Jair Bolsonaro shrugs as the Amazon burns
雅伊爾·波索納洛对亚马逊大火耸耸肩
Fires consume large tracts of the world’s forest every year. But the inferno in the Amazon is man-made.
火灾每年都会消耗世界森林的大片土地。 但亚马逊地区的炼狱是人为造成的。
WHEN SÃO PAULO went dark at 3pm on August 19th, the city’s 12m-plus inhabitants were stunned by the black cloud that descended on the city.
当圣保罗在8月19日下午3点漆黑一片时，这座城市的一千二百万多名居民被覆盖在城市上的乌云所震惊。
Some took photos of the dystopian scene; others called loved ones in fear that the end was nigh.
nigh: ( almost/nearly/virtually )
有人拍摄了如反乌托邦一样的场景; 有人在恐惧中联系亲人，因为他们害怕末日就近在咫尺。
A popular religious YouTube channel told subscribers that Jesus was returning for the second coming.
一个受欢迎的宗教YouTube频道告诉其订阅者，耶稣正在第二次回归。
Forget the end of days. This apocalypse is man-made.
还没到世界末日。这个“末日”是人为的。
The mid-afternoon darkness, most accept, was caused by rare atmospheric conditions that brought smoke from the fires burning thousands of kilometres away in the Amazonian rainforest.
中午的黑暗，大多数人接受的观点是由罕见的大气条件造成的，使数千公里以外的亚马逊热带雨林的火灾产生烟雾。
The cloud, as well as recent alarming data about the extent of this year’s fires, provoked an outcry in Brazil.
乌云跟最近关于今年关于火势程度的令人震惊的数据，在巴西引起了强烈抗议。
It also kindled a blazing international row over Brazil’s stewardship of the Amazon.
这也引发了一场关于巴西管理亚马逊河的激烈的国际争论。.
President Emmanuel Macron of France took to Twitter to demand that world leaders discuss the fires at the G7 summit which he is hosting in Biarritz on August 24th-26th.
法国总统伊曼纽尔·马克龙在推特上要求世界各国领导人在8月24日至26日在比亚里茨举行的G7峰会上讨论火灾问题。
“Our house is burning. Literally,” wrote Mr Macron. “It is an international crisis.” Canada’s prime minister, Justin Trudeau, weighed in, tweeting that he “couldn’t agree more”.
马克龙先生写道：“我们的家园在燃烧。这是一场国际危机。” 加拿大总理贾斯汀·特鲁多在推特發表評論表示十分同意。
Brazil’s far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro, retorted that the Amazon was an “internal issue”.
巴西极右翼总统雅伊爾·波索納洛反驳说，亚马逊是一个“内部问题”。
He denounced Mr Macron’s request as evidence of “a misplaced colonialist mindset in the 21st century.”
他谴责马克龙先生的要求是“21世纪错位的殖民主义思想”的证据。
Mr Bolsonaro, who took power in January, does not believe in climate change.
1月份掌权的博尔索纳先生不相信气候变化。
He regards the Amazon as a “virgin” that should be “exploited” for agriculture, mining and infrastructure projects.
他认为亚马逊是一个应该被“剥削”用于农业，采矿和基础设施项目的“处女”。
During the Amazon’s dry season, it is common for farmers to set fires illegally to clear land.
在亚马逊的旱季期间，农民常常非法放火以清理土地。
But Mr Bolsonaro stands accused of encouraging the wanton destruction of the world’s greatest tropical forest, not least by ordering his environment minister, Ricardo Salles, to sack 21 of 27 senior officials at Ibama, the country’s environmental protection agency.
但波索納洛先生被指控鼓励肆意摧毁世界上最大的热带森林，尤其是命令他的环境部长Ricardo Salles解雇该国环境保护机构-巴西環境與可再生資源研究所的27名高级官员中的21名。
France and Ireland say they now oppose a trade deal between the EU and Mercosur, a South American trading bloc of which Brazil is the biggest player.
法国和爱尔兰表示，他们现在反对欧盟与南方共同市场之间的贸易协议，后者是一个南美贸易集团，其中巴西是最大的成员国。
The deal, decades in the making, was agreed on in principle this year but has yet to be ratified; it requires the support of each of the parliaments of all participating countries.
此协议经历几十年的拟定，今年在原则上已达成一致，但尚待批准；它需要所有参加国的每个议会的支持。
Claiming that Mr Bolsonaro had lied to him, Mr Macron said: “The decisions and statements from Brazil these recent weeks show clearly that President Bolsonaro has decided to not respect his commitments on the climate, nor to involve himself on the issue of biodiversity.”
