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讀紐時學英文
2020/03/06 第297期 訂閱/退訂看歷史報份
 
 
紐時周報精選 Below a New Dam, a Grim Turn for the Mekong 泰國湄公河下游築壩 破壞生態
The End of Australia as We Know It 不只摧毀生命 野火過後的澳洲未來
紐時周報精選
 
Below a New Dam, a Grim Turn for the Mekong 泰國湄公河下游築壩 破壞生態
文/Hannah Beech and Adam Dean
譯/李京倫 核稿/樂慧生

湄公河下游築壩 破壞生態

The water is so clear on the Mekong River in northeastern Thailand that the sunlight pierces through to the riverbed, transforming the waterway into a glinting, empty aquarium. It is beautiful, but it means death.

泰國東北部的湄公河清澈到陽光能直射河床,把河道變成波光粼粼的空蕩水族館。一片美景,卻意味死亡。

At this time of year in Thailand, this stretch of the world’s most productive river should be brown and swollen with silt. Instead, a prolonged drought and a huge new dam over the border in Laos, the first on the lower Mekong, have stolen the nutrients needed to sustain life.

泰國每年此際,湄公河這世界最富饒河川的下游這個河段河水理應黃濁,而且水量豐沛,挾帶泥沙,而今卻非如此,長期乾旱加上寮國在邊境建了座巨型水壩(湄公河下游第一座),奪去了河裡維持生命的養分。

On another bend, the Mekong almost disappears entirely, a trickle of stagnant water surrounded by a lunar landscape of sere hillocks and desiccated roots. This is the season that fish normally spawn here, but there is no water.

在另一個河彎,湄公河幾乎完全消失,只見零星的死水水窪被乾枯小山和了無生氣的植物根部這種月球景觀包圍。這通常是魚兒產卵的季節,河裡卻沒水。

“Our nets are almost empty,” said Buorot Chaokhao, who has fished the Mekong’s waters in Nong Khai, Thailand, just across the riverine border from Laos, for nearly five decades. “Maybe our way of life on the river is finished.”

在泰國廊開市湄公河水域捕魚近50年的喬高說:「我們的漁網幾乎是空的,也許依靠河流的生活方式已經結束了。」廊開市與寮國隔湄公河相望。

The lower Mekong, which makes its way through five countries, was one of the world’s few remaining free rivers. But a hydropower boom, coupled with extreme weather patterns attributed to climate change, is radically remaking the waterway.

湄公河下游流經五個國家,原本是世上少數沒有水壩的河流之一,不過水力發電興起和氣候變遷導致的極端天氣模式,正劇烈改變這條河道。

In October, the turbines of the first lower Mekong dam, the Xayaburi, began churning upstream from Nong Khai in Laos after a series of test runs last summer. The effect of the Thai-funded dam was almost immediate, residents said.

湄公河下游第一座水壩「沙耶武里水壩」設在寮國,繼去年夏天一系列試運轉後,水壩渦輪機於十月開始在廊開之前的河段劇烈攪動河水。居民說,這座泰國出資的水壩造成的衝擊,幾乎立刻顯現。

The Mekong ran clear and depleted, appearing an eerie, luminescent blue on sunny days. Algae bloomed, choking nets. Now a monthslong drought has pushed the water level even lower so that parts of the river are no longer a waterway at all but a desert of dead plants and dried-out crustaceans.

湄公河變清澈且水量大減,在陽光燦爛的日子裡發出怪異可怕的藍色冷光。水藻大量增生並纏住漁網。如今長達數月的乾旱使水位更低,部分河段根本不再是河道,而是充斥枯萎植物和甲殼動物枯乾軀體的沙漠。

With about 10 more dams planned for the mainstream Mekong’s lower reaches and hundreds more on its tributaries, a lifeline for 60 million people is being choked. Tens of millions more will be affected as farms and fisheries are compromised, even as the rich and powerful across the region profit from the hydropower business.

湄公河下游主河道及其諸多支流,依計畫還要分別再建十座與數百座水壩,6000萬人的命脈正在被扼殺,另有數千萬人會因農地和漁場劣化而受害,儘管這個區域各地有錢有勢者正從水力發電業獲利。

“We’re asking the question: Is this the breaking point for the Mekong?” said Brian Eyler, director of the Stimson Center’s Southeast Asia program and author of “Last Days of the Mighty Mekong.” “The Mekong’s ecosystem is adaptable and resilient, but the worry is that the river’s massive resource base won’t be able to overcome all these dams and extreme weather.”

著有「湄公河最後歲月」一書的華府智庫史汀生中心東南亞計畫主任艾博說:「我們要問,這是湄公河承受的極限嗎?湄公河的生態系統能適應各種變化並從中復原,但我們擔心,湄公河豐饒的資源敵不過所有這些水壩和極端天氣。」

 
The End of Australia as We Know It 不只摧毀生命 野火過後的澳洲未來
文/Damien Cave and Matthew Abbo
譯/李京倫 核稿/樂慧生

野火過後的澳洲未來

In a country where there has always been more space than people, where the land and wildlife are cherished like a Picasso, nature is closing in. Fueled by climate change and the world’s refusal to address it, the fires that have burned across Australia are not just destroying lives or turning forests as large as nations into ashen moonscapes.

