因太热而无法生存: 全球数百万人将面临无法忍受的温度

BY ELIZABETH ROYTE

作者：伊丽莎白·罗伊特

The human body has evolved to shed heat in two main ways: Blood vessels swell, carrying heat to the skin so it can radiate away, and sweat erupts onto the skin, cooling it by evaporation. When those mechanisms fail, we die. It sounds straightforward; it’s actually a complex, cascading collapse.

人体已经进化到以两种主要方式散热，第一种是人体通过血管膨胀，将热量带到皮肤上，这样热量就可以辐射散出去; 第二种是将汗液排放到皮肤上，通过蒸发使其皮肤冷却。当这些机制失效时，我们就得死了。这听起来简单; 但是这实际上是一个复杂的，层叠式的坍塌。

As a heatstroke victim’s internal temperature rises, the heart and lungs work ever harder to keep dilated vessels full. A point comes when the heart cannot keep up. Blood pressure drops, inducing dizziness, stumbling, and the slurring of speech. Salt levels decline and muscles cramp. Confused, even delirious, many victims don’t realize they need immediate help.

随着中暑患者体内温度的升高，为了保持血管的扩张，心脏和肺需要更加努力地工作。但是当心跳无法跟上的时候，就到了一个临界点。然后血压下降，这会导致头晕，踉跄和口齿不清。身体盐含量下降和肌肉抽筋。进入迷糊状态，甚至神志不清，许多受害者甚至不会意识到他们需要立即的救助。

With blood rushing to overheated skin, organs receive less flow, triggering a range of reactions that break down cells. Some victims succumb with an internal temperature of just 104 degrees Fahrenheit (40 degrees Celsius); others can withstand 107 degrees for several hours. The prognosis is usually worse for the very young and for the elderly. Even healthy older people are at a distinct disadvantage: Sweat glands shrink with age, and many common medications dull the senses. Victims often don’t feel thirsty enough to drink. Sweating stops being an option, because the body has no moisture left to spare.

随着血液涌向过热的皮肤，器官的血流会减少，继而会引发一系列破坏细胞的反应。有些受害者能够接受的体内温度极限仅为104华氏度(40摄氏度);另一些则可以承受107华氏度的高温数小时。幼儿和老年人的预断病情通常较差。即使是健康的老年人也有明显的劣势，这是因为随着年龄的增长，人体的汗腺会萎缩，而且许多常见的药物会使老年人的感觉变得迟钝。所以受害者通常就算口渴也感受不到，于是也不会喝水。在这种情况下，因为身体没有多余的水分，所以也无法依靠出汗降温。

A heart attack may fell the infirm at this point, but the more fit may persist to suffer tunnel vision, hallucinations, and perhaps the stripping of clothes that, with nerve endings aflame. Fainting is now a blessing, as blood vessels begin to lose their integrity. Muscle tissues, including those of the heart, may go next. Once the digestive tract starts to leak, toxins enter the bloodstream. The circulatory system responds with a massive, last-ditch clotting effort that further endangers vital organs—kidneys, bladder, heart. Death is near.

此时，体弱的人可能会心脏病发作，但更健康的人可能会持续出现视野变窄、出现幻觉，也许还会因为神经末梢燃烧而脱掉衣服。紧接着会出现晕厥，因为这时的人体血管已经开始失去完整性。包括心脏组织在内的肌肉组织可能是下一个受到攻击的对象。一旦消化道开始泄漏，毒素就会进入血液。然后循环系统与作为最后防线的血凝进行大量的反应，这会进一步危及到肾脏，膀胱，心脏等重要器官。到那时，人体就接近死亡了。

In the summer of 2003 an area of high atmospheric pressure camped out above western and central Europe. Superheated over the Mediterranean, the giant swirling air mass rebuffed incursions of cooler Atlantic air for several weeks. In France, temperatures rose steadily, topping out for eight days at an astonishing 104°F (40°C). As the heat built up, people began to die.

2003年夏天，西欧和中欧上空出现了一片高压区域。于是，在地中海上空，巨大的旋涡气团连续几周抵挡住了大西洋冷空气的入侵。在法国，气温稳步上升，连续8天达到惊人的40°C。随着气温升高，人们开始过热死亡。

Many physicians and first responders were away on their annual vacations, and hospitals soon were overwhelmed. Morgues filled up, and refrigerated trucks and food-market freezers took up the slack. Visiting caregivers found clients slumped on their floors or dead in armchairs. (At the time only a few percent of French households had air-conditioning.) Police were called to break doors open, “only to find corpses behind them,” recalls Patrick Pelloux, president of the French association of emergency room doctors. “It was absolutely appalling.” Many of the bodies were not discovered for several weeks.

彼时，许多医生和急救人员都在休假，但是医院却很快就人满为患。停尸房挤满了尸体，冷藏车和食品市场的冷藏柜还被临时征用来储存尸体。探访的护理人员发现，他们的客户或瘫倒在地板上，或死在扶手椅上。(当时，只有极少数的法国家庭拥有空调。)法国急诊室医生协会主席Patrick Pelloux回忆说，警察被叫去破门而入之后，“却发现门后就是尸体”。“这绝对令人震惊。”许多尸体好几个星期都没有被发现。

France eventually attributed more than 15,000 deaths to the heat wave. Italy fared even worse, with nearly 20,000. Across the continent, more than 70,000 people—most of them poor, isolated, and elderly—lost their lives. Europe’s hottest summer in 500 years, scientists later determined, was clearly lixed to climate change. In Paris it had raised the risk of heat-related mortality that year by about 70 percent.

