致命甲虫、易燃森林：气候变化成为最高法院审理石油公司诉讼的核心，博尔德市欲就全球变暖造成的经济损失起诉石油公司。
Killer beetles, tinderbox forests: Climate change takes center stage in SCOTUS battle over oil companies Boulder wants to sue oil companies for financial damages from global warming.
美国科罗拉多州博尔德市——走进落基山脉门户深处的山林，人们会邂逅已有百年历史、以香气和雄伟著称的西黄松。这些树分布在滑雪场、国家公园步道和住宅区之间。
BOULDER, Colo. -- To walk deep into the mountain forests at the doorstep of the Rocky Mountains, is to encounter the fragrant majesty of century-old ponderosa pine trees famous for lining ski slopes, National Park trails and residential neighborhoods.
如今，这些标志性的科罗拉多树木在创纪录高温和长期干旱的压迫下，又受到迅速蔓延的“无声杀手”——山地松甲虫的威胁。
Now, those iconic Colorado trees -- already under strain from record heat and prolonged drought -- are threatened by a rapidly growing outbreak of silent killers: the mountain pine beetle.
这种体如米粒的本地森林昆虫几周内就能袭击一棵树，啃食其关键组织 effectively 使其从内部窒息。
The size of a grain of rice, the native forest insect can attack a tree in a matter of weeks, feeding upon its critical tissues and effectively strangling it from within.
“树木一旦遭到侵袭，就很可能死亡，”科罗拉多州立大学森林生态学家萨拉·哈特说。“在管理大面积林地方面，我们确实没有特别有效的遏制策略。”官员表示，科罗拉多州已有超过70万英亩土地受到影响。此次虫害暴发迅速加剧，被归因于气候变化，而且看不到尽头。
"Once a tree has been attacked, it's likely to die," said Sarah Hart, a forest ecologist with Colorado State University. "For managing large landscapes, we really don't have particularly effective strategies to stop it." More than 700,000 acres in Colorado are affected, officials say. Climate change is blamed for supercharging the emerging outbreak, with no end in sight.
一些州官员称这些森林为“僵尸森林”：西黄松看似健康，却因气候变化而面临严重的生存威胁，甚至可能从某些地区灭绝。
Some state officials have called them "zombie forests": ponderosa that appear to be healthy but are under existential threats from a changing climate that may result in extinction in some areas.
“我们一直降水匮乏、气温高于平均水平——这就像在没有保安的情况下袭击银行，”科罗拉多州林业局昆虫学家丹·韦斯特说。“这些树虽然还矗立在那里，但防御能力很弱。”应对松甲虫暴发的成本，以及其他受气候变化影响的环境威胁所造成的经济损失，正是周一在华盛顿进行辩论的一起重大最高法院案件的核心。
"We've had this dearth of precipitation, above-average temperatures -- It's kind of like attacking the bank when there's no security guard," said Dan West, an entomologist with the Colorado State Forest Service. "These trees are standing there with not a lot of defenses." The cost of responding to the pine beetle outbreak, along with the financial impacts from other climate-change influenced environmental threats, are at the heart of a major Supreme Court case being argued Monday in Washington.
2018年，科罗拉多州博尔德市和博尔德县起诉主要化石燃料生产商埃克森美孚和森科尔能源公司，根据州公害法寻求经济赔偿。
The City of Boulder and Boulder County, Colorado, in 2018 sued major fossil-fuel producers Exxon Mobil and Suncor Energy, seeking financial damages under state public nuisance law.
他们的诉状称，这些公司通过推广化石燃料“同时隐瞒和/或歪曲危险”，包括山地松甲虫“流行病”对森林的“破坏”，“故意造成并促成了”气候变化。
Their complaint alleges the companies "knowingly caused and contributed" to climate change by promoting fossil fuels "while concealing and/or misrepresenting the dangers," including "devastation" to forests from an "epidemic" of mountain pine beetles.
埃克森美孚和森科尔拒绝接受本文采访，他们在法庭文件中辩称，博尔德诉讼基于“可疑的理论”，坚称全球气候变化现象对当地造成的伤害不能归咎于个别公司。他们要求美国最高法院驳回此案。
Exxon and Suncor, which declined interviews for this story, argue in court papers that the Boulder lawsuit is based on a "dubious theory," insisting local harms from the global phenomenon of climate change cannot be pinned on individual companies. They're asking the U.S. Supreme Court to toss the case out.
西弗吉尼亚州总检察长迈克尔·威廉姆斯（Michael Williams）表示：“国家问题应该在国家阶段决定，这意味着国会需要决定谁付费的规则是什么，谁最终付费，以及征收这些费用的标准是什么。”西弗吉尼亚州已加入其他25个州支持埃克森美孚和森科尔。
"National issues should be decided at the national stage, and that means Congress needs to be the one to decide what are the rules for who pays, who ultimately pays, what are standards for imposing those costs," said Michael Williams, solicitor general of West Virginia, which has joined 25 other states backing Exxon and Suncor. "If these suits go forward, higher gas prices are maybe the smallest consequence.
