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Why fire is a hot potato

摘自NewScientist | 26 May 2018

01

FIRE is bad, right? In the modern world, flames are closely controlled even on those odd ritual occasions when we are allowed to strike a light. Under no circumstances must fire be allowed to escape. That attitude is widely held, says Andrew C. Scott in Burning Planet. He blames it on the “pyric transition”, one that took place as ever more people moved from rural areas, where fire was an important tool, into urban centres. Here it was needed for energy, heating and transport, but only in contained settings, out of view. Natural fire today, such as the wildfires that have swept parts of California and Australia, is seen as a universal bad, something to be eradicated.

火很可怕，对不对?在当今世界，即使是在那些我们被允许点火的古怪仪式上火苗也是被严密控制的。无论在什么情况下，火都不可以溢出。Andrew C. Scott在燃烧星球这本书中说这个看法被广泛认同。他认为这是因为“火灾过渡期” ，一种发生在越来越多的人从农村地区-- 在农村火是个重要工具--，搬到城市中心生活。在城市中，火用来提供能源，用来加热以及运输，但只是在被控制的环境中使用，在人类视线之外。今天的自然火，比如横扫加利福尼亚州和澳大利亚某些地区的野火，被人们认为是可怕的，应该被根除。

02

But there’s the rub, says Scott. Fire is crucial to the health of many types of vegetation, from the eucalypts of Australia to the proteaceous plants of South Africa. If we want to conserve those ecosystems, fire is essential. In many other places, such as the ponderosa pine forests of the western US, suppressing fire leads to a build-up of dead wood and therefore to more intense and dangerous fires.

但是，Scott说问题难就难在这里。火对于很多植被的健康来说极为重要，不管是澳大利亚的桉树还是南非的普罗栉亚木。如果我们想要保护这些生态系统，火就是不可或缺的。在其他很多地区，比如美国西部黄松林，扑灭火灾导致枯木积聚，因而引起了更猛烈更危险的火灾。

Scott’s argument is that to make sense of wildfire today, we must understand its 400-million-year history as a force of nature. Much of Burning Planet is an exploration of that history and how we know about it.

Scott提出的观点是我们一定要理解火作为自然之力长达四亿年之久的历史才能明白现在的火灾。燃烧星球一书中，很多内容都是探索那段历史以及我们如何知道这些历史的。

03

Scott is emeritus professor of geology at Royal Holloway, University of London, a palaeobotanist and an expert in fossil charcoal, which turns out to be the hero of the book. A residue of ancient fires, it forms layers in sediments, rocks and coal, ones that tell tales scientists can interpret. Scott was one of the first to stress charcoal’s importance, as he learned the lessons it had to teach – for example, that the temperature at which charcoal is made dictates the amount of light it reflects and how far it can travel across water before it absorbs so much moisture that it sinks.

Scott是伦敦皇家霍洛威大学地质学荣誉退休教授，同时还是古植物学家以及木炭木炭领域的专家，而木炭正好是那本书的主角。作为古代火的残留物，木炭成为沉淀物，岩石以及煤炭的一层，而这些都是科学家们可以解释的。Scott是科学家中批重视木炭的重要性的，因为他从木炭中学到了很多，比如，木炭形成时的温度影响到木炭可以反射的光量,以及在水中吸足水分沉没之前能在水中“游走”多久。

04

In Scott’s hands, charcoal reveals how common fire was over geological time, which plants existed, what the climate was like, and even the oxygen and carbon dioxide content of air. He walks us through the past, starting 420 million years ago when plants provided the very first kindling. Then, as now, lightning was by far the most common fire starter.

在Scott那里，木炭表明了火在地质年代中是多么普遍，哪些植物存在过，气候是什么样的，甚至是空气中氧气和二氧化碳的含量。他向我们详细展示了过去历史，从四亿两千万年之前，那时候植物为次点燃提供了燃料。然后，到现在，闪电是目前最常见的引火物。

We discover that the first forest fires did not coincide with the first forests, 360 million years ago, because atmospheric oxygen levels were low. It’s not until they rose 10 million years later that extensive wildfires appeared.

我们发现起森林火灾并不是发生在三亿六千万年之前的个森林里，因为大气层中氧气含量太低。直到森林长出来一千万年之后大规模的火灾才开始出现。

We watch fires burn through the Carboniferous period and rage through the Permian, when oxygen was abundant enough to coax all but the wettest vegetation to ignite. Then, 250 million years ago, even plants that were adapted to this high-fire world died off as Earth headed for its largest mass extinction.

我们看到火灾烧过整个石炭纪,并在整个二叠纪中肆虐，(因为)当时氧气充足，足以点燃哪怕是最潮湿的。然后到了两亿五千年之前，即便是已经适应这种剧烈燃烧世界的植物也慢慢灭绝了，因为地球正走向它的一次大灭绝。

05

By the Cretaceous, the time of the dinosaurs, fire was again a constant danger. But not, it seems, for the first flowering plants, which appear in charcoal 70 million years ago. Fire has driven the evolution of many species, says Scott, and there is good evidence that it did the same for flowering plants.

到白垩纪时，也就是恐龙时代，火灾又一次成了常常出现的危险。但是似乎对于种开花植物来说并不是，这种开花植物出现在了七千万年之前的木炭中。火推动了很多物种的进化，Scott说，并且有证据显示火也推动了种开花植物(的进化)。

This is a thought-provoking book. What begins with arcane science broadens out to give an intriguing view of Earth’s history, wildfire’s potential role in human evolution and the mess we find ourselves in today over how to deal with it. Should people be allowed to build homes in flammable ecosystems, for example? If so, should they expect firefighters to risk their lives when the inevitable happens?

这是一本发人深思的书。以晦涩难懂的科学开始慢慢展开提供给我们一个有趣的视角来看待地球历史，火灾在人类进化中发挥的可能作用以及今天的人类在如何应付火灾上面所陷入的混乱。比如，应该允许人们在易燃的生态环境中建房子吗?如果可以，一旦发生火灾，他们还能指望消防员冒着生命危险(去灭火)吗?

Then again, what can we do about invasive grasses which burn readily and threaten treasured plants? Scott believes that unless we stop the spread of these grasses, the iconic saguaro cactus ecosystem may disappear within 30 years. The tragedies fire might cause are numerous, especially in a warming world where access to water may become a challenge. And fire has a habit of breaking out even when we have done our best to prevent it. What we need, says Scott, is a transformation in our attitude to this essential cog in Earth’s workings.

不过话说回来，对于那些易燃烧的威胁到珍贵植物的入侵植物我们又该怎么应对?Scott认为除非我们能阻止这些植物的扩散，巨大仙人掌这种标志性的生态系统在30年之内就会消失。火灾可能带来的悲剧是很多的，尤其是在一个用水问题可能日益成为一个挑战的正在变暖世界中。并且即使我们尽全力预防火灾，它也还是会发生。Scott认为，我们需要转变我们地球人应对这种问题的态度。

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