美国国家公共电台 NPR--Could Pakistan's flooding be indicative of a permanent climate disaster?

Could Pakistan's flooding be indicative of a permanent climate disaster?

Transcript¹

Steve Inskeep talks with Pakistan's minister for climate change, Senator Sherry Rehman, about deadly floods and whether disasters have become a new normal in the time of climate change.

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

The climate disaster in Pakistan raises two big questions - how do people endure the crisis, and how do they prepare for what happens next? Flooding in a normally dry country has put towns and farms under water. Tens of millions of people are displaced. In normal times, Pakistan depends on rivers which flow down out of the Himalayas and other mountain ranges. The only time it gets significant rain is monsoon² season. Pakistan's federal minister for climate change says this monsoon season was beyond any she has experienced. Sherry Rehman does not even call it the monsoon. Even a so-called superflood in 2010 does not compare.

SHERRY REHMAN: My contention³, from the field and everyday working at the disaster management, I see that it will be much more. So this is no monsoon; it's some monstrous⁴ new phenomenon. Pakistan is no stranger to either monsoons⁵ or even the normal riverine flooding in the River Indus, right? We've had the superfloods of 2010. This is epic⁶. It was much bigger than that. It was biblical. And it's overtaken 2010 in spades and swaths.

INSKEEP: You said 30 districts are underwater. I just want to mention, for an American audience, I think a district is roughly the equivalent of a county. So Americans listening to this would need to think of a...

REHMAN: Right.

INSKEEP: ...Thirty-county area, if they thought of the 30 counties around them, the whole area underwater. Is that what it's like?

REHMAN: So you know Colorado - you know, let me give you a measure. Colorado is a big state, right?

INSKEEP: Yeah.

REHMAN: Bigger area than Colorado's under water.

INSKEEP: Wow.

REHMAN: And 30 districts only from my province. There are 72. It's just like one big ocean. There is - you don't know where to pump out the water. Normally, we have water pumps - this, that for the monsoon. Nothing is working. I phoned from Islamabad. Hey, why aren't you - you're not using your pumps. What do you mean, using my pumps? There's nowhere to pump the water. It's everywhere. So we had to send in the navy. For crying out loud, how is this a monsoon? And normally, we have our helicopters, you know, in the river flood, evacuating⁷ people, you know, bringing them to high ground, to shelters. Our helis couldn't take off for the north at all or even for the south because it was raining too much. What were they supposed to do? So we're deploying⁸ every service right now. All three arms of the military are in there, and we are still overstretched.

INSKEEP: I'm glad you mentioned being overstretched. We spoke⁹ yesterday on the program with Imran Lodhi. He is one of many civilian¹⁰ volunteers who've gone in the area to try to help. And as we reached him, he was standing¹¹ on a levee...

REHMAN: Yeah.

INSKEEP: ...With thousands of refugees, water on both sides. And here is one of the things that he said. Let's listen.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)

IMRAN LODHI: So far, we have been the earliest group to respond to people, to providing them food and ration¹² - I mean, dry food - and then their tents. Government has also tried, but it's very limited. It seems like the crisis is beyond their capacity.

INSKEEP: Has the crisis grown beyond the government's capacity?

REHMAN: Steve, it's certainly overwhelmed all resources. We don't have those tents. We don't have the food package ready. We are cranking up for that. And it's all hands on deck. I mean, we've just repurposed all our loans, grants - certainly in my ministry¹³ - to just flood relief aid. It's just - the volume is too high to just do in one go.

INSKEEP: Do you assume that monsoons like this are now a permanent condition - they will happen from time to time?

REHMAN: So I'm not prepared to take anything off the table, given what I saw this year. We had no spring. We went straight from winter to summer because the heat waves came, you know, four, one after another - terrible scorching¹⁴ heat waves. And then obviously the forest fires were rampaging through the forested areas. Then we had this. And, of course, our glacial lake outburst flood events all tripled suddenly, so the boulders¹⁵ are coming down with this angry black water from the glaciers¹⁶. It was terrible. I mean, whoever's government is here next, ours or anybody else's, I'm going to make a - fast-track an adaptation plan for which we have little technical capacity, but we're just going to do it. So it's all playing out in our region. And we feel like we're on our own, honestly, other than a few U.N. agencies.

INSKEEP: In the United States, sometimes after a flood people will raise or move buildings, maybe move a town higher, farther away from the river. Is that remotely practical where you are?

