立秋感言:“命真是空调给”!| 纽约时报精读
今天立秋,感谢空调续的命!
今年夏天,美国和加拿大部分地区遭遇罕见的热浪袭击,平均气温超过了40℃。无独有偶,北非、阿拉伯半岛、东欧和印度等地也出现了不同程度的超高温天气。
此外,英国、德国、比利时和中国发生了暴雨并引发洪水。在全球极端天气频发的背景下,Tim Harford写下这篇我们今天要学习的文章。不过,他的落脚点并非最近的极端天气事件,而是发生在1995年的芝加哥热浪,也是美国历史上最恶劣的天气自然灾害之一。
文章引用了一些分析热浪现象致死情况的研究报告,其结果竟有些出人意料。
学习要点
heatwave(热浪)到底是个什么气象学概念?
除了hot还有哪些词可以形容 天气热?
中暑怎么说?
高温天气的死亡率竟和人口数量有关?
带着问题去精读
*本文中原文及部分例句翻译均采用机翻+人工微调,仅供参考,重点放在词汇解析。
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精读原文
How to redesign our cities to make them heatwave-proof
如何让我们的城市变得能够承受热浪侵袭
In July 1995, a hot, humid, slow-moving mass of air rolled over Chicago and stayed there for a week. Roads and railway tracks buckled. Lifting bridges were hosed down to prevent thermal expansion from locking them in place. Shops sold out of air conditioners. Demand for electricity led to blackouts. Then people started to die, simply unable to cope with the humidity and the heat day after day.
1995年7月,一团高温、潮湿、缓慢移动的空气在芝加哥上空滚动,并在那里停留了一个星期。道路和火车铁轨都热变形了。人们用水管冲洗升降桥,防止它们因受热膨胀被卡在原地。商店里的空调销售一空。人们对电力的需求导致了停电。接下来,因为无法承受日复一日的潮湿炎热天气,导致不断有人因此丧生。
📒 精读解析:
先来看下标题,这里涉及到一个构词法:
-proof作为后缀,形容:something which a particular thing cannot harm or pass through, or which protects people against that thing,根据语境可以翻译为:耐…的、防…的、抗…的。
[举例]:
a bulletproof car防弹汽车
a waterproof jacket防水上衣
an ovenproof dish耐热盘子
a childproof container防儿童开启的容器
1、buckle:
to become bent or curved because of heat or pressure, or to make something bend or curve in this way(因高温或压力)(使)弯曲;(使)变形
[例句]:
The rails buckled under the intense heat of the fire.铁轨在烈火的高温下变了形。
A weaker man would have buckled under the pressure.(引申用法)意志薄弱的人在这种压力下可能就垮了。
*因为某种原因而变形,搭配的介词是under。
《卫报》一篇题为Why the heatwave is disrupting the UK railways的文章中也用到了buckle:
The temperature of steel rails can climb 20 degrees higher than the air around them. So when temperatures are approaching 40 degrees, track temperatures can come close to 60 degrees. That causes the metal to expand, putting it at risk of buckling.
看了上面这段话,想必大家也就了解了为什么高温天气会导致铁轨变形,其实就是热胀冷缩原理啦。
2、hose (sth) down:
to wash sth using a hose用喷水软管冲洗某物
hose就是指(灭火、浇花等用的)橡皮管、塑料管,消防员用的水龙带也可以用这个词表示。
3、blackout:
a period of darkness caused by a failure of the electricity supply停电,断电
*注意,当blackout 指停电时是可数的,如:
This can overload power grids, causing blackouts.
这会使电网超负荷,造成停电。
Who am I gonna meet in a blackout?
停电了我能去见谁?
[同义词] ower cut / failure
4、[句型]
Then people started to die, simply unable to cope with the humidity and the heat day after day.
句型结构:形容词(unable)短语作状语(常和主句的谓语用逗号分开),be动词省略。这样的结构很地道,可用作写作积累。
例如:Now she was back, eager to see her friends.
2
精读原文
There is no official estimate for the death toll, but it is often reckoned to be more than 700 people. As with Covid-19, most were elderly, but epidemiologists later estimated that the majority of those older people were not otherwise in imminent danger of death.
