- For 90% of our planet's history,
地球历史90%的时间中 - it has been too warm for ice to form.
温度都太高 无法形成冰冻 - So when the Ice Age hit two and a half million years ago,
所以 2500万年前 当冰河时代突然袭来之时 - its impact was huge.
影响巨大 - This is the story of a great freeze
本集讲述的是大冰冻的故事 - and the rise of a dynasty
以及一个王朝的兴起 - that would bring life to the brink of extinction.
将生命推向灭绝边缘 - Yellowstone is one of the coldest places in America.
黄石国家公园 是美国最寒冷的地方之一 - In winter,
在冬季 - it still endures some of the same freezing conditions that an ice age brings.
这里仍经受着 冰河时代带来的冰冻状态 - Temperatures can drop below minus 50 degrees.
温度会降至零下50度以下 - Only those built for the cold can survive.
只有为寒冷而生的生物才能存活 - A bison's thick coat is such good insulation,
野牛厚厚的皮毛是出色的隔热材料 - they need little energy to keep warm...
所以它们不需要多少能量 就能保持温暖 - which is just as well,
这也非常重要 - as grass is hard to find beneath the snow.
因为冰雪之下很难找到草 - But bison aren't the only hungry ones here.
但野牛并不是这里唯一饥饿的动物 - Wolves can also withstand the coldest of winters...
狼也能忍♥受最寒冷的冬季 - and have been hunting bison in America for more than 100,000 years.
其在美洲捕杀野牛的历史 已经超过10万年 - To split up the herd...
为了分散野牛群 - ...the pack needs to get them moving.
狼群得让野牛群动起来 - Panic gives the wolves control.
恐慌使狼群获得控制权 - The herd must stick together.
野牛群必须聚在一起 - One trip could prove fatal.
一次跌倒就可能产生致命后果 - But the bison can't run forever,
但野牛不可能永远奔跑 - especially in the deep snow.
尤其是在深深的雪地上 - Their only hope is to turn and face their pursuers.
它们唯一的希望是转身直面对方 - Only then does the pack finally relent.
这时狼群才会停下脚步 - But no matter where they go,
但无论野牛群去哪里 - the wolves will follow.
狼群都会跟随 - Age-old enemies that have been locked in battle for millennia.
数千年来 这对宿敌一直缠斗不休 - Yet these ancient adversaries are lucky...
然而它们是幸运的 - for they can look forward to the end of winter
因为可以期待冬天的结束 - and the relief of spring.
和春天的到来 - But there was a time
但曾经有一个时期 - when winter never seemed to end.
冬天似乎永远不会结束 - Two and a half million years ago,
250万年前 - changes in the Earth's orbit, ocean currents, and carbon dioxide levels
地球轨道、洋流 和二氧化碳水平的变化 - led to an abrupt cooling of the planet.
导致地球温度骤降 - The great Ice Age had begun...
冰河时期开始 - ...and it started with the tiniest of things.
从最细微之处开始变化 - On its own, a snowflake is a fragile, frozen wonder.
雪花本身就是一个脆弱的冰冻奇迹 - No two the same.
没有两片雪花完全相同 - But together, snowflakes changed the world.
但是雪花聚在一起 改变了世界 - Without warm summers to melt them,
没有了温暖的夏季将其融化 - snow blanketed the north of the globe...
白雪覆盖了地球北部 - ...and, over thousands of years,
经过数千年 - compacted to form permanent ice sheets several kilometers thick.
压缩成了几千米厚的永久性冰层 - Here, in this silent realm,
在这个寂静的国度 - life was frozen out of existence.
冰冻导致生命无法存在 - But south of the ice sheets,
但是在冰层以南 - a new world was created
一个新世界诞生了 - where life could thrive.
生命在这里兴旺发展 - Circling almost the entire Northern Hemisphere,
围绕几乎整个北半球 - the tundra-steppe became Earth's most extensive habitat.
冻原成为地球上最广阔的栖息地 - Mammals that adapted well to the cold dominated these frigid lands...
适应了寒冷的哺乳动物 主宰着这冰雪天地 - including the largest and most iconic of them all...
包括其中最大、最具代表性的… - ...woolly mammoths.
真猛犸象 - Their elephant-like ancestors
它们与大象相似的祖先 - left Africa millions of years earlier
在数百万年前离开非洲 - and evolved into these highly specialized beasts.
进化成了这些高度专门化的巨兽 - Long hair, smaller ears, and shorter tails
长毛 小耳 短尾 - help them conserve heat in the cold.
有助于在寒冷的环境中保温 - They are guided by an old female, the matriarch,
它们由一头年长的雌性即女族长带领 - who passes her knowledge down the generations.