REHMAN: Well, that will have to be done, for instance, in the Swat area in the north. They were too close to the riverbanks here, and they shouldn't have been. And we should - I mean, the local government there should not have allowed it. Everybody knows that these rivers are a clear and present danger. The monsoon, you know, quadrupling may have been new, but the river floods are not new to Pakistan. So some of the stuff we need to do, we already knew. But the point is climate change is a global issue. There is no reason why a 1% or a less than 1% emitter like Pakistan should be asked to do this on their own. The 53 degrees is not caused by us. The glaciers melting...

INSKEEP: Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. You said 53 degrees Celsius¹⁷. Has there been that temperature...

REHMAN: That's right.

INSKEEP: ...Recorded recently in Pakistan?

REHMAN: Yeah, yeah. It was - in the summer.

INSKEEP: Bear with me a few seconds here. That is 127 degrees Fahrenheit¹⁸, according to this calculation.

REHMAN: That's right.

INSKEEP: What do you want or need from the world when it comes to long-term adaptation?

REHMAN: We need technical capacity. We need - and that's very important because - not technical capacity that just comes and does pilot projects and ticks them off as part of their, you know - well, I call it greenwashing. But that's not enough. We need big, permanent fixes, and we need them with speed and skill. That's really important. People come and do a lot of good work - small pilots on agriculture, small pilots on adaptive green technology, adaptive agriculture, adaptive crop rotation¹⁹. And then they do a little bit of, you know, measuring the pollution in the water, helping²⁰ with a little bit of diversion of water and silting²¹ problems. We have a massive salinity²² problem. Most of our crop cover is gone because the river - the sea intrudes²³.

So instead of little, little fixes, we need it scaled up. We need adaptive solutions scaled up. There are many on the ground. We can pick and choose. But we need the climate scientists. We need the agriculture resilience programs. We need the climate infrastructure²⁴. We need both the technical capacity and the help for that.

INSKEEP: Senator Sherry Rehman, Pakistan's federal minister for climate change, always a pleasure to talk with you. Thank you so much.

REHMAN: Thank you so much, Steve.

1 transcript   

n.抄本，誊本，副本，肄业证书

参考例句：

• A transcript of the tapes was presented as evidence in court.一份录音带的文字本作为证据被呈交法庭。
• They wouldn't let me have a transcript of the interview.他们拒绝给我一份采访的文字整理稿。

2 monsoon   

n.季雨，季风，大雨

参考例句：

• The monsoon rains started early this year.今年季雨降雨开始得早。
• The main climate type in that region is monsoon.那个地区主要以季风气候为主要气候类型。

3 contention   

n.争论，争辩，论战；论点，主张

参考例句：

• The pay increase is the key point of contention. 加薪是争论的焦点。
• The real bone of contention,as you know,is money.你知道，争论的真正焦点是钱的问题。

4 monstrous   

adj.巨大的；恐怖的；可耻的，丢脸的

参考例句：

• The smoke began to whirl and grew into a monstrous column.浓烟开始盘旋上升，形成了一个巨大的烟柱。
• Your behaviour in class is monstrous!你在课堂上的行为真是丢人！

5 monsoons   

n.（南亚、尤指印度洋的）季风( monsoon的名词复数 )；（与季风相伴的）雨季；（南亚地区的）雨季

参考例句：

• In Ban-gladesh, the monsoons have started. 在孟加拉，雨季已经开始了。 来自辞典例句
• The coastline significantly influences the monsoons in two other respects. 海岸线在另外两个方面大大地影响季风。 来自辞典例句

6 epic   

n.史诗，叙事诗；adj.史诗般的，壮丽的

参考例句：

• I gave up my epic and wrote this little tale instead.我放弃了写叙事诗，而写了这个小故事。
• They held a banquet of epic proportions.他们举行了盛大的宴会。

7 evacuating   

撤离，疏散( evacuate的现在分词 )； 排空（胃肠），排泄（粪便）； （从危险的地方）撤出，搬出，撤空

参考例句：

• The solution is degassed by alternately freezing, evacuating and thawing. 通过交替的冻结、抽空和溶化来使溶液除气。
• Are we evacuating these potential targets? 能够在这些目标地域内进行疏散吗？

8 deploying   

（尤指军事行动）使展开( deploy的现在分词 )； 施展； 部署； 有效地利用

参考例句：

• Provides support for developing and deploying distributed, component-based applications. 为开发和部署基于组件的分布式应用程序提供支持。
• Advertisement, publishing, repair, and install-on-demand are all available when deploying your application. 在部署应用程序时提供公布、发布、修复和即需即装功能。

