一场有意义的选举该讨论什么

We’ve just had a nonsense midterm election. Never has more money been spent to think so little about a future so in flux. What would we have discussed if we’d had a serious election? How about the biggest challenge we’re facing today: The resilience of our workers, environment and institutions.

我们刚刚结束了一场无意义的中期选举。关于如此莫测的未来，我们如此缺乏思考，可是花在上面的钱却从来没有这么多过。如果我们有一个认真的选举，那会讨论些什么呢？不如讨论一下我们如今面临的最大挑战：我们的工人、环境及制度的恢复力。

Why is that the biggest challenge? Because: The world is fast. The three biggest forces on the planet — the market, Mother Nature and Moore’s Law — are all surging, really fast, at the same time. The market, i.e., globalization, is tying economies more tightly together than ever before, making our workers, investors and markets much more interdependent and exposed to global trends, without walls to protect them.

为什么这是最大的挑战？因为：世界变化很快。这个星球上最大的三种力量——市场、大自然和摩尔定律——都在同一时间风起云涌，速度非常之快。市场即全球化，它正将各个经济前所未有地紧密捆绑在一起，让我们的员工、投资者和市场变得更加相互依存，暴露在全球趋势的风险之中，没有什么围墙可以保护他们。

Moore’s Law, the theory that the speed and power of microchips will double every two years, is, as Andrew McAfee and Erik Brynjolfsson posit in their book, “The Second Machine Age,” so relentlessly increasing the power of software, computers and robots that they’re now replacing many more traditional white- and blue-collar jobs, while spinning off new ones — all of which require more skills.

摩尔定律指出，芯片的速度和能力每两年就会翻一番。正如埃里克·布林约尔松(Erik Brynjolfsson)和安德鲁·麦卡菲(Andrew McAfee)在著作《第二次机器时代》(The Second Machine Age)中所说，软件、计算机和机器人的能力增长如此迅猛，它们正在取代大量传统的白领和蓝领工作，同时又派生出新的工作，而所有新工作都需要工人掌握更多技能。

And the rapid growth of carbon in our atmosphere and environmental degradation and deforestation because of population growth on earth — the only home we have — are destabilizing Mother Nature’s ecosystems faster.

在我们唯一的家园地球，人口增长导致大气含碳量快速增长，环境退化，森林遭到滥伐，使得大自然的生态系统更快地失去稳定性。

In sum, we’re in the middle of three “climate changes” at once: one digital, one ecological, one geo-economical. That’s why strong states are being stressed, weak ones are blowing up and Americans are feeling anxious that no one has a quick fix to ease their anxiety. And they’re right. The only fix involves big, hard things that can only be built together over time: resilient infrastructure, affordable health care, more start-ups and lifelong learning opportunities for new jobs, immigration policies that attract talent, sustainable environments, manageable debt and governing institutions adapted to the new speed.

总之，我们同时处在三个“气候变化”之中：一个是数字，一个是生态，还有一个是地缘经济。这就是为什么一些强国正在遭受压力，弱国纷纷崩溃。这也让美国人感到焦虑，因为没有人能提供快速解决方案来缓解这种焦虑。他们是对的。唯一的解决办法涉及一些庞大、艰巨的东西，随着时间的推移，它们才可以被构建起来：有恢复力的基础设施、负担得起的医疗服务、更多的初创企业、以及终身都存在的学习新岗位技能的机会、吸引人才的移民政策、可持续的环境、可控的债务、可以适应新速度的治理机构。

That’s just theory, you say? Really? Look at one aspect in one country: Mother Nature in Brazil. On Oct. 24, Reuters reported this from São Paulo: “South America’s biggest and wealthiest city may run out of water by mid-November if it doesn’t rain soon. São Paulo, a Brazilian megacity of 20 million people, is suffering its worst drought in at least 80 years, with key reservoirs that supply the city dried up after an unusually dry year.”

你觉得这只是理论？真的吗？来看看一个国家的其中一方面：巴西的大自然。10月24日，路透社自圣保罗报道，“如果最近再不降雨，南美最大最富有的城市可能会在11月中旬耗尽水源。圣保罗，这个2000万人口的巴西大都市，正在遭受至少80年一遇的严重干旱，在经过异常干燥的一年之后，为这座城市供应水源的主要水库干涸了。”

Say what? São Paulo is running out of water? Yes.

什么意思？圣保罗快没水了？是的。

José Maria Cardoso da Silva, a Brazilian and senior adviser at Conservation International, explains: The drought hit a landscape that had been stripped of 80 percent of the natural forest along the Serra da Cantareira watersheds that feed six artificial reservoirs sustaining São Paulo. The Cantareira supplies nearly half of São Paulo’s water. The forests and wetlands have been replaced by farmfields, pastures and eucalyptus plantations. So today the pipes and reservoirs that gather the water are still in place, but the natural infrastructure of forests and watersheds has been badly degraded. The drought exposed it all.

