及墨西哥分別以2250億及1910億位排名第三及第四。
Reflecting the uncertainty in such estimates, Gazprom, Russia's giant state gas monopoly, estimated its annual emissions at half that figure last year.
但俄國最大國營天然氣專賣業者Gazprom去年預估他的排放量只有EPA預估數據的一半，而這反映出統計數據的不可靠。
'The use of infrared cameras is expanding as words spreads of the payoff in saved gas, ' said Ben Shepperd, executive vice president of the Permian Basin Petroleum Association, which represents 1,200 companies in the oil and gas business around West Texas. " We would like to see more people doing it," he said. " People are very surprised when they shoot their equipment with these cameras and they see that there are releases in places they wouldn't have expected."
代表西德州的1200家石油及天然氣公司的波米安盆地石油協會執行副總表示隨著保留下來的天然氣可以創造收益的消息傳開後，紅外線攝影機開始被大量使用。他說：「我們樂見更多人做這件事，當人們用紅外線相機對著他們的設備，然後看到漏氣出現在他們沒有想到的地方時，他們大感意外。」
Vocabulary
viewfinder 取景器
crudely = roughly 粗略的
but 然而/但/可是
from 自/從
句點後，以「..說」開頭會讓語句更順暢
compact fluorescent bulbs 省電燈泡
challenge 考驗
substantially 大幅..
aggresively 積極
E.P.A. 美國環保署 (environmental protection agency)
would like to see 樂見
Translation based on 陳世欽
Source from New York Times of United Daily News
