来源：《新科学家》
原文刊登日期：2022年2月2日
本文有4个“理解”：understand，appreciate， comprehend，grip
In such a complex world, no one can be expected to understand everything. But for energy expert Vaclav Smil, there are limits. In his view, it is inexcusable that most of us don’t know the first thing about the basic workings of modern life and the technologies that keep us all alive. It’s not all rocket science, he says. “Appreciating how wheat is grown or steel is made… are not the same as asking… somebody to comprehend femtochemistry.”
在这样一个复杂的世界里，没有人能理解一切。但对能源专家斯米尔来说，这种说法是有局限的。在他看来，我们大多数人不了解现代生活的基本原理，不了解维持我们生存的技术，这是不可原谅的。他说，这并不全是高深的事。“了解小麦是如何种植的，钢铁是如何制成的……与要求……某人理解飞秒化学是不一样的。”
Smil deplores the way that Western culture disproportionately rewards work that is removed from the material realities of life on Earth. Most of all, he is concerned that the general public is abandoning its grip on reality. How the World Really Works is Smil’s attempt to redress the balance, showing the fundamentals of how food is grown, how the built environment is made and maintained, and how all of this is powered.
斯米尔对西方文化不成比例地奖励脱离地球上物质生活现实的工作感到遗憾。最重要的是，他担心公众正在放弃对现实的理解。《世界是如何运作的》是斯米尔试图纠正这种平衡的作品，展示了食物如何长出来，建筑环境如何形成和维护，以及所有这些如何供能的基本原理。
Smil believes it is worth understanding what might seem like outdated technologies given that the building blocks of our lives won’t change significantly over the next 20 to 30 years. Most of our electricity is still generated by steam turbines, invented in 1884, or by gas turbines, first commercially deployed in the late 1930s, he writes. And the traditional industrial world still hinge on steel, concrete and plastics, all of which currently require fossil fuels for their production. Even the newest technologies – AI, electric cars, 5G and space tourism – get most of their energy from fossil fuel-based turbines, says Smil.
斯米尔认为，考虑到我们生活的组成部分在未来20到30年不会发生显著变化，了解那些看起来可能过时的技术是值得的。他写道，我们的大部分电力仍然是由1884年发明的蒸汽涡轮机或在20世纪30年代末首次投入商业使用的燃气涡轮机产生的。而传统工业世界仍然依赖于钢铁、混凝土和塑料，而这些目前都需要化石燃料来生产。斯米尔说，即使是最新的技术——人工智能、电动汽车、5G和太空旅游——大部分能源也来自化石燃料涡轮机。
Alternative methods are on their way, of course, but they will take decades to fully establish. Coal displaced wood relatively easily in the early 20th century, but it will probably take longer to bring in renewables because global energy demand is now an order of magnitude higher.
当然，替代的方法正在研究中，但它们需要几十年才能完全建立起来。在20世纪初，煤炭相对容易取代木材，但引入可再生能源可能需要更长的时间，因为全球能源需求现在要高一个数量级。
Given the irrefutable evidence of climate change, does this mean that Western civilisation, so hopelessly dependent on fossil fuels, is doomed?
鉴于气候变化这一无可辩驳的证据，这是否意味着，如此无望地依赖化石燃料的西方文明注定要灭亡？
Perhaps, but Smil would prefer that we concentrate on practical solutions, rather than wasting our energies on complex socio-economic forecasts. In his view, such forecasts will get less accurate over time because “more complex models combining the interactions of economic, social, technical, and environmental factors require more assumptions and open the way for greater errors”.
也许吧，但斯米尔更希望我们专注于实际的解决方案，而不是把精力浪费在复杂的社会经济预测上。在他看来，随着时间的推移，这种预测将变得越来越不准确，因为“更复杂的模型结合了经济、社会、技术和环境因素的相互作用，需要更多的假设，并为更大的错误开辟道路”。
In an era where specialisation is seen as the peak of knowledge, Smil is a generalist. “Drilling the deepest possible hole and being an unsurpassed master of a tiny piece of the sky visible from its bottom has never appealed to me,” he writes. “I have always preferred to scan as far and as wide as my limited capabilities have allowed me to do.”
在一个专业化被视为知识顶峰的时代，斯米尔是一个通才。他写道：“钻出尽可能深的洞，并成为从其底部可见的一小片天空的无与伦比的大师，从来没有吸引过我。我一直更喜欢在我有限的能力允许的范围内，尽可能地去看得远、看得广。”
He chooses to explain the workings of the world as it is today, from energy to food, materials, the biosphere, globalisation and the perception of risk. He covers sizeable ground that other commentators ignore. In short, How the World Really Works fully delivers on the promise of its title. It is hard to formulate any higher praise.
他选择解释当今世界的运作方式，从能源到食品、材料、生物圈、全球化和风险感知。他涵盖了其他评论员忽略的相当大的领域。简而言之，《世界是如何运转的》完全兑现了书名的承诺。很难想出比这更高的赞扬了。