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军方是如何对抗气候变化的

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So I'd like to tell you a story about climate and change, but it's really a story about people and not polar bears.

我想讲一个关于气候和变化的故事,但这个故事实际上跟人有关,而不是北极熊。
So this is our house that we lived in in the mid-2000s.
这是我2005年左右住的房子。
I was the chief operating officer for the Navy's weather and ocean service.
当时我在海军天气和海洋局当首席运营官。
It happened to be down at a place called Stennis Space Center right on the Gulf Coast,
房子位于斯坦尼斯航天中心,墨西哥湾沿岸,
so we lived in a little town called Waveland, Mississippi, nice modest house, and as you can see, it's up against a storm surge.
我们住在密西西比州一个叫维乌兰德的小镇,很漂亮很现代的房子,如您所见,它经历了风暴潮。
Now, if you ever wonder what a 30-foot or nine-meter storm surge does coming up your street, let me show you.
不知道您想过没有,30英尺,或者说9米高的风暴潮,袭击您住的街区会是什么样子,我们来看一看。
Same house. That's me, kind of wondering what's next.
就是那栋房子。那是我,在想接下来应该怎么办。
But when we say we lost our house -- this is, like, right after Katrina
我们失去了自己的房子,这是在卡特里娜飓风过境之后,
so the house is either all the way up there in the railway tracks, or it's somewhere down there in the Gulf of Mexico,
我们的房子要么在这里的铁路线上,要么就是在墨西哥湾里的某个地方,
and to this day, we really, we lost our house. We don't know where it is.
直到今天,我只知道房子没了,天知道它在哪里。
You know, it's gone. So I don't show this for pity, because in many ways, we were the luckiest people on the Gulf Coast.
没了就是没了。我说这个不是为了寻求同情,因为从很多方面来说,我们已经是墨西哥湾沿岸最幸运的人了。
One of the things is, we had insurance, and that idea of insurance is probably pretty important there.
因为很重要的一点,我们有保险,保险对于我们那儿而言尤为重要。
But does this scale up, you know, what happened here?
那么这种事情会不会越来越严重呢?
And I think it kind of does, because as you've heard, as the sea levels come up,
我认为会,因为大家都知道,随着海平面上升,
it takes weaker and weaker storms to do something like this.
越来越小的风暴都可以造成这样大的伤害。
So let's just step back for a second and kind of look at this.
让我们先停一下,来看看这个。
And, you know, climate's really complicated, a lot of moving parts in this, but I kind of put it about it's all about the water.
我们都知道,气候非常复杂,有很多变化因素在里面,但简单来看,全部都跟水有关。
See, see those three blue dots there down on the lower part?
大家看到下面这3个蓝色的点了吗?
The one you can easily see, that's all the water in the world.
最大的那个,是全世界所有的水。
Those two smaller dots, those are the fresh water.
比较小的那两个,是淡水。
And it turns out that as the climate changes, the distribution of that water is changing very fundamentally.
其实随着气候的变化,水的比例会发生根本性的变化。
So now we have too much, too little, wrong place, wrong time.
要么多了,要么少了,要么地点不对,要么时间不对。
It's salty where it should be fresh; it's liquid where it should be frozen; it's wet where it should be dry;
本该是淡水的,变成了咸水,本该是冻结的,融化了,本该干燥的地方变潮湿了,
and in fact, the very chemistry of the ocean itself is changing.
实际上,海洋本身的化学成分也在变化。
And what that does from a security or a military part is it does three things:
那么从安全和军事角度来说,气候变化带来了三件事:
it changes the very operating environment that we're working in, it threatens our bases,
一是改变了我们行动的环境,威胁我们的基地,
and then it has geostrategic risks, which sounds kind of fancy and I'll explain what I mean by that in a second.
同时还有地缘战略风险,这个听起来有点高深,我稍后会详细解释。
So let's go to just a couple examples here.
下面举几个例子。
And we'll start off with what we all know is of course a political and humanitarian catastrophe that is Syria.
首先是大家众所周知的,发生在叙利亚的人道主义灾难和政治灾难。
And it turns out that climate was one of the causes in a long chain of events.
原来,气候也是起因之一,是链条中的一环。
It actually started back in the 1970s. When Assad took control over Syria,
事情开始于20世纪70年代。当时阿萨德控制了叙利亚,
he decided he wanted to be self-sufficient in things like wheat and barley.
他想要实现粮食自给自足。
Now, you would like to think that there was somebody in Assad's office that said,
好的,你也许会想,会有人在阿萨德的办公室说,
"Hey boss, you know, we're in the eastern Mediterranean, kind of dry here, maybe not the best idea."
“老板,我们位于地中海东岸,气候有点干燥,可能有点难办。”
But I think what happened was, "Boss, you are a smart, powerful and handsome man. We'll get right on it."
但我觉得实际情况可能是,“老板,您真是英明神武。我们立刻去办。”
And they did. So by the '90s, believe it or not, they were actually self-sufficient in food, but they did it at a great cost.
他们说到做到。不管你信不信,在90年代,他们真的做到了粮食自给自足,但付出的代价也很大。
They did it at a cost of their aquifers, they did it at a cost of their surface water.
代价就是他们的地下水以及地表水。
And of course, there are many nonclimate issues that also contributed to Syria.
当然,还有很多非气候的因素造成了目前叙利亚的局面。
There was the Iraq War, and as you can see by that lower blue line there, over a million refugees come into the cities.
比如伊拉克战争,请大家看底下这条蓝色的线,超过100万难民涌入城市。
And then about a decade ago, there's this tremendous heat wave and drought
另外,差不多十年前,发生了严重的热浪和干旱,
fingerprints all over that show, yes, this is in fact related to the changing climate
所有的证据都表明,没错,这的确跟气候变化有关,
has put another three quarters of a million farmers into those same cities.
而且这又将另外75万农民赶入了之前那些城市。
Why? Because they had nothing. They had dust. They had dirt. They had nothing.
为什么?因为他们已经一无所有。除了沙尘和荒漠,一无所有。

