每日英語跟讀 Ep.K426: Plans to Fight Global Warming Face an Obstacle in Paris: Trees

Long a favorite spot for picnics and sunbathing, the lawns surrounding the Eiffel Tower have recently become the scene of furious protests. First came a social media campaign. Then a rally by dozens of local residents. Before long, a protester had hunkered down in a nearby plane tree for a hunger strike.

巴黎艾菲爾鐵塔周圍的草坪向來是野餐和日光浴首選地點，最近成了憤怒示威的場景。首先是社群媒體發起的活動，接著是數十名當地居民集會。不久之後，一名示威者待在附近一棵法國梧桐下絕食抗議。

The source of their anger? A plan to cut down more than 20 trees, some more than 100 years old, around the tower as part of an effort to build a huge garden and ease tourist congestion.

他們為何生氣？有人計畫砍掉鐵塔周遭20多棵樹，其中有些樹齡超過百年，以便闢建一座大花園並紓解遊客擁擠問題。

The controversy is just the latest in a series that has engulfed Paris City Hall as it tries to green the city, a task that appears all the more urgent as scorching temperatures bear down on the French capital, and on the rest of Europe.

這只是巴黎市政府企圖綠化這座城市之際，捲入的系列爭議最新一起。隨著灼熱高溫襲向這座法國首都和歐洲其餘地方，綠化巴黎的工作更顯迫切。

Local authorities are redesigning Paris’ urban landscape to make it more climate-friendly, but a growing number of residents say the widespread cutting of trees around the capital is paradoxically undermining the city’s environmental ambitions.

地方政府正在重新規畫巴黎市區景觀，好讓巴黎對氣候更為友善，不過愈來愈多居民說，首都到處都有樹被砍，自相矛盾地削弱這城市的環保雄心。

Trees are considered some of the best defenses against the radiation that contributes to the heat waves that are on the rise everywhere because of global warming.

樹木被認為最能防止熱輻射。熱輻射促成因全球暖化而在各處日益頻發的熱浪。

“Without the trees, the city is an unbearable furnace,” said Tangui Le Dantec, an urban planner and co-founder of Aux Arbres Citoyens, a group protesting the felling of trees in Paris.

抗議巴黎樹木被砍的團體「公民樹」共同創辦人、都市規劃師勒丹泰克說：「要是沒有樹，這座城市就成了無法忍受的火爐。」

In recent months, small protests have sprouted across Paris, with residents and activists rallying around trees condemned by the sprawling urban development projects that have at times turned the capital into a giant construction site.

最近數月，巴黎各地湧現小規模抗議，居民和社運人士在樹木周遭集會，這些樹被雜亂擴張的都市發展工程包夾，這些工程不時將巴黎變為巨大的工地。

In April, they filmed the felling of 76 plane trees, most of them decades old, at the Porte de Montreuil on Paris’ northern outskirts. City Hall wants to turn the site into a huge square, part of a project by the mayor, Anne Hidalgo, to create “a green belt” around the capital.

今年四月，他們拍攝巴黎北郊蒙特勒伊門76棵法國梧桐被砍伐的實況，樹齡多半有幾十年。市府想把這個地點改為超大廣場，這是市長安妮．伊達戈在巴黎各處創造「綠帶」計畫的一部分。

“Ms. Hidalgo please stop the massacre,” said Thomas Brail, the founder of the National Group for the Surveillance of Trees, as machines chopped up trees behind him, in a video he shot in April. Brail later staged an 11-day hunger strike in a plane tree near the Eiffel Tower.

「全國看守樹木團體」創辦人布海爾在他4月拍的一支影片中，趁機器在身後砍樹時說：「伊達戈女士，請停止屠殺。」布海爾後來在艾菲爾鐵塔附近一棵法國梧桐下，發動11天絕食抗議。

Yves Contassot, a former deputy mayor of Paris in charge of the environment and a member of the Green party, said cutting down trees had become “a very sensitive question that causes a bit of a scandal at a time when we talk about fighting global warming in big cities.”

曾是負責環境的巴黎副市長、現為綠黨成員康塔索說，砍樹已成了「非常敏感的問題，在我們談論大城市對抗全球暖化時，引發相當的騷動」。Source article: https://udn.com/news/story/6904/6498712