由其将知识代代相传 - Generations she needs to keep safe.
以确保后代的安全 - Bigger than lions today,
穴狮比今天是狮子更大 - cave lions can bring down the very largest of prey.
能够捕食这种最大的猎物 - But smaller is easier.
但小一点比较好 - With little cover, the brazen cats don't even try to hide.
无处可躲 大胆的狮子都懒得藏了 - Instead, they bide their time, waiting for the right moment.
相反 它们耐心等待时机 - The calf must stay close to its protectors...
小象不能掉队 - but the hunters have him in their sights.
但猎手们已经盯上它 - The mammoths form a wall of tusks...
猛犸象排出象牙墙 - ...but the lions aren't going anywhere.
但狮子却不打算离开 - The matriarch has had enough...
女族长受够了 - ...but one of the hunters spots an opportunity.
但其中一位猎手发现了一个机会 - The teenager will never stray from the herd again.
这只小象再也不会离队 - Now it's the lions' turn to defend.
现在轮到狮子防守了 - The calf's mother...
小象的母亲 - ...knows it's a lost cause.
知道木已成舟 - They have no choice but to back down
它们别无选择 只得退下 - and protect the generations that remain.
继续保护余下的后代 - All they can do is continue their migration
它们只能继续迁徙 - across the cold tundra-steppe.
穿过这寒冷的冻原 - While ice never completely engulfed the planet,
尽管冰雪从未覆盖整个地球 - its impact was still felt across the globe...
但它仍对全球产生了影响 - sometimes in the most unexpected ways.
有时影响极为出乎意料 - With most of the world's water locked up as ice,
世界上大部分水被冰封 - the land became increasingly dry.
陆地变得越发干燥 - This is the flip side of an ice age.
这是冰河时代的另一面 - South of the tundra-steppe,
冻原以南 - the deserts almost doubled in size,
沙漠面♥积♥几乎翻倍 - devouring everything in their path.
沿途将一切吞噬 - Only desert specialists that had evolved to withstand extreme heat
进化出能承受极端高温的沙漠专家 - could survive such hostile conditions.
才能在如此恶劣的条件下生存 - But the drying didn't stop there.
但干旱并未止步于此 - Even further south, Africa's tropical rainforests,
进一步向南 非洲的热带雨林 - stable sanctuaries for life for over 50 million years,
为生命提供稳定的庇护所 超过5000万年 - almost completely disappeared...
如今几乎完全消失 - ...replaced by a vast expanse of dry forest and grassland.
被一大♥片♥干燥的森林和草原所取代 - The impact on life was huge,
这对生命影响巨大 - not least on one group of animals...
尤其是对这一类动物 - ...the primates.
灵长类 - Baboons share 94% of their DNA with us,
狒狒有94%的DNA与我们相同 - as well as a crucial part of our story.
也与我们有一段共同的经历 - The descent from the treetops to a life on the forest floor.
从树上下到森林地面生活 - Down here, during the Ice Age, our cousins faced many new challenges.
在冰河时期 我们的表亲在这里面临许多新的挑战 - Life on the ground is more dangerous...
地上的生活更危险 - ...home to large predators.
这里是大型捕食者的家园 - Fortunately,
幸运的是 - what primates lack in strength and size,
灵长类虽然在力量和体型上有所不足 - we make up for with intelligence and large families.
但我们能用 智慧和庞大的家族进行弥补 - But finding enough food to feed many mouths...
但是为众多家族成员找到足够的食物 - ...is a constant challenge.
是一项持续的挑战 - So when food is found,
所以找到食物时 - it attracts plenty of attention.
就会引起各方注意 - And where there's a precious resource...
哪里有宝贵的资源 - ...conflict is inevitable...
冲突就不可避免 - ...not least with your own kind.
尤其是同类之间 - A rival troop
一群敌对狒狒 - with no appetite for sharing.
对分享毫无兴趣 - In the dry forest,
在旱生林 - every fruit is worth fighting for...
每一颗果实都值得为之战斗 - ...and every fight counts.
每一次战斗都非常重要 - The rival troop cut their losses.
敌对狒狒群及时止损 - But they'll be back.
但它们会回来 - To overcome the challenges of a more hostile world,
为了克服恶劣环境所带来的挑战 - primates relied on their social intelligence,
灵长类动物依赖于社会智力 - a trait that, in time,
这一特征 - would lead to one species of primate
有朝一日会导致一种灵长类动物 - achieving global domination.
取得全球主导地位 - The buildup of ice in the north affected the climate across the planet.
