采沙：你可能从未听闻的全球环境危机 [英国媒体]

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From Cambodia to California industrial-scale sand mining is causing wildlife to die local trade to wither and bridges to collapse. And booming urbanisation means the demand for this increasingly valuable resource is unlikely to let up

从柬埔寨到加里福利亚的工业砂开采正在导致野生动物死亡，当地贸易紧缩和桥梁坍塌。日益繁荣的城市化意味着对这种日加贵重的资源的需求不太可能停止。





Times are good for Fey Wei Dong. A genial middle-aged businessman based near Shanghai China Fey says he is raking in the equivalent of ￡180000 a year from trading in the humblest of commodities: sand.

时代益于冯卫东，一个来自中国上海附近的和善的中年商人。冯说他一年可从沙这种粗劣商品交易中敛利180000英镑。

Fey often works in a fishing village on Poyang Lake China’s biggest freshwater lake and a haven for millions of migratory birds and several endangered species. The village is little more than a tiny collection of ramshackle houses and battered wooden docks. It is dwarfed by a flotilla anchored just offshore of colossal dredges and barges hulking metal flatboats with cranes jutting from their decks. Fey comes here regularly to buy boatloads of raw sand dredged from Poyang’s bottom. He ships it 300 miles down the Yangtze River and resells it to builders in booming Shanghai who need it to make concrete.

冯经常去鄱阳湖边的一个渔村，鄱阳湖是中国最大的淡水湖和成千上万的候鸟以及许多濒危物种的天堂。这个村很小更像是破败的房屋和破木码头的小聚集地。和停在岸边的巨大船只相比，村庄显得特别渺小，那里停靠着巨型的采砂船和驳船以及装有起重机的笨重金属平底船。冯定期的来这里买成船的从鄱阳湖底开采的原沙。沿江向下船运300英里然后转售给在繁荣的上海需要沙来造混凝土的建筑商们。

 -------------译者：walkmanw595c-审核者：龙腾翻译总管------------



The demand is voracious. The global urbanisation boom is devouring colossal amounts of sand – the key ingredient of concrete and asphalt. Shanghai China’s financial centre has exploded in the last 20 years. The city has added 7 million new residents since 2000 raising its population to more than 23 million. In the last decade Shanghai has built more high-rises than there are in all of New York City as well as countless miles of roads and other infrastructure. “My sand helped build Shanghai Pudong airport” Fey brags.

需求旺盛的今天。全球城市化急速发展正在吞食海量的沙——这种沥青和混凝土的关键原料。中国的金融中心上海在近二十年中爆发式发展。这个城市从2000年以来增加了七百万居民，达到如今的二千三百多万。在过去十年上海建造的高楼比整个纽约市还多，以及无法度量长度的路和其他基础设施。冯自诩：“由我的沙子建造的上海浦东机场。”

Hundreds of dredgers may be on the lake on any given day some the size of tipped-over apartment buildings. The biggest can haul in as much as 10000 tonnes of sand an hour. A recent study estimates that 236m cubic metres of sand are taken out of the lake annually. That makes Poyang the biggest sand mine on the planet far bigger than the three largest sand mines in the US combined. “I couldn’t believe it when we did the calculations” says David Shankman a University of Alabama geographer and one of the study’s authors.

任何一天，都有数以百计的采砂船在湖上作业，一些的如横放的公寓楼一样大小。最大的一小时能采集10000吨沙。最近研究估计每年有236兆立方米被挖出湖。这就使鄱阳湖成为世界上最大的采砂场，远比美国3大沙场合起来还大。亚拉巴马大学的地理学家以及该研究的作者之一的戴维山克曼说：“在统计的时候我都不敢相信。“

 -------------译者：walkmanw595c-审核者：龙腾翻译总管------------



All that dredging researchers believe is a key reason why the lake’s water level has dropped dramatically in recent years. So much sand has been scooped out says Shankman – 30 times more than the amount that flows in from tributary rivers – that the lake’s outflow channel has been drastically deepened and widened nearly doubling the amount of water that flows into the Yangtze. The lower water levels are translating into declines in water quality and supply to surrounding wetlands. It could be ruinous for the area’s inhabitants both animal and human.

