Humans have been adapting to our environment as long as we’ve been around—it’s how we’ve settled everywhere from the bitter cold Arctic to the scorching desert heat.

自从人来存在以来，就一直在适应环境。从寒冷的北极到炎热的沙漠，人来不断适应环境，在各地定居了下来。

But with the heat waves, storms and other extreme events fueled by our rapidly changing climate, we’re having to adapt on a scale we’ve never experienced before.

但是，快速变化的气候加剧了热浪、暴风雨和其他极端天气的发生，我们必须适应以往从未经历过的这么大规模的变化。

And the choices we make in how we adapt can sometimes come back to bite us—as in the case of embankments built in Bangladesh that were supposed to stop floods but have made them worse.

我们在如何适应环境方面做出的选择有时会招致祸事，以孟加拉国修建的堤坝为例，堤坝本来要抵挡洪水，却让情况雪上加霜。

So flash forward to the last section of the book, is all about Arizona, where I grew up.

快进到这本书的最后一部分，是关于我长大的地方亚利桑那州的案例。

And there the issue, obviously, is not too much water, there's too little water.

很明显，这里的问题不是水太多，而是水太少。

I talk about the Central Arizona Project, which is a canal that brings Colorado River water hundreds of miles across the desert into Phoenix and Tucson.

我谈到了中央亚利桑那调水工程，这个工程中的一条运河将科罗拉多河的水穿过沙漠数百英里引入凤凰城和图森。

Most of the book focuses on the farmers there who because they're the ones who are feeling the impacts of the water shortages in the Colorado River.

这本书的大部分内容都集中在运河沿岸的农民身上，因为这些农民感受到了科罗拉多河缺水的影响。

They're finding themselves--some of these cases, some of my sources and characters in the book, are people who are being cut off from their water supplies.

他们发现自己--书中案例、资料中的人物--的水供应被切断了。

One of them's a young farmer, he's in his 30s, he just had his first kid, he's a fifth-generation grower, and he's now realizing that he doesn't, he's not going to have any water, at least not the way he thought he was going to.

其中一个人是三十多岁的年轻农民，他刚有了第一个孩子，是家里第五代种地的人，他现在意识到他不会再有水灌溉了，至少不是他过去以为的那种灌溉方式。

And this is all after years of depending on at the time, it was a largest piece of infrastructure that the country had built – the Central Arizona Project canal.

此前，这里的农田灌溉多年依赖那时国家建造的最大的基础设施之一--中央亚利桑那运河调水工程。

And so I can make this connection there that I think what's happening in Arizona, the reason so many people are moving to this place that's struggling with basics like water, is because there's a false sense of security that's been provided for by this infrastructure that we built there.

我可以建立联系，我认为亚利桑那州正在发生的事情，这么多人搬到这个连水都不够用的地方的原因是因为我们在那里建造的这个基础设施提供了一种错误的安全感。

So one thing I was curious about that that struck me that you also mentioned in the book is that maladaptation isn't necessarily just the physical infrastructure rebuild like sea walls or the pipeline bringing water but can include things like laws – and I know that that was particularly a part of the situation in Arizona.

有一件事让我很好奇，也很震惊，你在书中也提到了这一点，那就是适应不良并不一定只是像海堤或输水管道这样的有形基础设施的重建，还可以包括法律之类的东西--我知道这是亚利桑那州情况的一部分。

And so can you talk a little bit about, given what you've learned in your reporting, what some of the pitfalls that you're worried about as we try to adapt to climate change are particularly outside of the physical infrastructure?

根据你在报道中了解到的情况，你能否谈一谈，在我们努力适应气候变化的过程中，除了有形基础设施外，你还担心哪些陷阱？

Especially when it comes to laws and policies and things, I think one of the biggest pitfalls is our kind of need to write things in stone.

尤其是在法律、政策等方面，我认为最大的陷阱之一就是成文后不再变动。

Maybe this, you know, this is an aspect of our legal system?

也许这是我们法律体系的一个方面?

Where lawyers want to have everything battened down, you want to make sure that there's no confusion about who has rights to what, or you know, who's responsible for what, and so we write laws and policies that are, they are as hard as concrete.

律师们想要一切确定好后就不再变动，人们也想要清楚知道谁对什么有权力，谁又对什么负责，因此，法律、政策编写时会非常详尽具体。

And that is a really bad strategy, when you don't know what's going to come down the pipeline.

这是一个非常糟糕的策略，因为你不知道未来会发生什么。

What we need are adaptive, malleable, reactive policies, and laws and things – things that can change on a whim, not things that are going to be stuck in time.

我们需要的是适应性好、易改变、反应快的政策、法律和其他文件，需要的是可以随时改变，而不会被时间所束缚的政策、法律。

The policy I've talked to most about in Arizona is the Colorado River Compact, right, which just had its 100-year anniversary last year.

关于亚利桑那州，我谈得最多的政策是《科罗拉多河协议》，去年这份协议刚刚迎来签署100周年。

And that kind of sets up the whole story there, because that law determined how much water there was in the river, right?

这份协议构建了整个故事，因为这条法律决定了河里会有多少水，对吧?