北方冰冻影响全球气候 - But just as life got used to colder, drier conditions,
但就在生命逐渐适应 更寒冷、更干燥的条件时 - everything changed.
一切都改变了 - The ice began to melt as Earth's orbit shifted once more
随着地球轨道再次发生变化 冰开始融化 - and global temperatures began to rise.
全球温度开始上升 - What started as a series of meltwater streams
最初的融水溪流 - soon turned into a deluge.
很快变成洪水 - In North America, the meltwater formed an enormous glacial lake
在北美 融水形成一个巨大的冰川湖 - 600 meters deep and covering 10,000 square kilometers.
深达600米 面♥积♥达一万平方公里 - The only thing stopping the water from flooding the land to the west
阻止水流向西淹没陆地的 - was a towering wall of ice.
只有一堵高耸的冰墙 - On the far side, the wall was almost a kilometer high...
在远端 这堵墙有近1000米高 - ...a seemingly unstoppable barrier...
似乎坚不可摧的屏障 - but not for much longer.
但坚持不了多久 - As temperatures kept rising and the meltwater lake kept growing,
随着温度不断升高 融水湖不断扩大 - the pressure from behind increased.
来自后方的压力增加 - Before long, the walls started to crumble from the inside out...
不久之后 墙开始从内部碎裂 - until finally, catastrophic collapse.
最终导致灾难性的崩溃 - In an instant,
一瞬间 - a lake the size of the Irish Sea is unleashed.
一个像爱尔兰海那么大的湖泊 倾泻而下 - Thirty kilometers south,
向南30公里 - and the first hint of the coming apocalypse.
大灾变即将到来的迹象初现 - Tremors.
震动 - They sense danger...
它们感知到了危险 - ...but there's nowhere to hide.
但无处可躲 - The first they see is a wall of dust.
它们首先看到一道尘土墙 - A hundred meters high,
高100米 - it's the vanguard of a giant tsunami.
这是巨型海啸的先锋部队 - In just ten hours,
仅仅十小时 - the megaflood smashes an 800-kilometer-long path through the American continent,
大洪水在美洲大♥陆♥上 形成了800公里长的通道 - all the way to the ocean.
直通海洋 - Natural wonders that might otherwise take millennia to form
原本需要数千年才能形成的自然奇观 - are created in a matter of hours.
仅数小时便化为现实 - But these spectacles are short-lived.
但这些壮丽景观很短命 - Just a few days later,
仅仅几天之后 - all that remains is an eerie silence.
只剩下一片诡异的寂静 - The indelible scars of this megaflood
大洪水造成的无法磨灭的痕迹 - still mark the American landscape today...
如今仍在美国的地貌上显现 - yet since the dawn of the Ice Age,
然而自从冰河时期起始之时 - there have been more than 50 cycles of ice buildup and melt...
已经发生50多次结冰融化的循环 - each causing its own epic floods.
每一次都引发了大规模洪水 - Once the turmoil of the last great melt subsided,
上一次大规模融化引起的混乱 平息之后 - balance slowly returned across the land.
大地逐渐恢复平衡 - Rainfall became more regular...
降雨变得更频繁 - allowing forests to bounce back.
令森林得以复苏 - Deserts shrunk and greened
沙漠缩小并变绿 - as, once again, water flowed.
水再次流动起来 - And where water flows,
哪里有水流 - life soon follows.
生命就会随之而来 - Europe's Danube delta
欧洲的多瑙河三角洲 - is one of the largest wetlands in the world.
是世界上最大的湿地之一 - It formed after the last great melt
它是上一次大规模融化之后形成的 - and quickly became home to an incredible wealth of animal life.
很快成为大批动物的家园 - With so much food on offer,
这里食物丰富 - whiskered terns travel thousands of kilometers
须浮鸥会飞行数千公里 - to breed in these rich waters.
来到这片富饶的水域繁殖 - It's the perfect place to raise a family...
这里是建立家庭的绝佳场所 - ...but it's a wasted journey
但如果雄鸟来得太晚 以至于找不到雌鸟 - if a male arrives too late to find a female.
那就会白跑一趟 - All he can do is watch the success of others.
只能看着别人幸福美满 - With his rival gone...
对手走了 - ...now is his chance.
它的机会来了 - Food makes an excellent gift...
食物是很好的礼物 - ...but she's not impressed.
但对方不以为意 - He tries his luck nonetheless...
尽管如此 它还是努力一把 - but to no avail.
可惜白费功夫 - The spurned male must dine alone.
遭到拒绝的雄鸟只得独自就餐 - Only when life is so bountiful can females afford to be so choosy.
只有在生活如此富饶时 雌性才能如此挑剔 - The end of the Ice Age ushered in not only a time of plenty...