马克龙先生声称波索納洛先生对他撒谎，他说：“最近几周来自巴西的决策和声明清楚地表明，波索納洛总统决定不尊重他对气候的承诺，也没有让自己参与生物多样性这项事宜中来。”
Data from the European Union's Earth observation programme show aerosols from the burning forest sweeping from the Amazon down through Brazil’s distant south-east coast (see map).
来自欧盟地球观测计划的数据显示，来自燃烧森林的气溶胶从亚马逊横扫到巴西遥远的东南海岸。（如图）
Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research (INPE) has detected 85% more forest fires this year than in the same period last year.
巴西国家空间研究所（INPE）今年发现的森林火灾比去年同期多85％。
But across the region trends so far (half-way through the fire season) are roughly consistent with the average for the last 20 years.
但到目前为止，纵观整个地区的趋势（火灾季节过去了一半）与过去20年的平均水平基本一致。
That is not necessarily comforting: rampant deforestation and the practice of slash-and-burn agriculture are to blame.
这不一定令人感到安慰：猖獗的森林砍伐和刀耕火种农业的做法应该受到指责。
Some researchers note that this year's fire count is higher than it was during the past decade, when rates of deforestation in the Amazon dropped because of stronger enforcement.
一些研究人员指出，今年的火灾数量高于过去十年，当时亚马逊森林砍伐率下降因为当时其更严格的执法力度。
Scientists worry that the faster rate of destruction is bringing the Amazon uncomfortably close to the threshold, beyond which deforestation begins to feed on itself, turning much of the Amazon basin into drier savannah known as cerrado.
科学家担心，更快的破坏速度正在使亚马逊令人不安地接近阈值，超过阈值的情况下森林砍伐开始蚕蚀自己，将亚马逊流域的大部分地区变成干燥的大草原如塞拉多。
The Amazon is not the only place where forests are burning: satellite images show extensive fires in central Africa (in line with previous years) and in South-East Asia (slightly more than in the past few years).
亚马逊并不是森林燃烧的唯一地方：卫星图像显示非洲中部（与前几年一致）和东南亚（略多于过去几年）的大火。
In the Arctic and sub-Arctic, however 2019 has been usual.
然而，在北极和亚北极地区，大火在2019年已经很常见了。
Vast fires burning both boreal forest and peat soils have consumed parts of eastern Siberia, Alaska and even Greenland since June.
自6月以来，大火烧毁北方森林和泥炭土已经消耗了东西伯利亚，阿拉斯加甚至格陵兰的部分地区。
The fires in the high north are worrying because, as well as trees, they are also consuming peat, releasing carbon that has been trapped over hundreds to thousands of years.
北部高山的火灾令人担忧，因为除了树木之外，它们还在消耗泥炭，释放出埋藏了数百年至数千年的碳。
What is most disturbing about fires in the Amazon is that the burning is a direct result of human activity. Curbing them depends, in large part, on political will—which Mr Bolsonaro so obviously lacks.
对亚马逊火灾最令人不安的是，燃烧是人类活动的直接结果。 遏制他们在很大程度上取决于政治意愿 - 博尔索纳先生显然缺乏这种意愿。
Fighting fire with firings
He and his staff claim the clamour over the Amazon is based on lies.
他和他的工作人员声称对亚马逊的喧嚣是基于谎言。
When asked about the fires, he ludicrously accused environmental NGOs of starting the fires themselves in retaliation for funding cuts and in order to make his government look bad.
当被问及火灾时，他荒谬地指责是环保非政府组织是纵火者，以报复资金削减，目的是让他的政府看起来很糟糕。
After INPE released data showing increasing deforestation in July, the president claimed the numbers were fake.
在INPE发布数据显示7月份森林砍伐加剧后，总统声称这些数据是假的。
He then sacked the head of the agency, Ricardo Magnus Osório Galvão, a well-respected physicist.
然后，他解雇了该机构的负责人，一位备受尊敬的物理学家RicardoMagnusOsórioGalvão。
Such belligerence outrages scientists and environmentalists.
这种好战激怒了科学家和环保主义者。
“Firing the director is an act of revenge against those who expose the truth,” says Marcio Astrini of Greenpeace, a pressure group.
利益团体-绿色和平组织的马西奥·阿斯特里尼说：“解雇理事是对那些暴露真相的人进行报复的行为。
The destruction of the rainforest tends to be out of sight, out of mind for a lot of Brazilians, most of whom live in large cities near the coast.
对于许多巴西人来说，热带雨林的破坏往往是眼不见心不烦，因为大多数巴西人生活在海岸附近的大城市。
The darkness brought it to their doorsteps.
黑暗把它带到了家门口。
“We don’t have much time,” a columnist wrote in the daily newspaper Folha de São Paulo. “Night will fall on all of us.”
“我们没有太多时间，”一位专栏作家在FolhadeSãoPaulo日报上写道。 “黑夜将降临在我们所有人身上。”
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