官方没有发布估计死亡人数,但人们普遍猜测很可能超过了700人。与新冠疫情期间一样,遇难者大多是老年人。但流行病学家们后来判断,对于这些老年人中的大多数来说,并没有除高温天气之外的因素导致他们生命垂危。
📒精读解析:
1、death toll:
the total number of people who die in an accident, war etc
death toll 经常出现在报道灾难的英语新闻里,表示(事故、战争等的)死亡人数
[例句]:The official death toll stands at 57. 官方公布的死亡总数为57人。
[拓展] 除了death toll外,外媒还会用那些词汇和句型表达遇难人数?来看几个外刊例句:
1) Torrential rainfall and burst rivers swamp Henan cities, killing 12 in Zhengzhou and trapping province residents. (卫报)
特大暴雨让河流决堤,河南城市遭遇洪水,致郑州12人死亡,部分居民被困。
动词kill的现在分词形式作状语
2) A deluge sparked the evacuation of 16500 people and left at least 25 dead.(彭博社)
一场暴雨导致16500人被疏散,造成至少25人死亡。
leave xx dead,这里的leave指“to make sth happen or remain as a result”。
3) Chinese authorities said 302 people had died during severe flooding that hit the central province of Henan last month. (华尔街日报)
中国官方公布有302人死于上个月侵袭河南省的严重洪灾中。
动词单独使用。
除此之外,还可以用lead/cause xx deaths表示致多少人死亡;number of casualties表示伤亡人数。
2、 be reckoned:
to be generally considered to be sth被普遍认为是;被看作是
[例句]:
Children are reckoned to be more sophisticated nowadays.人们认为现在的孩子比过去成熟。
3、imminent:
likely to happen very soon (尤指不愉快的事)即将发生的
in imminent danger of是个出现频率比较高的固定搭配,可以用于写作积累。
[例句]:
The system is in imminent danger of collapse. 这个体制面临着崩溃的危险。
下面再看个影视剧中的例子:
疑犯追踪 第一季 第17集Baby Blue
3
精读原文
Heat continues to be a killer. The World Health Organization estimates that, between 1998 and 2017, 166,000 people died owing to heatwaves. We are going to have to get used to scorching temperatures and smothering humidity. Which makes it all the more important to understand what happened in Chicago a quarter of a century ago.
高温天气始终是致命的。世界卫生组织估计,在1998年至2017年期间,有16.6万人死于热浪天气。我们将不得不去适应炎热难当又令人窒息的湿热天气。因此,了解25年前发生在芝加哥的高温灾害就变得更加重要。
📒精读解析:
1、【背景知识】
heatwave(热浪)是个气象学概念,指天气持续地保持过度炎热,并可能伴有很高的湿度。世界气象组织将其定义为连续5天或更长时间的日最高温度超过平均最高温度5℃(9℉)或更多。
正常情况下,高空风带可以促进空气流动。当高气压出现在某个特定地区上空时,由于缺乏气流,高气压移动缓慢,可以在一个地区上空聚集很长时间,如几天或几周。这个时候就会形成热浪。
我国对热浪天气的记录最早可追溯至南宋时期,然而南宋的热灾并不是历朝历代温度最高的一次。据《清代气象记录》记载,乾隆八年时,热灾侵袭了京津翼、山西和山东等地区。根据现在的气象专家测算,当时的最高气温可能达到了44℃左右,的确是非常骇人了。
本文提到的95年芝加哥热浪曾导致600多人因中暑死亡,其恶劣程度实属罕见。那么中暑在英语里怎么表达?
中暑的英文是heat stroke,也可以叫sun stroke。
最近正值东京奥运会,运动员在高温酷暑的天气下剧烈运动很容易引发中暑。CNN的一篇报道也提到,除了疫情外,中暑是运动员面临的最大危险(heat stroke was the biggest risk to athletes for the Tokyo Olympics)。而俄罗斯的一名射箭运动员就因为轻度中暑(heat exhaustion)被送去救治。若轻度中暑(heat exhaustion)没有得到及时缓解,很快就会转为中暑(heat stroke),重者可危及生命。
那么中暑的症状(symptoms)怎么表达呢:
High body temperature 体温升高
Sweating 出汗
Nausea and vomiting 恶心呕吐
Flushed skin 皮肤潮红
Rapid breathing 呼吸急促
Racing heart rate 心跳加快
Headache 头痛
2、scorching: extremely hot 极热的,灼热的
[例句]:
In the scorching summer days, there's nothing like a cool swim. 夏日炎炎,还是游泳最凉快!