冰河时代的结束 不仅带来了丰盛的食物 - but also a time of great climate stability...
也带来了稳定的气候 - a time known as the Holocene.
这个时代被称作全新世 - During this period,
在这个时代 - warm, wet conditions prevailed...
温暖潮湿成为主流 - ...and average global temperatures fluctuated by less than one degree Celsius,
全球平均气温波动不到1摄氏度 - allowing life to flourish in every corner of the world...
使生命得以在世界每个角落繁荣发展 - ...each species boasting
每个物种都拥有 - an unbroken line of ancestry stretching back four billion years
一条绵延40亿年的连续谱系 - to the very origin of life on Earth.
一直可以追溯到地球生命的起源 - However, not everything thrived during the Holocene.
然而并不是一切 都能在全新世兴旺发展 - A strange and highly selective extinction was underway.
一种奇怪且高度选择性的灭绝 正在进行之中 - Across the planet,
全球范围内 - the largest land animals were disappearing.
最大的陆地动物正在消失 - Mammoths, cave lions, and hundreds of other species vanished.
猛犸象、穴狮 以及数以百计其他物种消失了 - North America was particularly hard-hit,
北美尤其遭受重创 - losing over 70% of its giants...
失去了70%以上的巨兽 - but not all.
但也有例外 - In the absence of competitors,
没有了竞争对手 - bison took over the great plains...
野牛接手大平原 - ...roaming in huge numbers.
四处游荡 数量庞大 - But they weren't alone.
但它们并不孤单 - With fewer big prey to choose from,
由于大型猎物减少 - bison became the focus of another group of survivors.
野牛成为另一群幸存者的重点目标 - Age-old enemies.
宿敌 - Their best defense is to keep an eye on the danger,
它们最好的防御是警惕危险 - stick together, and calmly move on.
聚在一起 冷静前行 - But these are no ordinary hunters...
但这些可不是普通的猎手 - ...for the Ice Age saw the spread of a new predator.
冰河时代见证了新捕食者的扩张 - Like wolves,
与狼一样 - we hunted in groups.
我们集体狩猎 - And what we lacked in strength and speed...
在力量与速度上的不足 - we made up for with intelligence and cunning.
我们用智慧和狡猾弥补 - The evolution of our large, complex brains
巨大而复杂的脑部的进化 - had set us apart from other primates
使我们与其他灵长类动物区分开来 - and enabled us to hunt in increasingly sophisticated ways.
令我们能够以越发复杂的方式捕猎 - Mimicking wolves
模仿狼群 - and using carefully placed stone stacks,
使用精心摆放的石堆 - hunters corralled the bison for miles,
猎手们将野牛驱赶数公里 - until they were exactly where they wanted them.
直到它们落入埋伏 - Only then do they close in behind the herd.
这时他们才从背后接近野牛群 - Reveal themselves too soon
如果太早暴露 - and days of effort will be wasted.
多日的努力将付诸东流 - Their ultimate prize isn't the death of one,
他们最终的目标不是杀死一只 - but the fall of many...
而是让众多野牛倒下 - to feed many over the winter months.
让集体有足够的食物度过数月的冬天 - The trap is set.
圈套已设好 - All they need is a little encouragement.
只需稍加鼓动 - By the early Holocene,
到全新世早期 - humans had spread out of Africa to almost every continent on Earth
人类已从非洲 扩散到地球上几乎每一个大♥陆♥ - and become the world's most dangerous predator.
成为世界上最危险的捕食者 - While our rise contributed to the global extinction of large land animals,
尽管我们的崛起导致 大型陆地动物在全球灭绝 - our story could have been a short one
但如果表现不够出色 - had we not done something remarkable.
我们的故事原本可能非常短暂 - We freed ourselves from the uncertainty of a hunter-gatherer existence
我们通过与大自然结盟 - by forming alliances with nature.
摆脱了狩猎和采集的不确定性 - The stable climate of the Holocene
全新世稳定的气候 - enabled our ancestors
使我们的祖先 - to develop a unique relationship with plants.
与植物建立了一种独特的关系 - They hand-selected certain species
他们精心选择特定物种 - and sowed their seeds where they were best able to grow.
并将种子播撒在最适合生长的地方 - All this care and attention
这样的关心与照护 - dramatically increased the plants' chances of survival,
极大地增加了植物生存的机会 - and in return, humans could reap the rewards.
作为回报 人类可以收获果实 - They learned how to produce more food
他们学会了如何生产更多食物 - and to make it last all year round.
全年供应不辍 - And where their plants grew,
作物生长的地方 - people prospered.
