华盛顿邮报 美国近几年气候灾害频发，天灾为何屡创纪录？(3)

 

    So, remind us -- what are the disasters that you've covered in the last year or so?

    提醒一下我们，在过去一年左右的时间里，你都报道了哪些灾难?

    Yeah, I covered the Buffalo¹ blizzard².

    好，我报道过布法罗的暴风雪。

    We're learning now today that more than 30 people have been killed because of the storm.

    我们今天了解到，有30多人在这场暴风雪中丧生。

    I covered the flooding in California, multiple floods in California, in the north and the central part of the state.

    我报道了加州的洪水，加州北部和中部多次发生洪水。

    I've been covering the aftermath of Hurricane Ian...

    我一直在报道飓风“伊恩”带来的后果......

    President Biden has warned that there could be a "substantial loss of life" right here in Florida.

    拜登总统警告称，佛罗里达州可能会有“大量人员伤亡”。

    ...which is still very much an active cleanup disaster zone, as well as extreme heat in Florida, across the country, wildfires in Maui.

    ......这里仍在进行非常积极的灾区清扫工作，以及佛罗里达州的极端高温，全国各地高温肆虐，毛伊岛的野火。

    And I did not have to deploy³ for the tropical storm here in my hometown, but was prepared to do so.

    我以前没必要为家乡的热带风暴做部署，但我已经做好了准备。

    Tonight, across the Southwest, they're doing their best with the destruction Tropical Storm Hilary left behind.

    今晚，在整个西南地区，他们正在尽最大努力应对热带风暴“希拉里”留下的破坏。

    Is California sort of, like, the ground zero of climate disasters or what's the role of California in this moment?

    加州是气候灾难的重灾区吗？加州在这样的时刻扮演了什么角色?

    I really want to try and caution people away from this narrative⁴ that California is, like, all the sudden, this new hellscape of climate change.

    我真的很想试着提醒人们不要听信这种说法，即加州突然之间就变成了气候变化的新地狱。

    I think we have always had extreme weather.

    我认为我们一直都有极端天气。

    It's just our climate. Like, we'll get prolonged, punishing droughts that are being made more extreme by climate change.

    正是我们的气候。气候变化使干旱变得更加极端，我们将面临长期的干旱、惩罚性的干旱。

    And then we get really heavy rain winters. And then we have fires and we'll have mudslides.

    接着冬天下起大暴雨。之后又是大火、泥石流。

    And it's been this way since I grew up here.

    自从我在加州长大，天气就一直如此。

    I will say that it's becoming more extreme, and the disasters are becoming worse, but that's also because -- You know, the weather and fires and floods -- that's Mother Nature, and it doesn't become a disaster until people get in the way and there's loss of life and property.

    我想说的是，天气变得越来越极端，灾害也越来越严重，但这也是因为——恶劣天气、大火、洪水——都是大自然的力量，除非人们破坏自然，否则气候不会变成灾难，生命和财产也不会损失。

    And we've been building more into at-risk areas -- not just in California, but in Florida, all over.

    我们已经在危险地区建造了很多建筑——不仅在加州，而且在佛罗里达州，在全国各地。

    So the developing of that is also a big factor, where people are living in the wildland-urban interface⁵, as we call it in California.

    建筑开发也是一个重要因素，人们生活在城镇森林交界处，我们在加州就是这么说的。

    There's more people living there than there used to be.

    现在住在城镇森林交界处的人比以前多了。

    50, 100 years ago, when there might be a massive wildfire, people just weren't there, so we weren't reporting on it, right?

    50年前，甚至100年前，那里可能会发生大规模野火，但人们不住在那里，所以人们不会对其进行报道，对吧?

    So, while California is always in the news for disasters and, yes, they're becoming more extreme, it's also just because of population and just, like, the nature of how we've developed.

    虽然加州总是出现在灾难新闻中，灾难也变得越来越极端，但原因却与人口和发展模式有关。

1 buffalo   

n.(北美)野牛；(亚洲)水牛

参考例句：

• Asian buffalo isn't as wild as that of America's. 亚洲水牛比美洲水牛温顺些。
• The boots are made of buffalo hide. 这双靴子是由水牛皮制成的。

2 blizzard   

n.暴风雪

参考例句：

• The blizzard struck while we were still on the mountain.我们还在山上的时候暴风雪就袭来了。
• You'll have to stay here until the blizzard blows itself off.你得等暴风雪停了再走。

3 deploy   

v.（军）散开成战斗队形，布置，展开

参考例句：

• The infantry began to deploy at dawn.步兵黎明时开始进入战斗位置。
• The president said he had no intention of deploying ground troops.总统称并不打算部署地面部队。

4 narrative   

n.叙述，故事；adj.叙事的，故事体的

参考例句：

• He was a writer of great narrative power.他是一位颇有记述能力的作家。
• Neither author was very strong on narrative.两个作者都不是很善于讲故事。

5 interface   

n.接合部位，分界面；v.(使)互相联系

参考例句：

• My computer has a network interface,which allows me to get to other computers.我的计算机有网络接口可以与其它计算机连在一起。
• This program has perspicuous interface and extensive application. 该程序界面明了，适用范围广。