法国最终将超过1.5万人的死亡归咎于这场热浪。意大利的情况更糟，有近2万人因此死亡。而在整个非洲大陆，超过7万人失去了生命，其中大多数是贫穷、孤独的老人。科学家后来确定，这个欧洲500年来最热的夏天显然与气候变化有关。在巴黎，那一年与高温有关的死亡风险就增加了约70%。

Among the many climatic threats that scientists associate with global warming—stronger and more destructive hurricanes, drought, rising sea levels, longer fire seasons—an uptick in heat waves is the most intuitive and immediate. As greenhouse gases released by human activities continue to increase in the atmosphere, heat waves will become longer and individual days will become hotter. Globally, the past six years have been the warmest ever recorded.

在科学家们认定的与全球变暖有关的许多气候威胁包括更强、更具破坏性的飓风、干旱、海平面上升、更长的火灾季节和热浪袭击，其中热浪的增加是最直观、最直接的威胁。而且由于人类活动释放的温室气体在大气中持续增加，热浪还将变得更长，所以每一天将变得更热。在全球范围内，过去六年是有记录以来最热的六年。

In the southwestern United States, days with triple-digit temperatures are arriving weeks earlier than they did a century ago and lingering three weeks longer. And in Europe, the dreadful summer of 2003 has proved to be no mere statistical blip: Major heat waves have hit the continent five times since then, and 2019 brought all-time temperature records in six western European countries, including 114.8°F in France.

在美国西南部，气温达到三位数的日子比一个世纪前提前了几周，持续时间也延长了三周。在欧洲，2003年那个可怕的夏季已被证明不仅仅是统计上的短暂现象:自那以后，热浪已经五次袭击欧洲大陆，2019年，6个西欧国家的气温创下了历史最高纪录，其中法国的温度最高达到114.8华氏度。

The ultimate solution to global warming, of course, is to drastically reduce our greenhouse gas emissions. If we fail utterly to do that, by 2100 the heat-related death toll could rise above 100,000 a year in the U.S. Elsewhere the threat is far greater: In India, for example, the death toll could reach 1.5 million, according to recent research. And even if we do rein in emissions, the planet will continue to warm for decades. A juggernaut is in motion, and it will fundamentally change how most of the planet lives.

当然，全球变暖的最终解决方案是大幅减少温室气体的排放。如果我们放任其发展，到2100年，美国由高温导致的死亡人数可能会超过每年10万人。其他地方的威胁则还要大得多:例如，根据最近的研究，在印度，炎热导致的死亡人数可能会达到150万人。即使我们确实控制了排放，地球在未来几十年里仍将继续变暖。一个庞然大物正在运转，它将从根本上改变地球上大多数人的生活方式。

Extreme heat has pernicious effects even when it isn’t lethal. Researchers lix higher temperatures with a greater incidence of premature, underweight, and stillborn babies, and heat exhaustion affects mood, behavior, and mental health. Hotter weather makes people more violent, across income levels. It lowers children’s test scores and shrinks productivity.

即使不是致命的高温也会对人类生活产生有害影响。研究人员认为，较高的温度与早产、体重不足和死产婴儿等事件的高发率有关，而中暑会影响情绪、行为和心理健康。不论收入水平如何，天气越热，人们的暴力倾向就越大。高温还会降低孩子们的考试分数，降低人们的生产力。

The International Labour Organization predicts that high heat levels will, by 2030, cut total working hours by 2.2 percent, equivalent to losing 80 million full-time jobs, mostly in low- to middle-income countries. Even in affluent ones, low-wage outdoor workers—in construction or agriculture, for example—will be hit hard. By 2050, high heat and humidity in the American Southeast likely will render the entire growing season “unsafe for agricultural work with present-day work practices,” researchers at the University of Washington have reported.

国际劳工组织(International Labour Organization)预测，到2030年，高温天气将使总工作时间减少2.2%，相当于会失去8000万个全职工作岗位，其中大部分岗位会在中低收入国家。即使在富裕国家，像建筑工人或农业工人这样的低收入的户外工人也将受到沉重打击。华盛顿大学(University of Washington)的研究人员报告称，到2050年，美国东南部的高温和湿度可能会使整个生长季节“都不适合以目前的耕作方式进行农业工作”。

Humans, along with their crops and their livestock, evolved over the past 10,000 years in a rather narrow climate niche, centered on an annual average temperature of about 55°F (nearly 12.8°C). Our bodies readily adapt to higher temperatures, but there are limits to how much heat and humidity we can tolerate.

在过去的一万年里，人类以及他们的庄稼和牲畜都是在一个相当有限的气候环境中进化的，在这环境中，年平均温度约为55华氏度(近12.8摄氏度)。我们的身体很容易适应更高的温度，但我们所能忍受的高温和湿度是有限的。
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Even the fittest, heat-acclimated person will die after a few hours’ exposure to a 95° “wet bulb” reading, a combined measure of temperature and humidity that takes into consideration the chilling effect of evaporation. At this point, the air is so hot and humid it no longer can absorb human sweat. Taking a long walk in these conditions, to say nothing of harvesting tomatoes or filling a highway pothole, could be fatal. Climate models predict that wet-bulb temperatures in South Asia and parts of the Middle East will, in roughly 50 years, regularly exceed that critical benchmark.

