Counting down to a man-made midnight 核威胁迫在眉睫，人类末日钟将至

So here we are, at the turning of another year. A time to look back on all that's been and gone over the past 12 months. 辞旧迎新之际，是回顾过去十二个月的好时机。 And I don't know about you, but for me 2017 was dominated by one very troubling topic. 我不知道大家如何评价，但在我看来，一个非常令人不安的话题贯穿了2017年全年。 For the first time in as long as I can remember, nuclear annihilation has again been making headlines. 我在有生之年见证了核摧毁再次成为头条新闻。 I was born a little over two years before the fall of the Berlin Wall. On the eve of my fifth full year on this planet, the Soviet Union collapsed and the Cold War came to an end. 我出生于柏林墙倒塌前两年。我来到世上满五年的前夕，苏联解体了，冷战也结束了。 Nuclear tension, then, was not a staple of my childhood. It seemed to belong to a bygone era - even if the nukes themselves never really went away. 那时的核危机并非我童年的主要内容。它似乎属于那个过去的时代——虽然核武器本身从未真正消失过。 Last year changed all that, however. Real weapons of mass destruction have again been thrust into the limelight, and with them all the catastrophe and ruination that their use would entail. 然而，去年一切都变了。货真价实的大规模毁灭性武器再次成为人们关注的焦点，它所带来的灾难和破坏也随之而来。 Early last month, a newspaper in Northeast China's Jilin province made waves after it published a full-page report detailing what to do in the event of a nuclear incident, including information on preventing radiation hazards and protecting oneself when a nuclear explosion or leak occurs. 上个月初，中国东北吉林省的一份报纸发表了一整版的通告，详细描述了在发生核事故时应该如何应对，包括防御核辐射危害以及在发生核爆炸或核泄漏时如何自我防护的信息。 It's also telling that the winner of the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize was the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons - a noble cause, to be sure, though it's questionable how successful such movements have been in achieving their aims. 报道还提到国际废除核武器运动（International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons）获得2017年诺贝尔和平奖——这当然是一项崇高的事业，但这类运动的目标是否已达成，我表示怀疑。 To this day, South Africa remains the only nation on Earth to have voluntarily given up on the nuclear arms it developed for itself. 迄今为止，南非仍然是地球上唯一自愿放弃其自行研制的核武器的国家。 Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine - three former Soviet republics who inherited stockpiles from the USSR's breakup - likewise relinquished their weapons upon becoming independent. 白俄罗斯、哈萨克斯坦和乌克兰这三个前苏联的成员国继承了苏联解体后的储备，同样在独立后放弃了核武器。 And globally, the total number of nukes has diminished over recent decades. 过去几十年，全球范围内核武器的总数已经有所减少。 But the threat they pose is still very real. 但是它们所构成的威胁仍然真实存在。 According to a report published by UK newspaper The Daily Telegraph in October, there are an estimated 15,000 warheads in the world right now - 10,000 of which are in active military service. 英国《每日电讯报》十月发表的一篇报道称，目前世界上大约有1.5万枚核弹头，其中1万枚处在备战状态。 That's about one-fourth of the total during the "heyday" of Cold War stockpiles, but it's still more than enough to wipe out almost all life on Earth and render the planet near uninhabitable. 这约等于冷战“全盛时期”库存的四分之一，却足以摧毁地球上几乎所有的生命，使地球几乎不再适宜居住。 It's actually one of the most convincing arguments I've heard in favor of the absence of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe: that once a civilization has accrued the tools of its own destruction, inevitably it will use them. 而我听过的最具说服力的论证，认为地球以外的宇宙缺乏智慧生命：一旦一个文明拥有了自我毁灭的工具，就一定会动用。 And though that may be unthinkable, it certainly deserves a second thought. 尽管这也许不可想象，但它确实值得我们重新审视。 Later this month, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists will reset its Doomsday Clock, which as of last January stands at two-and-a-half minutes to midnight - signifying the second closest point humanity has come to exterminating itself since we first formulated the capacity to do so amid the fires of World War II. 本月末, 《原子科学家公报》（Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists）将再次调整末日钟。上一次调整在2017年1月，距离子夜两分半，这是自第二次世界大战人类拥有自我灭绝的武器以来，距离自我毁灭第二近的时间点。 It's too early to say where the minute hand might move to, though given the events of the past 12 months, I'm not overly optimistic. 现在谈分针可能会拨至哪里还为时过早，不过考虑到过去十二个月发生的事件，我认为情况不容乐观。 But let's hope for a better year ahead, and for a step back from the precipice. 但我们还是要期待新的一年会更好，人类会从悬崖边退后一步。 Because I don't know about you, but I want to believe that humanity can be better than the bonfire it has built for itself. 我不知道大家作何感想，但我愿相信，比起自我毁灭的战火，人类还有更好的未来。