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I recently had an epiphany.
我最近有了顿悟。
I realized that I could actually play a role in solving one of the biggest problems that faces mankind today,
我发现，其实我可以扮演一个角色，协助解决人类现今所面临最大的一个难题，
and that is the problem of climate change.
那就是气候变化的问题。
It also dawned on me that I had been working for 30 years or more just to get to this point in my life
我也开始明白，我已经工作了三十年，只是为了到达人生中的这个节点，
where I could actually make this contribution to a bigger problem.
让我能为更大的问题贡献心力。
And every experiment that I have done in my lab over the last 30 years
过去三十年，我在实验室中做的每个实验，
and people who work for me did in my lab over the last 30 years
以及过去三十年，在实验室中手下人所做的实验，
has been directed toward doing the really big experiment, this one last big experiment.
都是为了这个非常大的实验，最后一个大实验。
So who am I? I'm a plant geneticist.
所以，我是谁呢？我是一个植物遗传学家。
I live in a world where there's too much CO2 in the atmosphere because of human activity.
我们居住的这个世界，大气的二氧化碳浓度太高，而这是由于人类活动造成的。
But I've come to appreciate the plants as amazing machines that they are, whose job has been, really, to just suck up CO2.
而我渐渐开始欣赏植物身为了不起的机器的那一面，它们的工作都只是吸光二氧化碳。
And they do it so well, because they've been doing it for over 500 million years.
它们做得非常好，因为它们做这件事已经做了超过五亿年。
And they're really good at it. And so ...
它们非常擅长做这件事。所以...
I also have some urgency I want to tell you about.
我也有件急迫的事要跟各位谈。
As a mother, I want to give my two children a better world than I inherited from my parents,
身为母亲，我想要给我的两个孩子更好的世界，至少比我父母给我的要更好，
it would be nicer to keep it going in the right direction, not the bad direction.
我比较希望看到的是世界朝对的方向继续前进，而不是坏的方向。
But I also ... I've had Parkinson's for the last 15 years,
但是我也...我有帕金森氏症，它跟了我十五年，
and this gives me a sense of urgency that I want to do this now, while I feel good enough to really be part of this team.
这让我更急着想要现在就做这件事，趁我的状况还不错，还能为团队尽力的时候。
And I have an incredible team. We all work together, and this is something we want to do because we have fun.
我的团队非常棒。我们都同心协力，我们想要做这件事是因为我们做得很开心。
And if you're only going to have five people trying to save the planet, you better like each other,
而且，如果你们只有五个人在试图拯救地球，你们最好喜欢彼此，
because you're going to be spending a lot of time together.
因为你们会花很多时间相处在一起。
OK, alright. But enough about me. Let's talk about CO2. CO2 is the star of my talk.
好，不要再谈我了。咱们来谈谈二氧化碳。二氧化碳是我这场演说的明星。
Now, most of you probably think of CO2 as a pollutant.
在座大部分的人可能都认为二氧化碳是污染物。
Or perhaps you think of CO2 as the villain in the novel, you know? It's always the dark side of CO2.
或者，也许你们认为二氧化碳是小说中的反派。总是看到二氧化碳的黑暗面。
But as a plant biologist, I see the other side of CO2, actually.
但是，身为植物生物学家，我看的其实是二氧化碳的另一面。
And that CO2 that we see, we see it differently because I think we remember, as plant biologists, something you may have forgotten.
我们所看到的二氧化碳，我们会对它另眼看待是因为，身为植物生物学家，我们记得某件你们可能已经遗忘的事。
And that is that plants actually do this process called photosynthesis.
那就是，植物会进行一个叫做光合作用的过程。
And when they do photosynthesis -- all carbon-based life on our earth
当它们进行光合作用时--地球上所有的碳基生物，
is all because of the CO2 that plants and other photosynthetic microbes have dragged in from CO2 that was in the atmosphere.
都来自于植物和其他光合作用微生物把大气中的二氧化碳吸收进来。
And almost all of the carbon in your body came from air, basically.
基本上，你们体内所有的碳都来自空气。
So you come from air, and it's because of photosynthesis,
所以你们来自空气，因为光合作用，
because what plants do is they use the energy in sunlight, take that CO2 and fix it into sugars. It's a great thing.
因为植物所做的就是使用太阳的能量来吸取二氧化碳，放到糖类中。这是件好事。
And the other thing that is really important for what I'm going to tell you today
还有一件事，也对今天要谈的主题很重要，
is that plants and other photosynthetic microbes have a great capacity for doing this
那就是，植物和其他光合作用微生物做这件事的能力很强，
twentyfold or more than the amount of CO2 that we put up because of our human activities.
