With most of his school under floodwaters, 6-year-old Mohamed Achan pulled his oversize tomato-red shorts up around his tiny waist, placed a tarp over his head to guard against the rain, and sprinted barefoot to the edge of his muddy village. There, he waited for his classroom to arrive -- in a boat.
由於學校大半被洪水淹沒，六歲的穆罕默德．阿昌把他看來太大的茄紅色短褲往上拉到瘦小的腰部，頭上戴了頂防水帽以免淋雨，光著腳丫子快步跑到一片泥濘的村莊盡頭。他在那兒等他在一艘船上的教室到來。
The boats plying the rivers and canals in Singra Village in northeast-ern Bangladesh are school bus and schoolhouse in one, part of a 45-ves-sel fleet that includes library boats. There are plans for floating villages, floating gardens and floating hospitals as well, in case more of this region finds itself under water.
這些定期往返行駛於孟加拉東北部辛格拉村河流和運河中的船隻既是校車也是校舍，也是由45艘船組成的船隊的一環，其中一艘船上是圖書館。以後還計畫開辦浮動村莊、浮動花園和浮動醫院，以免這個地區更大部分被水淹沒。
Like a scene out of the 1995 post-apocalyptic movie "Waterworld," in which the continents are sub-merged after the polar ice caps melt and the survivors live out at sea, the boat schools and libraries are a cre-ative response to flooding that scien-tists largely agree has been worsened by global warming.
一如1995年描述世界末日後的電影「水世界」的一個場景，陸地在極地冰帽融解後全部被水淹沒，倖存的人靠海為生。船上學校和圖書館是對洪澇的創意反應，大半科學家同意，由於氣候暖化，洪患日益嚴重。
Melting glaciers in the Himalayas are already causing sea levels to rise in Bangladesh, and scientists say Bangladesh may lose up to 20 percent of its land by 2030 as a result of flooding. That Bangladesh is among the most vulnerable countries on the planet to climate change is a tragedy for its 150 million people, most of whom are destitute.
喜馬拉雅山冰河融化，已使孟加拉海平面升高。科學家預言，由於洪水為患，到公元2030年，孟加拉可能會流失百分之廿的土地。而孟加拉是地球上受氣候變遷為害最烈的國家之一更是一大悲劇，因為該國一億五千萬人口大半一窮二白。
The need for a Bangladeshi Water-world, experts say, has never been more urgent.
專家說，孟加拉從未如此迫切需要一個水世界。
"For Bangladesh, boats are the future," said Abul Hasanat Mohammed Rezwan, an architect who started the boats project in Bangladesh and who now oversees it as executive director of the nonprofit Shidhulai Swanirvar Sangstha, a name that means self-re-liance. "As Bangladeshi citizens, it's our responsibility to find solutions because the potential for human dis-aster is so huge. We have to be bold. Everyone loves land. But the question is: Will there be enough Millions of people will have nowhere to go."
開始在孟加拉建船隊計畫的建築師芮茲曼說：「孟加拉未來全要靠船了。身為孟加拉公民，我們責無旁貸要找到解決之道，因為人類發生災難的可能性太大了。我們一定要勇敢面對。大家都想住在陸地上，問題是：會有足夠的地嗎？數以百萬計的人民將走投無路。」芮茲曼也是負責監督這項計畫的非營利組織「自力自強」的執行長。
Climate change is the latest cause celebre in the West, the focus of Live Earth rock concerts and celebri-ty-endorsed campaigns to reduce the greenhouse gases that have caused temperatures to rise worldwide.
氣候變化是西方最近引起廣泛熱烈討論的議題，也是「活樂地球」搖滾演唱會的焦點，名流也為引起全球氣溫上升的溫室氣體減量行動背書。
Fighting global warming in the U-nited States means cutting down on air-conditioning usage or relying more on mass transit. But in Bangladesh, global warming means that children like Mohamed Achan are going to school on modern-day versions of Noah's ark. And, as their villages erode and become smaller and smaller islands, the children and their families may eventually live on a boat.