即使是最能够适应高温的人，暴露在95°的“湿球温度”读数下几个小时后也会死亡。“湿球温度”读数是一种综合测量温度和湿度的方法，这种方法将蒸发的冷却效应考量其中。此时，空气是非常炎热和潮湿的，它不再能够吸收人的汗水。在这种情况下走一段很长的路可能都是致命的，更不用说去摘西红柿或填补公路上的坑洞了。气候模型预测，大约50年后，南亚和中东部分地区的“湿球温度”将经常超过这一关键基准。
原创翻译：龙腾网 https://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处

By then, according to a startling 2020 study in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a third of the world’s population could be living in places—in Africa, Asia, South America, and Australia—that feel like today’s Sahara, where the average high temperature in summer now tops 104°F. Billions of people will face a stark choice: Migrate to cooler climates, or stay and adapt. Retreating inside air-conditioned spaces is one obvious work-around—but air-conditioning itself, in its current form, contributes to warming the planet, and it’s unaffordable to many of the people who need it most. The problem of extreme heat is mortally entangled with larger social problems, including access to housing, to water, and to health care. You might say it’s a problem from hell.

根据《美国国家科学院院刊》(Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences) 2020年一项令人震惊的研究，到那时，世界人口的三分之一可能生活在非洲、亚洲、南美洲和澳大利亚，而这些地方会变得就像今天的撒哈拉沙漠一样，夏季平均高温超过104华氏度。是以，数十亿人将面临一个严峻的选择: 要么移居到更凉爽的气候，要么留在那里适应。躲在有空调的房间里是一个明显的解决办法，但是现代技术下的空调本身又会导致地球进一步变暖，而且空调对许多最需要它们的人来说是负担不起的。极端高温问题将会与包括获得住房、水和保健的机会在内的更大的社会问题纠缠在一起。你可以说这是一个世纪难题。

Phoenix, Arizona, is the hottest city in the U.S., with more than 110 triple-digit days a year. Unsurprisingly, it also regularly records the most heat-related deaths. In 2020, Maricopa County logged an all-time-record 207, according to its medical examiner’s office, which occupies a two-story, desert-tone building in downtown Phoenix and is required by law to investigate all nonnatural deaths, which include those related to temperature.

亚利桑那州的凤凰城是美国最热的城市，这里每年有超过110天的时间温度上了三位数。不出所料，这里还定期记录与高温相关的死亡人数。根据马里科帕县法医办公室的数据，2020年马里科帕县记录的死亡人数达到了有史以来最高的207人。该办公室位于凤凰城市中心，占地两层，带有些沙漠色彩。根据法律规定，相关部门必须调查所有包括与温度有关的死亡在内的非自然死亡人数。

When a potentially heat-related death is reported, says Melanie Rouse, the office’s chief investigator, her staff first interviews anyone with recent knowledge of the decedent. Was she or he sweating profusely or not at all, complaining of headache or nausea? Doing yard work? Using alcohol or drugs, which interfere with thermoregulation? “What we’re trying to find out,” Rouse says, “is what led to this turn in their life. We’re trying to see if there are other compelling causes of death.”

办公室的首席调查员Melanie Rouse说，当有人可能因为高温而死亡时，她的工作人员会首先采访所有了解亡者的人。询问她或他生前是满头大汗还是根本就没出汗？是否有抱怨头痛或恶心?是否之前做过庭院工作? 是否使用了会干扰体温调节的酒精或药物? Rouse 说，“我们想知道的是究竟是什么导致了他们的死亡。我们正在努力寻找是否有其他令人信服的死因。”

At the death scene, investigators measure the temperature of the body and the room. (The highest indoor temperature they’ve recorded was 145°F in 2017.) They extract vitreous fluid from the victim’s eyeball for chemical analysis. Cells break down quickly in high heat, explains Rouse, “but the globe of the eyeball is a protected space.” Chemists and physicians will analyze this fluid to determine if the decedent was dehydrated, had high blood sugar, or had decreased kidney function—all of which increase susceptibility to heat.

在死亡现场，调查人员会测量尸体和房间的温度。(2017年他们记录的最高室内温度是145华氏度。) 他们也会从受害者的眼球中提取玻璃体液体进行化学分析。细胞在高温下很快就会分解，Rouse解释说，“但是眼球是一个受保护的空间。” 化学家和医生可以通过分析这些液体来确定死者是否经历过脱水、高血糖或肾功能下降，所有这些活动都增加了对热的敏感性。

Slightly more than half of Maricopa County’s heat-related deaths occur outdoors, mostly among the homeless. Many of the indoor deaths occur in mobile homes, whose poor insulation makes them hard to cool. Even in the richest of countries, inadequate housing contributes massively to heat exposure. In poorer countries, matters are far worse.

马里科帕县与高温有关的死亡人数中，略多于一半都是发生在户外，其中大部分是无家可归的人。许多室内死亡的则都发生在活动房屋中，这些房子由于隔热性能差，很难冷却。即使是在最富裕的国家，住房不足的问题也大大增加了热暴露。在较贫穷的国家，情况要糟糕得多。

In India, when the temperature surpasses 105°, government agencies advise people to stay inside and drink cool water. But the advice is not helpful to the tens of millions whose homes are hotter inside than out, who lack electricity to operate fans or misters—only 8 percent of Indian households have air-conditioning—or who don’t have homes at all.

