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作者 Donella H. Meadows 08.16.99
今年初夏，早在「乾旱」兩字在媒體出現以前，我們的農人已經準備要掐死氣象預報員了。「明天是個燦爛的大晴天」，預報員輕快地說，「又一個美好的週末」。對我們來說，那是晒的起泡的天氣，是還要下田灌溉的美好週末。
「都市人！」我們抱怨地說，當那些氣象員在預報著晴天時，我們卻在祈禱能夠下雨，「他們根本就不知道他們吃的食物是從那兒來的呢！」
我們也知道這樣子遷怒是不對的，但總要找個人出氣啊，所以活該預報員倒霉。尤其是國家氣象台(National Weather Service)那個Aarnooldd，他的機械化聲音，一天二十四小時，耐心的、用很平板的聲調，從廚房中那個氣象專用的小收音機報出氣象。即使在氣候正常、根據播報內容作息時的年頭，我們也是如此。但在乾旱季節，池水乾涸、心情沈重時，我們一天之內會收聽好幾次，還會不時對Aarnooldd回話，取笑他，或對著他大叫。
Aarnooldd的電腦音調，讓人聽起來像是一個喝醉了的斯堪地納維亞人。我們在廚房踱步，對頭頂上那片烏雲一滴雨也不下感到厭倦，挖苦地模仿他的播報：「在康乃狄克峽谷大約有七成的降雨機率，而在新漢普夏平原的降雨機率卻是零。」「正如預期，各地都有零星的雷雨，除了新漢普夏平原之外。」
在城裡，乾旱也許是個麻煩，你既不能洗車，也不能給草皮澆水。但在鄉村裡，你的生計、食物供給與意識都與土地息息相關。而乾旱是絕對的痛苦，當烏雲滾滾而來，四周都已經下起雷雨了，但頭頂上卻連一滴雨都不下，痛苦已經好幾個月了。
我原來是找Aarnooldd出氣，後來卻怪起了雲來，現在我不以為意，徹底和它斷決，憤世嫉俗般地對它不屑一顧，我再也不會相信它們。想當初，我還好言拜託，就像在哄一頭不情願的乳牛般：「來吧，下雨吧」，我這樣地懇求，「上面的水已經夠了，下面這兒卻需要的很，來場大雨吧！」
然而大雨並沒下，最多僅是下一點點小雨，少到像是瞧不起人似的，連樹下的泥土都沒濕。上次，雨大到足以滲入地下水層，是五月二十那場。儘管之前的春季乾旱，每天我們都必須要為嬌弱的幼苗澆水。還好牧草原的泥土，經過雪水浸泡，所以每年春草的奇蹟提前出現，隨著日照時間變長，也一天一天地溫暖起來。
到了六月，陽光就不再只是溫暖了，簡直會令人乾枯，正是曬草的好季節，一旦一捆捆的乾草從田裡移走之後，就不會再重新長出牧草了。庭園裡的幼苗雖然會有較深的根系，然而我們還是必須澆水，因為深層的土壤仍然是乾的。Aarnooldd預報的降雨機率：百分之三十、百分之五十、百分之七十，真令我們發狂。
七月上旬，牧草逐漸枯萎。我們忍痛開始用第一次收割的牧草來餵，並想著如果能夠來一場大雨，草原恢復生機，就有機會再次收割，讓我們能度過冬季。池塘跟小溪的水位是從未見過的低；鱒魚死了，超過負荷的灌溉幫浦也掛了。一個暴風雨來過，樹倒了，電也停了。然而把這些所有的聲音、激烈的氣候加起來，都不過只是6、7釐米的降雨量而已。
停電意味著我們必須用人力從乾涸的小溪中汲取水份，這是補充水井的機會，可以用來供給牛、馬、雞、人及庭園所需。水質變濁後，因為不夠用，我開始截取用過的水來澆花，同時實施配給，只針對一些明顯枯萎的作物進行灌溉，而且也不能灌到十分飽。因此，七月的木莓枯萎，甜玉米捲著曬焦的葉子，穗花長不出來。
這種痛苦難以表達，它是慢慢地浮現，又起起落落，讓你抱著一絲希望。到如今，我不再希望，並開始在內心深層中思考，我要尋找真正值得抱怨的事、值得責怪的人，一舒我整個炎夏壓抑已久的苦悶。
我深層的內心低聲告訴我，這並不是偶發性的乾旱，這是未來的氣候凶兆，回顧過去二十七年的農業紀錄，可以發現氣溫、乾旱持續升高的趨勢。如果這就是全球溫暖化的現象，情況不只是這樣，而是更糟，這我無法承受。看著農地逐漸乾凅，就像是看著自己所愛的人在長期受苦之後死去，這我無法承受。不如搬進城市，隨意地、愉快地享受陽光燦爛的日子，直到食物停止供應為止。
但我寧願對著那些玩休旅車、汽艇及水上摩托車的人大聲呼籲：「不要玩了！不要為了一時的虛榮和歡樂就開動引擎到處跑，而改變了全球的氣候，只要你稍微想一想我們的食物來源，你絕對不會這樣玩的！」。我想像著將「全球氣候聯盟(Global Climate Coalition)」組織成員，囚禁在一處充滿熾熱陽光，但不見有水的地方，心情非常愉快。這個組織，每年花費十幾億，用來阻礙與氣候相關的活動。
但是這樣大聲疾呼與懲罰，不太可能改變任何人、任何事，就連那些農人們的痛苦，恐怕也無法影嚮任何人。除非能仔細思考我們的食物、水及眾多生命從何而來，否則，我不知道有什麼能夠。
Donella H. Meadows是永續研究所所長暨達特茅斯學院環境研究副教授
版權歸屬 Environment News Service (ENS)，環境信託基金會 (陳均輝 譯，蘇崧棱審校)
中英對照譯全文詳見：http://news.ngo.org.tw/reviewer/
donella/re-donella19990816.htm |
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by Donella H. Meadows 08.16.99
Early this summer, long before the word "drought" was mentioned in the media, our household of farmers was ready to strangle the weather forecasters. "A gorgeous sunny day coming up," they warble. "Another beeyootiful weekend!" To us that means a day of blistering sun, a beeyootiful weekend of irrigating.
