📖2018-07-10 人类简史笔记10
⭕️罪名成立 Guilty as charged
学者试图为人类脱罪，把物种灭绝的责任推给气候变迁，但三大证据显示人类难辞其咎：
Some scholars try to exonerate our species, putting the blame on the vagaries of the climate (the usual scapegoat in such cases). Yet there are pieces of evidence that weaken the climate alibi, and implicate our ancestors in the extinction of the Australian megafauna.
1. 气候变迁幅度很小，很难造成大规模灭绝。况且，动物在冰河期都能安然无恙。
Firstly, even though Australia's climate changed, it was not a remarkable upheaval, which was unlikely to have caused such a massive extinction.
2. 海洋生物并未受到影响。灭种潮只席卷了人类生活的陆地。
Secondly, when climate change causes mass distinctions, sea creatures are usually hit as hard as land dwellers. Yet there is no evidence of any significant disappearance of oceanic fauna 45,000 years ago. Homo sapiens was still overwhelmingly a terrestrial menace.
3. 类似澳大利亚这种生物大灭绝的事情，在接下来的几千年里不断上演，而时间点都是在人类又再次移居外面世界的时候。人类罪证确凿，就是个生态的连环杀手。
Thirdly, mass extinctions akin to the archetypal Australian decimation occurred again and again in the ensuing millennia--whenever homo sapiens settled another part of the Outer World.
人类是怎么搞出这场生态浩劫的？
How could they cause an ecological disaster? There are three explanations that mesh quite nicely.
1. 大型动物繁殖缓慢、智人狩猎技能强大.
Lage animals--the primary victims of the Australian extinction--breed slowly. People slowly honed their hunting skills.
2. 智人已掌握火耕技术，将地貌变为开阔的草原。
They had already mastered fire agriculture. Faced with an alien and threatening environment, they deliberately burned vast areas of dense forests to create open grasslands.
3. 气候变迁加上人类狩猎
We can't completely ignore the role of climate. The climate that beset Australia 45,000 years ago destabilized the ecosystem and made it particularly vulnerable.
✏️表达积累
1. 可爱的 cuddly
2. 处于不断变化中 in constant flux
3. 侥幸罢了 just a fluke
4. 开启一个黄金时代 inaugurate a golden age
5. 安然无恙 without a scratch
6. 更重要的是人类在新世界的所作所为 Of even greater importance was what the human pioneers did in this new world.