比我们人类活动所产生出来的二氧化碳量还要高二十倍以上。
And so, even though we're not doing a great job at cutting our emissions and things,
所以，虽然我们在减少排放方面没有做得很好，
plants have the capacity, as photosynthetic organisms, to help out. So we're hoping that's what they'll do.
但是，身为光合作用有机体，植物或许有能力协助我们。所以，我们希望它们能够帮忙。
But there's a catch here. We have to help the plants a little ourselves,
但是，没这么容易的事。我们自己得要先稍微协助植物，
because what plants like to do is put most of the CO2 into sugars.
因为，植物会做的是把大部分的二氧化碳放到糖类中。
And when the end of the growing season comes, the plant dies and decomposes,
在生长季节要结束时，植物会死亡并分解，
and then all that work they did to suck out the CO2 from the atmosphere and make carbon-based biomass
接着，它们之前做的所有工作：将二氧化碳从大气中吸掉以及制造碳基生物质，
is now basically going right back up in the atmosphere as CO2.
现在基本上都以二氧化碳的形式回到大气当中。
So how can we get plants to redistribute the CO2 they bring in into something that's a little more stable?
所以，我们要如何让植物重新分配它们所带入的二氧化碳，制成稍微更稳定一点的东西？
And so it turns out that plants make this product, and it's called suberin.
结果发现，植物会制造一项产物，叫做软木脂。
This is a natural product that is in all plant roots.
它是一种天然产物，在所有植物的根部都有。
And suberin is really cool, because as you can see there, I hope, everywhere you see a black dot, that's a carbon.
软木脂非常酷，因为各位可以在这里看到，我希望可以，凡是看到黑点的地方，就代表碳。
There's hundreds of them in this molecule.
在这个分子中有数百个黑点。
And where you see those few red dots, those are oxygens.
还可以看到少数的红点，它们是氧。
And oxygen is what microbes like to find so they can decompose a plant.
微生物喜欢去找氧，这么一来它们就可以分解植物。
So you can see why this is a perfect carbon storage device.
所以各位可以看得出来这为什么是个完美的碳储存装置。
And actually it can stabilize the carbon that gets fixed by the plant into something that's a little bit better for the plant.
事实上，它可以稳定植物所提供的碳，成为对植物更好一点的东西。
And so, why now? Why is now a good time to do a biological solution to this problem?
所以，为什么是现在？为什么现在是个好的时机点，很适合用生物解决方案来处理这个问题？
It's because over the last 30 or so years -- and I know that's a long time, you're saying, "Why now?"
因为，在过去三十年左右--我知道那是很长的时间，你们说“为什么是现在？”
but 30 years ago, we began to understand the functions of all the genes that are in an organism in general.
但是，三十年前，我们开始了解一般有机体中所有基因的功能。
And that included humans as well as plants and many other complicated eukaryotes. And so, what did the 1980s begin?
那包括了人类以及植物，还有许多其他复杂的真核生物。所以，80年代是什么的开端？
What began then is that we now know the function of many of the genes that are in a plant that tell a plant to grow.
那时，我们开始了解在植物中有许多基因的功能在告诉植物要如何生长。
And that has now converged with the fact that we can do genomics in a faster and cheaper way than we ever did before.
那些知识现在被用在基因组学上，发明出比以前更快速、更便宜的方法。
And what that tells us is that all life on earth is really related,
我们从中学到的是，地球上的所有生命都是相关联的，
but plants are more related to each other than other organisms.
但是，植物和彼此的关系比和其他有机体之间的关系更密切。
And that you can take a trait that you know from one plant and put it in another plant,
你可以选一项你所知道的植物特性，放到另一株植物上，
and you can make a prediction that it'll do the same thing. And so that's important as well.
你便可以预测，它会做出同样的事。这点也十分重要。
Then finally, we have these little genetic tricks that came along, like you heard about this morning
最后，我们还有这些小小的基因技俩，比如今天早上各位听到的那些，
things like CRISPR, that allows us to do editing and make genes be a little different from the normal state in the plant.
像是CRISPR，可以用来编辑基因并制造出和植物中正常状态不太一样的基因。
OK, so now we have biology on our side.
好的，现在，生物学站在我们这一边。
I'm a biologist, so that's why I'm proposing a solution to the climate change problem
我是生物学家，那就是为什么我针对气候变化问题提出的解决方案
that really involves the best evolved organism on earth to do it -- plants.
会需要依赖地球上演化得最好的有机体--植物。
So how are we going to do it? Biology comes to the rescue. Here we go. OK.
所以，我们要怎么做？生物学来救援了。来吧。好的。
You have to remember three simple things from my talk, OK?
请各位记住这场演说的三个简单要点，好吗？
We have to get plants to make more suberin than they normally make,
我们要让植物制造出比正常量更多的软木脂，
because we need them to be a little better than what they are.