But it used bad information to do that, which was part of the problem to begin with.

但这是通过使用错误信息来实现目标，这是起初问题的一部分。

But it also committed the seven states, and eventually Mexico, to using, to having access to, and therefore using a certain amount of water.

这份协议还承诺美国的七个州，甚至是墨西哥使用、获得一定数量的水。

Regardless of how much water was actually in the river, whether it would change over time, you know, this was a thinking that really came out of the east part of U.S. where there's ample water, and they just hadn't thought enough about the fact that this river would probably run dry at times and other times were flooded.

不管这条河有多少水量，也不管水量是否会随着时间的推移而变化，都会承诺固定数量的用水，这个想法来自美国东部，美国东部水量充足，他们没有充分考虑到这条河可能有时会干涸，有时也会泛滥。

And so by locking us into this idea that there was this much water and everyone had this much right to it, they committed the future of these states and cities to just try to use up all the water they had the rights to, regardless of whether that was necessarily a good idea.

通过将我们固定在这样的想法中，即这里水量充足，每个人都有这么多的用水权利，他们向这些州和城市的未来承诺，可以试图用尽所有他们有权使用的水，不管这是不是一个好主意。

And now I've talked to people, one of them is a Navajo Nation member who's also a water policy expert.

我采访了一些人，其中一位是纳瓦霍族人，他也是一名水资源政策专家。

And he mentioned to me how he felt like he was more likely to imagine an apocalypse before the change of the Colorado River Compact.

他跟我说过他的感受，在《科罗拉多河协议》改变之前，他说有可能想象到一个末日情景。

Like, this thing is so set in stone that it's just seems totally immutable.

这份协议无法变更，似乎完全无法改变。

Beyond even just the law is also, you know, insurance is another often maladaptive reaction.

除法律政策外，保险也是一种适应不良的反应。

I've written about the crop insurance in particular, which kind of encourages farmers to repeatedly plant crops that don't produce well, whether, because in Arizona, it's because they're planting things like cotton and hay that require a lot of water, and that are drying up.

我特别写过关于农作物保险的部分。农作物保险鼓励农民反复种植产量欠佳的作物。比如，在亚利桑那州，农民种植棉花和干草等需要大量水分的作物，而这些作物因为干旱正在枯死。

But this insurance causes them, so they can still make money off of that. So they just keep doing it.

不过，这个保险让农民仍然可以从中赚钱，所以农民就一直种植这些作物。

And it keeps them from adapting has been plenty, plenty of studies that show prove that the existence of crop insurance keeps farmers from investing in other forms of adaptation that might be more sustainable down the road.

这就让农民无法适应。大量的研究表明，农作物保险的存在阻碍了农民对其他形式的适应性作物进行投资，而这些适应性作物在未来可能更具有持续性。

Right, and that you alluded to this a little earlier, but I noticed in each of the cases in your book, there was a person or people or some sort of research that sort of, at least hinted at, if not outright, very clearly showed the folly of whatever the adaptation was and how it could lead to the problems that then did happen.

对，你之前也提到过这点，不过，我注意到你书中的每个案例，都有一个或几个研究人员暗示，或不是那么直白地指出，无论适应的是什么，适应都会导致后来问题的发生，这样的适应极其愚蠢。

How could listening to those voices actually, help us avoid having maladaptations?

倾听这些声音如何帮助我们避免适应不良呢?

That's a big reason why I wrote this book.

这是我写这本书的一个重要原因。

It's not the most uplifting book and I get that.

这不是最振奋人心的书，我明白。

And I think these days solutions are popular, everybody is getting kind of tired of the doom and gloom and wants a way out. I understand that.

我认为目前的解决方案很受欢迎，每个人都有点厌倦了前景黯淡，想要一个摆脱困境的出路。我理解。

But I really wanted to arm people with the information to recognize when maladaptations are happening at home, when their towns or cities are considering risky decisions that are going to lock them in the future generations into making even worse decisions down the road.

但我真的想用信息武装人们的大脑，让他们可以辨别出什么时候家里发生了适应不良，什么时候他们的城镇正在考虑冒险的决定，而这些冒险决定会让他们的后代在未来做出更糟糕的决定。

I wanted them to be aware of when this is happening, and to be able to speak up and say, “Well, in my experience living in this place, here's how I think we should handle this.”

我希望他们能意识到何时发生了这种情况，并且能够表达出来：“根据我在这个地方生活的经验，我认为我们应该这样处理。”

Because so often the decisions are made by outsiders, outside experts who come in with what they think is the right idea of how to manage these situations, these hazards.

因为很多时候决策都是由外部人士、外部专家做出的，这些外来者带着他们认为正确的想法来管理这些危险情况。

The section the book focuses on Bangladesh, and the Ganges River Delta became, in a way, a story about colonialism.

书中关于孟加拉国的部分是重点，恒河三角洲在某种程度上成为了一个关于殖民主义的故事。

And this resistance, like the, the struggle between locals who knew their environment, and outsiders who are coming in to just extract the resources of that environment.

