黄石超级火山爆发可能“导致人类灭绝”

黄石超级火山爆发可能“导致人类灭绝”

The eruption of a “supervolcano” underneath Yellowstone National Park would be like nothing humanity has ever seen, according to an op-ed from The New York Times.

据《纽约时报》的一篇专栏报道，黄石国家公园下的一座“超级火山”的爆发，将是人类从未见过的。

There are 20 supervolcanoes on Earth that represent that greatest natural threat to human life, writes journalist and “End Times” author Bryan Walsh.

“地球上有20座超级火山，代表着对人类生命最大的自然威胁。”记者和“末日”作家布赖恩沃尔什写道。

The Yellowstone supervolcano is an eight out of eight on the Volcanic Explosivity Index but has only erupted three times in the last 2.1 million years. The last eruption was 640,000 years ago.

黄石超级火山是火山爆发指数上八分之八的超级火山，但在过去的210万年中只爆发过三次。上次喷发是64万年前。

Volcanologists predict an explosion could spread toxic gas all the way to the Midwest, ruining crops and knocking out power, according to Walsh. He adds that a toxic cloud blocking the sun could cause much colder temperatures in the United States for years.

沃尔什说，火山学家预测，一次爆炸可能会把有毒气体一路扩散到中西部，毁坏农作物，切断电力供应。他补充说，阻挡太阳的有毒云团可能会导致美国多年来气温更低。

The European Science Foundation said it would be “the greatest catastrophe since the dawn of civilization,” according to Walsh.

据沃尔什说，欧洲科学基金会称之为“文明诞生以来最大的灾难”。

He says that supervolcanoes represent an “ultra-catastrophe” that “could lead to global devastation, even human extinction.”

他说，超级火山代表着一场“超级灾难”，“可能导致全球毁灭，甚至人类灭绝”。

Other examples are an asteroid, and nuclear or biological warfare. He suggests that although an eruption in our lifetime is unlikely, one could decimate the planet.

其他能与之抗衡的只有行星碰撞，核战争或生物战争。他认为，尽管我们有生之年不太可能遭遇火山爆发，但一旦爆发即有可能导致地球毁灭。

“There will probably never be a year in which no one dies in an aviation accident, but there will definitely never be a year in which 10 percent of the global population dies in a single plane crash,” Walsh writes for comparison, arguing that the government should spend more on volcano hazard programs.

“可能永远会有一年没有人死于航空事故,但肯定不会在过去一年里,10%的全球人口死于一次飞机失事,”沃尔什为比较,认为政府应该在火山危害项目上投入更多的资金。

The Federal Aviation Administration spends more than $7 billion each year on aviation safety compared to $22 million on volcano programs, “even though supervolcanoes, viewed over the longest of the long term, will kill far more people than plane crashes,” he writes.

联邦航空管理局每年在航空安全上的花费超过70亿美元，而火山计划上的花费为2200万美元，“尽管从长远来看，超级火山会比飞机坠毁造成更多人死亡”。

Walsh closes by saying that we have the power to help prevent these catastrophic disasters but “because we remain confined to the brief human time horizons of our own experience, we treat them as unreal.”

沃尔什最后说，我们有能力帮助预防这些灾难性发生，但“因为我们仍然局限于我们自身短暂的人类时间范围内，所以我们将它们视为不真实的。”

“In doing so,” he writes, “we leave ourselves vulnerable to what we can’t imagine.”

“这样做，”他写道，“容易让我们受到无法想象的伤害。”