在空間總比人多、土地和野生動物都如畢卡索名作般受到珍惜的澳洲,大自然的力量正步步逼近。在氣候變遷和全球不願正視它的心態助長下,燒遍澳洲的野火不只是摧毀生命,或把大如國家的森林化為蒼白的月球景觀而已。

They are also forcing Australians to imagine an entirely new way of life. When summer is feared. When air filters hum in homes that are bunkers, with kids kept indoors. When birdsong and the rustle of marsupials in the bush give way to an eerie, smoky silence.

野火還迫使澳洲人想像全然不同的生活方式。夏天變得可怕。空氣清淨機在有如地下掩體的家中嗡嗡作響,孩子都待在室內不外出。荒野中的鳥語和有袋動物穿過樹叢的沙沙聲都不見了,取而代之的是怪異可怖、煙霧彌漫下的寂靜。

“I am standing here a traveler from a new reality, a burning Australia,” Lynette Wallworth, an Australian filmmaker, told a crowd of international executives and politicians in Davos, Switzerland, last month. “What was feared and what was warned is no longer in our future, a topic for debate — it is here.”“We have seen,” she added, “the unfolding wings of climate change.”

澳洲電影製作人琳尼特.華爾沃斯,1月在瑞士達沃斯論壇對各國商界領袖和政治人物說:「站在這裡的我,是從野火熊熊的澳洲這個新現實來訪的旅人。我們先前懼怕的和有人警告過的事,不再屬於未來,也不再是爭論的主題,已然呈現在眼前。」她說:「我們已目睹氣候變遷張開雙翼。」

Like the fires, it’s a metaphor that lingers. What many of us have witnessed this fire season does feel alive, like a monstrous gathering force threatening to devour what we hold most dear on a continent that will grow only hotter, drier and more flammable as global temperatures rise.

就像野火,這是徘徊不去的隱喻。我們之中許多人在這個野火季節親眼看到的,感覺非常鮮活,就如一股逐漸增強的殘暴力量,在這個因為全球升溫而只會變得愈來愈燠熱、乾燥和容易起火的大陸上,隨時會吞噬我們最珍愛的事物。

It’s also a hint of what may be coming to a town, city or country near you.

這也暗示了可能發生在你周遭國家或城鎮的事。

In a land usually associated with relaxed optimism, anxiety and trauma have taken hold. A recent Australia Institute survey found that 57% of Australians have been directly affected by the bush fires or their smoke. With officials in New South Wales announcing Thursday that heavy rain had helped them finally extinguish or control all the fires that have raged this Australian summer, the country seems to be reflecting and wondering what comes next.

在這片通常予人輕鬆樂觀印象的大地上,焦慮和心理創傷竟然扎了根。智庫「澳洲研究所」最近一份調查顯示,有57%的澳洲人直接受到叢林野火和濃煙影響。新南威爾斯省官方2月13日宣布豪雨終於幫助他們撲滅和控制了澳洲今夏所有野火,而澳洲似乎也正在反思並揣想接下來會是什麼光景。

Politics have been a focal point — one of frustration for most Australians. The conservative government is still playing down the role of climate change, despite polls showing public anger hitting feverish levels. And yet what’s emerging alongside public protest may prove more potent.

政治一直是個重點,令多數澳洲人感到挫折。儘管民調顯示民怨沸騰,保守派政府卻仍在淡化氣候變遷的角色。不過,跟群眾示威並起的事物,可能威力更強。

In interviews all over the fire zone since September, it’s been clear that Australians are reconsidering far more than energy and emissions. They are stumbling toward new ways of living: Housing, holiday travel, work, leisure, food and water are all being reconsidered.

去年九月以來針對野火肆虐區居民的訪問清楚顯示,澳洲人正在重新思考的遠超過能源和溫室氣體排放。他們正在摸索新的生活方式:從住房、假期旅遊、工作、休閒、食物和水都重新審視。

“If there’s not a major shift that comes out of this, we’re doomed,” said Robyn Eckersley, a political scientist at the University of Melbourne who has written extensively about environmental policy around the world. “It does change everything — or it should.”

墨爾本大學政治學者羅蘋.艾克斯利曾廣泛研究世界各地環境政策並提筆為文,她說:「如果我們經歷野火後沒有做出重大改變,我們就完了。野火改變了一切,也應該改變一切。」

※說文解字看新聞【李京倫】

澳洲野火肆虐數月,讓澳洲人切實感受到氣候變遷,輕鬆的舊生活不知去向,難以招架的新生活突然闖入。

本文關鍵字是change,作者為了凸顯這個主題,用了不少新舊對比,如birdsong讓位給silence、monstrous force吞噬what we hold most dear、optimism不敵anxiety,另外government與public anger是同時間兩種現象對比,讀起來特別有張力。

標題的as we know it意思是現行的、現存的、眾人熟知的,通常含有「現況即將改變」的意思,如:Nuclear warfare will mark the end of civilization as we know it.

第一段說大自然closing in,這個動詞片語常見的意思是「慢慢圍上來」:Enemy troops began closing in at dawn.。另外一個意思是「包圍使之不能使用」,例如:The airport was closed in by fog.主詞是天氣或大自然現象時,意指「變得糟糕」。

 
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