“如果这些诉讼继续下去，汽油价格上涨可能是最小的后果。我认为情况甚至比这更大，你会看到其中一些行业可能完全关闭，”威廉姆斯说。博尔德市和县官员拒绝了有关此案的采访请求。
I think it's even bigger than that and you're going to see some of these industries potentially shutter entirely," Williams said. Boulder city and county officials declined interview requests about the case.
长期居住在博尔德的保罗·奇诺夫斯基（Paul Chinowsky）是一名专门研究气候影响的土木工程师，他表示，他不希望石油公司破产，但同意他们应该为其产品涉嫌造成的伤害买单。
Longtime Boulder resident Paul Chinowsky, a civil engineer specializing in climate impacts, said he doesn't want the oil companies to go bankrupt but agrees they should chip in for alleged harms from their product. "Let's be real.
“让我们现实一点。如果没有一定程度的化石燃料，我们今天就无法生活，但我们需要监管，”奇诺夫斯基在博尔德郊区的社区接受采访时说道。
We can't live today without some level of fossil fuels, but we need regulation," Chinowsky said in an interview in his neighborhood on the outskirts of Boulder. "We see streets getting resurfaced.
“我们看到街道重新浮出水面。我们看到排水系统正在更新，我们认为这一切只是定期维护的一部分。气候变化正在加速这一点，”他说。
We see drainage systems getting updated, and we think of it all as, well, this is just a part of regular maintenance. Climate change is putting an accelerator on that," he said.
博尔德和博尔德县在法庭文件中表示，他们已花费数百万美元用于道路维修、雨水排水改进和公用事业升级，以跟上气候变化加剧的其他环境威胁的步伐。
Boulder and Boulder County say in court documents that they've spent millions on road repairs, storm drainage improvements and utility upgrades to keep pace with other environmental threats amplified by climate change.
“它已成为该市预算的一个重要组成部分，”博尔德商会首席执行官约翰·塔耶说。“气候变化带来了直接成本。一切都是从气温上升导致空调成本增加。由于高温暴露给劳动力带来风险，它可能会减慢户外工作的速度。这是全面的。“然后是山松甲虫。
"It's become a significant element of the city's budget," said John Tayer, CEO of the Boulder Chamber of Commerce. "There are direct costs associated with the change in climate. Just everything from rising heat, which leads to greater air conditioning costs. It can slow down outdoor work because of the risk to the workforce from heat exposure.
从博尔德沿着70号州际公路开车进入Front Range，山腰上布满了铁锈色的枯死黄松。从上看，危机的规模甚至更加戏剧性。
It's across the board." Then there is the mountain pine beetle. Driving from Boulder along Interstate 70 into the Front Range, rust-colored clusters of dead ponderosa pine streak the mountainsides. From above, the scale of the crisis is even more dramatic.
2000年代初，树皮甲虫杀死了西部地区超过5400万英亩的松树，面积相当于犹他州的面积。预计新的疫情对火灾多发地区的社区来说将更加严重。
Bark beetles killed more than 54 million acres of pines across the West in the early 2000s, an area the size of the state of Utah. The new outbreak is expected to be much worse for communities in fire-prone areas.
科罗拉多州自然资源部负责人、资深荒野消防员丹·吉布斯说：“当有很多这样的死树时，我们已经看到了很多零星的野火活动，树皮甲虫杀死的木材燃烧方式与我所说的绿色、活着的森林不同。“州林务员小组正在争先恐后地清除住宅社区附近山坡上被甲虫杀死的树木，以减少火灾燃料，一次一棵死树。吉布斯说，州纳税人的成本：每英亩10，000美元。
"We've seen a lot of sporadic wildfire activity when you have a lot of dead trees like this," said Dan Gibbs, a veteran wildland firefighter who heads Colorado's Department of Natural Resources, "Bark beetle-kill timber burns differently than I would say a green, alive forest." Teams of state foresters are scrambling to clear beetle-killed trees from hillsides near residential communities to reduce fuels for fire, one dead tree at a time.
“火灾危险、对娱乐活动的影响、对流域的影响--[枯死的树木]对科罗拉多人和游客的日常生活产生了巨大的连锁反应，”他说。
The cost to state taxpayers: $10,000 per acre, Gibbs said. "Fire hazard, impacts to recreation, impacts to watersheds -- the [dead trees have] a huge ripple effect on almost daily life of Coloradans and visitors," he said.
如果美国最高法院允许博尔德起诉埃克森美孚和森科尔公司要求赔偿，那么这将无法阻止松甲虫的爆发，州官员称松甲虫的爆发将持续数年到数十年。但该案的支持者希望它能增加问责制，并提供更多资金来保护科罗拉多州的黄松和热爱它们的人们。
If the nation's highest court allows Boulder to sue Exxon and Suncor for damages, it won't halt a pine beetle outbreak that state officials say will last from years to decades. But supporters of the case hope it brings increased accountability -- and more funding to protect Colorado's ponderosa pines and the people who love them.
哈特说：“通常，面临气候变化最严重影响的人和生物并不是从气候变化的原因中受益的人。”“我确实认为应该对这些负面影响承担更大的责任。"
"Oftentimes the people and the organisms that are facing the most dramatic impacts of climate change are not the ones who are benefiting from what's causing climate change," said Hart. "I do think that there should be greater accountability for those negative effects."