因为我们需要它们比现在的状态再更好一些。
We have to get them to make more roots, because if we make more roots, we can make more suberin
我们要让它们制造更多根，因为，如果能制造多根，就能制造更多软木脂，
now we have more of the cells that suberin likes to accumulate in.
现在，我们有更多能够聚集软木脂的细胞。
And then the third thing is, we want the plants to have deeper roots.
第三点，我们希望植物的根更深。
And what that does is -- we're asking the plant, actually,
那样的用途是--我们其实是在请求植物：
"OK, make stable carbon, more than you used to, and then bury it for us in the ground."
“好，制造稳定的碳，比平常的还要多，接着，为我们将这些碳埋在地下。”
So they can do that if they make roots that go deep rather than meander around on the surface of the soil.
所以，如果它们的根很深，而不是在接近土壤表面处迂回，它们就能做到这件事。
Those are the three traits we want to change: more suberin, more roots, and the last one, deep roots.
这三项特性是我们想要改变的：更多软木脂、更多根，以及最后一项，更深的根。
Then we want to combine all those traits in one plant, and we can do that easily and we will do it,
接着，我们想把这三项特性结合到同一株植物中，这很容易，我们将会这么做，
and we are doing it actually, in the model plant, Arabidopsis,
其实，我们正在这么做，用的是模型植物，阿拉伯芥，
which allows us to do these experiments much faster than we can do in another big plant.
这种植物让我们做实验的速度能更快，比使用其他大型植物更快。
And when we find that we have plants where traits all add up
当我们的植物有了所有这些特性之后，
and we can get more of them, more suberin in those plants, we're going to move it all
我们就能从那些植物取得更多软木脂，我们打算全部移植，
we can and we we will, we're beginning to do this -- move it to crop plants.
我们能且我们会这么做，我们已经开始着手--移植到作物植物上。
And I'll tell you why we're picking crop plants to do the work for us when I get to that part of my talk.
我等下会告诉各位为什么要选作物植物来为我们做这项工作。
OK, so I think this is the science behind the whole thing.
好，这就是这种做法背后的科学。
And so I know we can do the science, I feel pretty confident about that.
我知道科学的部分我们没问题，这我有信心。
And the reason is because, just in the last year, we've been able to find single genes that affect each of those three traits.
原因是因为，就在去年，我们分别找出了影响那三项特性的个别基因。
And in several of those cases, two out of the three, we have more than one way to get there.
在许多情况中，大概有三分之二的比例，我们都有不只一种方法可以办到。
So that tells us we might be able to even combine within a trait and get even more suberin.
那就表示，我们甚至可以在单一项特性中做组合，来取得更多软木脂。
This shows one result, where we have a plant here on the right that's making more than double the amount of root than the plant on the left,
这里呈现的结果是，在右手边的植物，它的根的数量，比左边的一般植物高出两倍之多，
and that's just because of the way we expressed one gene that's normally in the plant in a slightly different way than the plant usually does on its own.
它会变成这样，是因为我们将这种植物中的一个常见基因用和它自己一般的做法稍微不同的方式来表现。
Alright, so that's just one example I wanted to show you.
好，这只是我想给各位看的一个例子。
And now I want to tell you that, you know,
现在，我想要跟各位谈的是，
we still have a lot of challenges, actually, when we get to this problem, because it takes ...
我们其实还要面对很多挑战，才能解决这个问题，
We have to get the farmers to actually buy the seeds,
我们得要让农夫真的去买这些种子，
or at least the seed company to buy seeds that farmers are going to want to have.
或至少让种子公司去买农夫想要买的这些种子。
And so when we do the experiments, we can't actually take a loss in yield,
所以，当我们做实验时，我们其实无法承受产出损失，
because while we are doing these experiments,
因为，当我们在做这些实验时，
say, beginning about 10 years from now, the earth's population will be even more than it is right now.
比如，从现在开始算起十年，地球的人口将会比现在还多。
And it's rapidly growing still. So by the end of the century, we have 11 billion people,
人口仍然在快速成长。到这个世纪末，我们将有一百一十亿人，
we have wasted ecosystems that aren't really going to be able to handle all the load they have to take from agriculture.
我们未能有效利用的生态系统，将无法处理来自农业的所有负荷。
And then we also have this competition for land.
接着，还有土地竞争。
And so we figure, to do this carbon sequestration experiment actually requires a fair amount of land.
所以，我们认为，要做这种碳隔离实验，其实会需要相当大片的土地。
We can't take it away from food,
我们不能抢食物用的土地，
because we have to feed the people that are also going to be on the earth until we get past this big crisis.
因为在我们渡过这次危机之前，我们仍然得要提供食物给地球上的人。
And the climate change is actually causing loss of yield all over the earth.
