'Worrying' population declines are actually a hopeful sign
人口减少“令人担忧”，实际上却是一个积极信号
Human population is in the news, but not for the reasons we are used to.
人口问题如今已经成为新闻焦点，但原因并非我们过去所熟知的那样。
At one time, our growing population was seen as central to wildlife extinctions, resource depletion, pollution and environmental destruction.
曾几何时，我们不断增长的人口被认为是导致野生动物灭绝、资源枯竭、污染和环境破坏的主要原因。
But today, we are more likely to hear that there are too few of us, not too many.
然而现在，我们更常听到的是，我们的人口太少，而不是太多。
As women across the world have gained greater reproductive choice, birth rates have declined.
当前全球范围内的女性拥有了更大的生育选择权，出生率也随之有所下降。
This is a positive development in large part due to a decline in teen pregnancy, but you would never know it from news coverage of the topic that ranges from anxious to apocalyptic.
这在很大程度上是一个积极的发展趋势，因为这意味着青少年怀孕率的下降，但从新闻报道中你永远不会了解到这一点，因为对此类主题的报道通常很悲观，甚至像世界末日般恐慌。
The birth rate "crisis," we are told, will have dire consequences for our economy and especially for seniors.
我们被告知，出生率“危机”将给我们的经济（尤其是老年人）带来严重的后果。
Lost in the conversation are the many positive aspects of an aging society, which is the result of people living healthier and longer lives, and common-sense realities like reduced needs for infrastructure and lower ecological impacts.
在谈论这个话题时，人们忽视了老龄化社会的许多积极方面——老龄化社会是人们生活得更健康、更长寿的结果，也有像基础设施需求减少和生态影响降低这些显而易见的好处。
Also lost is the fact that our population still grows by 80 million people every year, from places in the world where women and girls lack reproductive choice and face powerful pronatalist pressures, whether to carry on a family line, grow a religious denomination, or fuel economic growth with more consumers and cheap labor. ***
此外，我们还忽略了一个事实，那就是我们的人口每年仍在以8000万的速度增长，而这些人口主要来自于世界上一些缺乏生育选择权的地方，那里的妇女和女孩面临着强烈的生育压力，无论是为了传宗接代、壮大宗教教派，还是为了通过增加消费者和廉价劳动力来推动经济增长。
And the consequences are dire. Among them is global warming, which the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warns is driven by both population and economic growth.
（人口增长的）后果是极其严重的。其中之一就是全球变暖，政府间气候变化专门委员会警告说，全球变暖是由人口和经济增长共同造成的。（译者注：Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change（IPCC）是联合国环境规划署和世界气象组织于1988年共同设立的一个跨政府机构。其主要任务是为全球变暖等气候变化问题提供科学、技术和社会经济信息，并评估可能的解决方案。）
In fact, increased emissions from population growth have canceled more than three quarters of the emissions saved through energy efficiency and renewables over the past three decades.
事实上，过去三十年来，人口增长导致的（温室气体）排放量增加，已经抵消了很大一部分通过提高能效和使用可再生能源减少的排放量，其比例甚至超过了四分之三。
Yet, no matter how well documented the link between population and climate, lowering our population is conspicuously absent from the conversation on solutions.
然而，无论人口与气候之间的联系多么有据可查，在关于解决方案的讨论中，降低人口密度这一策略却明显被忽视了。
Instead, the focus is on technology that will supposedly allow our entire growing population to enjoy the energy-intensive lifestyles now enjoyed by the rich, and with no climate impacts.
相反，人们把重点放在了技术上，据说这种技术不但可以让我们不断增长的人口享受目前只有富人才能享受的高能耗生活方式，而且不会对气候造成影响。
But “green” technology is not the solution it is cracked up to be.
但是，“绿色”技术并非它所吹嘘的那样能解决问题。
Its buildout to the degree needed to power a growing population at a decent standard of living would itself require a staggering investment in fossil fuels.
要为不断增长的人口提供体面的生活水平所需的能源，这项技术本身就需要在化石燃料方面进行惊人的投资。
It will also require massive mining operations. Batteries for electric vehicles use lithium from places that cannot spare the enormous quantities of water required for its extraction, places like parts of Nevada sacred to Native Americans and the deserts of Bolivia.
