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As I should have shown this earlier, it will not be humans who witness the end point of the sun; it will be creatures as different from us as we are from bacteria.
我前面曾指出的一点是，人类将不能见证太阳的最后生命时刻，那时的生物与我们的差别将和我们现在与细菌间的差别一样悬殊。
When Einstein died in 1955, one striking tribute to his global status was this cartoon by Herblock in the Washington Post.
当爱因斯坦在1955年去世时，一部漫画被用来表达对他全球地位的特别敬意，漫画作者是华盛顿邮报的赫布洛克。
The plaque reads, "Albert Einstein lived here." And I'd like to end with a vignette, as it were, inspired by this image.
漫画中的文字是：“爱因斯坦曾生活在这里”。受这张漫画的启发，我用下面的文字来结束我的发言。
We've been familiar for 40 years with this image: the fragile beauty of land, ocean and clouds, contrasted with the sterile moonscape on which the astronauts left their footprints.
四十年来我们已熟悉了这幅图片：柔美的陆地，海洋和云层与贫瘠的月面形成对比，而宇航员已在月面留下了足迹。
But let's suppose some aliens had been watching our pale blue dot in the cosmos from afar, not just for 40 years, but for the entire 4.5 billion-year history of our Earth.
让我们假想某些外星生物一直在观察着我们的暗蓝小点（地球），它们在遥远的某处，不只观察了四十年，而是历经地球发展史的整个45亿年。
What would they have seen? Over nearly all that immense time, Earth's appearance would have changed very gradually.
它们会看到过哪些景象呢？在几乎整个漫长的时间流逝中，地球表面的景象变化非常缓慢。
The only abrupt worldwide change would have been major asteroid impacts or volcanic super-eruptions. Apart from those brief traumas, nothing happens suddenly.
仅有的全球范围的剧烈变动，不过是由大的陨石撞击或超级火山喷发所引起。除去这些剧烈变动，一切都发生的较为平缓。
The continental landmasses drifted around. Ice cover waxed and waned.
大陆板块缓慢地漂移。冰盖交替覆盖和消融。
Successions of new species emerged, evolved and became extinct.
新的物种交替产生，进化直至灭绝。
But in just a tiny sliver of the Earth's history, the last one-millionth part, a few thousand years, the patterns of vegetation altered much faster than before.
但在地球历史的短短一瞬，其百万分之一的时间部分，也就不过是近几千年里，植被产生了比以往快得多的变化。
This signaled the start of agriculture. Change has accelerated as human populations rose.
这标志着人类农业的开端。变化随着人类人口数量的增加而加快了速度。
Then other things happened even more abruptly. Within just 50 years -- that's one hundredth of one millionth of the Earth's age--
接下来某些更加显著的变化发生了。在短短的50年时间里 - 那不过是地球年纪的一亿分之一 -
the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere started to rise, and ominously fast.
大气中的二氧化碳含量开始升高，而且是噩兆般的快速。
