QA讨论：为什么澳大利亚不像中国或以色列那样绿化沙漠？
Why doesn’t Australia green its desert as China or Israel do?
译文简介
各国网友讨论为什么澳大利亚不绿化他们广阔的荒漠。
正文翻译
Alex Easton, Logic-based Smart Arse
Outstanding idea!
Where are you going to get the water from?
There’s fresh water in the Great Artesian Basin. We’re not sure how much, but probably not enough, and we’re already using it to keep crops going in less deserty parts of the country. So that’s out.
Extending rivers like the Murray Darling system doesn’t work. A lot of the time these days there’s not enough water in that system to provide for itself!
I suppose we could dig a big channel from the ocean through the heart of the desert - something like the Suez Canal. Except that’s salt water and won’t green anything much, even putting aside the logistics and cost of building a channel thousands of kilometers long that remains below sea level, when the surrounding land is well above sea level.
很棒的主意!
但你要从哪里弄到水?
大自流盆地有淡水。我们不确定有多少，但可能不足以使荒漠绿化，我们已经用它来维持这个国家不那么干旱的地区的作物生长了。所以它可以不用考虑了。
而墨累-大令河流域的河水导出工程是行不通的。因为在一年中的很多时候，那个流域中的水甚至不能自给自足!
我想我们可以挖一条大运河，让海洋穿过沙漠的中心，就像苏伊士运河那样。但是这是咸水，它不会绿化任何东西，甚至不考虑物流和建造一条数千公里长的通道的成本，这条通道必须要低于海平面，而它周围的土地实际上是远远高于海平面的。
Outstanding idea!
Where are you going to get the water from?
There’s fresh water in the Great Artesian Basin. We’re not sure how much, but probably not enough, and we’re already using it to keep crops going in less deserty parts of the country. So that’s out.
Extending rivers like the Murray Darling system doesn’t work. A lot of the time these days there’s not enough water in that system to provide for itself!
I suppose we could dig a big channel from the ocean through the heart of the desert - something like the Suez Canal. Except that’s salt water and won’t green anything much, even putting aside the logistics and cost of building a channel thousands of kilometers long that remains below sea level, when the surrounding land is well above sea level.
很棒的主意!
但你要从哪里弄到水?
大自流盆地有淡水。我们不确定有多少，但可能不足以使荒漠绿化，我们已经用它来维持这个国家不那么干旱的地区的作物生长了。所以它可以不用考虑了。
而墨累-大令河流域的河水导出工程是行不通的。因为在一年中的很多时候，那个流域中的水甚至不能自给自足!
我想我们可以挖一条大运河，让海洋穿过沙漠的中心，就像苏伊士运河那样。但是这是咸水，它不会绿化任何东西，甚至不考虑物流和建造一条数千公里长的通道的成本，这条通道必须要低于海平面，而它周围的土地实际上是远远高于海平面的。
Maybe we could do that, and then set up desalination plants along the way to desalinate that water. Desalination plants are very energy hungry, but deserts are also great places for solar energy production, so assuming an energy requirement of 1.7 to 3KW/h per 1000 litres of water,
maybe we could whack a big solar farm next to each of those desal plants to power it.
Now, the plants themselves cost hundreds of millions of dollars to build - probably more if you’re looking at doing that somewhere really remote like the Australian desert - and we’re going to need a lot of them. We’ve got one on the Gold Coast for use in drought emergencies that can pump out 133 megalitres of fresh water per day.
也许我们可以这样做，一边修运河一边沿途建立海水淡化工厂来淡化海水。海水淡化厂非常需要能源，但沙漠也是利用太阳能的好地方，所以假设每淡化出1000升水需要1.7到3KW/h的能源，
也许我们可以在每一个海水淡化工厂旁边建一个大型太阳能发电厂来为它供电。
现在，这一套为了种植植物的海水淡化设施可能需要花费数亿美元来建造——如果你想在像澳大利亚沙漠这样广阔的地方种植植物的话，你可能会花费的更多——我们将需要很多这样的植物。我们在黄金海岸有一个用来应对干旱紧急情况的，每天可以抽出1亿3千3百万升淡水的工厂。
maybe we could whack a big solar farm next to each of those desal plants to power it.
