人类的好运也许到头了

I was on a whistle-stop tour of five Dutch cities last week when I found myself thinking: this is peak humanity. No people anywhere have ever lived better. Most town centres were gorgeous, having avoided any destruction for centuries. Cyclists puttered past café terraces. The only hassle was torn-up streets, as perfectly good infrastructure was being renovated. The knee-jerk retort would be that I was watching out-of-touch elitists party while ordinary people sink. In fact, the historically egalitarian Netherlands has become still more equal in income distribution since the 1990s. Nor is the typical Dutch person uniquely blessed. Even in the extremely unequal US, median household income is a respectable $59,039.

前不久，我简短地游览了荷兰的五个城市，其间我不由得这样想：我眼前的景象是人类发展的巅峰。世界任何地方的人都未曾有过更美好的生活。大部分城镇中心都引人入胜，这些地方几百年来未遭破坏。悠闲的人们骑着自行车经过露天咖啡座。唯一的麻烦就是路面被挖开，因为市政当局要改造本来没什么问题的基础设施。对此，有人会下意识地反驳称，我看到的是不接地气的精英阶层在享受，其实普通人的生活每况愈下。事实上，自20世纪90年代以来，历来注重平等的荷兰在收入分配上变得更加均等。而典型的荷兰人并没有受到特别的眷顾。即使在极不平等的美国，家庭收入的中值也有相当不错的59039美元。

Viewed historically, and contrary to popular belief, most westerners today live pretty well. We’ve had 72 years of peace and prosperity (also known as “elite failure”). However, as this month’s events suggest, our lucky run probably won’t last. I’m not going around with a sandwich board saying, “The end of the world is nigh”, but now’s a good moment to short human futures.

从历史长河的视角看，与流行观念相反，如今大多数西方人的生活相当滋润。我们已经享受了72年的和平与繁荣(从有些人的嘴里说出来就变成了“精英的失败”)。然而，正如近期事件似乎表明的那样，我们走运的时期很可能不会持续太久了。我不会在自己的前胸后背挂着告示牌称，“世界末日就要来了”，但现在是“卖空”人类未来的好时机。

Just looking at the threats we know of, the number of natural disasters has risen more than fourfold since 1970, says The Economist. The recent floods and hurricanes, from India to Houston, are the new normal. Climate change will worsen but, anyway, is only one of several burgeoning natural crises. The Stockholm Resilience Centre says we have also already crossed “core boundaries” on the biosphere: human-induced changes to ecosystems are now the fastest ever. That matters even to non-tree-huggers, because when one species goes extinct, others that depend on it follow. Ecosystems decay, some kinds of nutrition get scarce and humanity risks losing its “safe operating space”. But boring science doesn’t make news.

看看我们所知道的威胁吧，《经济学人》(Economist)杂志称，自1970年以来，自然灾害的数量已增至原有水平的4倍多。从印度到休斯敦，近期的洪水与飓风是新常态。气候变化还将恶化，但无论如何，这还只是多个初生的自然危机之一。斯德哥尔摩社会生态系统应变及发展研究中心(Stockholm Resilience Centre)称，我们已经越过了生物圈的“核心边界”：人类引发的生态系统的变化，目前比以往任何时候都更快。这甚至对非环保人士也很重要，因为当一个物种灭绝后，其他依赖它生存的物种也会紧随其后。生态系统衰退，一些营养物质变得稀缺，人类也会面临失去“安全操作空间”的风险。但枯燥的科学不会成为新闻。

It’s conventional at this point to call for “sustainability” but, frankly, it isn’t going to happen. Humanity almost certainly won’t go green on time. The Paris accord — even if it holds — isn’t nearly enough. Recall the “iron law of climate politics”, formulated by Roger Pielke Jr of the University of Colorado: in any choice between pursuing economic growth or cutting emissions, growth wins. Sure, renewable energy is the future but we will also burn all remaining fossil fuels. The Dutch have protected themselves from floods but Houston and Dhaka won’t.

讲到这里，依照惯例我们要呼吁“可持续发展”，但坦白讲，这不会发生。人类几乎肯定不会及时做到环保。《巴黎协定》——即使得到遵守——也远远不够。回想一下科罗拉多大学(University of Colorado)政治科学家小罗杰•皮尔克(Roger Pielke Jr)得出的“气候政治的铁律”：在追求经济增长还是减少排放的任何选择上，经济增长总是胜出。没错，可再生能源是未来，但我们仍将燃烧所有剩余的化石燃料。荷兰已经让自己免受洪灾之害，但休斯敦和达卡并不会。

Meanwhile, by 2050 we will probably have added nearly three billion humans, mostly in poor, hot countries. For comparison: in 1960 the entire global population was just three billion. Dutch geographer Ewald Engelen quotes an estimate that “we’ll need more food in the next 40 years than all harvests in history combined”. We may well produce it but it won’t reach most Malians or Ethiopians, so more of them will head north.

