No safe place 无处容身 | 经济学人中英双语对照精读笔记

译 / 乔灵儿（微信公众号：考研英语笔记）

选自20210724，Leaders

No safe place

没有安全之地无处容身

The extremes of flood and fire are not going away, but adaptation can lessen their impact.

洪水和火灾这种极端情况不会消失，唯有适应可以减轻它们的影响。

lessen: to become smaller in size, importance, or value, or make sth do this (使)降低；(使)减少

In 1745, as the river Liffey, having broken its banks, clawed at the foundations of the house in which he sat, the young Edmund Burke experienced a strange, perverse thrill. The man who would go on to found modern conservatism drew inspiration from this experience in a later essay on the sublime, writing of the unmatched delight that terrible destruction could stir—provided that it is watched from a certain distance.

1745年，当利菲河决堤，撕扯着埃德蒙·伯克所居住房屋的地基时，年轻的他感受到一种奇怪而又不合情理的兴奋。在后来撰写的一篇关于崇高的论文时，这位创立了现代保守主义的人从这一经历汲取了灵感。他写道，只要一定距离观看，可怕的破坏能够激起无与伦比的喜悦。

Liffey: 利菲河，位于爱尔兰，是一条流经都柏林市中心的河流。而埃德蒙·伯克就读的Trinity College就在附近.

bank: 岸，堤

Edmund Burke: 埃德蒙·伯克，爱尔兰的政治家、作家、演说家、政治理论家、和哲学家，是现代保守主义的思想奠基者，被誉为保守主义的先驱。

perverse: behaving in an unreasonable way, especially by deliberately doing the opposite of what people want you to do 任性的；一意孤行的；不合情理的

essay on sth：关于...的论文

the sublime: sth that is so good or beautiful that you are deeply affected by it 崇高；壮丽；宏伟

stir：搅动；微动；移动；激起

provided that: used to say what must happen or be done to make it possible for sth else to happen 如果；假如；在…条件下；只要

The most terrible thing about the spectacular scenes of destruction that have played out around the world over the past weeks is that there is no safe place from which to observe them. The ground under the German town of Erftstadt is torn apart like tissue paper by flood waters; Lytton in British Columbia is burned from the map just a day after setting a freakishly high temperature record; cars float like dead fish through the streets-turned-canals in the Chinese city of Zhengzhou. All the world feels at risk, and most of it is.

过去几周，世界各地上演了一幕幕壮观的破坏景象，而最可怕的事情是没有安全的地方可以观察它们。的安全地方。在过去的数周出现的最可怕的灾害是观察到的没有安全之地。德国小镇埃尔夫施塔特的地面就像纸巾一样被洪水撕碎；不列颠哥伦比亚省的利顿市创造了异常高的温度记录，仅一天后就烧起了大火；中国城市郑州，汽车就像死鱼一样漂浮在街道变成的水渠上。整个世界都感觉处于危险之中，而且大部分都是如此。

乔灵儿(wiseteam)注：of这个介词出现的频率可谓是非常高，大多数时候都是表示所属关系，即...的。在本句中of用于表示同位关系，German town of Erftstadt和Chinese city of Zhengzhou，德国小镇就是指埃尔夫施塔特，同理，中国城市就是指郑州。

spectacular：壮观的；精彩的；令人印象深刻的；惊人的

play out: 发生；出现

tear apart：使分崩离析，使分裂；使分离同义词组：rip apart

freakishly: very unusual and strange, and sometimes frightening 反常地；异乎寻常地

German town of Erftstadt:是德国巴伐利亚州的一个县，隶属于中弗兰肯行政区，首府埃尔朗根。

埃尔夫施塔特的这场洪水发生在2021年7月中旬，死亡人数超过150人，媒体称之为“死亡洪水”。

Lytton in British Columbia：不列颠哥伦比亚省的利顿市。注意这个城市是属于加拿大的。不列颠哥伦比亚省是加拿大西部的一个省，是加拿大四大省之一，该省南与美国华盛顿州、爱达荷州及蒙大拿州接壤，是加拿大通往亚太地区的门户。

加拿大西部地区因“热穹”覆盖，出现极端的高温天气，利顿接连三天打破加拿大高温纪录。当地时间7月1日，大火已经吞没了加拿大不列颠哥伦比亚省中部的利顿，包括镇子中心区在内，90%的地方都已经被烧毁殆尽。

Greenhouse-gas emissions have produced a planet more than 1°C (1.8°F) warmer than it was in Burke’s pre-industrial days. Its atmosphere, stoked up and out of joint, is producing heavy weather in ways both predicted and surprising. And, with emissions continuing, it will get worse.