Now, the plants themselves cost hundreds of millions of dollars to build - probably more if you’re looking at doing that somewhere really remote like the Australian desert - and we’re going to need a lot of them. We’ve got one on the Gold Coast for use in drought emergencies that can pump out 133 megalitres of fresh water per day.
也许我们可以这样做，一边修运河一边沿途建立海水淡化工厂来淡化海水。海水淡化厂非常需要能源，但沙漠也是利用太阳能的好地方，所以假设每淡化出1000升水需要1.7到3KW/h的能源，
也许我们可以在每一个海水淡化工厂旁边建一个大型太阳能发电厂来为它供电。
现在，这一套为了种植植物的海水淡化设施可能需要花费数亿美元来建造——如果你想在像澳大利亚沙漠这样广阔的地方种植植物的话，你可能会花费的更多——我们将需要很多这样的植物。我们在黄金海岸有一个用来应对干旱紧急情况的，每天可以抽出1亿3千3百万升淡水的工厂。
That’s a decent lot of water if you’re looking at the showering and coffee-making needs of a few thousand people, but it’s sod-all in terms of a River system capable of turning a desert green. The previously mentioned Murray Darling system has a flow of about 24,000 gigalitres, and while that’s a pretty big system, the land mass it covers it’s tiny compared to this massive chunk of desert we’ve just decided should not be desert anymore.
如果你只虑到几千人洗澡和煮咖啡的需求，这是相当多的水，但这并不是一个能使沙漠变绿的河流系统。之前提到的墨累-大令河流域的流量约为24万亿升，虽然这是一个相当大的系统，但它覆盖的土地面积与这片我们刚刚决定让它不再是沙漠的大片土地相比还是太小了。
如果你只虑到几千人洗澡和煮咖啡的需求，这是相当多的水，但这并不是一个能使沙漠变绿的河流系统。之前提到的墨累-大令河流域的流量约为24万亿升，虽然这是一个相当大的系统，但它覆盖的土地面积与这片我们刚刚决定让它不再是沙漠的大片土地相比还是太小了。
So, let’s say 3x the amount of water in the Murray Darling system, or about 70,000 gigalitres, produced 133 megalitres at a time, which would require something like half a million desal plants, each costing a few hundred million each to build, and that’s without taking into account the miracle of engineering required to get the water into the middle of the desert and to then distribute it through the desert without it all just immediately evaporating into nothing. Or how you make the desert sand into something that can retain moisture and grow plants.
假设墨累-大令河流域的水量是原来的3倍，或者说70万亿升，一次生产1.33亿升，这就需要50万个海水淡化工厂，每个工厂的建造成本是几亿美元，这还没有考虑到工程上的奇迹需要把水送到沙漠中央然后在整个沙漠中分配水而不是让水立即蒸发成空。或者你如何把沙漠中的沙子变成能够保持水分以促进植物生长的东西。
Anyway, I’m not an engineer or a hydrologist. I don’t know jack about soil science or growing things, and even with my really quite exceptional levels of ignorance, just starting to think through this idea makes my head hurt.
How is yours going?
总之，我不是工程师，也不是水文学家。我对土壤科学和种植一无所知，即使我非常无知，但刚开始思考这个想法就让我头疼。
你觉得怎么样?
原创翻译：龙腾网 http://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处
How is yours going?
总之，我不是工程师，也不是水文学家。我对土壤科学和种植一无所知，即使我非常无知，但刚开始思考这个想法就让我头疼。
你觉得怎么样?
原创翻译：龙腾网 http://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处
Ben Kelley, Engineer Creator at Western Sydney University (2011-present)
Australia doesn’t really need to. Australia has huge agricultural areas and absolutely massive agricultural production capabilities.
