考研英语阅读理解外刊原文经济学人

One afternoon in April 2020, I took an old bamboo rod out of my shed and cut it

to a length of 115cm. Stood on the ground, it came about halfway up my chest. I laid

it on a scrubby patch of our garden on the island of Aegina, in Greece: one end next to

a tough-looking dandelion, the other pointed northwards. Then I dug up the dandelion

with a trowel and replanted it at the other end of the stick. A small step for humans,

but quite the leap for the dandelion.

2020年4月的一个下午，我从棚子里拿出一根旧竹竿，把它切成了115厘米的长度。立在地上，它的长度大概是到我胸部高度的一半。我把它搁在花园中的一小片灌木丛生的土地上，花园位于希腊的埃吉纳岛（Aegina）上。竹竿的一端挨着一株看上去很强韧的蒲公英，另一端朝着北方。随后我用泥铲把蒲公英挖了出来，再把它重新种进竹竿另一端的土里。对人类来说，这是一小步的距离，但对蒲公英而言却是一次不小的跃进。

This 115cm corresponds to a particular measurement. It is the present average

velocity of climate change — how fast the effects of global heating are moving across

the surface of the planet — and thus represents the speed we need to move in order

for the conditions around us to stay the same. It also implies a direction: the bubble

habitats where different forms of life can survive and thrive are moving uphill, and

towards the poles.

这115厘米所对应的是一个特定的尺寸。这就是当前气候变化的平均速度—表示全球变暖的效应在地球表面的推进到底有多快——因而这也代表了我们需要随之移动、让周遭条件得以保持不变的速度。它还暗示着一个方向：不同形式的生命赖以生存和繁衍的栖息地正在向高处移动，向两极移动。

Local differences in velocity are determined by the shape of the land and of the

Earth itself: climate change moves fastest in flooded grasslands, mangrove swamps

and deserts; and is slower in mountain uplands and boreal forests. The impact is

uneven too: if you live in a desert, you might have a lot of room to move, and a long

way to go before you run into obstacles. If you’re already halfway up a mountain, you

might soon have nowhere to go. 不同地区的速度差异，是由土地和地球的形貌决定的：在被洪水淹没的草原、红树林沼泽和沙漠中，气候变化推进得最快；在山地高原和北方森林中则行进得比较慢。所造成的影响也不是平均的：如果你生活在沙漠地带，可能尚有很大的移动空间，在遇到阻碍前还有很长的路可走。但若是你已经行进到了一座山的半山腰，你可能很快就无处可去了。

Scientists in California took averages of the change in global temperature over the

past century, and those from forecasts of the next, and came up with a figure of 420

metres per year — or 115cm per day, the length of my bamboo rod. That’s the distance

the dandelion has to move — every single day — just to live in the same conditions.

加州的科学家们将过去一个世纪的全球气温变化和下一个世纪的气温变化预测进行了平均，得出了每年420米这一数值——或者说是每天115厘米，相当于我的那根竹竿的长度。这就是蒲公英每天所需移动的距离——就为 能保持在相同的条件下生活。

We know that climate change is occurring but, for a long time, it has felt like an

abstraction. While numbers in reports and rising lines on graphs stirred unease, the

effects weren’t always visible in our local environment. In recent years, of course,

these effects have started to become clearer, wherever we live: hotter summers,

fiercer storms, more severe wildfires, to name a few. But in the global north at least

it’s still more of a feeling than a tangible event: something in the air, rather than on

the ground.

我们知道气候变化正在发生，但在很长的时间里，这感觉上就像是一个抽象概念。虽然报告中的数字和图表上不断上升的线条引发了不安，但在局部性的环境中，这种影响并不总是显而易见的。当然，在近年来，无论我们生活在何地，这些效应都开始变得更为清晰：仅举几个例子，更炎热的夏天，更猛烈的风暴，更严重的野火等等。然而至少是在北半球，这仍然是一种感受，而非确凿的事例：有些让人摸不着头脑，难以确认。

Worse, it seems like there is little to nothing we can do as individuals in response to this feeling, other than fearing its impacts: impacts that are already wiping out

thousands of species and threaten the survival of our own. Climate change is no longer

something we can reverse, but something we have to adapt to, cope with and mitigate

as much as possible.

更糟糕的是，作为个体，我们对于这种感觉几乎是无能为力的，只能对其影响感到忧虑：这种影响正在消灭数以千计的物种，并威胁到我们自身的生存。我们已经无法逆转气候变化，只能尽可能地适应、应对并缓和它。

Such actions will not be possible without international-level state action, but

combating the existential dread that accompanies the realisation of these changes is

necessary too, and changing our relationship to and understanding of plants is one

route to doing so.

如果没有国际层面的国家行动，我们的举措是全无可能成行的，然而，与实现这些变化所伴随的存在性恐惧作斗争，也是有必要的，改变我们与植物的关系及对植物的理解，是做到这一点的一条路径。

In order to survive changing conditions, plants, like humans, need to move. And

moving they are, it turns out, in ways far greater and grander than humans usually

imagine. A vast migration is already under way, which challenges not only our idea of

what plants are and what they are capable of, but perhaps some of our ideas about

the world and our place in it.

为了在不断变化的环境中生存，植物也和人类一样，需要移动。事实也显示，它们正在以比人类通常所想象的更大规模、更加宏伟的方式移动着。一场大规模的迁徙已经在路上，这不仅冲击着我们对植物是什么以及它们能做什么的想法，或许还会挑战我们有关世界、有关我们在世界中到底处在什么位置的一些观念。

What does plant migration actually look like? In part, it is a steady, local effort:

creeping roots and floating seeds establishing the next generation in favourable areas

along a population’s leading edge, leaving a dwindling trail of less successful

plantations in the rear. At other times, it is accomplished in great strides, as seeds are