温室气体排放导致地球温度比埃德蒙·伯克所处的前工业时代高出1°C (1.8°F) 。地球的大气层被加热，且处于不稳定状态，正以可预见且令人惊讶的方式产生恶劣的天气。而且，随着排放的持续，情况会变得更糟。

greenhouse-gas emissions: 温室气体排放

stoke up: to add fuel to a fire, etc. 给…添加（燃料）

out of joint: not quite right or appropriate, or does not work quite as it should 不太正常；不得体；无秩序

Unfortunately, 2021 will probably be one of the 21st century’s coolest years. If temperatures rise by 3°C above pre-industrial levels in the coming decades—as they might even if everyone manages to honour today’s firm pledges—large parts of the tropics risk becoming too hot for outdoor work. Coral reefs and the livelihoods that depend on them will vanish and the Amazon rainforest will become a ghost of itself. Severe harvest failures will be commonplace. Ice sheets in Antarctica and Greenland will shrink past the point of no return, promising sea rises measured not in millimetres, as today’s are, but in metres.

不幸的是，2021年可能是21世纪最冷的年份之一。在未来的几十年，如果气温比工业化前的水平上升3°C （即使每人都能履行当前坚定的承诺，气温也可能上升3°C ），在接下来的几十年比工业前水平高3摄氏度，即使每人管理现代公司的承诺，热带地区的大部分区域将面临太热而无法进行户外工作的风险。珊瑚礁和依赖它们的生计将消失，亚马逊雨林将成为一个幽灵。严重欠收将变得普遍。南极洲和格陵兰岛的冰原将缩小到不可逆转的程度，预示着海平面上升的测量单位将不再是今天的毫米，而是米。

乔灵儿(wiseteam)注：large parts of the tropics risk becoming too hot for outdoor work. 在本句里，risk为动词，冒着……的风险。

honour/keep/fulfil a pledge: 履行承诺；信守诺言

coral reef: 珊瑚礁

livelihood: the way you earn money in order to live 生计

commonplace: happening or existing in many places, and therefore not special or unusual 常见的；屡见不鲜的

ice sheet: 冰盖，冰冠

Six years ago, in Paris, the countries of the world committed themselves to avoiding the worst of that nightmare by eliminating net greenhouse-gas emissions quickly enough to hold the temperature rise below 2°C. Their progress towards that end remains woefully inadequate. Yet even if their efforts increased dramatically enough to meet the 2°C goal, it would not stop forests from burning today; prairies would still dry out tomorrow, rivers break their banks and mountain glaciers disappear.

六年前，在巴黎，世界各国承诺尽快消除温室气体净排放，确保温度升幅控制在2°C以下，以避免最糟糕的梦噩。对于这个目标的进展仍严重不足。即使他们的努力大幅增加，足以达到2°C的目标，也不能阻止今天森林的燃烧；明天，草原依然会干枯，河流决堤，冰川消失。

end: an aim or purpose, or the result you hope to achieve 目的；目标

woefully: very bad or serious 极坏地；糟透

prairie: 北美草原

Cutting emissions is thus not enough. The world also urgently needs to invest in adapting to the changing climate. The good news is that adaptation makes political sense. People can clearly see the need for it. When a country invests in flood defences it benefits its own citizens above all others—there is no free-rider problem, as there could be for emissions reduction. Nor does all the money come from the public purse; companies and private individuals can see the need for adaptation and act on it. When they do not do so, insurance companies can open their eyes to the risks they are running.

因此，减排还不够的。世界迫切需要投资，以适应不断变化的气候。好消息是适应具有政治意义。人们能够清晰地看到它的必要性。当一个国家投资在防洪工程时，它首先使本国居民受益。这不存在搭便车的问题，就像减排一样。不是所有的钱都来自公共资金；公司和个人能看到适应的需要，并采取行动。当他们不这样做时，保险公司会正视他们所面临的风险。

free-rider: 搭便车者；免费使用者

act on: 根据…行事

Some adaptation is fairly easily set in place. Systems for warning Germans of coming floods will surely now improve. But other problems require much larger public investment, like that which has been put into water-management in the Netherlands. Rich countries can afford such things. Poor countries and poor people need help, which is why the Paris climate agreement calls for annual transfers of $100bn from rich to poor.

有些适应相当容易。德国洪水预警系统现在肯定要改进。但其它问题需要更大的公众投资，像荷兰水务的投资。发达国家负担得起这些事情。不发达国家和穷困人群需要帮助，这是为什么巴黎气候协议呼吁富国向穷国每年提供1000亿美元。

call for: ask publicly for sth to be done 要求；呼吁

The rich countries have not yet lived up to their side of this. On July 20th John Kerry, President Joe Biden’s special envoy on climate change, reiterated America’s pledge to triple its support to $1.5bn for adaptation in poorer countries by 2024, part of a broader move to increase investment in adaptation and mitigation in developing countries. More such efforts are vital.