人就能兴盛发展 - Our ancestors discovered how to ensure a stable food supply.
我们的祖先发现了 确保食物稳定供应的方法 - And it wasn't just plants they domesticated.
不仅驯化了植物 - Animals too.
也驯化了动物 - Across the world,
在世界范围内 - many hunter-gatherers gave up their nomadic lifestyles
许多猎手和采集者放弃了游牧生活 - in favor of farming.
转而从事农业 - Slowly but surely, the wilderness was transformed,
荒野慢慢被改变 - tamed by human hands.
被人类的双手驯化 - Freed from the constant battle to find food,
由于不用再为寻找食物而不断争斗 - human populations grew,
人口增长 - work diversified,
工作多样化 - society became more complex...
社会变得更加复杂 - and civilizations were born.
文明就此诞生 - We achieved something no other species has ever done.
我们做到了其他物种从未做到的事 - We broke free of nature and rose above it.
我们摆脱了大自然的束缚并将其超越 - Agriculture changed everything...
农业改变了一切 - but another revolution was coming.
但另一次革命即将到来 - Our ingenuity has taken us further than we could ever have imagined,
我们的聪明才智 令我们取得了过去从未设想过的成就 - and our story is now written on the surface of the Earth.
我们的故事如今已书写在地球的表面 - What was once wild has been tamed
曾经的蛮荒已被驯服 - or lost.
或已灭绝 - We're too successful for our own good
对自己来说 我们太过成功 - and for that of the planet...
对地球来说 也是成功过了头 - and we are now causing the next mass extinction.
如今我们正在导致 下一次大规模灭绝的发生 - It's not just that
不仅是因为 - simply feeding ourselves takes up more than half of all habitable land...
养活我们自己 要占用超过一半的可栖息土地 - and it's not just that the carbon dioxide we are releasing
不仅是因为我们释放出的氧化碳 - is heating our planet faster than at any time in the last 500 million years.
正在以五亿年来从未有过的速度 令地球升温 - Nor is it just that we are warming and acidifying the oceans,
也不仅是因为 我们正在令海洋升温及酸化 - destroying their natural balance
破坏其自然平衡 - and killing off vast swathes of marine life.
杀死大量海洋生物 - Nor is it just that we are causing extreme weather events...
也不仅是因为 我们正在引发极端天气事件 - ...fire and drought
火灾和旱灾 - that are returning the Earth to its barren beginnings.
将地球带回当初的贫瘠 - And it's not just that we are doing any one of these
不是因为 我们在做这些之中的任何一件 - but that we are doing all of them,
而是因为我们在做所有这些事 - all at the same time.
而且是同时进行 - And to make matters worse,
更糟糕的是 - we are doing it at meteoric speed.
我们做得极快 - Although rare, mass extinctions change the course of history like nothing else.
大规模灭绝虽然罕见 但会极大地改变历史的进程 - So far, Earth has endured five of these apocalyptic events,
到目前为止 地球已经经历了五次这样的末日事件 - each one wiping out more than three-quarters of all life.
每一次都消灭了四分之三以上的生命 - What's more,
而且 - the dominant species going in
事件前的主导物种 - are not the dominant species coming out.
在事件之后 往往威风不再 - The impact of a mass extinction
上一次大规模灭绝 - has not been felt for 66 million years.
已经是6600万年前的事了 - Now we're on track for the sixth.
如今我们正在走向第六次 - In the last 50 years alone,
光是在过去的50年中 - wildlife populations have fallen by an average of almost 70%,
野生动物种群就已平均下降将近70% - and this time, we are the ones responsible.
这一次 我们是罪魁祸首 - And yet despite this grim forecast,
虽然前景黯淡 - there remains a glimmer of hope.
但仍有一线希望 - We are the first species in the four-billion-year story of life
40亿年的生命故事中 - to understand what is happening to our world.
我们是第一个理解世界发展的物种 - We are also the first species to understand what is needed to put it right.
我们也是第一个 明白该如何采取措施进行纠正的物种 - Our intelligence has brought us this far,
智慧让我们走到今天 - and it's the only thing that can save us.
也只有智慧才能拯救我们 - Our future,
我们的未来 - and that of the planet,
以及地球的未来 - is yet to be written.
尚待书写 - How we act now
我们现在如何行动 - will determine the next chapter...
将决定生命故事的下一个篇章 - But whatever future awaits in the story of life.
但无论未来如何 - ...if there's one thing we've learned from the past...
历史告诉我们 - it's that life has always found a way.
生命总会找到出路 - [The End]
[本集结束]
我们星球上的生命 第一季 第八集 Life on Our Planet S01E08 冰与火的世纪
阅读次数 3