[拓展]
scorching和smothering(令人窒息的)的连用表现出那种热到透不过气来的感觉,那么除此之外,还有那些词语可以用来形容天气热呢?
1) balmy可以用来形容温暖舒适(warm and pleasant)的天气,这种天气还称不上hot,只能算moderately hot。
2) tropical 有热带的意思,用它来形容天气,自然是指湿热的(hot and wet)天气。
3) sultry 指盛夏时节那种又闷又热的天气(very hot and uncomfortable)。
4) parched指天气炎热少雨,土地都干裂了的情况(very dry, especially because the weather is hot)。
5) sweltering指热得难受,热得发昏的天气(extremely hot and uncomfortable)。
3. Which makes it all the more important to understand what happened in Chicago a quarter of a century ago.
[语法点睛] Incomplete Sentences
当英语句子缺乏主语、谓语或其他成分时,这种句子被称作 incomplete sentences or sentence fragments。
大多数情况下,这类句子因不符合语法规则被视为错误表述。但有些时候,作者为强调某种观点或感受,会特意使用不完整的句子。
本段中,我们看到which开头的不完整句子,而这种句型经常会出现在英文小说或杂志里,作用就是为了突出强调。下面看一个小说里的例子:
I stepped onto the train. Which had finally arrived. (强调火车来得晚,作者有些不满。)
本段中,作者使用“Which” clause作为独立句子的意图显然是为了强调他的观点,即了解芝加哥的那场灾难很重要。
*小贴士:当你使用这种句型时,一定要确保读者可以明确“which”指代的是什么,切忌滥用。
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精读原文
Researchers from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention studied the problem carefully and concluded that “those at greatest risk of dying from the heat were people with medical illnesses who were socially isolated and did not have access to air conditioning”.
That's not wrong, but neither is it especially helpful. Why did people have no access to air conditioning? The city was full of air-conditioned spaces, many of them-such as libraries and shops-open to anyone, free of charge. And why were people so cut off, even in a crisis?
美国疾病控制与预防中心的研究人员仔细研究了这个问题,并得出结论:“那些最有可能死于高温天气的人往往是身患疾病的人,他们在社会上无依无靠,没有机会使用空调。”
这个结论没有错,但也没有将事情解释清楚。为什么有人会没有机会使用空调?城市里到处都是有空调的地方,其中许多地方如图书馆和商店,向人们免费开放。那么为什么会有人与世隔绝,甚至在危机中也是如此呢?
📒精读解析:
1、本段用socially isolated和cut off来形容与世隔绝的状态,我们分别来看一下。
isolated: without much contact with other people or other countries 孤独的;孤立的
[例句]:
Elderly people easily become socially isolated.上了年纪的人很容易变得与社会隔绝。
cut sb/sth off (from sb/sth):
to prevent sb/sth from leaving or reaching a place or communicating with people outside a place, 切断…的去路(或来路);使…与外界隔绝
[例句]:
She feels very cut off living in the country. 她住在乡间感到很闭塞。
下面来看一个电影中的例子:
电影网络谜踪 Searching
2、 free of charge 指免费的,charge有费用的意思。
金装律师 第五季 第11集 Blowback
[拓展]:
complimentary也可以表示免费的,赠送的,比如许多高级酒店里的物品会标注complimentary,意思是客人可以免费取用,无需付费。
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精读原文
In his 2000 book Heat Wave: A Social Autopsy of Disaster in Chicago, the sociologist Eric Klinenberg went beneath the surface of the catastrophe. The CDC analysis had compared pairs of individuals, contrasting those who had died with apparently similar individuals who had not. Klinenberg compared two adjacent Chicago neighbourhoods:North Lawndale and South Lawndale. North Lawndale had a heatwave death rate 10 times higher than South Lawndale. Why?
社会学家艾瑞克•克林伯格在他2000年出版的《热浪:芝加哥灾难的社会剖析》一书中,深入分析了这场灾难。美国疾控中心曾分析比较过成对的个体,将已经死亡的人与那些和死者明显相似的活下来的人进行对比。克林伯格则比较了芝加哥两个相邻的社区,北朗代尔和南朗代尔。北朗代尔的热浪死亡率比南朗代尔高出10倍。这是为什么呢?
