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We find ourselves on the brink of climate catastrophe in large part because of the decisions made during a past crisis.
我们发现，我们之所以已经逼近灾难边缘很大程度上都是我们在曾经的一次危机中所做的抉择导致的。
As the world came out of the Great Depression and World War II,
世界各国刚刚摆脱大萧条和二战，
the U.S. launched a rapid bid to remake the global economy— running on fossil fuels.
美国便迅速投入了重塑全球经济——用化石燃料——的行动。
In the first postwar years, Americans moved to suburbs and began driving gas-guzzling cars to work,
战后头几年，美国民众纷纷搬到郊区，开始开燃油汽车上班，
while the federal government built a highway system to connect the country for those vehicles.
为方便这些车辆通行，联邦政府建成了打通全国的高速公路网。
The single biggest line item in the Marshall Plan,
为给欧洲复苏提供资金支持，美国政府发起了马歇尔计划，
the U.S. government program that funded the European recovery, went to support oil,
该计划最大的行式项目就是支持石油行业的发展，
which ensured that the continent’s economy would also run on that fossil fuel.
这样一来，欧洲大陆的经济也离不开石油这种化石燃料了。
Meanwhile, plastic, an oil derivative, became the go-to building block for consumer goods
与此同时，由于美国在二战期间逐渐积累起了足够的产能，
after the U.S. had developed production capacity for use in World War II.
石油衍生品——塑料也成了消费品的首选材料。
The underlying philosophy of economic development in this time period was a focus on gross national product,
这一时期的经济发展的基本理念就是注重国民生产总值（GNP），
a term developed by U.S. government economists during the Depression,
GNP是美国政府的经济学家在大萧条期间提出的一个术语，
which included consumption as a proxy for prosperity:
在该理念的框架下，消费就是繁荣的代表：
the more we consume, the better off we are, according to this model,
根据这一框架，我们消费的越多，我们的生活就越好，
which, in the postwar era, the U.S. assiduously spread abroad.
这也是战后美国一直孜孜不倦地向海外传播的一个理念。
The promise of endless growth also required an endless supply of oil to power factories, automobiles and jet planes.
永无止境的增长前景要求工厂、汽车和喷气式飞机都能永无止境地获取石油供应。
In 1945, President Franklin D. Roosevelt sealed a deal with Ibn Saud, the first King of Saudi Arabia,
于是，1945年，富兰克林·D·罗斯福总统与沙特阿拉伯第一任国王伊本·沙特签署了一项协议，
trading security for access to the country’s vast oil reserves.
以保障沙特的安全换取获得该国巨大的石油储备的机会。
Every U.S. President since, implicitly or explicitly, has continued that exchange.
自那以后，每一位美国总统，无论含蓄还是明确，都延续了这一交易。
The coronavirus pandemic is the most significant disruption yet to the postwar fossil-fuel order.
新冠病毒大流行是迄今为止破坏战后化石燃料秩序破坏得最厉害的事件。
The global economy is expected to contract more than 5% this year, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
据国际货币基金组织(IMF)透露，今年的全球经济预计会收缩5%以上。
This is a challenge so big that it has also created a once-in-a-life-time opportunity to change direction.
这一挑战堪称十分严峻，却也为我们创造了一个千载难逢的转型的机会。
This moment comes just in time.
这一刻来得正是时候。
In 2018, a landmark report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the U.N.'s climate-science body,
2018年，联合国气候科学机构“政府间气候变化专门委员会”（IPCC）发布的里程碑式报告警告称，
warned that allowing the planet to warm any more than 2°C above preindustrial levels
任由地球温度上升幅度比工业化前水平高出2°C
would drive hundreds of millions of people into poverty,
不仅会使数亿人口陷入贫困，
destroy coral reefs and leave some countries unable to adapt.
还会破坏珊瑚礁，让一些国家无法适应新的高温。
译文由可可原创，仅供学习交流使用，未经许可请勿转载。