军队是如何对抗气候变化的

So now they're in the cities, the Iraqis are in the cities, it's Assad, it's not like he's taking care of his people,

他们身处城市之中,伊拉克人也在城市之中,那可是阿萨德,他可不关照他的子民,
and all of a sudden we have just this huge issue here of massive instability and a breeding ground for extremism.
仿佛一夜之间出现了很多大问题,比如不稳定,比如滋生极端主义。
And this is why in the security community we call climate change a risk to instability.
正因为此,我们搞安全的会把气候变化称为造成不稳定的风险。
It accelerates instability here. In plain English, it makes bad places worse.
它会加速不稳定。直白点说,会让不好的地方变得更糟。
So let's go to another place here.
下面我们去另一个地方看一下。
Now we're going to go 2,000 kilometers, or about 1,200 miles, north of Oslo, only 600 miles from the Pole,
奥斯陆北边2000公里,或者说1200英里的地方,那儿离北极点只有600英里,
and this is arguably the most strategic island you've never heard of. It's a place called Svalbard.
那个地方可以说是最具有战略意义的岛屿,而你可能从未听说过。它叫斯瓦尔巴。
It sits astride the sea lanes that the Russian Northern Fleet needs to get out and go into warmer waters.
它横跨数条海洋航道,俄罗斯的北方舰队要进入温暖海域,必须经过这里。
It is also, by virtue of its geography, a place where you can control every single polar orbiting satellite on every orbit.
它还有一个地理上的优势,在这里,你可以控制到每一颗极地轨道卫星,无论它的轨道高度如何。
It is the strategic high ground of space.
这里是太空的战略制高点。
Climate change has greatly reduced the sea ice around here, greatly increasing human activity,
气候变化极大减少了那里的海冰,并大大加强了人类活动,
and it's becoming a flashpoint, and in fact the NATO Parliamentary Assembly is going to meet here on Svalbard next month.
这里成为了一个导火线,实际上,北约的议会大会,将会于下月在斯瓦尔巴召开。
The Russians are very, very unhappy about that.
俄罗斯对此非常不满。
So if you want to find a flashpoint in the Arctic, look at Svalbard there.
如果你想在北极找一个导火线,非斯瓦尔巴莫属。
Now, in the military, we have known for decades, if not centuries, that the time to prepare,
在军事领域,在早几十年甚至几个世纪前,我们就已经明白要防患于未然,
whether it's for a hurricane, a typhoon or strategic changes, is before they hit you, and Admiral Nimitz was right there.
预防飓风、台风或者战略变化,做好预案,尼米兹上将明白这一点。
That is the time to prepare. Fortunately, our Secretary of Defense, Secretary Mattis,
他已经在准备应对。幸运的是,我们的国防部长,马蒂斯部长,
he understands that as well, and what he understands is that climate is a risk.
他也明白这一点,他知道气候是风险。
He has said so in his written responses to Congress, and he says, "As Secretary of Defense, it's my job to manage such risks."
他在对国会的书面回复中写到,“作为国防部长,我有责任来应对这些风险。”
It's not only the US military that understands this.
不仅是美国军方有这种意识。
Many of our friends and allies in other navies and other militaries have very clear-eyed views about the climate risk.
其他国家的海军以及军方的许多朋友、盟友,对于气候风险也有很清醒的认识。
And in fact, in 2014, I was honored to speak for a half-a-day seminar at the International Seapower Symposium
