Japan Needs to Telework. Its Paper-Pushing Offices Make That Hard.
紙本公文讓日本難以推動遠距工作
By Ben Dooley and Makiko Inoue

Officially, Shuhei Aoyama has been teleworking for a month. But that doesn’t mean he can avoid going to the office.
在名義上，青山修平已經遠距工作一個月了，但這不表示他能夠不進辦公室。

Several times a week, Aoyama makes a half-hour commute across Tokyo for a task seemingly more suited to the age of the samurai than of the supercomputer: stamping his official corporate seal on business contracts and government paperwork.
每周有幾次，青山要通勤半小時橫越東京，為了一項看似適合武士時代更甚於超級電腦時代的工作：在商業合約和政府紙本公文蓋上他公司的正式印信。

The stamps, known as hanko or inkan, are used in place of signatures on the stream of documents that fill Japan’s workplaces, including the hotel network that employs Aoyama. They have become a symbol of a hidebound office culture that makes it difficult or impossible for many Japanese to work from home even as the country’s leaders say working remotely is essential to keeping Japan’s coronavirus epidemic from spiraling out of control.
這些印信稱作印章或印鑑，蓋在充斥日本職場川流不息的文件上，用以代替簽名，包括雇用青山的連鎖飯店。它已成為日本僵固辦公室文化的象徵，以致許多日本人很難，或根本不可能在家上班，儘管國家領導人們表示，遠距工作對於阻止日本新冠病毒疫情擴大失控十分重要。

While the world may see Japan as a futuristic land of humanoid robots and intelligent toilets, inside its offices, managers maintain a fierce devotion to paper files, fax machines, business card exchanges and face-to-face meetings.
舉世皆視日本為擁有人型機器人和智慧馬桶的未來之境，然而在他們的辦公室中，管理幹部仍緊守由卷宗、傳真機、名片交換和面對面會議所構成的傳統。

Essential documents are not digitized, and computer systems are obsolete and tied to offices. Middle managers in Japan’s team-oriented workplaces are hesitant to allow employees to work from home, with some fearful that they will slack off or even drink on the job. And the workers who do have the option of teleworking fear harm to their careers.
基本文件沒有數位化，電腦系統過時且綁定在辦公室。在日本團隊導向的職場中，中階主管對於允許員工在家上班心存猶豫，有些主管擔心屬下會偷懶甚或工作時喝酒。而有權選擇遠距工作的員工也害怕會對升遷不利。

Forced to balance the needs of the office and the risks to their own health, employees like Aoyama, 26, say they are losing patience with the country’s work traditions.
像26歲的青山這樣的人，被迫在公司的需要和自身健康的風險間取得平衡，他們表示已對這個國家的工作傳統失去耐心。

In other countries where people are staying home to limit the spread of the virus, many white-collar workers have made a fairly routine shift to Zoom videoconferences and electronic document signing. But in Japan, the world’s third-largest economy, the sudden need for social distancing has caught companies off guard.
在其他民眾居家避疫以抑制病毒傳播的國家，許多白領勞工相當例常性地改用Zoom視訊會議及電子文件簽署。但是在世界第三大經濟體的日本，突然需要保持社交距離卻讓企業界措手不及。

“Many organizations that were not ready, not prepared, are being forced to do telework, which is causing lots of trouble,” said Kunihiko Higa, a telework expert at the Tokyo Institute of Technology.
「許多沒有準備好、缺乏準備的組織被迫遠距工作，造成很多麻煩。」東京工業大學遠距工作專家比嘉邦彥說。

“Many internal rules require face-to-face meetings,” Higa added. “They think they can’t manage workers who are not there.”
「許多內部規定要求召開面對面會議。」比嘉補充道，「他們認為無法管理不在辦公室的員工。」

A survey last month by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism found that fewer than 13% of workers nationwide were able to work from home. Over 70% reported difficulties with telework.
國土交通省上月的一項調查發現，全國勞工能夠在家上班的不到13%，超過70%的人表示遠距工作有困難。

“Japanese companies, a lot of them, are set up on the premise that you’re all going to be in the same place,” said Rochelle Kopp, a consultant who specializes in Japanese business practices. “Even if you have a laptop, you can’t always take it home. There are a lot of software and hardware issues.”
「日本的公司，有許多是建立在所有人都要待在同一個地方的前提之上。」專研日本商業實務的顧問羅莎爾．柯普說，「就算你有筆記型電腦，也無法一直把它帶回家，有很多軟體和硬體上的問題。」

原文參照：
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/14/business/japan-coronavirus-telework.html

2020-05-10．聯合報．D4．紐約時報賞析．莊蕙嘉譯、核稿/樂慧生

說文解字看新聞 莊蕙嘉

本文探討最近非常熱門的話題「遠距工作」，因為新冠肺炎疫情，各國都呼籲企業盡量讓員工「在家上班」。

遠距工作（telework或work remotely）和在家上班（work from home，WFH）意思相近但不完全相同，telework著重於「不在辦公室上班」，也就是work outside of a traditional office environment，例如在家裡、咖啡館、客戶辦公室等公司以外的其他場所處理公事。

work from home則單純指在家工作，也是比較通俗的片語，所以可以說在家上班是遠距上班的一種。另外，telework有更強調以科技輔助工作的意味，例如使用電腦、視訊軟體等。