9 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

10 civilian   

adj.平民的，民用的，民众的

参考例句：

• There is no reliable information about civilian casualties.关于平民的伤亡还没有确凿的信息。
• He resigned his commission to take up a civilian job.他辞去军职而从事平民工作。

11 standing   

n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的

参考例句：

• After the earthquake only a few houses were left standing.地震过后只有几幢房屋还立着。
• They're standing out against any change in the law.他们坚决反对对法律做任何修改。

12 ration   

n.定量(pl.)给养，口粮；vt.定量供应

参考例句：

• The country cut the bread ration last year.那个国家去年削减面包配给量。
• We have to ration the water.我们必须限量用水。

13 ministry   

n.(政府的)部；牧师

参考例句：

• They sent a deputation to the ministry to complain.他们派了一个代表团到部里投诉。
• We probed the Air Ministry statements.我们调查了空军部的记录。

14 scorching   

adj. 灼热的

参考例句：

• a scorching, pitiless sun 灼热的骄阳
• a scorching critique of the government's economic policy 对政府经济政策的严厉批评

15 boulders   

n.卵石( boulder的名词复数 )；巨砾；（受水或天气侵蚀而成的）巨石；漂砾

参考例句：

• Seals basked on boulders in a flat calm. 海面风平浪静，海豹在巨石上晒太阳。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The river takes a headlong plunge into a maelstrom of rocks and boulders. 河水急流而下，入一个漂砾的漩涡中。 来自《简明英汉词典》

16 glaciers   

冰河，冰川( glacier的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Glaciers gouged out valleys from the hills. 冰川把丘陵地带冲出一条条山谷。
• It has ice and snow glaciers, rainforests and beautiful mountains. 既有冰川，又有雨林和秀丽的山峰。 来自英语晨读30分（高一）

17 Celsius   

adj.摄氏温度计的，摄氏的

参考例句：

• The temperature tonight will fall to seven degrees Celsius.今晚气温将下降到七摄氏度。
• The maximum temperature in July may be 36 degrees Celsius.七月份最高温度可能达到36摄氏度。

18 Fahrenheit   

n./adj.华氏温度；华氏温度计(的)

参考例句：

• He was asked for the boiling point of water in Fahrenheit.他被问到水的沸点是华氏多少度。
• The thermometer reads 80 degrees Fahrenheit.寒暑表指出华氏80度。

19 rotation   

n.旋转；循环，轮流

参考例句：

• Crop rotation helps prevent soil erosion.农作物轮作有助于防止水土流失。
• The workers in this workshop do day and night shifts in weekly rotation.这个车间的工人上白班和上夜班每周轮换一次。

20 helping   

n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的

参考例句：

• The poor children regularly pony up for a second helping of my hamburger. 那些可怜的孩子们总是要求我把我的汉堡包再给他们一份。
• By doing this, they may at times be helping to restore competition. 这样一来, 他在某些时候,有助于竞争的加强。

21 silting   

n.淤积，淤塞，充填v.（河流等）为淤泥淤塞( silt的现在分词 )；（使）淤塞

参考例句：

• Mud is silting up the stream. 泥沙把小河淤塞了。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The harbour is slowly silting up. 港口正在慢慢地被淤泥堵塞。 来自互联网

22 salinity   

n.盐分；咸度；盐浓度；咸性

参考例句：

• In the sea water sampled the salinity is two parts per thousand.在取样的海水中，盐度为千分之二。
• In many sedimentary basins the salinity of the formation water increases with depth or compaction.在许多沉积盆地中，地层水的含盐量随深度或压实作用而增高。

23 intrudes   

v.侵入，侵扰，打扰( intrude的第三人称单数 )；把…强加于

参考例句：

• An outraged movie like Stone's intrudes upon a semipermanent mourning. 像斯通这种忿忿不平的电影侵犯到美国人近乎永恒的哀悼。 来自互联网
• He intrudes upon our hospitality. 他硬要我们款待他。 来自互联网

24 infrastructure   

n.下部构造，下部组织，基础结构，基础设施

参考例句：

• We should step up the development of infrastructure for research.加强科学基础设施建设。
• We should strengthen cultural infrastructure and boost various types of popular culture.加强文化基础设施建设，发展各类群众文化。