·Australia is the 4th largest wheat exporter in the world, above Russia and Argentina.
·Australia last year was the 2nd largest beef exporter, ahead of the united states.
·Australia is the largest lamb exporter in the world.
·Australia is the 3rd largest sugar exporter in the world
·Australia is the sixth largest pork exporter in the world, just behind China.
澳大利亚真的不需要这么干。澳大利亚有巨大的农业面积和巨大的农业生产能力。
·澳大利亚是世界第4大小麦出口国，排在俄罗斯和阿根廷之前。
·澳大利亚去年是第2大牛肉出口国，排在美国之前。
·澳大利亚是世界上最大的羊肉出口国。
·澳大利亚是世界第3大食糖出口国。
·澳大利亚是世界第6大猪肉出口国，仅次于中国。
Australia doesn’t really need to. Australia has huge agricultural areas and absolutely massive agricultural production capabilities.
·Australia is the 4th largest wheat exporter in the world, above Russia and Argentina.
·Australia last year was the 2nd largest beef exporter, ahead of the united states.
·Australia is the largest lamb exporter in the world.
·Australia is the 3rd largest sugar exporter in the world
·Australia is the sixth largest pork exporter in the world, just behind China.
澳大利亚真的不需要这么干。澳大利亚有巨大的农业面积和巨大的农业生产能力。
·澳大利亚是世界第4大小麦出口国，排在俄罗斯和阿根廷之前。
·澳大利亚去年是第2大牛肉出口国，排在美国之前。
·澳大利亚是世界上最大的羊肉出口国。
·澳大利亚是世界第3大食糖出口国。
·澳大利亚是世界第6大猪肉出口国，仅次于中国。
·Australia is the sixth largest orange exporter in the world
·Australia was the 4th largest wine exporter in the world
·Australia was the 8th largest dairy exporter in the world
While it is often believed that Australia is all desert, that is not the case. Australia is a massive continent, much bigger than Western Europe and similar in size to the continental United States.
·澳大利亚是世界上第6大橙子出口国
·澳大利亚是世界第4大葡萄酒出口国
·澳大利亚是世界第8大乳制品出口国
虽然人们经常认为澳大利亚全是沙漠，但事实并非如此。澳大利亚是一块巨大的大陆，比西欧大得多，面积和美国大陆差不多。
原创翻译：龙腾网 http://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处
·Australia was the 4th largest wine exporter in the world
·Australia was the 8th largest dairy exporter in the world
While it is often believed that Australia is all desert, that is not the case. Australia is a massive continent, much bigger than Western Europe and similar in size to the continental United States.
·澳大利亚是世界上第6大橙子出口国
·澳大利亚是世界第4大葡萄酒出口国
·澳大利亚是世界第8大乳制品出口国
虽然人们经常认为澳大利亚全是沙漠，但事实并非如此。澳大利亚是一块巨大的大陆，比西欧大得多，面积和美国大陆差不多。
原创翻译：龙腾网 http://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处
The center of Australia isn’t just dry. Its hot. Very hot. It would take an impossible amount of fresh water to be able to farm the desert in Australia, and most of it would be for cooling.
Its desert is located much closer to the equator than China, or Israel (Sydney has a similar latitude to Israel).
The soil is also low in nutrients. Before it was the desert, it was a shallow inland sea. There is typically high salt content in the soil below.
澳大利亚的中部地区不仅仅是干旱的，它还热，很热。要在澳大利亚的沙漠中耕种植物需要大量的淡水，而其中大部分都是用来降低温度的。
它的沙漠比中国或以色列更靠近赤道(悉尼的纬度与以色列相似)。
土壤的养分也很低。在它成为沙漠之前，它是一个浅浅的内陆海。所以沙漠下层的土壤含盐量很高。
So watering the area typically raises the salt to the surface, and the land become impossible to use for agriculture.