對抗全球暖化，在美國意味著減少開冷氣或多多利用公共運輸工具。但在孟加拉，全球暖化意味著像阿昌這種孩子要搭現代版挪亞方舟去上學。而隨著他們所住的村莊土地不斷流失，最後變成愈來愈小的島嶼，孩子和他們的家人最後可能被迫住在船上。
While Mohammed and his parents have contributed little to climate change -- they have neither a car nor electricity -- it is families like theirs that suffer the consequences of the increasingly violent storms and deadly cyclones that scientists have attributed to global warming.
穆罕默德和他父母並未做什麼造成氣候改變的事，他們不開車，連電都沒有，但卻是像他們這種家庭，受害於愈來愈猛烈的暴風雨和致命的龍捲風所留下後遺症。科學家認為禍首都是全球暖化。
Bangladesh has always been a world capital for natural disasters. The flat country is barely above sea level and sits atop a low-lying river delta, the world's largest. It's also nestled amid some of Asia's largest rivers, including the Ganges and the Jamuna-Brahma-putra.
孟加拉一向是世界天然災害首都。這個淺平的國家幾乎全部低於海平面，同時還坐落於世界上最大的低窪的河口三角洲上。孟加拉還窩處亞洲幾條最大河川，包括恆河、加木納河及雅魯藏布江之間。
Scientists in Dhaka, the capital, pre-dict that as many as 20 million people in Bangladesh will become "climate refugees" by 2030, unable to farm or survive on their flooded land. The migration has already started. In 1995, half of Bhola Island, Bangladesh's biggest island, was swallowed by ris-ing sea levels, leaving 500,000 people homeless.
孟加拉首都達卡的科學家預測，到公元2030年，孟加拉將有兩千「氣候難民」，他們將無法在已被淹沒的土地上耕種或生存。當地居民已開始遷徙。1995年，孟加拉最大的波拉島因海平面上升而被吞沒，造成50萬人無家可歸。
"The economic loss for farmers will just be devastating," said MD Shamsuddoha, a scientist in Dhaka who has studied flooding issues in coastal areas. "We're already seeing hundreds of thousands of climate refugees moving into slums in Dhaka. What will happen when things re-ally get bad"
研究孟加拉沿海地區洪患問題的達卡科學家沙姆書多哈說：「農民經濟損失將很慘重。我們已經可以預見數十萬氣候難民搬到達卡的難民營。如果情況惡化，不知會有什麼後果？」
"If you're a poor farmer and your village floods, you just can't slap down a credit card and move to Washington. My challenge to the big polluting nations like the U.S., Chi-na and India is that for every hun-dred thousand tons of carbon you emit, you have to take in a Bangladeshi family," executive di-rector Atiq Rahman said, only half-kidding as he stood before a map in his office of the Bangladesh Center for Advanced Studies, point-ing to land that would be submerged in coming decades. "We have so many things to consider, including learning to live on boats. It will be a huge cultural headache. It won't work for everyone and in some ways is a band-aid to the larger problem. But every creative idea will help."
「如果你是貧農，你的村子被水淹了，你總不能拿了信用卡，搬到華盛頓，一走了之。我要向大汙染國，像美國、中國和印度挑戰：這些國家每排放一萬噸碳，就要一個孟加拉家庭，」孟加拉先進研究中心執行長拉曼站在他辦公室地圖前，指著未來數十年可能沒入水中的地區半開玩笑地說。「我們得未雨綢繆，包括學會在船上生活。這在文化上是很頭痛的事，並不是每個人都可以適應，就些方面來看，這只是更大問題的護創貼布，但所有創意都有幫助。」
Rezwan has already been recog-nized for the creativity of his school boats. Former U.S. vice president Al Gore recently presented him with an international environmental award for his use of solar power on the boats.
芮茲曼船上學校的創意已經得到表揚，美國前副總統高爾因他在船上使用太陽能，最近頒給他國際環保獎。
The boat schools are made possible partly by an award of $1 million in 2005 from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, along with funds from the Washington-based Global Fund for Children.
船上學校的構想之所以能夠實現，部分是因蓋茲基金會2005年所提供的一百萬美元獎金，加上華府的全球兒童基金提供贊助。
（黃裕美／摘譯自華盛頓郵報）