而气候变化其实已经在世界各地造成了产出损失。
So why would farmers want to buy seeds if it's going to impact yield?
所以，农夫怎么会想要买会影响产出的种子？
So we're not going to let it impact yield,
所以，我们不能让它影响产出，
we're going to always have checks and balances that says go or no go on that experiment.
我们得要一直有制衡原则，来决定实验要不要进行。
And then the second thing is, when a plant actually makes more carbon and buries it in the soil like that,
第二点，当植物真的制造出更多碳，并这样将碳埋入土壤时，
almost all the soils on earth are actually depleted of carbon because of the load from agriculture,
地球上几乎所有的土壤的碳可能都已经耗尽了，原因是农业的负担，
trying to feed eight billion people, which is what lives on the earth right now.
现在地球上有八十亿人，要提供他们食物所造成的负担。
And so, that is also a problem as well.
所以，那也是个问题。
Plants that are making more carbon, those soils become enriched in carbon.
制造更多碳的植物，那些土壤就会更富含碳。
And carbon-enriched soils actually hold nitrogen and they hold sulphur and they hold phosphate
富含碳的土壤其实也含有氮，还有硫以及磷酸盐，
all the minerals that are required for plants to grow and have a good yield.
这些都是植物成长并盛产所需要的矿物质。
And they also retain water in the soil as well.
它们也会让土壤中保有水份。
So the suberin will break up into little particles and give the whole soil a new texture.
所以，软木脂会拆开成为小粒子，让整体土壤有新的结构。
And as we've shown that we can get more carbon in that soil, the soil will get darker.
我们已经展示过，若土壤中有更多碳，颜色会变得比较暗。
And so we will be able to measure all that, and hopefully, this is going to help us solve the problem. So, OK.
我们能够测量这项特性，希望这能协助我们解决问题。所以，好的。
So we have the challenges of a lot of land that we need to use, we have to get farmers to buy it,
我们的挑战包括需要使用很多土地，要让农夫去购买，
and that's going to be the hard thing for us, I think, because we're not really salesmen,
我认为，那对我们来说会很困难，因为我们不是推销员，
we're people who like to Google a person rather than meet them, you know what I mean?
我们这种人比较喜欢去Google别人而不是去和别人见面。你们能懂吧？
That's what scientists are mostly like.
大部分科学家都是这样子的。
But we know now that, you know, no one can really deny -- the climate is changing, everyone knows that.
但是我们知道，没有人能否认--气候正在变迁，大家都知道。
And it's here and it's bad and it's serious, and we need to do something about it.
事情发生了，状况很糟，很严重，而我们得要采取行动。
But I feel pretty optimistic that we can do this.
但是对此我是相对乐观。
So I'm here today as a character witness for plants.
所以，今天我是以植物的品格证人身分来到这里。
And I want to tell you that plants are going to do it for us, all we have to do is give them a little help,
我想要告诉各位，植物会为我们做这些，我们只需要给它们一点点协助，
and they will go and get a gold medal for humanity. Thank you very much.
它们就会为人类取得金牌。非常谢谢。
Thank you. I finally got it out.
谢谢。我终于把它说完了。
Wow. Joanne, you're so extraordinary. Just to be sure we heard this right:
哇。乔安妮，你真了不起。让我确认一下我们有听对：
you believe that within the next 10 years you may be able to offer the world seed variants for the major crops,
你认为在接下来的十年间，你们将会为世界创造出主要作物种子的变种，
like -- what? -- wheat, corn, maybe rice, that can offer farmers just as much yield,
比如小麦、玉米，也许还有稻子，而且农夫还是能保持产量，
sequester three times, four times, more carbon than they currently do? Even more than that?
并捕捉到比目前还要高三倍或四倍的碳量？甚至更多？
We don't know that number, really. But they will do more.
我们其实不知道确切数字。但是它们会产出更多。
And at the same time, make the soil that those farmers have more fertile? Yes, right.
并且，同时，让那些农夫的土壤更肥沃？是的，没错。
So that is astonishing. And the genius of doing that and a solution that can scale where there's already scale.
那好惊人。并且非常天才，这个解决方案能够将已经有的规模再扩大规模。
Yes, thank you for saying that.
是的，谢谢你这么说。
No, no, you said it, you said it. But it almost seems too good to be true.
不，不，是你说的，你说的。但听起来太好了，不太像真的。
Your Audacious Project is that we scale up the research in your lab
你的“大胆项目”是要把你的实验室研究扩大规模，
and pave the way to start some of these pilots and make this incredible vision possible.
并为一些试点计划铺路，让这了不起的远景成为可能。
That's right, yes, thank you.
没错，是的，谢谢你。
Joanne Chory, thank you so much. Godspeed. Thank you.
乔安妮·乔里，非常谢谢你。祝成功。谢谢你。
