热浪袭人:全球变暖与美国大平原的未来

Feeling the Heat:Global Warming and the Future of the Great Plains and American West

全球变暖是人类面临的最严峻的挑战之一。大平原的经历可以为我们提供一些启示。第一,如果对一种气候不能充分理解或充分接受,就很难适应这一气候。第二,试图通过技术控制自然,是一种不充分的、短期的适应方法。第三,避免1930年代的灾难再次发生的最好策略,是使大平原的更多地区保留自然的、农业开发之前的那种状态。第四,实现对气候的最佳适应,永远不可能仅仅依靠私有制或商业思想,也不能仅仅通过建立慷慨的政府救助计划,对遭受旱灾的经营者予以赔偿。人类需要做的是文化必须适应环境。

Through the history of human settlement in the western region of North America,we can learn some lessons it holds for the future of global warming. Firstly,it is hard to adapt to a climate that one do not fully understand or do not fully want to accept. Secondly,trying to control nature through technology is not an adequate or long-term approach to adaptation. Thirdly,the best strategy for avoiding another thirties-style catastrophe lies in restoring more of the plains to their natural,pre-agricultural condition. Fourth-ly,the best adaptation to climate can never be achieved merely by private property institutions or en-trepreneurial thinking,or a generous program of government relief. Adaptation must be cultural and social as well as technological.