又中又英｜Do something at your peril

Typhoon season usually started around June or July and ended around September or early October when I was growing up in Hong Kong. That’s no longer the case. Three typhoons have approached Hong Kong so far in November. Four powerful typhoons in ten days have already hit the Philippines this November. Last year was the hottest year globally since records began in 1850. This year is on track to be even hotter than 2023. To be on track means likely to succeed in doing something. Sea levels are rising at an increasing rate. Arctic ice is melting.

All this reminds me of the 2004 science fiction movie The Day After Tomorrow. Extreme weather causes climate change that leads to a new ice age. I have seen this movie several times. Many meteorologists said the movie was a flight of fancy. If something is a flight of fancy, it means it is very imaginative but unlikely to be true or practical. I agree that a new ice age is not possible, at least in our lifetime. But I have said many times that we must take climate change seriously. Nature has already given us many signs that climate change is real.

We ignore the seriousness of climate change at our peril. If you do something at your peril, it means you do something that could be very dangerous for you. Many political leaders know climate change is real, but some ignore it at their peril because of economic or political reasons.

我在香港长大时，台风季节通常于6、7月左右开始，大约9月或10月初结束。现在却不再是这样了。至今有3个台风在11月袭港，今年11月亦有4个强劲的台风在10日内吹袭菲律宾。上年是全球自1850年有纪录以来最热的一年。今年有望（on track）比2023年更热。To be on track是指在某事上看来很有机会成功。海平面以增长速度上升，北冰洋的冰正在融化。

这一切都令我想到了2004年的科幻电影《明日之后》——极端天气带来气候变化，导致新冰河时期出现。我看过这套戏好几遍。许多气象学家说，这套戏是a flight of fancy——若某事物是a flight of fancy，它的意思是它极具想像力，但太异想天开，很不可能成真、不设实际。我认同新冰河世纪是不大可能的，至少在我们有生之年。然而我亦说过许多遍，我们必须认真看待气候变化。大自然已经给了我们许多迹象，气候变化是真实的。

我们往往轻忽了气候变化的严重性，后果堪虞（at our peril）。若你do something at your peril，意即你自冒风险去做一样可能非常危险的事。许多政治领袖都知道气候变化是真实的，但他们一些人却因为经济或政治原因，甘冒忽视它的风险（at their peril）。

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Michael Chugani褚简宁
中译：七刻