采掘研究学者都认为上述情况是近年湖水面线显着下降重要原因。山克曼说30倍于支流沙量流入的量被开采，导致湖流出通道被大幅度的加深和加宽接近2倍于流入长江的径流量。低水面线导致周围湿地的水质和水供应日益下降。这可能对生存于该地区的动物和人造成毁灭性的影响。






-------------译者：古柯-审核者：龙腾翻译总管------------

ImitationRay
Geeeeez! Almost as bad as the Aral Sea! I can't help but get a terrible feeling that we are all done for!

天啊！就像咸海一样糟！我不禁有一种很糟糕的感觉，我们要完蛋了！

happypaddy
"There is so much demand for certain types of construction sand that Dubai which sits on the edge of an enormous desert imports sand from Australia." So you really can sell sand to an Arab fair play to the Aussies. But to be serious the overwhelming issue here is the massive population increase which is unsustainable. Reflected in the Brexit vote but an issue world wide an issue that people are scared to name instead they go the long way round and highlight all the issues and effects it's causing.

“那种建筑用沙子的需求就是这么多，迪拜建在一座片巨大的沙漠的边缘，沙子都是从澳大利亚进口的。”所以你真的可以把沙子卖到阿拉伯跟澳大利亚人竞争。但这里有个无法解决的问题，大量的不可持续的人口增长。就像英国的退欧投票，它不是一个孤立的问题，是一个世界性问题，因为人们害怕提到那个问题，取而代之的是绕个圈子，关注所有它引起的问题和影响。

Stauffenberg1943
Silly question obviously: but why don?t they get the sand from the deserts?

明显愚蠢的问题：但为什么他们不去沙漠挖沙子？

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Craig Thomson
Most droughts will be caused by climate change.
The US and Europe are therefore the biggest contributors.

绝大部分干旱都是改变环境引起的。
因此，美国和欧洲引起的干旱最多

MoveOverGiddeon
I sit with colleagues at work who have 4/5/6 kids and I can't help but think why? If we are to survive as a species it has to stop and it has to stop at macro level.

我的同事都有四五六个孩子，我真是想不明白为什么要生那么多。如果我们想作为一个物种存活下去，这种超生的情况必须停止。

waxanimal
Interesting and alarming piece.
Any mention of the dried up vista in the photos in relation to the sand-dredging in the same lake? Are we to assume its directly due to the dredging?

有趣而又警示的文章。
从照片上看，所有湖泊干涸的警示都跟在同一个湖里挖沙子有关？我们是不是应该假设这是采沙直接导致的？

NeverMindTheBollocks
In all honesty. the reason why we have never heard of this global crisis is simply because it is no such thing. Breathlessly running around finding something new to proclaim as a global crisis is not at all helpful. Chicken Little learned this the hard way. We can and should all learn from this wise tale.

坦诚的说。我们之所以没听说过这个所谓的全球危机，是因为这本来就不是什么危机。随便的找个新事物就宣布为全球危机，这没有任何帮助。四眼天鸡（一部动画电影）获得了这样的教训。我们能，也应该都学学这个聪明的小故事

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Damian Crosby
Don't electric arc furnaces produce slag?

难道电弧炉就没有炉渣了？

Damian Crosby
Do you want city sized firestorms? Because that's how you get them. Wood is too much of a fire risk to be used in high density areas.

难道你想要城市级别的烈焰风暴？所以你需要用到沙子。在高密度区域里使用木材的火灾风险太高了。

daveinbrum
A worrying story and one that few people will probably be aware of - who would think sand is a precious commodity? The problem is that the rate of development in countries such as China and India is placing huge strain on the world's resources but who are we in the west to criticise after we plundered half the world to pursue similar development? Questions with no easy answers unfortunately.

一个令人担忧的故事。也可能没有多少人会意识到--谁会想到沙子是一种宝贵的货物？问题是像中国和印度发展速度这么快的国家，他们对世界资源造成了巨大的紧张，但是在我们西方掠夺了半个世界来追求相似的发展后，又怎么去评判呢？不幸的是，这个问题没有简单的答案。

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Damian Crosby
Stone is difficult to work and transport. Modern high rise buildings would be very impractical to make from stone. We'd also have to massively expand quarrying operations causing more environmental damage. Wood would be even worse massive areas of Europe and the US that became reforested after wood was ditched for brick steel and concrete would need to be cut down again.