"City folk!" we mutter, as the forecasters burble on about sun and we pray for rain. "They have no idea where their food comes from!"
We are only killing the messenger, and we know it. But we have to get mad at someone, so we pick the forecasters, especially Aarnooldd, the mechanized voice of the National Weather Service. Patiently, 24 hours a day, Aarnooldd drones weather information on the little dedicated weather radio in our kitchen. Even in normal years we live and work by those broadcasts. In a drought year, as the ponds sink and our mood darkens, we tune in several times a day, talk back to Aarnooldd, make black jokes about him, yell at him.
Aarnooldd's computer-simulated accent makes him sound like a drunk Scandinavian. Pacing around the kitchen, sick of clouds that hover overhead and never release a drop, we imitate him bitterly. "For the Connnecticutt Vaalley there is a seventty perrceent chance of raain except in Plaainfieldd, New Hampshiire, wheere the chance of raain is zerroo." "Scatttered thunderstorrms expectted in alll areaas exceptt Plaainfieldd, New
Hampshiirre."
In town, drought may be a nuisance; you can't wash your car or water your lawn. In the country, your livelihood and food supply and consciousness are intertwined with the land, and drought is sheer agony. Months and months of agony, as clouds roll in, thunderstorms play around us, and nothing falls from the sky.
When I'm not blaming Aarnooldd, I blame those clouds. Nowadays I ignore them, cut them cold, snub them with cynical anger. They're not going to get my hopes up any more. Earlier I would coax them, as if they were a reluctant milk cow. "Come on, let down," I'd plead. "You've got lots of water up there, and we need it so badly down here. Let go!"
They do not let go. At best they spit a short, contemptuous dribble, not even enough to wet the soil under the trees. Our last rain big enough to reach the aquifers occurred on May 20. Even before that it was a dry spring. Every day we had to water the tiny, vulnerable seedlings. But the soil in the hayfields was still soaked from the winter meltoff, so the annual miracle of spring grass unfolded ahead of schedule, warmed by day after lengthening day of sun.
By June the sun wasn't just warm, it was searing, great for making hay, but once the bales were hauled off the field, nothing grew back. The garden seedlings had sunk deep roots, but we still had to water them, because the deep soil was dry. Aarnooldd's predictions of thirtty percent, fiftty percent, seventty percent chance of rain were driving us crazy.
In early July the pastures went brown. Gritting our teeth, we began to feed out the first cut of hay, thinking if we could just get one soaker, the fields would recover, and we might squeak out a second cut to get us through the winter. The ponds and brooks were lower than we'd ever seen. The trout died. Our overworked irrigation pump died. A violent storm came through, knocked down trees, and the power died, but all that sound and fury dropped only a quarter inch of rain.
The electricity outage meant we had to haul buckets of water from the depleted brook, but that gave the well a chance to recharge. We had been using it to water cows, horses, chickens, people, gardens. The water had turned cloudy and brown. I started catching drainwater from the sinks and dumping it on the flowers, for which we couldn't spare irrigation water. We are practicing triage, watering only the crops that actively wilt, never watering anything really enough. The July raspberries were shriveled. The sweet corn rolled up its parched leaves and didn't form ears.
It's hard to express a pain like this, one that unfolds so slowly, one that keeps you riding rollercoasters of dashed hope. By now I've not only given up hope, I'm beginning to dredge up my darkest thoughts and to look around for something really worth blaming, someone to pound with the pent-up anguish I've been suppressing this whole long, hot summer.
My darkest thoughts whisper to me that this isn't a random bad year; it's a portent of climate to come. I look back through 27 years of farm records and see a trend of hotter, drier growing seasons. If this is global warming, it will not only go on like this, it will get worse. I couldn't stand that. Watching a farm dry up is like watching a loved one die in extended agony. I can't stand it. It would be better to move to the city and be heedless, enjoying the sunny days until the food supply stops.
I'd like to scream at folks driving sports utility vehicles and motorboats and jet skis. "Cut that out! Zooming around in the sun! Changing the climate of a whole planet, just for vanity and pleasure! You'd never do that, if you'd just consider where your food comes from!" I gleefully imagine chaining up the corporate members of the Global Climate Coalition -- the public relations group that spends over a billion dollars a year blocking action on climate -- chaining them in the hot sun with no water in sight.
But screaming and punishing aren't likely to change anyone or anything. I'm afraid the pain of the farmers won't change anyone either. I don't know what ever will, unless it's consideration of where our food and water and very lives come from.
Donella H. Meadows is director of the Sustainability Institute and an adjunct professor of environmental studies at Dartmouth College. |