发达国家还没做到这一点。7月20日，拜登总统的气候变化特使约翰·克里重申美国承诺到2024年对较贫穷国家的适应气候变化的支持增加两倍，达到15亿美元。这是更广泛举措的一部分，以增加发展中国家适应和减缓气候变化的投资。更多这样的努力是至关重要的。

live up to sth: 符合（标准）；不负（盛名）；履行（诺言）

special envoy: 特使

reiterate: to repeat a statement or opinion in order to make your meaning as clear as possible 重申

mitigation: a reduction in how unpleasant, harmful, or serious a situation is 减轻；缓和

But they also have limits. Making do with less water may be possible; getting by on none is not. Some levels of temperature and humidity make outdoors activity impossible. There comes one flood too many, after which you abandon the land. When the reef is gone, it is gone.

但他们也是有限的。用更少的水凑合生活是可以的。什么都没有是没办法度日的。温度和湿度达到某个水平，户外活动就无法进行。一次洪水泛滥，你就会弃地而去。当珊瑚礁消失时，依赖它的生计也就消失了。

make do with: to manage with the things that you have, even though this is not really enough 凑合；将就

get by on: to have enough money to buy the things you need, but no more （钱）勉强够花；勉强过日子

If the Paris goal of keeping the rise below 2°C is met, the full extent of those limits will not be tested. But emission-cutting zeal may not accelerate as required. And the climate system could prove more sensitive than it has shown itself to be to date, as some scientists believe possible, producing more warming per tonne of carbon in the atmosphere.

如果巴黎气候协议将气温升幅控制在2°C以下的目标得以实现，这些极限情况将不会被验证。但减排的热情可能就不会像要求的那样快速高涨。一些科学家认为，气候系统可能比迄今表现出来的更为敏感，大气中每吨碳产生的升温比预计的幅度更大。

zeal: eagerness to do something, especially to achieve a particular religious or political aim 热情

accelerate: （使）加快/加速

to date: up to now 迄今

Hence it is also prudent to study the most spectacular, and scary, form of adaptation: solar geoengineering. This seeks to make clouds or particle layers in the atmosphere a bit more mirror-like, reflecting away some sunlight. It cannot provide a straightforward equal and opposite response to greenhouse-gas warming; it will tend, for example, to reduce precipitation somewhat more than temperature, potentially changing rainfall patterns. But research over the past 15 years has suggested that solar geoengineering might significantly reduce some of the harms from greenhouse warming.

因此，研究最壮观可怕的适应方式— 太阳能地球工程也是谨慎的做法。这试图使大气中的云和粒子层更像镜子，反射一些阳光。它不对温室气体变暖提供一个直接对等和相反的回应；比如，它趋向于减少降水量，而不是降低温度，这可能会降雨模式。但过去15年的研究表明太阳能地球工程可能会明显减少温室效应带来的危害。

prudent: sensible and careful when you make judgements and decisions; avoiding unnecessary risks 谨慎的；慎重的；精明的

solar geoengineering: 太阳能地球工程，指人为反射太阳光以降低全球气温的一系列措施

particle layers: 粒子层

precipitation: 降水（量）

What nobody yet knows is how such schemes could be developed so as to reflect not just the interests of their instigators, but also those of all the countries they will affect. Different countries might seek different amounts of cooling; some ways of putting solar geoengineering into effect would help some regions while harming others. Nor is there yet a compelling rejoinder to the risk that the very idea of such things tomorrow reduces the incentive to be ambitious in cutting emissions today.

目前还没有人知道的是如何制定这样的计划，以便即反映倡议者的利益，又反映其所影响的所有国家的利益。如此计划如何开发，以不仅反映煽动者的利益，也反映他们影响的国家的利益。不同国家可能寻求不同的降温方式；实施太阳能地球工程的有些方法可能会对一些地区有利但对另一些区地域不利。对于这种风险（未来发生的情况可能会降低现在减排目标的动力）仍然没有令人信服的回应。

instigator: a person who causes something to happen, especially sth bad 发起人；（尤指）唆使者；煽动者；怂恿者

compelling: that makes you think it is true 令人信服的

rejoinder: a reply, especially a quick, critical or funny one 回答；反驳

When good men do nothing

当人类无所作为

To think about solar geoengineering requires facing those problems—and the risk that powers with little interest in them may try out such schemes regardless. It also means facing squarely what kind of being humankind has become. Watching the rising waters of the Liffey, Burke “considered how little man is, yet in his mind how great…Master of all things, yet scarce can command anything.” Manipulating the climate that humanity has destabilised—unwittingly, at first—spurs similar thoughts of simultaneous power and impotence. It is not nature that humans cannot command, but themselves, in all their insignificance and world-altering might.

