Saving the only planet we have makes good economic sense. There is, after all, no money to be made on a dead Earth. There may be costs involved now, but they are worth paying to protect our children from certain destruction(必然的毁灭).
拯救我们唯一的星球，在经济上是划算的。毕竟，地球死了，就无钱可赚。眼下或许要付出代价，但为了保护我们的孩子免遭必然的毁灭，这些代价值得付。
These propositions(主张、命题) seem self-evident(不言自明的) now. But two decades ago, mainstream economists had very different ideas. They had proved that the climate crisis would be a mere economic blip(短暂的波动、小插曲), easily absorbed by growing economies(被增长中的经济体消化) and therefore not worth spending money on(不值得花钱). In their accounting, they considered ice caps and glaciers functionally worthless, that trees only add to GDP when they are cut down, and that a livable climate shouldn’t even merit a line on a spreadsheet.(在他们的账本里，冰盖和冰川在功能上一文不值，树木只有被砍倒时才计入GDP，宜居气候甚至不配在表格上占一行。)
这些主张如今看来不言自明。但二十年前，主流经济学家的看法截然不同。他们曾“证明”，气候危机不过是经济上的一次小波动，增长中的经济体轻易就能消化，因此不值得花钱应对。在他们的账本里，冰盖和冰川在功能上一文不值，树木只有被砍倒时才计入GDP，而一个宜居的气候甚至不配在电子表格上占一行。
What changed? Twenty years ago this week an earth-shaking(震动世界的、影响深远的) report was published by Nicholas Stern, a former World Bank chief economist turned adviser to Gordon Brown(前世界银行首席经济学家、后任布朗顾问). His review, The Economics of Climate Change, upended(颠覆、推翻) conventional wisdom(传统观念、主流看法) among economists and dragged them into a new century(把他们拽进新世纪). It set out(阐明、陈述), for the first time, in clear and bold terms(以清晰大胆的措辞), why investing in a low-carbon future makes economic sense.
是什么改变了这一切？二十年前的这一周，尼古拉斯·斯特恩发布了一份震动世界的报告。他曾是世界银行首席经济学家，后来出任戈登·布朗的顾问。这份名为《气候变化经济学》的报告颠覆了经济学界的传统观念，把他们拽进了一个新世纪。它首次以清晰而大胆的措辞阐明：为什么投资低碳未来在经济上是划算的。