因此，给该地区浇水通常会使盐分来到地表，那里的土地就更加无法用于农业生产了。
Adela Hogarth
Only one of those countries is applicable in comparison.
For starters, most of what China is ‘greening’ was the result of desertification that has happened over the last 180 years. It’s environmental damages caused by human activity that had come before and currently.
What’s more, if you’ve ever seen PRC air pollution charts, you suddenly understand why adding dust storms as an effect to the air quality on top of that takes years off people’s lifespans. What the PRC is greening is places that should have been ‘green’ without human inputs.
Still arid, but arid doesn’t mean what you might think it means.
相比之下，这些国家中只有一个适用。
首先，中国“绿化”的荒漠大多是过去180年里土地发生荒漠化的结果。它是由人类活动造成的环境破坏，在过去和现在都是如此。
更重要的是，如果你看过中国的空气污染图表，你就会突然明白为什么在空气质量的基础上增加沙尘暴的影响会缩短人们的寿命。中国正在绿化的是那些不需要人类投入就应该“绿化”的地方。
同样是干旱的，但中国荒漠的干旱和你认为的可能不太一样。
Israel on the other hand is a more applicable standard. Israel, like Australia, has hot deserts and hot arid climates. These places have always been desert environs regardless of human activity and inputs.
The problem is where the comparison falls off is that it’s also a fraction of the size.
There are cattle stations in Australia that are bigger than Israel. So while geographically speaking, what Israel does is comparable to what Australia could do … the difference in scale means it wouldn’t make a dent.
另一方面，以色列是一个更适用的标准。和澳大利亚一样，以色列也有炎热的沙漠和干旱的气候。不管人类的活动如何影响，这些地方一直都是沙漠环境。
问题是，这种比较的不足之处是，它们的大小也是一部分。
澳大利亚有着比以色列国土面积还大的养牛场。因此，从地理上讲，以色列所做的和澳大利亚所能做的是相当的……规模上的差异意味着以色列所做的即便发生在澳大利亚也不会对澳大利亚造成任何影响。
原创翻译：龙腾网 http://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处
The problem is where the comparison falls off is that it’s also a fraction of the size.
There are cattle stations in Australia that are bigger than Israel. So while geographically speaking, what Israel does is comparable to what Australia could do … the difference in scale means it wouldn’t make a dent.
另一方面，以色列是一个更适用的标准。和澳大利亚一样，以色列也有炎热的沙漠和干旱的气候。不管人类的活动如何影响，这些地方一直都是沙漠环境。
问题是，这种比较的不足之处是，它们的大小也是一部分。
澳大利亚有着比以色列国土面积还大的养牛场。因此，从地理上讲，以色列所做的和澳大利亚所能做的是相当的……规模上的差异意味着以色列所做的即便发生在澳大利亚也不会对澳大利亚造成任何影响。
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What you say makes a lot of sense if the constraints were greening the desert in 10 years and using only desal. But does it have to be that way though?
Starting from the periphery, what if hardy, low maintenance plants and trees that have worked in Africa and elsewhere (there's a specific thorny plant that I'm forgetting the name of, duranta??) were planted in concentric “rings" spaced apart 1–2km to prevent soil erosion and arrest today's unrestrained continental winds?
Over time, the lack of erosive winds could improve the soil conditions for less crazy techniques for the next phases?
你说的很有道理，如果限制是在10年内绿化沙漠，并且在只能使用海水淡化得到淡水的情况下。但它一定要这样做吗?
是否可以从澳大利亚沙漠外围开始，将原本生长在非洲和其他地方(有一种特殊的带刺植物，我忘记了它的名字)的耐寒、低维护的植物和树木种植成间隔1 - 2公里的同心圆“环”，以防止土壤被继续侵蚀和阻止不受限制的大陆风，这样会怎么样?
随着时间的推移，侵蚀风的减少可以改善澳大利亚荒漠的土壤条件，为下一阶段的不那么疯狂的绿化做准备?