与此同时，到2050年，世界人口还将增加近30亿，其中大部分将是在贫穷和炎热的国家。对比一下：1960年全球人口只有30亿。荷兰地理学家埃瓦尔德•恩格伦(Ewald Engelen)引用一个估算称，“未来40年我们需要的食物将比历史上全部收成的总和还要多。”我们很可能生产得出这么多食物，但这些食物分配不到马里人和埃塞俄比亚人手里，因此他们中会有更多人涌向北方。

Our best bet to cool the planet may well be the “nuclear winter” that’s hypothesised to follow nuclear war. Last week we belatedly discovered that Soviet officer Stanislav Petrov had died. He’s the man who decided in 1983 not to launch nuclear missiles despite an alarm showing (wrongly) that the US had just attacked. Petrov later told the BBC it was lucky that he, with his civilian education, happened to be on shift. His colleagues, he explained, were “all professional soldiers” trained to obey orders.

为地球降温的最好方式，很可能是科学家所假设的核战争之后的“核冬天”。最近我们得知，前苏联军官斯坦尼斯拉夫•彼得罗夫(Stanislav Petrov)已经在今年早些时候去世了。1983年，是他决定不发射核导弹，尽管一个警报(错误地)表明美国已发动攻击。彼得罗夫后来告诉英国广播公司(BBC)，幸运的是当时碰巧由受过文职教育的他值班。他解释道，他的同事们都是以服从命令为天职的“职业军人”。

In fact, Petrov was just one of several officials who saved the world from nuclear war, says Dan Plesch of London University’s School of Oriental and African Studies. “We are only still here because human beings on a number of recorded occasions refused to follow nuclear alert and launch procedures.” And those are just the occasions we found out about. People worry about Donald Trump’s little fingers on the button (quite possibly for eight years) but, in fact, these decisions are often made in minutes by Dilberts in cubicles.

事实上，据伦敦大学亚非学院(SOAS)的丹•普勒斯(Dan Plesch)介绍，彼得罗夫只是让世界免于核战灾难的几位官员之一。“我们之所以还好好活着，是因为在载入史册的好几个关键时刻，有人拒绝执行核预警和发射程序。”而这些还只是我们了解到的事例。人们担心唐纳德•特朗普(Donald Trump)的小小手指悬在核按钮上(很可能要为此提心吊胆整整8年)，但实际上，这些决定是由坐在小隔间里的呆伯特(Dilbert)们在几分钟内做出的。

The US statesman Dean Acheson, looking back on the Cuban crisis of 1962, once said the only reason it didn’t end in nuclear war was “plain dumb luck”. That has become a broadly shared scholarly view, says Benoît Pelopidas of Sciences Po in Paris.

美国前国务卿、政治家迪安•艾奇逊(Dean Acheson)在回顾1962年古巴危机时曾说过，那场危机没有升级为核战是走了“狗屎运”。巴黎政治大学(Sciences Po)的伯努瓦•派洛皮德(Benoît Pelopidas)说，这一观点如今已得到学术界的广泛认同。

Now there are more nuclear states than ever, almost all building up their arsenals, including adding “mini-nukes”. Plesch remarks: “The idea that someone can say, ‘Here’s a nuclear weapon that is only 300 tons of TNT equivalent’ produces certain temptations.”

如今拥有核武器的国家多得空前，这些国家几乎都在扩建自己的核武库，包括增加“战术核武器”。伦敦亚非学院的普勒斯称：“有人可能会说‘这种核武器的威力只相当于300吨TNT’——这种想法会产生一定的诱惑。”

Taunting a vain, temperamental, nuclear-armed ruler isn’t what they teach you in hostage negotiations 101, but it’s what North Korea’s president Kim Jong Un is now doing. Given the participants, this stand-off is probably more dangerous than the Cuban crisis. It could climax fast. US intelligence thinks Kim will be able to hit Los Angeles with nukes within months. And if Trump pulls out of the Iranian nuclear deal by October 15, the Iranian-Saudi-Israeli nuclear race could run concurrently. None of this necessarily means Armageddon, says Plesch. You could see millions killed in the Koreas while Brits bicker on about Brexit. Still, the present may well be remembered as a doomed golden age. Future historians trawling through the remains of our civilisation (mostly Facebook posts) will wonder why we spent it so angry.

挑衅一个自负、喜怒无常而又拥有核武器的统治者，并不符合人质谈判的基本原则，但这正是朝鲜领导人金正恩(Kim Jong Un)目前在做的。鉴于涉及到的各方，目前的对峙很可能比古巴危机更危险。它可能快速达到高潮。美国情报部门认为，金正恩在数月内就能具备用核武器打击洛杉矶的实力。而且，如果特朗普在10月15日退出伊朗核协议，伊朗、沙特及以色列之间的核竞赛将同时展开。普勒斯说，这些未必意味着世界末日。你也许会看到朝鲜和韩国有数百万人被杀，而英国人还在为退欧争吵。话虽如此，当下很可能被未来世代铭记为一个注定倒霉的黄金时期。未来那些翻阅我们文明遗迹(绝大多数是Facebook上的帖子)的历史学家们将会纳闷：我们为什么在怒火中度日?