巴西人何塞·玛丽亚·卡多索·席尔瓦(José Maria Cardoso da Silva)是保护国际（Conservation International，简称CI）的高级顾问，他解释说：旱灾影响了塞拉达康达雷拉(Serra da Cantareira)流域的一片地区，那里80%的天然森林已遭破坏，在为圣保罗供水的人工水库中，有六座的水就来自这片地区。康达雷拉为圣保罗提供了的近一半的水。森林和湿地已被改建为农场、牧场和人工桉树林。所以，如今收集这些水的管道和水库虽然还在，但森林和流域的自然基础设施已经严重退化。干旱把所有这些问题都暴露出来。

“Natural forests act like giant sponges soaking up rain and gradually releasing it into streams,” he said. “They also protect watercourses and maintain water quality by reducing sediment and filtering pollutants. The forest loss in Cantareira increased erosion, caused the decline in water quality, and changed seasonal water flows, reducing the resilience of the entire system against climatic extreme events.” The Cantareira system has fallen below 12 percent of capacity.

“天然林像巨大的海绵，吸收了雨水，逐渐释放到河流里，”他说。“他们还可以保护河道，并通过减少沉积物和过滤污染物保持水质。在康达雷拉，森林的损失增加了侵蚀，造成水质下降，并改变了季节水流量，减少了在气候极端事件下，整个系统的恢复能力。”康达雷拉水系已经跌至其容量的12%以下。

Sadly, deforestation increased under Brazil’s newly re-elected president, Dilma Rousseff, but this was also barely an issue in Brazil’s election. Yet Reuters quoted Antonio Nobre, a leading climate scientist at Brazil’s National Space Research Institute, arguing that “global warming and the deforestation of the Amazon are altering the climate in the region by drastically reducing the release of billions of liters of water by rainforest trees. ‘Humidity that comes from the Amazon in the form of vapor clouds — what we call ‘flying rivers’ — has dropped dramatically, contributing to this devastating situation we are living today,’ ” Nobre said.

可悲的是，在最近获得连任的巴西总统迪尔玛·罗塞夫(Dilma Rousseff)执政期间，森林滥伐现象增加了，但在巴西的选举中，这几乎不算是问题。不过，路透社援引巴西国家空间研究所(National Space Research Institute)知名气候科学家安东尼奥·诺布雷(Antonio Nobre)的话，称“热带雨林树木本来会释放的数十亿升水，全球变暖和亚马逊森林滥伐大幅减少了这些水量，改变了该地区的气候。‘亚马逊雨林释放出的水雾被称之为‘飞河’，它已经大幅减少，再加上别的因素，就造成了我们今天的这种惨状，’”诺布雷说。

Paul Gilding, the Australian environmentalist and author of “The Great Disruption,” emailed from Brazil to say that the lack of a serious Brazilian response “reinforces to me that we’re not going to respond to the big global issues until they hit the economy. It’s hard to imagine a stronger example than a city of 20 million people running out of water. Yet despite the clear threat, the main response is ‘we hope it rains.’ Why such denial? Because the implications of acceptance are so significant, and we know in our hearts there’s no going back once you end denial. It would demand that the country face up to the urgency of reversing rather than slowing deforestation” and “the need to prepare the country for the risks that a changing climate presents.”

保罗·戈尔丁(Paul Gilding)是澳大利亚环保专家，《大破坏》(The Great Disruption)一书的作者，他从巴西发来电邮，说该国并没有认真应对这个问题，“让我更加觉得，我们不会对大规模的全球问题作出回应，直到它们严重影响了经济。很难想象，还会有什么例子，比一个2000万人口的城市水源快要耗尽更加有说服力。然而，尽管威胁清楚易见，人们的反应主要却是：‘我们希望会下雨。’为什么要否认问题的存在？由于承认它意味着很多事情，我们心里明白，一旦最终停止否认，就没有回头路了。这将需要巴西勇敢地去面对，扭转森林砍伐的现象，而不是减缓砍伐速度，”并“需要让全国做好准备，应对气候变化带来的风险”。

When changes in the market, Mother Nature and Moore’s Law all get this fast, opportunities and stresses abound. One day, we’ll have an election about how we cushion, exploit and adapt to them — an election to make America and Americans more resilient. One day.

当市场、大自然和摩尔定律中的变化发生得如此迅速的时候，机会和压力也比比皆是。有一天，我们将会就如何缓解、利用和适应它们进行选举，那将是一个让美国和美国人变得更强韧的选举。会有那么一天。