That sounds like a fair point, but I’m pretty sure the pattern of our deserts over the past few decades at least is that they’re all heading in the other direction - getting bigger.
这听起来是一个合理的观点，但我很确定至少在过去几十年里，我们的沙漠的发展模式是它们都在朝着另一个方向发展——变得更大。
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A major focus of my studies was the pastoral zones of NW NSW and SW Queensland. From what I know of the rainfall patterns and trajectory (and climate change predictions), if I was a pastoralist or farmer in NW NSW, I'd sell.
我的主要研究重点是新南威尔士州西北部和昆士兰州西南部的牧区。根据我对降雨模式和轨迹(以及气候变化预测)的了解，如果我是新南威尔士州西北部的一名牧民或农民，我会把我在那里的土地卖掉。
Buffel grass from South Africa is the closest we've come, but it's as fire hazard and is detrimental to native species. There are trees in the outback depending on the type of country, African species are no more hardy or suitable.
We may be able to farm pockets of it in future if hydrogen technology becomes cheaper. There is an ambitious $1B project underway (with govt support) to build a plant that extracts moisture from the desert atmosphere to produce hydrogen and water. Some of the NT desert soil is reasonably fertile.
来自南非的布法尔草是最符合你的要求的植物，但它是火灾隐患，对本地物种也有害。内陆地区的树木种植取决于其地理情况，而非洲的树种在澳大利亚并不一定耐寒或适合生长。
如果氢燃料技术变得更便宜，我们也许能在未来小规模地利用它。在政府的支持下，一个雄心勃勃的10亿美元的项目正在进行中，目的是建立一个从沙漠空气中提取水分来生产氢和水的工厂。澳大利亚荒漠北部有些地方土壤相当肥沃。
their is an argument that greening the desert does not necassarily cool the planet, because deserts including (ice deserts) reflect sunlight back out of the atmosphere, assuming the Co2 is not too thick to prevent this from occuring. In saying this I am not fully opposed to greening the desert, at least some of it could be greened. I feel the benifits would be at worse neutral considering the trees absorption of co2 and the reduced evaporation caused by trees, shade and roots retention and uptake of water.
他们的论点是，绿化沙漠并不一定会使地球降温，因为沙漠(包括冰沙漠)会将阳光反射回大气层，假设二氧化碳不会因为太浓而阻止这种情况的发生。我这么说并不是完全反对绿化沙漠，至少沙漠的一部分是可以绿化的。我认为，考虑到树木对二氧化碳的吸收，以及树木、遮荫和根系对水分的保留和吸收所造成的蒸发，绿化沙漠所得到的好处可能很一般。
This would involve importing foreign species of plants that might out-compete indigenous plants. Australia has long been very careful about this so I can’t see your suggestion gaining any traction.
这将涉及引进可能会摧毁本地植物的外来物种。澳大利亚在这方面一直很谨慎，所以我认为你的建议不会得到任何支持。
also, desalination plants produce salt, which could be sold yet there would be so much salt that storing it could be impossible.
as you said, there are many plants that do well in desert conditions, and can actually prevent a receding forest. Egypt uses many trees and other fauna that does wel in hot sun confitions. Not sure if mangroves could survive in intense heat with saltwater but it could be tried small scale!
此外，海水淡化厂可以生产盐，而盐可以用于出售，但盐太多的话，储存起来可能不是很容易。
就像你说的，有很多植物在沙漠中一样能生长得很好，实际上可以起到防止森林退化的作用。埃及就有许多适合在沙漠生活的树木和其他动物群，它们在炎热的阳光下生长良好。我不确定红树林是否能在高温和盐碱土地中生存，但可以进行小规模的尝试!
There is an issue with that. The majority of our deserts ALREADY have those plants. And already ecosystems that such an operation would most likely wipe out.
