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A little more than 200 years ago, the world experienced something that's on the edge, I would say, of an existential threat and that was the explosion of the volcano Tambora.
200多年前，我们经历了一些事情，可以说人类处于生存威胁的边缘，那就是坦博拉火山的爆发。
It exploded in 1815 and it was horrible.
该火山1815年的那次爆发，非常可怕。
The year after that was called the year without a summer in Europe and much of America.
之后的一年在欧洲和美国大部分地区被称为没有夏天的一年。
It reduced global temperatures and that led to global levels of starvation.
它降低了全球温度，导致全球范围内的饥荒。
Tambora is one of the reasons why we see supervolcanoes as the single, biggest natural threat to the future of the human race.
坦博拉火山是我们将超级火山视为对人类未来的唯一、最大的自然威胁的原因之一。
The astrophysicist, Neil deGrasse Tyson once said that, "The universe wants to kill you," but the great thing is that we are not just dinosaurs sort of wandering around the planet.
天体物理学家尼尔-德格拉斯-泰森（Neil deGrasse Tyson）曾经说过，"宇宙想要杀死你"，但好在我们并不像恐龙一样只是在地球上闲逛而已。
We have the scientific means to comprehend the risks we face, and we actually have the ability to fight back.
我们有科学手段来弄明白自己所面临的风险，而且我们其实有能力进行反击。
I'm Bryan Walsh, the author of "End Times: A Brief Guide to the End of the World".
我是布莱恩-沃尔什，《末世：世界末日简要指南》的作者。
An existential risk is a global threat so great that it could either cause human beings to become extinct or reduce the human population so much that there would really be no human future that we know.
存在性风险是一种全球性的威胁，它要么导致人类灭绝，要么使人类人口大幅减少，就真的没有我们所知的人类的未来了。
The true horror of an existential threat is not my death, it's not your death, the death of all 7.7 billion people who exist now.
存在性威胁的真正可怕之处不是我的死亡，也不是你的死亡，而是所有现存的77亿人的死亡。
It's the nullification of the future.
它是对未来的否定。
The future matters to us more than we can really understand.
未来对我们的重要性超过了我们的理解程度。
Humans are really terrible at evaluating these kinds of existential risks, in part because of their rarity.
人类很不擅长评估这些生存风险，部分原因是它们极其罕见。
We may be afraid of terrorism or mass shootings.
我们可能害怕恐怖主义或大规模枪击事件。
Even though those events are actually on a day by day base, very unlikely.
虽然这些事实际上每天都在发生，但是不太可能发生在我们身边。
Because they pop out at us, we tend to overstate the danger they pose to us.
因为它们总是突然发生，我们倾向于夸大它们对我们构成的危险。
Now, the reverse of that is often we see with existential risks where, because they have never happened, we tend to assume they must not be possible, that's a mistake.
与此相反，我们经常看到的是，对于存在性风险，因为它们从来没有发生过，我们倾向于认为它们一定不可能发生，这是一个错误。
Five times over the course of the planet's history, we've seen what are called major extinction events.
在地球的历史上，我们已经看到了五次所谓的重大灭绝事件。
That's where you see something big happen that might knock out three-quarters of the life on this planet.
这些重大灾难，可能会淘汰这个星球上四分之三的生命。
Obviously, the one people are most familiar with is that asteroid that collided with the Earth 66 million years ago that led to the extinction of the dinosaurs.
显然，人们最熟悉的是6600万年前与地球相撞的那颗小行星，它导致了恐龙的灭绝。
But four out of the five mass extinction events, we believe really have some kind of volcanic cause.
但是我们相信，五个大规模灭绝事件中的四个，都与火山爆发有关系。
Existential risk experts really believe that Toba was the closest human beings have ever come to extinction.
存在性风险专家相信，多巴火山爆发是人类有史以来最接近灭绝的一次。
This was an actual supervolcano that exploded about 74 to 75,000 years ago.
这是一座真正的超级火山，在大约74000至75000年前爆发了。
That's a long time ago, but there were human beings around.