📒精读解析:
1、autopsy:
an examination of a dead body to discover the cause of death 尸体剖检,验尸
an autopsy report 验尸报告
Autopsy的本意是尸检,但却被经常用来比喻对事物的深入分析,如下图:
亿万 第一季 第1集Pilot
2、adjacent:
next to or near sth 与 … 毗连的;邻近的
[例句]:
Our farm land was adjacent to the river. 我们的农田在河边。
其他可以表示“毗邻的”形容词还有:adjoining/neighboring/abutting
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精读原文
Both neighbourhoods had plenty of poor elderly people living alone and both were overwhelmingly non-white. But in other ways they were different. North Lawndale was depopulated, an urban desert with vacant lots. Gangs used it as a convenient place to sell illegal things. People didn’t leave their apartments because they were afraid of being mugged. They weren’t used to walking to local shops-and there weren’t many local shops to walk to.
两个社区都有很多贫困的独居老人,而且绝大多数都是非白种人。但在其他方面,两个社区又是不同的。北朗代尔人口稀少,是一个到处是空地的城市沙漠。黑帮常利用它作为出售非法物品的便利场所。人们不愿意离开自己的公寓,因为他们担心遭遇抢劫。他们也很少走进当地的商店,因为原本就没有几家商店。
📒 精读解析:
1、overwhelming 指巨大的,压倒性的。
之前的文章有讲解过,大家可以戳链接复习一下↓
2、depopulate:
to reduce the number of people living in a place使人口减少
前缀de-具有去掉、消除的含义,根据构词法,同样的单词还有defrost,指给(冰箱)除霜,或者解冻食物。
3、[熟词僻意]
lot 在某些情况下可以指(作某种用途的)一块地。如果说你见到a vacant lot(一块空地)会有些困惑,那么你一定见过parking lot(停车场)。当然这是比较美式的用法,停车场在英国叫做car park。
[例句]:
We're going to build a house on this lot. 我们打算在这块地上建造一座房子。
4、mug 除了有“马克杯”的意思还可以用作动词,意思是(公然)行凶抢劫。
[例句]:
She had been mugged in the street in broad daylight.光天化日之下,她在街上遭到抢劫。
7
精读原文
South Lawndale, by contrast, was overcrowded, but as a result it felt bustling and safe. When the heatwave struck, elderly residents were happy to walk into an air-conditioned store nearby and hangout. They felt safe leaving an empty apartment behind. When at home they felt safe opening their doors to the people who came to check on them. In a heatwave, lively streets save lives.
相比之下,南朗代尔则人口众多、拥挤不堪,但也因此而变得热闹、安全。当热浪袭来时,老年居民很乐意走进附近有空调的商店闲逛。他们觉得即使离开公寓也很安全。在家里,他们还会为前来看望的人开门,并且仍然感到安全。在热浪来袭时,生机勃勃的街道可以拯救生命。
📒精读解析:
1、overcrowded 形容因人口过多而导致空间变得拥挤。
[例句]:
Staff had to work in overcrowded conditions.员工们只得在过度拥挤的环境中工作。
2、[近义词替换]
作者分别用bustling和lively来形容一个地方熙熙攘攘,热闹繁忙。
bustle作动词是忙碌的意思,它的形容词形式bustling用以描述人多热闹的繁忙景象,比如车水马龙的大都市。
[例句]:
The flower market was bustling with shoppers.花市里熙熙攘攘,挤满了顾客。
lively是个褒义词,经常出现在酒店的营销文案里,用来形容一个地方非常热闹而充满活力,给人以愉悦的感受。
[例句]:
The hotel is situated next to the lively port. 酒店位于那个熙熙攘攘的港口旁。
the city’s lively nightlife 城市丰富多彩的夜生活
3、check on sb/sth:
to make sure that there is nothing wrong with sb/sth,该短语意思为检查(是否一切正常),是一个比较常见的口语表达,有时候相当于中文口语里的“看看”。
[例句]:
I'll just go and check on the children. 我去看看孩子们。
我们这一天 第三季 第4集The Pool
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