在印度，当气温超过105°时，政府机构会建议人们呆在室内多喝凉水。但是这个建议对数千万房屋内部比外部更热，又没有电来运行风扇或喷雾机的家庭来说是没有借鉴意义的。在印度，只有8%的家庭有空调，更别说那些无家可归的人的境遇了。

Jehan, 36, has lived outdoors, in a South Delhi park, all her life. Every morning she stacks her meager belongings—a sack of bedding, a few pots and bowls—near a concrete perimeter wall, then trudges to her job at a construction site. She works even when the thermometer reaches 118°. Like millions of other daily wage laborers, she can’t feed her three children if she skips work. “When I come back home,” she says, “there’s no water to even take a bath to clean the grime and dust and cool down.” Her drinking water source is more than a mile away.

36岁的Jehan一辈子都住在南德里的一个户外公园里。一袋床上用品，几个锅碗瓢盆就是她仅有的东西，每天早上，她都会把这几件东西堆在混凝土围墙附近，然后艰难地去建筑工地上班。即使温度计达到118度，她也得工作。和其他数百万领日薪的劳动者一样，如果她不上班，她就无法养活她的三个孩子。她说，“当我回到家，我甚至都没有水来清除污垢、灰尘和降温。”她的饮用水源远在一英里外。

Jehan’s husband pulls a rickshaw, but, undernourished and dehydrated, he frequently faints in the heat. Her sister Afsana and her three children cope by placing mats on the sidewalks, to rest or even sleep. “The passing cars create a bit of breeze,” Afsana says. But the sidewalks often don’t cool off until about 2 a.m.

Jehan的丈夫拉着一辆人力车，但由于营养不良和脱水，他经常在炎热中晕倒。Jehan的妹妹Afsana和她的三个孩子就在人行道上铺一个垫子来休息，甚至睡觉。Jehan说:“过往的汽车经常会吹起阵阵微风（来降温）。”但路面通常要到凌晨2点才能够凉快下来。

In Phoenix, David Hondula of Arizona State University studies the social and health impacts of unrelenting urban heat. Usually he can be found analyzing data in an air-conditioned office, but lately he’s been pounding the city’s blistering pavement to map the best places to plant tens of thousands of shade trees—an increasingly common urban response, around the world, to rising temperatures. “Less heat exposure reduces risk,” Hondula says, “but I don’t think we should rely on tree planting to prevent people from dying of heat.”

凤凰城亚利桑那州立大学的David Hondula研究了恼人的城市高温对人类社会和健康的影响。通常，人们会看到他在一间装有空调得办公室里分析数据，但最近他却忙着在该市酷热的路面上规划种植数万棵遮荫树的最佳地点——这是世界各地的城市越来越普遍应对气温上升的方式。Hondula 说，“较少的热暴露可以降低风险，但我不认为我们应该依靠植树来防止人们死于高温。”

Asked what a more appropriate response might be, he does not hesitate. “Increasing access to air-conditioning.”

当被问及更合适的应对高温的方法是什么时，他毫不犹豫地表示，“增加空调的普及率。”

Historically, residential air-conditioning has been considered a luxury, with especially frigid indoor temperatures signifying power and prestige. But in many places it’s becoming a public health necessity, essential for preventing heat-related deaths. The good news, according to the Climate Impact Lab, a consortium of climate researchers, is that by 2099 economic development is expected to increase both air conditioner use and access to health care, saving millions of lives a year. The International Energy Agency projects that the number of AC room units will soar to 5.6 billion by mid-century, from 1.6 billion today.

在历史上，住宅空调一直被认为是一种奢侈品，因为寒冷的室内温度象征着权力和声望。但在许多地方，空调正成为公共卫生的必需品，它对预防与热相关的死亡至关重要。气候影响实验室(Climate Impact Lab)是一个由气候研究人员组成的联盟，据该实验室称，好消息是，到2099年，随着经济发展，有望增加空调的普及率和获得医疗保健的机会，这每年能够挽救数百万人的生命。国际能源署(International Energy Agency)预计，到本世纪中叶，全球空调房间的数量将从目前的16亿套猛增至56亿套。

The bad news is that current air-conditioning technology exacts a steep price on the planet. In most systems a liquid refrigerant is pumped through an evaporation coil within the indoor part of an AC unit; as the liquid changes to gas inside the coil, it pulls heat and moisture from the air. Outside the building a compressor, a condenser, and a fan convert the gas back to a liquid, releasing the heat and the condensed water.

坏消息是，目前的空调技术让地球付出了高昂的代价。在大多数空调系统中，液体制冷剂通过空调室内部分的蒸发盘管泵送; 当液体在线圈内变成气体时，它会从空气中吸收热量和水分。同时，在建筑外面，空调外机的压缩机，冷凝器和风扇会将气体转化为液体，这个过程会释放热量和凝结水。

There are three problems with this ingenious, century-old approach. First, the hydrofluorocarbons that typically are used as refrigerants are themselves greenhouse gases, and when they leak to the environment—should they be improperly disposed of—they have a global warming potential thousands of times greater, molecule for molecule, than carbon dioxide. Second, conventional air conditioners don’t make heat vanish; they just dump it outside. In Phoenix, according to one study, ACs raise the outdoor temperature at night by as much as two degrees Fahrenheit.

