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为什么资本主义喜欢灾难?(中)

来源:可可英语 编辑:Helen   可可英语APP下载 |  可可官方微信:ikekenet

Thirteen years ago, ex-Wall Street banker Phil Heilberg, was traveling through South Sudan buying up land.

13年前,前华尔街银行家菲尔·海尔伯格在南苏丹旅行购买土地。

He wasn’t purchasing millions of acres of fertile land in South Sudan because he wanted to move there or because he had dreams of becoming a farmer.

他在南苏丹购买数百万英亩的肥沃土地,并不是因为他想搬到那里,也不是因为他梦想成为一名农民。

Phil Heilberg was betting on disaster.

菲尔·海尔伯格赌的是灾难。

According to the reporting by Mckenzie Funk in Rolling Stone Magazine, Heilberg sought to cash in on a looming food crisis.

根据麦肯齐·芬克在《滚石杂志》上的报道,海尔伯格试图从迫在眉睫的粮食危机中获利。

At that time global food prices were doubling and tripling and Heilberg saw this disaster as an opportunity to strike it rich.

当时,全球食品价格翻了一番到两番,海尔伯格将这场灾难视为致富的机会。

If he owned huge tracts of arable and healthy land, he could potentially make a killing by leasing or selling that land to farmers in desperate need of healthy soil to grow their crops.

如果他拥有大片可耕种的健康土地,他可能会将这些土地出租或出售给迫切需要健康土壤来种植作物的农民,从而大赚一笔。

This is just a taste of what’s in store for us under a future of climate change.

这只是让我们体验一下,我们在未来的气候变化条件下会面临什么境况。

Indeed, land grabs like Heilberg’s have already begun with billionaires buying up thousands of acres of land.

事实上,随着亿万富翁们购买数千英亩的土地,像海尔伯格这样的土地掠夺已经开始。

Bill Gates owns more land than all of the entire city of New York.

比尔·盖茨拥有的土地面积比整个纽约都大。

Jeff Bezos's land is double the amount.

杰夫·贝索斯拥有的土地是比尔·盖茨的两倍。

To those hell bent on capitalist accumulation and free-market policy, climate change will, as the 2006 Stern Review, a 700-page report on the economics of climate change concludes, “create significant business opportunities.”

对于那些执意于资本主义积累和自由市场政策的地狱来说,正如2006年发表的700页气候变化经济学报告《斯特恩报告》得出的结论,气候变化将“创造巨大的商业机会”。

As if it wasn’t bad enough that capitalism has given rise to the climate crisis and the disasters it’s leaving in its wake, it will continue a vicious cycle of profiting off of climate disasters as well, using these catastrophes to solidify its reign.

似乎资本主义引发气候危机以及随之而来的灾难还不够糟糕,它还将继续推动从气候灾难中获利的恶性循环,利用这些灾难巩固其统治地位。

In this sense, capitalism is both the hunter and the scavenger.

从这个意义上说,资本主义既是猎人,也是拾荒者。

It bolsters industries fueling climate chaos and then picks at the remains in a way that renders communities already ravaged by climate change even more vulnerable.

它支持恶化气候混乱的行业,然后挑选残骸,使已经受到气候变化蹂躏的社区更加脆弱。

Let’s head back to Texas in 2021 to see this emerging climate disaster capitalism in action.

让我们回到2021年的德克萨斯州,看看当时的新兴气候灾难资本主义。

Since 1999, Texas has steadily marched down the road of energy deregulation.

自1999年以来,德克萨斯州一直在能源放松管制的道路上稳步前进。

In the name of competition, better prices, and service, the Texas government gutted energy standards and allowed a host of private utility companies to compete for contracts.

以竞争、更优惠的价格和服务的名义,德克萨斯州政府废除了能源标准,并允许许多私营公用事业公司竞争合同。

Texas’s electric grid was beginning to look like something right out of Milton Friedman’s playbook.

德克萨斯州的电网开始看起来像是米尔顿·弗里德曼的剧本上的东西。

But this meant companies cut corners.

但这意味着企业偷工减料。

Utilities failed to winterize gas pipelines, maintain emergency energy reserves as well as ignored known failure points in their systems.