这有个问题。我们大多数的沙漠已经有了一些植物。这样的行动很可能会摧毁那里的生态系统。
I am an Australian Plant Scientist PhD. When will this madness stop? For a start the water in the Great Artesian Basin is too brackish for agriculture although in most places it is usable as drinking water for sheep and cattle but it CANNOT be used to grow crops. We have also made a complete mess of the Murray-Darling River system because it is 200% committed to irrigation. Creationist water.
Furthermore, just watering land does not make for successful agriculture. The soils on most of the Australian continent are not suitable for cropping.
我是澳大利亚植物学博士。这种疯狂的想法什么时候才会停止? 首先，大自流河盆地的水太咸，不适合农业生产，尽管在大多数地方，它可以作为羊和牛的饮用水，但不能用来种植庄稼。我们也把墨累-大令河系统搞得一团糟，因为它的200%都被用于灌溉。水是造物主。
此外，仅仅灌溉土地并不利于农业的成功。澳大利亚大陆大部分地区的土壤不适合种植农作物。
Depends on which crops you’re growing. Because there are plenty of crops which can be grown using brackish water. And plenty of soils which are perfectly suitable for crops- just different crops to the European package that the White Australian people want to grow and to eat. Did you know that the Sorghum family, for instance, has its center of diversity in Northern Australia?
这取决于你在种什么作物。因为有大量的作物可以用咸水种植。而且澳大利亚有很多土地非常适合种植作物——只是不同于欧洲传统的作物，而这正是白种澳大利亚人想要种植和食用的。举个例子，你知道高梁家族的多样性中心就在澳大利亚北部吗?
豆类在澳大利亚生长得非常好，在那里，这些豆科作物对极差的土壤的耐受性使它们依然能很好地生长。它们也是氮足迹最低的作物，最近，国际市场对豆类需求的增加、价格的改善以及价格的稳定，推动了豆类(主要是鹰嘴豆和小扁豆)的产量和总回报的提高。然而，在澳大利亚种植的310万吨豆类中(占全球8838万吨豆类产量的3.51%)，有260万吨用于出口; 因为大多数澳大利亚人不想吃他们的土壤最适合种植的东西。
此外，如果你能像世界上其他国家那样使用淡水，而不是每年出口相当于7700多万立方米(农作物、动物和工业产品)到世界其他地方，你就不会有任何淡水短缺的问题; 毕竟，按人均计算，澳大利亚的可再生淡水资源在世界上排名第14，大约是中国的10倍:
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If China had a population of 146.9M, the USA had a population of 144.8M, or the UK had a population of 7.514M, giving them all the same renewable internal freshwater resources per capita as Australia’s, do you think any of our citizens would be whining about how overpopulated we were, and how overtaxed our water supply was? Please…
如果中国有 1.469 亿人口，美国有 1.448 亿人口，或者英国有 751.4 万人口，给他们提供与澳大利亚相同的人均可再生淡水资源，你认为我们的公民还会抱怨我们人口过多，供水负担过重么？ 请问…
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Sorry mate but you are wrong. Of course you can grow some crops using brackish water - for a while. The problem is that the salt builds up until you cannot grow anything. That is the fundamental problem with irrigation. Salinity catches up with you.
对不起，伙计，你错了。当然，在一段时间内，你可以用含盐的水种植一些作物。问题是盐会累积到你什么都种不出来。这就是灌溉的根本问题。盐度的增加会阻止你。
We export 65% of what we grow, we don't make decisions based on what “white people eat", that's a gratuitous slur. We have a well established (1970’s) rice industry in the eastern cropping belt.
You are making a lot of assumptions. Trust me, you don't know more than an Australian farmer by a long way.