石头很难开采和运输。现代高层建筑用石头建造非常不切实际。我们还不得不广泛的扩张采石工程，造成更多的生态破坏。如果用木头来建造那造成的环境危害就更大了，那么那些因为砖、钢、混泥土的出现而被替代的重新造林的欧、美大片地区将再次遭到砍伐的命运。

elti97
Not really. Extinction is just as often a product of bad luck e.g. meteor crash and dinosaurs end of Ice Age and mammoths.

不完全是。物种灭绝只是坏运气的产物，例如陨石撞击与恐龙，冰河世纪与猛犸。

NonnyNo
I didn't think that China and India were in the west . . .

我不认为中国和印度在西方

A_world_citizen
Hahaha.. Sorry but this article is very hypocrite. Startig for who sponsor it the Rockefellers. Please Guardian let's try to give to the people the "hole picture" as your slogan says and expose the hole truth about all the good intentions* of this people for the people and for the planet after centuries destroying it with their oil monomoly.

哈哈哈…抱歉，但是这篇文章很虚伪。卫报吖，正如你的口号所宣扬的那样，给人们提供全部的真相吧，几百年来这些人用石油里垄断的方式摧毁着这个星球，所以为了人类和这个地球，请你暴露这些人所谓善意的真相吧。

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elti97
Also concrete can (and in fact is) recycled. But there is not enough to meet demand.
即使混凝土能够（事实上可以）循环使用，但是也不够满足需求。

honza75
Your wife sounds like my wife they could be friends :-)

你老婆看起来跟我老婆很像，她们可以交个朋友 :-)

user0
It's not too many people; those people have homes at the moment. The problem is a system that needs them in the cities.

没有这么多人；这些人现在还有家。问题是系统性的，城市需要他们。

inorganicchemist
There are a number of alternative fine aggregates that be used with varying issues. The biggest issue though is massive availability.
The type of sand is important as not all sands can be used for construction but I wonder if sands from the sandiest places on the planet - deserts - couldn't be used? I guess not as China has some pretty big deserts.

有大量可选择的细集料能用在这，最大的问题只是大量应用的可能性。
这种沙子之所以重要是因为不是所有沙子都可以用来建设，但是我想从沙漠挖来的沙子，难道不能用么？我猜不能，因为中国就有好几座大型沙漠。

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elti97
Roman concrete buildings are also still standing. See the Pantheon for example.

罗马的混能土建筑还站在那呢，万神殿就是个例子

TonyLex
“What have they done to the earth?
What have they done to our fair sister?
Ravaged and plundered and ripped her and bit her
Stuck her with knives in the side of the dawn
And tied her with fences and dragged her down” ― Jim Morrison

他们对地球做了什么？
他们对我们美丽的妹妹做了什么？
蹂躏她抢劫她撕扯她粉碎她
在黎明之际用刀子刺她
并且把她绑起来脱掉她的衣服
——吉姆·莫里森 《When the music's ove》

1to618
It is the wrong type of sand

这是种错误的沙子（说出来你可能不信，是沙子先动的手）

HollyOldDog
You have thrown everything into the mixing pot there but provided no solutions other that it's somebody's else's fault.

你们把每一件事都扔进一口大锅搅在一起，又不提供其他解决方法。好像都是别人的错。

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SystemD
And wood.

还有木材

riemann
Peak guardian

山峰守护者，偷窥卫道士（peek guardian）。

CitizenWise
It is said that the next war will be fought over water; chances any country that has brought a drought upon themselves will con its own people into invading others.

下一场战争将是争夺水源。任何导致自己干旱的国家都可能欺骗他的人民入侵其他国家

Slo27
I've googled this and although desert sand is inferior it can indeed be used in construction but the ratio of cement needs to be different and it could be mixed with other sands and materials. There are also reports of bricks manufactured from desert sand. It really seems to be a matter of developing different techniques and using a larger sextion of materials for any project. And there are tradeoffs such as more steel and less sand which also has an environmental impact. In other words a matter for regulators.

我google了一下这事。虽然沙漠的沙子能质量差，但是的确可以用在建设上，只是水泥的比例会不一样。还可以跟其他沙子和材料混起来用。也有用沙漠的沙子做砖的报道。所以关键是要开发出不同的技术，让所有项目都可以用更多种类的材料。实际应用上会有一些取舍，例如多一些钢材，少一些沙子，这对环境也有影响。换句话说关键在管理者。