Forest fires

森林大火

A blaze that will keep on burning

熊熊大火将持续蔓延

Other countries have Australia’s combustible mix of tinder-dry flora and climate-denying politicians

其他国家和澳大利亚一样易遭受林火，既是天灾（干燥易燃的植被），也是人祸（政客忽视气候变化）

One way of capturing the scale of the devastation that forest fires have inflicted on Australia is through figures. Some 11m hectares of the Lucky Country have gone up in smoke since September, almost the same area as Bulgaria. So far at least 26 people are known to have lost their lives，over 2,300 homes have been destroyed and over half a billion animals have been burned alive or choked to death. But numbers tell only part of the story . A plume of smoke has drifted across the South Pacific ocean, reaching Buenos Aires. Australia’s normally phlegmatic society has been shaken. Shane Warne, the most celebrated sportsman in a sports-mad nation, has gone so far as to raise money for the relief effort by auctioning off the baggy cap he wore as part of Australia’s all-conquering cricket team.

澳大利亚森林大火造成的惨烈后果，仅凭数据就可见一二。自九月份开始，该国大约1100万公顷的土地被烧毁，面积堪比保加利亚国土。截至目前，大火造成至少26人丧生，超过2300间房屋被烧毁，超过五亿动物被活活烧死或因浓烟而窒息死亡。然而，数字并不能完全揭露这场大火的严重程度。一股股浓烟已经飘过南太平洋，散布到布宜诺斯艾利斯。澳大利亚人通常沉着镇静，如今也坐不住了。申禾尼（Shane Warne）是这个酷爱运动国家最有名的运动员，为了给救援工作筹募善款，他甚至拍卖了自己曾作为所向披靡的澳大利亚板球队队员时戴的板球帽。

You might think that Australia is particularly vulnerable to forest fires. But that would be a mistake. Many other countries share the same conditions that have set Australia ablaze, physically and politically, including similar terrain and a leadership that has yet to wake up fully to the new reality that climate change is creating. Worldwide, fire seasons are getting longer and more damaging. The areas at risk include America’s west coast, the Mediterranean, southern Africa and swathes of Central Asia. If that sounds alarmist, remember that in 2018 California had the deadliest forest fires in its history, killing over 80 people and causing parts of Los Angeles to be evacuated, while over 100 people died in wildfires in Greece.

你可能会认为澳大利亚极易起森林大火。但这种想法恐怕是错的。许多其他国家在地理和政治上都与澳大利亚有着相同的状况，有着相似的地形和尚未完全意识到气候变化带来新挑战的领导人们。纵观全球，火灾的时间正变得更长，破坏力也更强。易受灾区域包括美国西海岸、地中海地区，非洲南部和中亚大片地区。如果这是危言耸听，要记得2018年加利福尼亚爆发了其史上最致命的森林大火，造成超过80人死亡，旧金山部分地区的人紧急撤离。希腊无情的野火夺去了超过100条人命。

As a result, the lessons from Australia’s tragedy are important. One is that climate change is making infernos more likely. It is true that forest fires are a long-standing part of some territories’ ecology. But as the world gets hotter and drier, their incidence and severity are rising. In 2019 Australia’s mean temperature was the highest since records began in 1910, 1.5°C above the long-run average. The amount of rainfall, meanwhile, was 40% below the long-term average and at the lowest level since 1900. For at least a decade climate models, sometimes derided by sceptics, have accurately predicted worsening droughts and infernos in Australia.

因此，从澳大利亚的惨剧中吸取的教训就尤为重要。首先，气候变化使森林大火更易出现。的确，森林大火一直是一些地区生态环境的一部分。但随着全球变热、变干，森林大火的发生率和严重性也随之攀升。2019年澳大利亚的平均气温创自1910年有记录以来的新高，比长期平均气温高出了1.5摄氏度。与此同时，降雨量创下了自1900年以来历史新低，比长期平均低40%。至少十年来，气候模型(有时被怀疑论者嘲笑)准确地预测了澳大利亚会发生更严重的干旱和大火。

Another lesson is that as fires get worse the old ways of assessing and containing them have become obsolete. Unlikely as it may seem, Australia’s fire-planning is ahead of most of the world’s—it carries out preventive burns, for example, and its planning codes seek to limit fire risks. Nonetheless this system, and a heroic voluntary firefighting force, has been overwhelmed. Attention must now turn to how to live with fires. In some places, that will mean building structures that can resist the flames. Other regions may no longer be suitable for human habitation. If governments and residents do not act, financial markets will. In California insurance firms have lost $24bn from recent fires, and the cost of bundling and reinsuring these risks is soaring as investors become unwilling to underwrite homes in dangerous places.

另一个教训是随着大火愈演愈烈，旧的评估和控制方法已过时。虽然看起来不太可能，但澳大利亚的火灾规划已走在世界前列——例如，它侧重预防火灾，旨在控制火灾风险。尽管如此，这个系统和英勇的志愿消防部队已然不堪重负。现在必须将重点转向如何与大火共存。在某些地方这意味修建防火建筑。其它地区可能不再适宜人类生存。如果政府和居民们再不采取行动，金融市场就会有所动作。在加利福尼亚，保险公司因最近的大火已经损失了240亿美元。由于投资者不愿意承保危险地区的房屋，应对风险的捆绑销售和再保险成本也在飙升。

注：澳大利亚预防火灾方面，采用的两种重要方法是“引火回烧”(Backburn，即用受控火势预防性阻绝大火的灭火方法)和“易燃物烧除”(fuel-reduction burning)。易燃物烧除(fuel-reduction burning)，英文也称为prescribed, planned, controlled or hazard-reduction burning（规划烧除、计划烧除、受控烧除或减少危险烧除）

The last lesson is that, as the costs of climate change stop being just about abstract temperature forecasts and start being something you can smell in your nostrils, the politics surrounding it will change, too. Australia’s conservative politicians have long downplayed climate risks, in part because some 70% of the country’s exports come from natural-resource extraction, most notably coal and iron are shipped to China.

最后一个教训是，随着气候变化的代价不再停留在温度预报的抽象感知，而是能被切身感受时，围绕气候变化的政策必将也发生变化。澳大利亚的保守党们一直都不重视气候风险，部分原因是澳大利亚约70%的出口来自自然资源开采，尤其是出口到中国的煤矿和铁矿。

Scott Morrison, the prime minister, won an election in 2019 in stunning fashion, partly on a climate-sceptical platform that appealed in Queensland, a swing state with a big coal industry. He is now being pilloried for his government’s laggardly climate policies and stuttering response to the fires. His position may be secure for now, but 61% of Australians think climate change is a pressing problem. Sooner or later, in hot, dry places all over the world, politicians who fail to deal with climate disasters may find their credibility going up in smoke.

澳大利亚总理斯科特•莫里森(Scott Morrison)以令人惊讶的方式赢得了2019年的大选，部分原因是他对气候变化持怀疑态度，这在昆士兰州很有吸引力，昆士兰州是一个拥有庞大煤炭产业的摇摆州。而现在，莫里森总理正因其政府滞后的气候政策和对火灾反应迟钝而饱受抨击。现在，他的总理位子可能是稳的，但61%的澳大利亚人认为气候变化是亟需解决的问题。迟早，来自世界炎热干旱地区的政客们会发现，如果他们无法应对气候灾难，民众对他们的信任会化为乌有。

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