文中的hanko和inkan是日語「印章」及「印鑑」的羅馬拼音。如同台灣，日本也有依賴蓋章的習慣，和西方以簽名為準的文化不同，這也是日本推動遠距上班的困難之一，paper pusher就用來形容花太多時間在紙上作業的人，也有暗諷只做文書這類較不重要工作的意味。

Study Sees ‘Cliff Edge’ Of Die-Offs Over Climate
氣候變遷 將使野生動物驟然消亡
By Catrin Einhorn

Climate change could result in a more abrupt collapse of many animal species than previously thought, starting in the next decade if greenhouse gas emissions are not reduced, according to a study published last month in Nature.
根據發表在四月號「自然」期刊的一項研究結果，如果溫室氣體排放沒有減少，從下一個十年開始，氣候變遷可能使許多動物物種比先前以為的更驟然消亡。

The study predicted that large swaths of ecosystems would falter in waves, creating sudden die-offs that would be catastrophic not only for wildlife but also for the humans who depend on it.
這項研究預測，大面積的生態系統可能在這波浪潮中衰敗，造成驟然出現的接連死亡，不只對野生動物而言是個大災難，對賴以生存的人類亦復如此。

“For a long time things can seem OK, and then suddenly they’re not,” said Alex L. Pigot, a scientist at University College London and one of the study’s authors. “Then, it’s too late to do anything about it because you’ve already fallen over this cliff edge.”
「在很長的時間一切看來都好，接著突然就不行了。」倫敦大學學院科學家，這項研究報告作者之一的艾力克斯．皮卓說。「然後，做任何事都太遲了，因為你已經從懸崖邊緣跌落。」

The latest research adds to an already bleak picture for the world’s wildlife unless urgent action is taken to preserve habitats and limit climate change. More than 1 million plant and animal species are at risk of extinction because of the myriad ways humans are changing the Earth by farming, fishing, logging, mining, poaching and burning fossil fuels.
人們原已明瞭，除非採取緊急行動以保留其棲息地並限制氣候變遷，世上野生動物前景淒涼，這項最新研究為這景象又添上了一筆。超過100萬種植物和動物有滅絕的風險，因為人類正以各種方式改變地球，像是農墾、魚撈、伐木、採礦、盜獵及焚燒化石燃料。

The study looked at more than 30,000 species on land and in water to predict how soon climate change would affect population levels and whether those levels would change gradually or suddenly. To answer these questions, the authors determined the hottest temperature that a species is known to have withstood and then predicted when that temperature would be surpassed around the world under different emissions scenarios.
這項研究檢視超過三萬種陸地和水中生物，以預測氣候變遷多快會影響種群數層級，以及這些層級會逐漸改變或是突然改變。為回答這些問題，作者們找出了一個物種已知可承受的最高溫度，接著預測在不同排放情況下，世界各地何時會超過這個溫度上限。

When they examined the projections, the researchers were surprised that sudden collapses appeared across almost all species – fish, reptiles, amphibians, birds and mammals – and across almost all regions.
研究人員檢視這些預測時，驚訝地發現，幾乎所有物種和所有地區都出現突然的族群崩解，包括魚類、爬蟲類、兩棲類、鳥類及哺乳動物。

If greenhouse gas emissions remain on current trajectories, the research showed that abrupt collapses in tropical oceans could begin in the next decade. Coral bleaching events over the last several years suggest that these losses have already started, the scientists said. Collapse in tropical forests, home to some of the most diverse ecosystems on Earth, could follow by the 2040s.
如果溫室氣體排放維持目前的曲線，研究顯示，熱帶海洋裡的動物突然消亡將在下一個十年開始。科學家說，近幾年來的珊瑚白化現象顯示，這些減損已經開始。地球一些最具多樣性的生態系統所在的熱帶森林，可能在2040年代之前繼之崩解。

But if global warming was held to below 2 degrees Celsius, the number of species exposed to dangerous climate change would drop by 60%. That, in turn, would limit the number of ecosystems exposed to catastrophic collapse to about 2%.
但是，若全球暖化能控制在攝氏兩度以下，暴露於危險氣候變遷的物種數量將減少60%。如此一來，暴露於災難性崩解的生態系數量可限制至2%左右。

The study does not take into account other factors that could help or hurt a species’ survival. For example, some species may tolerate or adapt to higher temperatures; on the other hand, if their food sources could not, they would die off just the same.
這項研究並未考慮其他可幫助或傷害族群生存的因素，例如，有些物種或許可忍耐或適應更高的溫度。然而，如果牠們的食物來源無法生存，牠們也一樣會相繼死亡。

原文參照：
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/15/climate/wildlife-population-collapse-climate-change.html

2020-05-10．聯合報．D4．紐約時報賞析．莊蕙嘉譯、核稿/樂慧生