此外，还需要进行大规模的采矿操作。电动汽车电池使用的锂来自无法提供采矿所需的大量水源的地方，如内华达州中一些美洲原住民视为神圣之地的地区，以及玻利维亚的沙漠地区。
Other mining for lithium, as well as for copper, nickel, and cobalt needed for wind turbines and electric cars, takes place on the backs of low-wage workers, many of them children, in Africa where it is driving destruction of rainforests critical to the survival of great apes. ***
其他锂以及风力涡轮机和电动汽车所需的铜、镍和钴的开采，都依赖于廉价工人（其中许多是儿童）进行，这些开采主要发生在非洲，这也导致大猩猩赖以生存的热带雨林遭到了破坏。
The next frontier for mining these minerals is the deep seabed, where extraction threatens endemic and undiscovered species.
开采这些矿物的下一个前沿阵地是深海海底，那里的开采威胁着当地特有的以及一些尚未发现的物种。
And the minerals are destined for renewable energy infrastructure and transmission capacity with impacts of its own: it requires 10 times the land area as fossil fuel plants for the same amount of energy generated.
而这些矿物将被用于可再生能源基础设施和传输能力的提升，其本身也会产生影响：要产生与化石燃料发电厂同样数量的能源，它所需的土地面积是化石燃料发电厂的10倍。（译者注：transmission capacity 指的是电力系统中的电力输送能力，即电网从发电站输送到用户的能量的最大值。对于可再生能源来说，建立足够的传输能力是非常重要的，因为很多可再生能源的产生地点通常离使用地点较远。）
In short, providing even "green" energy for 8 billion and counting will have ecological impacts that are seldom discussed.
简而言之，即使为80亿且不断增长的人口提供“绿色”能源，也会对生态造成影响，而这些影响却很少被提及。
The impacts of feeding that many are even more chilling.
为这么多人提供食物所产生的影响更令人不寒而栗。
At our current population and rates of consumption, agriculture takes up 40 percent of Earth's ice-free land area.
按照我们目前的人口和消费速度来算，农业占了地球非冰覆盖土地面积的40%。
Primarily through deforestation and habitat destruction, it is the leading threat to 86 percent of species at risk of extinction and consumes 70 percent of the planet's freshwater.
农业已经成为86%的濒临灭绝物种的主要威胁，并消耗了地球上70%的淡水资源，这些主要是因为砍伐森林和破坏栖息地造成的。
These impacts are not just from industrial agriculture; globally, subsistence agriculture is responsible for 33 percent of deforestation while large-scale commercial agriculture drives 40 percent.
这些影响不仅仅来自工业化农业；在全球范围内，农业自给型经济造成了33%的森林砍伐，而大规模商业农业则导致了40%的森林砍伐。
It is difficult to imagine how food production can expand to feed the additional 2 billion people projected by 2100 without further devastating Earth's biophysical systems.
很难想象如何在不进一步破坏地球生物物理系统的情况下，扩大粮食生产来养活预计到2100年新增的20亿人口。
The rapidly growing global middle class and its preference for meat-heavy diets has dire ecological implications, as animal agriculture uses the vast majority of farmland and is responsible for 60 percent of the greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture.
全球中产阶级的快速增长及其对肉食的偏好对生态环境造成了严重影响，因为畜牧业占用了绝大多数农田，并造成了60%的农业温室气体排放。
When global heating threatens to push billions outside of temperature limits compatible with human life, it is no time to panic that we are adding fewer to those billions.
当全球变暖威胁着数十亿人口，将其推向无法在适合人类生存的温度范围内生活时，我们就不必因为人口增长速度在放缓（即数十亿人的增加在减少）而恐慌。
In fact, declining birth rates should be cause for celebration for all they signify about gender equality, children's wellbeing, and easing our burden on Earth.
事实上，出生率的下降应该被视为一件值得庆贺的事情，因为这意味着性别平等、儿童福利以及减轻我们对地球的负担。
Rather than lamenting low birth rates and strategizing about pronatalist coercion that might reverse them, we should embrace and adapt to this positive trend and celebrate what it means for our planetary future.
我们与其哀叹出生率的下降，并为可能扭转出生率下降的强制手段出谋划策，不如拥抱并适应这一积极趋势，庆祝它对我们地球未来的意义。