我们生产的65%的产品都被用于出口，我们不会根据“白人吃什么”来做决定种植什么，这是对我们无端的侮辱。我们在东部的农业区有一个成熟的水稻产业(从上世纪70年代开始)。
你做了很多假设。但相信我，你知道的不比一个澳大利亚农民多。
Question: can’t they create artificial lakes alimented by canals bringing water from the ocean? sure the lakes will be salty (which is ok as you can see on the example of israels dead sea) but their water evaporation will make everything around greener. Obviously, it’s not for agricultural purposes
问: 难道他们不能通过从海洋引水的运河来补充人工湖吗? 当然，这样回事湖泊的水变成咸的(最后的结果，你可以在以色列死海的例子中看到)，但是这些水的蒸发会让周围的一切变得更绿。但很明显，它对农业的发展没有帮助。
To ‘green’ our deserts requires two things: money and water. Water is in short supply; Australia is the second driest continent after Antarctica. We do have money but most of it used for other things. Every so often, some politician says we should ‘develop’ the north, etc. That would be a recipe for great environmental degradation. Our patterns of settlement show most people do not want to live in the interior, anyway.
“绿化”我们的沙漠需要两样东西: 钱和水。水的供应不足，澳大利亚是仅次于南极洲的第二干旱大陆。我们确实有钱，但大部分都用在其他事情上了。时不时地，一些政客会告诉我们应该“开发”北方等等。这将导致严重的环境退化。我们的定居模式表明，无论怎样，大多数人都不想生活在内陆地区。
原创翻译：龙腾网 http://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处
Honestly, I love the Australian interior.
It is a place unlike any on Earth. Just the raw diversity of stuff you’ll see out there, Australia packs an awful lot of wilderness, strange and untamed, that anybody interested in the outdoors will never get bored.
If I could get a job in my field closer to someplace like the Sturt Stony Desert, I would take it. But you’re right, developing said frontiers is ridiculously difficult and quite possibly destroy the majesty of the place for people like me who love it.
说实话，我喜欢澳大利亚的内陆地区。
这是一个不同于地球上任何地方的地区。在那里你会看到原始生物多样性，澳大利亚有大量的荒野，奇怪的和未驯化的动物，任何对户外感兴趣的人都不会在这里感到无聊。
如果我能在靠近斯特斯托尼沙漠的地方找到一份和我的领域有关的工作，我会接受它。但你是对的，建造上述的边界是很荒谬的、很困难的，而且很可能会破坏这个地方的原始风情，因为像我这样的人是那么的喜欢它。
They have to get water piped from Perth.
Like everybody makes a big song and dance about a pipeline in Europe. What Australia does to simply keep a town alive in that type of frontier is pretty breathtaking.
And that’s just water.
There are some interesting projects that we could do to better drought-proof the continent. Like the Aquifer Recharge Project … Spectacularly large, comprehensive geoengineering projects.
他们得从珀斯（西澳大利亚首府）用管道取水。
好像每个人都在为欧洲的输油管道大吵大闹。澳大利亚所做的仅仅是让一个小镇在这样的边境上存活下来，这也是非常困难的。
即便它输送的是水。
我们可以做一些有趣的项目来提高澳洲大陆的抗旱能力。比如蓄水层补给工程……以及类似的非常大的综合性地球工程项目。
Israel I’m sympathetic for… I get why they do it. I would push for such projects, too, if I lived there. Because you have a population as large as Sydney and its commuter population trying to survive in a desert country with land resources that are a miniscule fraction of what Australia gets to work with.
But why would we want to emulate such things here when we don’t need to?
澳大利亚要做的不应该是“对抗自然”，因为它不需要“绿化沙漠”。它需要做的是在它需要的地方保持发展，在它力所能及的地方与沙漠化作斗争，并认识到澳大利亚是一个干旱的大陆，人力不能改变它，这样的它就是澳大利亚。
我很同情以色列，我知道他们为什么这么做。如果我住在那里，我也会推动这样的项目。因为你有一个像悉尼一样庞大的人口再加上外来劳工人口，你要让这么多人口在一个沙漠国家生存，而你的土地面积只是澳大利亚的一小部分。
但为什么我们要在不需要的情况下效仿这样的项目呢?