Standing on the ruins（废墟）after the fire where his house had been, Peter Ruprecht admitted that he was not sure how or when to rebuild. He was still shocked by what Australia's increasingly changeable climate had already delivered: first a drought, then a destructive bush fire, then a foot of rain from a storm.

"It's unstoppable," said Mr. Ruprecht, a former dairy farmer. "We speak about the warmth of Mother Nature, but nature can also be vicious and wild and unforgiving."

Australia's' hellish（地狱的）fire season has eased（缓和）, but its people are facing more than a single disaster. With floods destroying homes not far from where fires recently spread, they are facing a cycle of what scientists call "compound extremes": one climate disaster strengthening the next.

Warmer temperatures do more than just dry out the land. They also heat up the atmosphere, which means clouds hold more moisture（水汽）for longer periods of time. So droughts get worse, giving way to fires, then to heavy rains that the land is too dry to absorb.

Many Australians in disaster zones complain that their government, after ignoring climate change for years, has not yet to draw up recovery plans that are clear and that take future threats into account.

At the same time, the economic costs of a changing climate are rising quickly. Philip Lowe, the governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia, warned recently that Australia was already paying a price, and that it would only go up.

What to do if a fire starts?

Imagine it’s late at night. You hear the smoke detectors go off. 【小题1】. Do you know what to do?

If a fire starts in your home, remember your escape plan and leave as quickly as possible. 【小题2】

●Call“Fire!”to warn everyone in your family.

●If you know where the fire is, close as many doors as possible between you and the fire.

●If you’re in bed, roll out of bed and onto the floor. 【小题3】 Being near the ground makes it easier to breathe. If possible, cover your mouth and nose with a wet cloth.

●. 【小题4】 If the door is warm or hot, do not open it. The fire is probably right outside your room. Find another way to leave the room. If the door is cool, open it a little.

●Look out and try to see the fire. If it is safe, leave the room. Remember to stay on the floor.

●If your clothes catch fire, stop immediately. Drop to the ground and roll.

【小题5】

●Call the fire department from outside and wait for help to arrive.

Around the world, rivers seem to be raging. While catastrophic flooding of Pakistan’s rivers has left tens of millions without homes, a drought unseen for 500 years has squeezed Europe’s major waterways almost dry. There is little disagreement about what’s going on: climate change is causing both rainfall and droughts to intensify. The question now is how to manage those climate-changed waterways and, specifically, what role dams should play in mitigating(缓和) against the kinds of disasters.

Advocates say water storage dams will become more essential as buffers(缓冲物) against extreme water flows by absorbing water during flooding and releasing it in times of drought. Dams, they say, can help combat climate change by producing renewable hydropower(水力发电) that is cleaner than fossil fuel energy.

However, criticisms have long centered on the negative impact most dams have on biodiversity and river ecosystems. Not only do the vast amounts of concrete used to build large dams leave huge carbon footprints, there is also much evidence that greenhouse gas emissions from dams are often far greater than previously thought. Increasingly a scientific case is also being made that dams actually worsen both floods and droughts.

Now, more dam developers are turning to “run-of-river” technology, in which the river’s water flows continuously through a hydropower station without a reservoir to store it. Such projects are generally considered more environmentally friendly, but they do not allow for water to be managed according to weather conditions.

Then there are those who say we should stay away from dams, and look for ways using nature-based solutions. Many ecologists say that protecting wetlands, for example, should be a priority, since those ecosystems act as natural sponges(海绵) for floodwaters within a river basin. “We have turned river basins into economic machines that only serve people and not nature, and this creates more problems, like droughts and flooding,” says Herman Wanningen, the founder of the advocacy group Dam Removal Europe. “We have to learn to cooperate with nature and not against it anymore.”