考虑太阳能地球工程的话需要面对这些问题，以及对这些问题不感兴趣的权力机构可能会不顾一切地尝试这些计划的风险。这也意味着我们要正视人类已经变成了什么样子。看着利菲河不断上涨的水流，伯克“考虑到人是多么渺小，但在他心中是多么伟大……万物之主，却很少能驾驭一切。”起初人类无意间破坏了气候的稳定，而后，操纵气候又引发了关于人“充满力量”和”无能为力"的思考。在他们所有微不足道的个体和改变世界的力量中，人类无法掌控的不是自然，而他们自己。

乔灵儿（wiseteam）注：这段翻译的很绕口，尤其最后一句话针对“in all their insignificance and world-altering might”的理解，我对这句的翻译是不满意的。大家凑合着看吧。如有更好的理解，欢迎指导下我。谢谢。

try out: to test sth such as a method or a piece of equipment to see if it is effective or works properly 试用；试验

squarely: directly and firmly 直接地；坚定地

manipulate: to control or influence sb/sth 操纵

unwittingly: in a way that shows you do not know or realize sth 不知情地；无意识地

simultaneous: appening or done at the same time as sth else 同时发生的；同步的

impotence: the fact of being unable to change things or influence a situation 无能为力

近几年，世界各地自然灾害频繁出现。虽然各国政府都在采取各种措施防范，但我们所做努力远远不够。在大灾大难面前，人类是多么的渺小。

下载本期《经济学人》杂志，参见文章“《经济学人》2021年7月24日刊精彩文章导读及资源免费下载”。

注：本文由乔灵儿试译。原文版权归《经济学人》所有，内容仅代表作者观点,不代表“考研英语笔记”的立场和观点,译文仅供教育及学术交流使用。

No safe place 无处容身 | 经济学人中英双语对照精读笔记相关推荐

The long goodbye 漫长的告别 | 经济学人中英双语对照精读笔记
本文翻译来自:考研英语笔记考研英语笔记为考研,读外刊:看中国,知世界! 公众号选自20210703,Leaders The pandemic is still far from over, bu ...
Instant economics 即时经济经济学人中英双语对照精读笔记
文 / 王不留(微信公众号:王不留) 选自TE20211023,Leaders Instant economics 即时经济 A realtime revolution in economics ...
Unlawfully wed 小小新娘 | 经济学人中英双语对照精读笔记
文 / 王不留(微信公众号:王不留) 本文选自 TE20210626期,Asia版 Unlawfully wed 非法结婚 Religious courts continue to allow gro ...
Rule of lawlessness 南非法治之战 | 经济学人中英双语对照精读笔记
译 / 乔灵儿(微信公众号:考研英语笔记) 选自20210717,Leaders 背景介绍:7月7日,南非前总统祖马因藐视法庭罪向警方投案入狱服刑.9日,其支持者在他的家乡夸祖鲁·纳塔尔省发起示威,要 ...
Broadbandits 网络盗匪 | 经济学人中英双语对照精读笔记
文 / 王不留(微信公众号:王不留) 选自20210619,Leaders Broadbandits 网络盗匪 broadbandit: 改自单词broadband(宽带)+bandit(强盗:土匪) ...
The Year Flu Disappeared 流感消失的那一年|科学美国人中英双语对照精读笔记
文 / 王不留(微信公众号:考研英语笔记) 本文选自<科学美国人>2021年8月刊. Since the novel coronavirus began its global spread ...
The rate shock 利率冲击 | 经济学人中英双语精读笔记
译 / 柳下婴(微信公众号:王不留) 选自TE20221001,Leaders The rate shock 利率冲击 Markets are reeling from higher rates.Th ...
Python Tutorial中英双语对照文档5
Python Tutorial中英双语对照文档4 CHAPTER THIRTEEN WHAT NOW? 现在咧? Reading this tutorial has probably reinforc ...
火车头采集器文章翻译插件(文章标题内容中英双语对照|自动插入相关图片)
火车头采集器文章翻译插件(文章标题内容中英双语对照|自动插入相关图片) 为了保护接口压力防止被封IP: 请把采集的间隔时间调整为10000~100000 火车头采集器文章翻译插件(文章标题内容中英双语 ...

No safe place 无处容身 | 经济学人中英双语对照精读笔记

No safe place 无处容身 | 经济学人中英双语对照精读笔记相关推荐

最新文章

热门文章