2014年,我有幸参加了一次为期半天的研讨会,主题是国际海洋力量,
to 70 heads of navies about this issue.
我有幸对全球70家海军的领袖发言。
So Winston Churchill is alleged to have said, I'm not sure if he said anything, but he's alleged to have said that
据说温斯顿·丘吉尔说过,我不确定他是否说过,但据说是这样,他说,
Americans can always be counted upon to do the right thing after exhausting every other possibility.
美国人在折腾完其他所有的可能性之后,总会做出正确的决定的。
So I would argue we're still in the process of exhausting every other possibility, but I do think we will prevail.
我会说,我们还在折腾,折腾其他所有的可能性,但我认为我们有优势。
But I need your help. This is my ask. I ask not that you take your recycling out on Wednesday,
但我需要你们的帮助。这是我的请求。我并不会请求你们在周三交出可回收物品,
but that you engage with every business leader, every technology leader, every government leader, and ask them,
而是请求你们去游说每一位商业领袖,每一位技术领袖,每一位政府首脑,问问他们
"Ma'am, sir, what are you doing to stabilize the climate?"
“女士/先生,您打算如何来保持气候稳定?”
It's just that simple. Because when enough people care enough,
就这么简单。因为只要有足够多的人关注,
the politicians, most of whom won't lead on this issue -- but they will be led -- that will change this.
那么政治家们--大部分可能并不直接管这事,但他们会被动员起来,那就足以改变现状了。
Because I can tell you, the ice doesn't care.
因为我可以告诉大家,冰川无情。
The ice doesn't care who's in the White House.
冰川并不会在意谁入主白宫。
It doesn't care which party controls your congress. It doesn't care which party controls your parliament.
它也不在意国会被哪个党控制,议会被哪个党控制。
It just melts. Thank you very much.
它只会融化。非常感谢大家。

重点单词   查看全部解释    
wheat [wi:t]

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n. 小麦,小麦色

 
community [kə'mju:niti]

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n. 社区,社会,团体,共同体,公众,[生]群落

联想记忆
plain [plein]

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n. 平原,草原
adj. 清楚的,坦白的,简

 
liquid ['likwid]

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adj. 液体的,液态的
n. 液体

 
distribution [.distri'bju:ʃən]

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n. 分发,分配,散布,分布

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scale [skeil]

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n. 鳞,刻度,衡量,数值范围
v. 依比例决

 
catastrophe [kə'tæstrəfi]

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n. 大灾难,大祸,彻底失败

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complicated ['kɔmplikeitid]

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adj. 复杂的,难懂的
动词complica

 
drought [draut]

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n. 干旱

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surge [sə:dʒ]

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n. 汹涌,澎湃
v. 汹涌,涌起,暴涨

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