这种方法有着百年的历史，堪称巧妙，但是这个技术存在三个问题。首先，通常用作制冷剂的氢氟碳化合物本身就是温室气体，当它们泄漏到环境中时，如果处理不当，它们导致全球变暖的潜力比二氧化碳还要高上数千倍。第二，传统的空调不会使热量消失; 他们只是把热量排到外面的空气中。根据一项研究，在凤凰城，空调会使室外夜间温度提高至多2华氏度，迫使所有单位更加努力地工作。

And third, air conditioners suck huge amounts of electricity—about 8.5 percent of total global consumption. Most of that energy is still produced by burning fossil fuels. In 2016 air-conditioning accounted for 1.25 billion tons of carbon dioxide emissions; by 2050, that number is expected to nearly double.

第三，空调耗电量巨大——约占全球总耗电量的8.5%。而大部分能源仍然是通过燃烧化石燃料产生的。2016年，空调使用而导致的二氧化碳排放量为12.5亿吨; 到2050年，这个数字预计将翻一番。

Clearly, new ideas are needed. To stimulate them, the Rocky Mountain Institute, a Colorado-based think tank, recently helped run an international competition. It challenged engineers to produce a room air conditioner that has one-fifth the climate impact of today’s standard products, uses at most one-fourth the energy, and is no more than twice as expensive as a current baseline model.

显然，我们需要新的技术。为了刺激技术革新，总部位于科罗拉多州的智库落基山研究所(Rocky Mountain Institute)最近帮助举办了一场国际竞赛。竞赛内容是让工程师们接受生产一种新型室内空调的挑战，这种空调需要对气候的影响减小为现在标准产品的五分之一，最多只能消耗现有空调四分之一的能源，而且还得不超过当前基准模型的两倍。

Some entries dispensed with liquid refrigerants and vapor compression in favor of promising new technologies that weren’t quite ready for prime time. One used solid-state refrigeration, in which pressure is cyclically applied to crystalline materials that switch readily from hot to cold; it’s likely to prove more suitable for spot applications, such as quickly cooling a soda can, than for chilling an entire room. Another entrant proposed rooftop panels coated with nanomaterials that reject solar heat, radiating it back out to space at an infrared wavelength that passes right through the atmosphere. That could, in principle, reduce a building’s heat gain by several degrees Fahrenheit, “but it isn’t a solution on its own,” says Rocky Mountain Institute senior fellow Iain Campbell. “It doesn’t work in humid conditions, and the panels have to face the sky.” Not so helpful, that is, for residents on the third floor of a 10-story building.

竞赛中出现的一些项目摒弃了传统的液态制冷剂和蒸汽压缩技术，转而采用一些目前还没有成熟但是前景很有潜力的技术。其中一种是固态制冷技术，这种技术对晶体材料施加循环压力，使其很容易从热转换到冷; 不过这种技术可能更适合现场应用，比如快速冷却一个易拉罐，但不适合用于冷却整个房间。另一名参赛者提议在屋顶面板上涂上纳米材料，这样可以阻挡太阳热量，顺便将其以直接穿过大气层的红外波长辐射回太空。原则上，这可以将建筑物的热量吸收降低几华氏度，“但它本身并不是一个解决方案，”落基山研究所高级研究员Iain Campbell说。“因为这种方法不能在潮湿的环境下工作，而且电池板必须面对天空。”但这对于住在一栋10层高建筑的第三楼的居民来说就没那么有用了。

The final four contestants all relied on conventional vapor compression. But they were seriously souped up, using new refrigerants with low or no greenhouse-warming potential and hyperefficient evaporator and condenser systems. The co-champions, designed by Team Daikin and Team Gree, cool their condensers with water instead of air to reduce their energy demand, and one sports solar panels to supply some of its electricity. They are expected to be on store shelves by 2025, at about twice the price of the baseline model. But their operating costs are so low, Campbell says, that the payback period will be just three years.

进入决赛的四名竞赛选手则都依赖传统的蒸汽压缩技术。但他们在此基础上革新，大大提高了效率。他们采用的是具有低或无温室效应潜力的新型制冷剂，高效的蒸发器和冷凝器系统。大金团队和格力团队的设计最终共同摘得冠军，他们用水而不是空气来冷却他们的冷凝器，这样做的优点是减少了空调运作的能源需求，他们还采用一个运动的太阳能电池板来提供部分电力。预计到2025年，它们的产品就将上市，其价格大约是基准型号的两倍。但他们的运营成本其实很低，Campbell表示上市三年就可以回收投资成本。

At Princeton University in New Jersey, Forrest Meggers, an architect and engineer, is developing another type of system that might prove enormously helpful in hot and humid environments. It didn’t meet the criteria for the Rocky Mountain Institute competition, though, because it doesn’t cool a room’s air: It cools only people—by absorbing the heat that radiates from their skin with wall-mounted panels of water-filled tubes.

在新泽西州的普林斯顿大学，建筑师兼工程师Forrest Meggers正在开发另一种类型的系统，这种系统可能被证明在炎热潮湿的环境中非常有用。不过，它没有达到落基山研究所竞赛的标准，因为它不能冷却房间里的空气，只能降低体温。这种系统通过在墙上安装装满水的管子面板吸收皮肤辐射出的热量来让人降温。

A prototype of the invention, called Cold Tube, hangs from a hook in Meggers’s lab. It resembles a woven mat of blue plastic straws. On an 85° day like today, Meggers explains during my visit, filling those skinny tubes with 60° water would give lab occupants a feeling of 75°, even with the lab’s sliding doors wide open because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Unfortunately, the tubes aren’t filled on this muggy afternoon. Meggers is dressed head to toe in wicking clothing.

