[(Title)] The Frightening Lesson Hurricane Maria Taught the World About the Politics of Climate Change.

Exactly a year ago, on Sept. 20, 2017, one of the most violent storms ever to hit the Caribbean made landfall on the island of Puerto Rico.

整整一年前，2017年9月20日，加勒比海有史以来最猛烈的风暴之一在波多黎各岛登陆。

The storm, the likes of which Puerto Ricans had not seen in several generations, had gathered in intensity before tearing through Dominica and the U.S. Virgin Islands, and ending in Puerto Rico.

这场风暴是波多黎各几代人没有见过的，在席卷多米尼加和美属维尔京群岛并在波多黎各结束之前，风暴已经变得越来越猛烈。

No one can deny the devastation that Hurricane Maria brought on the population of Puerto Rico. Most people survived the hell of the storm but were then forced to live through the hell of the aftermath.

没有人能否认飓风玛丽亚给波多黎各人民带来的破坏。大多数人在炼狱般的风暴中幸存下来，随后被迫经历灾难后的余波。

Food and water shortages were pervasive throughout the island, power was virtually wiped out, hospitals were closed because of extensive damage, and basic services all but collapsed.

食物和水资源短缺遍及全岛，电力几乎被耗尽，医院因大面积损坏而关闭，基础服务几乎崩溃。

No one can deny either that under these dire circumstances, with vital access to healthcare severely disrupted, the death toll would inevitably rise. Yet that is precisely what President Donald Trump did.

谁也不能否认，在这种可怕的情况下，由于获得医疗保健的重要途径受到严重干扰，死亡人数将不可避免地增加。然而，这正是唐纳德·特朗普总统所做的。

He has consistently refused to look beyond the initial death toll from the storm, and flatly denied the deaths of nearly 3,000 people in the six months following the storm.

他一直拒绝考虑风暴最初造成的死亡人数，并断然否认飓风后六个月内有近3000人死亡。

This is a bare-faced lie, and one that is inflicting more pain on Puerto Ricans as they mourn.

这是赤裸裸的谎言，在波多黎各人哀悼时，这种谎言给他们带来了更多痛苦。

But the story of how Hurricane Maria was able to have such a devastating impact started well before the storm system began its dizzying rotation over the moist air of the Atlantic.

但是，飓风玛丽亚如何能够产生如此毁灭性影响，这个故事开始于飓风系统在大西洋潮湿的空气上空进行令人眩晕的旋转。

Hurricane Maria has bought to the surface underlying human rights concerns that have been present for decades. Despite being part of one of the richest countries in the world, nearly half of Puerto Ricans live in poverty,

“玛丽亚”飓风已经暴露了几十年来存在的潜在人权问题。尽管是世界上最富有的国家之一，但将近一半的波多黎各人生活贫困，

compared to the national U.S. average of 12.7%. The U.S. territory faces a serious financial crisis as a result of crippling external debt of more than $70 billion.

相比之下，美国全国贫困平均水平为12.7%。由于超过700亿美元的沉重外债，美国本土面临严重的金融危机。

Far-reaching austerity measures designed to address this crisis have cut deep into essential public services like healthcare, leaving already vulnerable communities even more exposed.

旨在解决这场危机的意义深远的紧缩措施已经深入到医疗保健等基本公共服务中，使得本已脆弱的社区更容易受到影响。

While the response to the disaster was the largest and longest in the Federal Emergency Management Agency's (FEMA) history,

虽然这是联邦紧急事务管理局历史上最大和最长的救灾活动，它也承认自己的回应存在不足。

it has also acknowledged the deficiencies in its own response. A recent report from the U.S. federal government cited Puerto Rico's  "outdated local infrastructure"  as a key challenge for FEMA's operations;

美国联邦政府最近的一份报告指出，波多黎各“老旧的地方基础设施”是联邦紧急事务管理局运营的一个关键挑战，它在制定应急计划时没有考虑到该岛的基础设施已有50年历史。

it had failed to take into account the island's 50-year old infrastructure when developing emergency plans.

