无蝗之灾，小心流浪地球成为现实

我的中文翻译是“无蝗之灾，小心流浪地球成为现实”。

一起来赏析一下题目，Plague without locusts

Is insectageddon imminent? 

Insectageddon 是媒体新造出来的词。

Insect，armageddon，的合成词。

环境离不开多样性。保护物种的多样性，已经成为一个老生常谈。包括我在内的很多读者可能已经对这个话题产生了厌倦。于是作者用了一波三折的写法，来增加说服力。

首先是摆事实。

 However, ecologists increasingly see the insect world as something to be frightened for, not frightened of. In the past two years scores of scientific studies have suggested that trillions of murmuring, droning, susurrating honeybees, butterflies, caddisflies, damselflies and beetles are dying off.

Rather than causing a panic, the studies should act as a timely warning and a reason to take precautions.

然后制造反转，说研究表明，虽然昆虫减少了，但是农业没有收到影响。

Reliable data are too scarce to declare a global emergency.Moreover, where the evidence does show a collapse—in Europe and America—agricultural and rural ecosystems are holding up. Although insect-eating birds are disappearing from European farmlands, plants still grow, attract pollinators and reproduce. Farm yields remain high. As some insect species die out, others seem to be moving into the niches they have left, keeping ecosystems going, albeit with less biodiversity than before.

之后再次反转。说环境崩溃是从量变去往质变，一旦质变，则再也没有回转的余地了。

An experiment in which researchers gradually plucked out insect pollinators from fields found that plant diversity held up well until about 90% of insects had been removed. Then it collapsed. In Krefeld, in western Germany, the mass of aerial insects declined by more than 75% between 1989 and 2016. As one character in a novel by Ernest Hemingway says, bankruptcy came in two ways: “gradually, then suddenly”.

Given the paucity of data, it is impossible to know how close Europe and America are to an ecosystem collapse. But it would be reckless to find out by actually triggering one.

人类啊，千万不要等到环境破坏了，才去流浪地球。