公用事业公司未能让天然气管道越冬,未能维持紧急能源储备,也忽视了系统中已知的故障点。

And then in February of 2021, the stretching of the polar vortex, which could be the result of climate change, led to a brutal cold snap.

然后在2021年2月,可能由气候变化导致的极地涡旋延伸,引发了一场残酷的寒流。

The Texas energy grid quite literally froze over.

德克萨斯州的能源电网几乎完全冻结了。

Millions were left without power.

数百万人无电可用。

In the midst of this disaster, energy companies were raking in profits.

在这场灾难中,能源公司赚得盆满钵满。

To keep the heat on, customers were charged inhumane prices.

为了保持供暖,顾客缴纳了高到不人道的电费。

Texas utility companies made so much money that one executive boasted to investors that the week of the cold snap was “like hitting the jackpot.”

德克萨斯州的公用事业公司赚了这么多钱,以至于一位高管向投资者吹嘘说,寒流袭来的那一周“就像中了头奖一样”。

Deregulation made this climate disaster worse, then capitalists reaped the benefits while the rest suffered.

放松管制使这场气候灾难更加严重,然后资本家从中获利,而其他人则蒙受损失。

This also happened with Puerto Rico in the wake of Hurricane Maria—a disaster supercharged by climate change and made worse by decades of austerity measures forced on Puerto Rico in exchange for escape from the shackles of illegitimate debt.

波多黎各在飓风“玛丽亚”袭来后也发生了这种情况-这场灾难因气候变化而加剧,为摆脱非法债务的枷锁,波多黎各被迫实行了数十年的紧缩措施,致使这场灾难更加严重。

After the storm flattened Puerto Rico’s electric grid, the government awarded a private company, Luma, with a contract to help rebuild it, as well as continued its history of austerity policies by shutting down over 300 schools, all in the name of balancing the budget and freeing up money for recovery.

这场风暴将波多黎各的电网夷为平地后,政府将帮助重建电网的合同授予了私营公司Luma,并继续实行紧缩政策,关闭了300多所学校,所有这些都是打着平衡预算和腾出资金以用于恢复的旗号。

Disaster capitalism struck again after Hurricane Irma decimated the island of Barbuda.

飓风“厄玛”重创巴布达岛后,灾难资本主义再次袭来。

For centuries the people of Barbuda have held resources and land on the island in common, but after the storm struck, the prime minister of Antigua and Barduda sought to privatize that land by pushing land reform, luxury resorts, and foreign investments onto Barbudans against their will in order to kickstart the island’s recovery efforts.

几个世纪以来,巴布达人民共同拥有岛上的资源和土地,但在这场风暴来袭后,安提瓜和巴布达的总理试图违背巴布达人的意愿,推动土地改革、豪华度假村建设和外国投资,来将土地私有化,以启动该岛的恢复工作。

But disaster capitalism hasn’t been the only recovery model at play.

但灾难资本主义并不是唯一发挥作用的恢复模式。

In the wake of Maria, another way stood in defiance of this disaster capitalist model.

在飓风“玛丽亚”之后,有另一种方式对这种灾难资本主义模式进行了反抗。

One based not on how much profit can be squeezed out of the land and people, but instead on something else.

一种不是基于能从土地和人身上榨取多少利润,而是基于其他东西的方式。

重点单词   查看全部解释    
strike [straik]

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n. 罢工,打击,殴打
v. 打,撞,罢工,划

 
escape [is'keip]

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v. 逃跑,逃脱,避开
n. 逃跑,逃脱,(逃

 
illegitimate [.ili'dʒitimit]

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adj. 非法的,私生的,不合规则的

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vicious ['viʃəs]

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adj. 恶毒的,恶意的,凶残的,剧烈的,严重的

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austerity [ɔ:s'teriti]

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n. 朴素,节俭,苦行

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emerging [i'mə:dʒ]

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vi. 浮现,(由某种状态)脱出,(事实)显现出来

 
accumulation [ə.kju:mju'leiʃən]

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n. 积聚,累积,积聚物

 
defiance [di'faiəns]

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n. 蔑视,违抗,挑衅

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potentially [pə'tenʃəli]

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adv. 潜在地

 
shackles ['ʃæklz]

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n. 手铐,脚镣;塞古

 

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