When Maria took out the power grid, communications and transportation infrastructure, it severely impacted FEMA's response, and left many people at risk of losing access to healthcare and other basic services.

当飓风玛利亚掀翻电网、通信和交通基础设施时，它严重影响了联邦紧急事务管理局的反应，使许多人面临失去医疗保健和其他基础服务的风险。

Trump, the person ultimately responsible for the welfare of Puerto Ricans, has wrongly tried to shift the blame solely on to the Puerto Rican authorities for the mounting crisis they face. But it is clear that they too have a lot to answer for.

特朗普是最终对波多黎各人福祉负责的人，他错误地试图仅仅将罪责移交给波多黎各当局，以应对他们所面临的日益严重的危机。

Puerto Ricans have done everything in their power to protest austerity measures, to try and compel their lawmakers to tackle the expected impacts of climate change on the island,

波多黎各人竭尽全力抗议紧缩措施，试图迫使他们的立法者应对气候变化对该岛的预期影响，并建立基本的备灾基础设施，使他们有机会免受未来风暴的袭击。

and to build basic disaster preparedness infrastructure that could give them a chance of being safe from future storms.

At best, their protests have fallen on deaf ears. At worst, they have been met with violence: Amnesty International has documented how Puerto Rican authorities responded brutally to these demonstrators, using unnecessary or excessive force.

最好的是，他们的抗议被置若罔闻，最糟糕的是，他们遭到暴力攻击：国际特赦组织记录了波多黎各当局是如何使用不必要或过分的武力残酷地对这些示威者作出回应的。

Now, with far too many people on the island relying on only blue tarpaulin on the roofs of their homes as cover, hurricane season is approaching again.

现在，岛上有太多的人仅仅依靠屋顶上的蓝色防水布作为掩护，而飓风季节又来了。

We know that as our planet becomes warmer due to climate change, longer term trend predictions point to a worsening of the intensity of Atlantic storms like Hurricane Maria and Hurricane Florence.

我们知道，随着气候变化导致地球变暖，长期趋势预测表明大西洋飓风的强度会增加，如“玛丽亚”飓风和“佛罗伦萨”飓风。

Now, it's a question of when, not if, another disastrous storm will strike the island.

现在，问题是什么时候，而不是如果，另一个灾难性风暴将袭击这个岛。

Faced with this reality, President Trump could choose to act on the information presented to his government by experts—information that gives clear advice on what can be done to try to protect people from the worst effects of such storms.

面对这一现实，特朗普总统可以选择对专家向特朗普政府提交的信息采取行动（这些信息提供了明确的建议，说明如何努力保护人民免遭这种风暴的最恶劣影响）。

This should urgently include shifting to renewable energy sources, in order to prevent these hurricanes becoming more violent.

其中包括转向可再生能源，以防止这些飓风变得更加猛烈。

Instead, the American people are left with a leader who has tried to deny the very existence of climate change and its existential threat to humanity, to deny that his response to their time of crisis was anything other than an  "unsung success,

相反的是，美国人民中只剩下一位领导人试图否认气候变化的存在及其对人类的生存威胁，认为他对危机时期的反应不过是“默默无闻的成功”，甚至否认大区中已经发生了死伤。

"  and to even deny that deaths in their community had occurred.

A year on from the storm, President Trump's contempt for the wellbeing of Puerto Ricans and the inadequate response of the Federal and Puerto Rican authorities offers us the most frightening lesson of all from Hurricane Maria.

风暴过后一年，特朗普总统对波多黎各人福祉的蔑视以及联邦和波多黎各当局的反应不足，给我们上了玛丽亚飓风最可怕的一课。

Now we know there is something more dangerous to humanity than climate change—that is, a world leader who does not believe it worth trying to protect us from it.

现在我们知道，对人类来说，还有比气候变化更危险的事情(也就是说，一个世界领导人认为不值得试图保护我们免受气候变化的影响)。