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  • 瑞士的冰——历史的反讽

    2008-03-24

    Tag：气候变暖 阿莱奇冰川 环保

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    A Farewell to Ice

     1818年，瑞士南部小镇布里格（Brig），在陡峭的崖边放牧的牧民们组织了一场宗教游行，他们想要阻止一场子虚乌有的大灾难。靠着阿莱奇峰（Aletschhorn）、圣母峰（Jungfrau）、蒙克(Munch）以及临近其它山峰的终年降雪，那里的阿莱奇冰川（Aletsch）是阿尔卑斯山脉最大的冰川，这是个16英里长的冰河，河的中心有3000英尺深。异常寒冷的天气持续了一个多世纪，整个欧洲的冰河都在不断蔓延，而此时阿莱奇冰川（Aletsch）正在威胁着村民们的避暑房和牧场。神甫领着村民们来到冰河边，他们在那里竖起了高大的十字架，祈求神帮助他们阻止冰河的侵略。此后这种活动演变成了一个节日，村民们每年都举行活动祈求神的帮助。1865年，自然的力量终于顺服了，冰冷的魔咒结束了，阿莱奇冰川（Aletsch）开始败退。

    而如今，一些布里格（Brig）的居民以及邻近的在阿尔卑斯山附近居住的其它社区又在祈求上苍，与那个时代构成鲜明讽刺的是：这次他们祈求阿莱奇冰川（Aletsch）的回归。冰河现在已经远离十字架一英里多，在很多地方它浅了超过600英尺，并以每年11英尺的速度持续收缩。

     In 1818, the farmers who ranged cattles on the steep mountainside above Brig, a small southern town in Switzerland, organized a religious procession to deter a looming catastrophe. The 16-mile glacier Aletsch, the largest glacier in Alps,  with its center more than 3,000 feets deep, was fed by the endless snowing of Aletschhorn, Jungfrau, Munch and adjacent peaks. Through more than a century of unusually cold weather, glaciers throughout Europe were advancing, and Aletsch was threatening to overwhelm the farmers' summer cottages and pastures. Priests led the way to the glacier's snout where they planted tall wooden cross and prayed for divine intervention. The march to the glacier evolved into an annual rite. Finally, around 1865, the force of nature complied, cold spell ended and Aletsch began to retreat. 

    Nowadays, in an ironic turnabout, some residents in Brig and other Alpine communities are praying for Aletsch to come back. The ice has melted back more than a mile away from the spot where the cross was planted, it has lost 600 feet of thickness in many places, and is still shrinking 11 feet a year. 

     

     

    An 1870 postcard view of the Rhone glacier in Gletsch, Switzerland, contrasted with the shrinking 21st-century version of it. (Dominic Buettner for The New York Times)

     


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