这项发明的原型被称为“冷管”，它们就挂在Meggers实验室的一个钩子上。这种装置像一个蓝色塑料吸管编织的垫子。Meggers在我访问期间解释说，在像当天那样的85°的日子里，把60°的水灌进那些细管子会给实验室人员一种只有75°的感觉，尽管实验室的门需要因为COVID-19大流行而大开着通风。不幸的是，在那个闷热的下午，Meggers的管道里没有油（所以不能演示）。Meggers从头到脚都穿着吸汗服。

Architects have employed radiative cooling panels before, on ceilings and on walls, but almost always with dehumidifiers, to keep water from condensing on the panels and raining down on computers and heads. By shrouding his panels with a simple polyethylene membrane, which keeps humid air away from the tubes but not radiated heat, Meggers says, he has solved that problem.

建筑师们以前也曾在天花板和墙壁上使用过散热板，但为了防止水凝结在散热板上之后落在电脑和头上，几乎得频繁地使用除湿器才行。Meggers说，他已经完美解决了这个问题，他通过用一层简单的聚乙烯薄膜覆盖面板就可以使潮湿的空气远离管道，同时又不会辐射热量。

In superhumid Singapore, where the Cold Tube was first deployed, the system produced a comfortable—but hardly cold—environment using less than half the energy of a conventional air conditioner and generating half the waste heat. The energy savings aren’t quite as spectacular in arid environments, where ACs don’t work so hard to dehumidify air. But the membrane-insulated radiative panels, Meggers says, are still more efficient than conventional systems.

在超级潮湿的新加坡，冷管方案首次得到使用，该系统只用了不到传统空调一半的能源就产生了一个舒适而又不冷的环境，而且其产出的废热也只有传统空调的一半。不过在干燥的环境中，节能效果就不那么显著了，因为空调在这种环境中不需要那么费力地去除湿空气。但Meggers说，这种膜绝缘的辐射板仍然比传统系统更有效。

Because the panels cool human bodies, not huge volumes of air, they could work well even in outdoor settings, such as bus shelters or cafés. The biggest challenge to wider adoption of the technology, Meggers suspects, is attitudinal. “Engineers are accustomed to thinking about summertime comfort and cooling in terms of air-conditioning,” he says. Adapting to a hotter world is going to require a paradigm shift, and not just among engineers.

因为这些面板可以冷却人体而不是大量的空气，所以它们甚至可以在户外环境中很好地工作，比如公交候车亭或咖啡馆。Meggers认为，如果要更广泛地采用这项技术，最大的挑战在于人们的态度。他说:“工程师们习惯于从空调的角度来考里量夏季的舒适和凉爽程度。” 人类适应更热的世界将需要一个范式的转变，而不仅仅是工程师。

New York City, where I live, ranks its neighborhoods’ vulnerability to heat based on risk factors such as poverty, access to air-conditioning, and availability of green space. The upper Manhattan neighborhood of East Harlem scores five—the worst—on this index. Its poverty rate of 31 percent is nearly twice the city average, and it has among the lowest rates of air conditioner ownership—88 percent—in the city. But race matters too.

我本人居住的纽约市，根据贫困情况、空调的普及率和绿地的可用性等风险因素，我对这里社区的热脆弱性进行了排名。东哈莱姆(East Harlem)的上曼哈顿社区得分为5分，是得分最低的社区。这个社区的贫困率为31%，几乎是全市平均水平的两倍，而且该区的空调拥有率为88%，也是全市最低的。但种族也是一个因素。

On a sizzling summer day I meet Sonal Jessel, the policy director for the nonprofit WE ACT for Environmental Justice, to walk through East Harlem. As we walk, Jessel draws my attention to a tenement building, where towels and rags fill the gaps between air conditioners and window frxs.

在一个炎热的夏日，我和非营利组织WE ACT for Environmental Justice的政策主管Sonal Jessel一起穿过东哈莱姆区。走着走着，Jessel把我的注意力吸引到了一栋廉价的公寓大楼，大楼的空调和窗框之间的空隙里堆满了毛巾和破布。

“Their bill must be through the roof,” she says. East Harlem is 27 percent Black, and Black households pay, on average, hundreds of dollars more per year for energy than do white households of comparable income, Jessel says, citing a study from the University of California, Berkeley.

她说:“他们的账单肯定高得离谱。” Jessel援引加州大学伯克利分校的一项研究称，东哈莱姆区27%是黑人，黑人家庭平均每年在能源上比同等收入的白人家庭需要多支付数百美元。

Black Americans use more energy, that study suggested, in part because a legacy of racial discrimination has left them with less accumulated wealth and thus less ability to invest in insulation or the most efficient air conditioners. Their buildings are older and leakier, Jessel says, and their living conditions may be more crowded. “If you’re trying to work or study in the air-conditioned living room and there’s three noisy people there,” she says, “you move to another room and turn on another AC.”

该研究表明，美国黑人使用的能源更多，部分原因是种族歧视遗留下来的问题，这使他们赚钱更少，因此也就更没有能力投资绝缘材料或效率最高的空调。他们的房子更旧，更容易漏水，Jessel说，他们的生活条件可能更拥挤。她说:“如果你想在有空调的客厅里工作或学习，但是那里有三个吵闹的人时，你就会搬到另一个房间，打开另一个空调。”

We head east. Street trees are scarce, and heat radiates off sidewalks, buildings, and the engine blocks and exhaust pipes of cars, buses, trucks, and construction vehicles that creep along 125th Street, which connects to several highways and bridges. Jessel and I pass weed-filled lots, commuters fanning themselves at unshaded bus stops, and shops shuttered since long before the pandemic. “It tears the neighborhood apart to have these spaces vacant,” Jessel says.