那是在非常遥远的过去，当时有人类存在。
It was an 8 on the Volcanic Explosivity Index, which is 1 out of 8.
它的火山爆发指数为8级，也就是8分之1。
It's kind of a Richter scale for volcanoes.
对火山来说，这就像是里氏规模。
You might remember something like Mount St. Helen's, where that was so terrible it was actually on the cover of Time magazine.
你可能记得圣海伦火山，它非常可怕，你记得它也只是因为它出现在《时代》杂志封面上。
That was about 1% as strong as Toba was.
圣海伦火山的爆发强度大概是多巴火山的1%。
By some climate models, it would have reduced global temperatures by 15 degrees fahrenheit or as much as 30.
根据一些气候模型，它会让全球温度降低15华氏度，甚至30华氏度。
The aftermath of big, supervolcanoes like Toba would be cold, dark and very hungry.
像多巴这样的大型超级火山爆发的后果是寒冷、黑暗和严重的饥荒。
When they blow, they blow all that debris, including a lot of sulfur into the atmosphere.
当它们爆发时，会把所有的碎片，包括大量的硫磺吹到大气中。
It can actually reduce the amount of sunlight that can come into the planet.
这会减少到达地球的阳光量。
Volcanic ash is made up of little, almost hook like rocks that will, actually, tear human tissue.
火山灰是由几乎像钩子一样的细小岩石组成，实际上会割裂人体组织。
It also can contaminate crops, it can contaminate water supplies.
它也会污染农作物，污染水供应。
It's very dense and can actually cave in roofs.
它的密度非常大，甚至能够压塌房顶。
We still find deposits of ash from the Toba super eruption, thousands of miles away from the volcano.
我们仍然在离火山数千英里的地方发现了多巴火山超级喷发的火山灰沉积物。
You can see it in India, you can see it in parts of Africa.
印度地区有，非洲的部分地区也有。
You can actually trace it back to Toba.
都可以追溯到多巴火山身上。
By some estimates, it may have reduced human population to as little as 4,000 people.
根据一些估计，它可能将人类人口减少到了4000人。
That shows how unbelievably powerful, how unbelievably dangerous how existential a supervolcano of that kind of scale can be.
这表明，这种规模的超级火山有很大的威力，非常危险，对人类的生存有很大影响。
And, guess what? That can happen again. For instance, the famous Yellowstone Park.
而且，你猜怎么着？这种情况还可能再次发生。例如，著名的黄石公园。
All those geysers you see are an effect of an incredibly powerful underground volcanic system that one day could become strong enough to actually create something on the scale of a super eruption that would bring a halt really to human life as we know it.
你看到的那些间歇泉都是一个极其强大的地下火山系统的产物，有一天，它可能会强大到产生像超级火山爆发那样的威力，给人类的生命画上句号。
Awareness is really our best weapon against supervolcanoes.
意识确实是我们对抗超级火山的最佳武器。
We can't stop them but what we can do is try to organize society in a way that will actually be able to endure that kind of event.
我们无法阻止它们，但我们能做的是努力将社会组织起来，以便应对这种事件。
That means thinking through and preparing for what's going to happen afterwards, for day two.
这意味着要考虑并准备好之后发生的事情，为未来做好准备。
We could put food in a reserve.
我们可以把食物放进储备库。
We could actually begin to research methods of food production that don't depend on the sun.
我们实际上可以开始研究不依赖太阳的粮食生产方法。
We could create something like a global monitoring system so we have a much better sense as to when they might explode.
我们可以创建一个类似于全球监测系统的东西，这样就能更好地了解它们什么时候可能爆发。
Ultimately, what we're doing here is trying to preserve the future.
归根结底，我们在做的就是试图保护人类的未来。
And we can do that but only if we take this seriously.
只有当我们认真对待这个问题，才可以做到这一点。
We really have no excuse.
我们没有任何借口。
If we go extinct now, almost certainly it's because we did not try hard enough to keep ourselves safe.
如果我们现在灭绝了，几乎可以肯定的说，是因为我们没有竭尽全力来保护自己的安全。