就像是熟悉环境的当地人与进来榨取环境资源的外来者之间的抵抗、斗争。

And what gives me hope about that one, at least in the end is that there are people there who are recognizing and giving space for these ideas that might be called indigenous knowledge, although some of the stuff that doesn't necessarily date back as long as we think about that we're here.

给我希望的是，至少在最后，那里的人们认识到要给被称为本土知识的想法提供空间，尽管一些知识不一定可以追溯到我们存在的时候。

But still, what it is, is methods of dealing with, with the Ganges River Delta, that don't involve trying to control it involved trying to just contain its rivers, but actually giving those rivers room to flood and move.

但是，解决恒河三角洲问题的方法，不是试图控制河流，而是给河流泛滥、流动的空间。

You've referenced future generations. And I know you're a new parent, I also have a young child, a toddler, and I find that since becoming a parent, it has definitely made me more aware of the long legacy of the actions we take, or that we don't take now.

你提到了后代，我知道你刚为人父母，而我也有一个还在蹒跚学步的小孩，我发现，自从当了父母，让我更加意识到我们目前采取的行动或没有采取的行动所带来的长期影响。

It's our children and their children and their children's children that are going to be living with the decisions we make today.

我们的孩子，我们孩子的孩子，我们孩子的孩子的孩子，他们将承受我们今天所做的决定。

So I'm just kind of wondering, how becoming a parent has influenced your thinking on all of this?

我想知道，为人父母是如何影响你对这一切的看法的?

The big thing for me is the idea that we need to leave our kids with more options, not fewer, right?

对我来说，最重要的是，我们应该留给孩子们更多的选择，而不是更少的选择，对吧?

Because the the challenges that our children will face will be even greater than challenges that we're facing.

因为我们孩子将来要面临的挑战将比我们现在面临的挑战更大。

It'll be less water, it'll be higher temperatures, more storms, and things that we're not even aware of right now.

水资源会更少，温度会更高，风暴也会更多，还会出现一些我们现在还没有意识到的事件。

So the last thing we want to do is rob them of what tools already exist.

我们最不想做的就是剥夺后代现有的工具。

And that's a tricky thing about maladaptation is this technological lock-in right?

适应不良的棘手之处在于技术锁定效应，对吧？

Where you do one thing once you build a dam or now suddenly because you have this hard infrastructure, this dam you have your system now depends on this dam.

一旦修建好大坝，你就不会做其他事，因为你拥有了这个硬件基础设施，你的系统现在就依赖这个大坝。

And everything you do, every decision you make downstream of that time, ultimately comes back to the existence of that dam.

你所做的每一件事，你在后面所做的每一个决定，最终都会回到大坝的存在上。

How you manage the water, how you decide who gets it, when you release flows, whether you're building canals to like collect some of that water, whether your energy is dependent on that dam.

你如何管理水，怎么决定谁得到水，什么时候放水，是否要建造运河来收集一些水，能源是否依赖于大坝。

These types of infrastructure have these long legacies that affect all these other decisions we don't even often think about.

这类基础设施会产生长远影响，影响所有我们甚至不常想到的其他决定。

And so, we need to be making decisions now with the idea in mind that the situation in the future is going to be very different.

我们现在需要在做决定时考虑到未来的情况将会非常不同。

And we need to be coming up with malleable adaptations, reactionary adaptations that can change on a dime, depending on the different scenarios, different changing environments, and also changing priorities.

我们需要找到易改变的适应，反应性的适应，可以根据不同的情况、不同的变化环境、不同的变化的优先事项做出相应的调整，

In Japan, when the sea walls were initially built, people looked at concrete like it was a sign of modernity and it was proof that their country had emerged from World War II with some vitality.

在日本，在海堤建成之初，人们把混凝土看作是现代化的标志，是他们国家从第二次世界大战中恢复活力的证明。

Now the newer generation doesn't like the concrete and doesn't want to see sea walls, they would like to see more like nature-based solutions, they want they want forest buffers instead of big concrete walls.

现在，新一代人不喜欢混凝土，也不想看到海堤，他们更希望看到基于自然的解决方案，他们想要森林缓冲带，而不是巨大的混凝土墙。

And so we need to we need to be thinking about that and think about like what are our kids really gonna, what kind of lifestyle are our kids gonna want to live and they're the ones who have to live behind with this infrastructure.

我们需要思考这个问题，思考我们的孩子真正想要的是什么，我们的孩子想要什么样的生活方式，因为他们以后不得不生活在这些基础设施里。

Science, Quickly is produced by Jeff DelViscio, Tulika Bose, Kelso Harper, and Carin Leong.

《科学快播》由杰夫·德尔维西奥、凯尔索·哈珀、凯尔索·哈珀和卡林·梁制作。

Our show was edited by Elah Feder and Alexa Lim. Our theme music was composed by Dominic Smith.

本期栏目由以拉·菲德尔和亚历克莎·林编辑，由多米尼克·史密斯编曲。

Don't forget to subscribe to Science, Quickly wherever you get your podcasts.

无论你从哪里收听播客，都不要忘记订阅《科学快播》。

For Science, Quickly, I'm Andrea Thompson.

感谢收听《科学快播》，我是安德里亚·汤普森。

来源：Scientific American