我们向东走了一段路。第125街连接着几条高速公路和桥梁，街道树木稀少，热量从人行道、建筑物、汽车、公共汽车、卡车和建筑车辆的发动机和排气管辐射出来。我和Jessel经过杂草丛生的地方时看到，乘客在没有遮荫的公交车站给自己扇风，而商店早在疫情爆发之前就关门了。Jessel说:“这些空置的空间把整个社区都撕裂了。”

It also may make residents more vulnerable to heat: When New York University sociologist Eric Klinenberg studied Chicago’s 1995 heat wave, in which more than 700 died, he discovered that low-income neighborhoods with vibrant public spaces and plenty of commercial activity had fewer heat-related deaths. People in less animated neighborhoods were far less likely to step outside for relief or visit with caring neighbors, he surmised, because they didn’t know one another, had few places to go, and were sometimes scared to walk the streets. And so they stayed inside—often with windows closed to guard against burglars—sweltered, and died.

这些地方也可能使居民更容易受到高温的影响。纽约大学社会学家Eric Klinenberg在研究芝加哥1995年的热浪时，他发现，公共空间活跃、商业活动频繁的低收入社区与高温有关的死亡人数较少。他推测，在那些不那么活跃的社区里，人们不太可能走出家门寻求安慰或拜访有爱心的邻居，因为他们彼此不认识，没有什么地方可去，有时甚至不敢上街。于是他们只能呆在屋里，常常还得关着窗户以防窃贼，这种情况下他们容易中暑而死。

Like many cities around the world, New York operates several dozen cooling centers: libraries, schools, senior centers, and other buildings that open their doors to the public during heat waves. In New York the centers are closed at night, and many people who might find relief in such places aren’t aware they exist. Some refuse to visit them for fear their empty apartments will be burgled. In Phoenix, homeless people would rather roast in tent cities on asphalt parking lots than leave their worldly goods behind while seeking indoor relief.

像世界上许多城市一样，纽约有几十个制冷中心。他们包括图书馆、学校、老年中心和其他建筑物，这些地方在热浪来袭时会向公众敞开大门。在纽约，这些地方在晚上是关闭的，许多可能在这些地方曾找到慰藉的人可能在那时候会意识不到它们的存在。有些人则直接拒绝去这些地方，因为他们担心没人在家的话公寓会被盗。在凤凰城，无家可归的人们宁愿在沥青停车场的帐篷里忍受着酷热也不愿抛下自己的财物去室内避暑。
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Getting people into those air-conditioned spaces will save lives, as ASU’s David Hondula noted. But reducing social isolation may be equally important. In New York, Black residents die of heat-related causes at twice the rate that white ones do, but whites succumb at three times the rate of Hispanics and five times the rate of Asians—in part perhaps because whites are more likely to live alone.

亚利桑那州立大学的David Hondula指出，让人们进入这些有空调的空间将挽救生命。但减少社会孤立可能同样重要。在纽约，黑人居民死于与高温有关的疾病的比率是白人的两倍，但白人的死亡率是西班牙人的三倍，亚洲人的五倍，部分原因可能是白人更有可能独居。

Coping with extreme heat is more complicated than it sounds because it’s a nested problem, inseparable from larger social issues. But that’s also its silver lining: If we improve the lives of the most vulnerable among us, we also will improve our resilience to extreme heat.

应对极端高温比听起来要复杂得多，因为这是一个嵌套的问题，与更大的社会问题密不可分。但也有一线希望: 如果我们改善了最脆弱人群的生活条件，我们也将提高人类对极端高温的适应能力。

The European heat wave of 2003 was a watershed event. It triggered national reckonings, endless finger-pointing, and major reforms. Within a year, France mandated “cool rooms” in previously un-air-conditioned nursing homes, launched telephone check-in systems for the vulnerable, beefed up heat-warning systems, and inaugurated a massive public education campaign on preventing heatstroke. When high temperatures returned, such measures were credited with reducing mortality 10-fold.

欧洲2003年的热浪是一个分水岭事件。它引发了全国性的思考，政府遭遇了无休止的指责后进行了重大的改革。在那之后的一年内，法国为以前没有空调的疗养院强制设置了“清凉室”，为弱势群体推出了电话签到系统，加强了高温预警系统，并启动了一项大规模的预防中暑公共教育运动。当高温卷土重来时，这些措施被认为将死亡率降低了10倍。

We know for certain that high temperatures will keep returning and that air conditioners alone won’t eliminate all heat deaths. People still need and want to go outside.

我们可以肯定的是高温会持续出现，而且单靠空调并不能消除所有的热死亡。人们仍然需要并且想要解决这个难题。

And so in hot cities around the world, crews are planting shade trees and creeping vines to block sunlight. They’re painting rooftops; installing rooftop gardens; erecting shade structures on sidewalks and in parks; hooking up misters and spray showers in playgrounds; and experimenting with roughly textured permeable pavement, which cools surrounding air by absorbing and then evaporating rainwater. In New York City, researchers from Columbia University’s Earth Institute calculated that planting trees over 17 percent of the city’s land surface and treating all roofs to reflect, rather than absorb, solar radiation could lower the city’s overall temperature by 1.6 degrees Fahrenheit, or nearly a degree Celsius.

