又中又英｜Do something at your peril

Typhoon season usually started around June or July and ended around September or early October when I was growing up in Hong Kong. That’s no longer the case. Three typhoons have approached Hong Kong so far in November. Four powerful typhoons in ten days have already hit the Philippines this November. Last year was the hottest year globally since records began in 1850. This year is on track to be even hotter than 2023. To be on track means likely to succeed in doing something. Sea levels are rising at an increasing rate. Arctic ice is melting.

All this reminds me of the 2004 science fiction movie The Day After Tomorrow. Extreme weather causes climate change that leads to a new ice age. I have seen this movie several times. Many meteorologists said the movie was a flight of fancy. If something is a flight of fancy, it means it is very imaginative but unlikely to be true or practical. I agree that a new ice age is not possible, at least in our lifetime. But I have said many times that we must take climate change seriously. Nature has already given us many signs that climate change is real.

We ignore the seriousness of climate change at our peril. If you do something at your peril, it means you do something that could be very dangerous for you. Many political leaders know climate change is real, but some ignore it at their peril because of economic or political reasons.

我在香港長大時，颱風季節通常於6、7月左右開始，大約9月或10月初結束。現在卻不再是這樣了。至今有3個颱風在11月襲港，今年11月亦有4個強勁的颱風在10日內吹襲菲律賓。上年是全球自1850年有紀錄以來最熱的一年。今年有望（on track）比2023年更熱。To be on track是指在某事上看來很有機會成功。海平面以增長速度上升，北冰洋的冰正在融化。

這一切都令我想到了2004年的科幻電影《明日之後》——極端天氣帶來氣候變化，導致新冰河時期出現。我看過這套戲好幾遍。許多氣象學家說，這套戲是a flight of fancy——若某事物是a flight of fancy，它的意思是它極具想像力，但太異想天開，很不可能成真、不設實際。我認同新冰河世紀是不大可能的，至少在我們有生之年。然而我亦說過許多遍，我們必須認真看待氣候變化。大自然已經給了我們許多迹象，氣候變化是真實的。

我們往往輕忽了氣候變化的嚴重性，後果堪虞（at our peril）。若你do something at your peril，意即你自冒風險去做一樣可能非常危險的事。許多政治領袖都知道氣候變化是真實的，但他們一些人卻因為經濟或政治原因，甘冒忽視它的風險（at their peril）。

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Michael Chugani褚簡寧
中譯：七刻