因此，在世界各地的炎热的城市，工作人员开始种植遮荫树和爬藤来阻挡阳光。他们还刷屋顶;安装屋顶花园; 在人行道和公园内架设遮阳物; 在操场上安装喷雾器; 还用粗糙纹理的透水路面做实验，尝试通过吸收并蒸发雨水来冷却周围的空气。在纽约市，哥伦比亚大学地球研究所的研究人员计算出，绿植覆盖率超过城市面积的17%，同时处理所有屋顶让其反射而不是吸收太阳辐射，这两项措施可以使城市的整体温度降低1.6华氏度，或近1摄氏度。

“We don’t know if these tools will be enough to survive another half degree [Celsius] of warming,“ says Kristie Ebi, who studies the impact of global warming on human health at the University of Washington. “But doing nothing is certainly not sufficient.”

华盛顿大学(University of Washington)研究全球变暖对人类健康影响的Kristie Ebi说: “我们不知道这些工具是否足以抵御全球温度再升高0.5摄氏度(摄氏)的影响，但什么也不做肯定是不够的。”

Rethinking how we build will be key to surviving a warmer future. Up until the mid-20th century, most buildings were developed with the climate in mind. In warmer latitudes, architects incorporated transoms, cupolas, skylights, air shafts, and operable windows to promote cross ventilation and updrafts. Awnings, light-filtering screens, louvered shades, overhangs, and porches defended rooms against the sun. Ceiling fans, which use up to a thousand times less energy than a room air conditioner, were ubiquitous. But as the cachet and influence of modernist architecture—with its inoperable windows and curtain walls of aluminum and glass—spread from the U.S. and Europe around the globe, so did dependence on mechanical air-conditioning.

重新思考我们应该如何建造将是在未来气候变暖的环境中生存的关键。直到20世纪中期，大多数建筑的开发才开始考虑到了气候。在高纬度地区，建筑师采用了横梁、圆顶、天窗、通风井和可操作窗户等来促进交叉通风和气流上升。遮阳篷、滤光屏、百叶窗帘、悬挑和门廊等设计可以保护房间不受阳光照射。吊扇的能耗是室内空调的千分之一，所以它们无处不在。但随着现代主义建筑的标志和影响从美国和欧洲蔓延到全球，现代建筑大多采用铝和玻璃制成的不能开关的窗户和幕墙，这对机械空调的依赖也随之蔓延。

Climate-savvy architecture is starting to be a thing again. But we still have to live in the cities that are already built. We’re not likely to tear down or substantially retrofit hundreds of thousands of poorly insulated, energy-intensive towers. Instead, suggests architect Daniel Barber, of the University of Pennsylvania, we might try to retrofit our expectations.

现在适应气候变化的建筑又开始流行起来。但我们还是要住在已经建成的城市里。我们不太可能拆除或大幅改造数十万隔热性能差、能源密集型的高楼。相反，宾夕法尼亚大学(University of Pennsylvania)的建筑师丹Daniel Barber建议，我们可以试着调整我们的预期。

Now is the time, Barber says, to “condition ourselves to embrace, and even value, discomfort.” Being a little too warm in summertime used to be something that even the affluent accepted, perhaps with the help of an iced beverage. Barber thinks we should learn to accept it again. In this paradigm the lavish chill of our conference rooms, or the “thermal delight” that greets the sweaty pedestrian as the doors to a high-end emporium whoosh open, would become artifacts of a fleeting late 20th-century insanity.

Barber说，现在是时候“调整我们自己，去接受甚至珍惜这些不适的地方。”在过去，即使是富人也会接受夏天有点太热的现实，他们还可以喝点冰饮料祛暑。Barber认为我们应该再次学会接受不良环境。在这种模式下，会议室里的酷寒，或者那种高端商场大门轰然打开给汗流浃背的行人带来“快感”的情况将成为20世纪晚期短暂疯狂的产物。

In Barber’s vision, the energy-hogging global North, where excess comfort abounds, would transfer its ration of “thermal wealth” to the energy-impoverished global South, at least until we’ve given up fossil fuels. It would be a sort of comfort reparations—for having started climate change in the first place. “Architects already have the tools and knowledge to reduce our reliance on mechanical cooling,” Barber says. Their project now is to make discomfort culturally desirable, even stylish.

在Barber的设想中，至少在我们放弃使用化石燃料之前，能源消耗巨大、生活极度舒适的北半球将把其“热财富”的比例转移一些给能源匮乏的南半球。这将是一种安慰性赔偿，毕竟是北半球首先引发了气候变化。Barber表示，“建筑师们已经有了减少我们对机械冷却的依赖的工具和知识，” 他们现在的计划是让不适在文化上变得可接受，甚至变得时髦。

Of course, style gets one only so far. Self-imposed discomfort will be a hard ethic to sell to a mass audience in wealthy countries, and even Barber recognizes the limits of the human body. “When it’s 140 degrees, I hope to God I have an air conditioner, and that you do too,” he says. “But when it’s 85 out, please just open the window.”

当然，变得时髦的作用也仅限于此。对富裕国家的大众来说，自我强加的不适将是一种难以接受的道德准则，即使是Barber自己也承认人体的局限性。他说:“当气温达到140华氏度时，我希望自己有台空调，但愿你也有。但是外面只有85华氏度的时候，还是请把窗户打开吧。”

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