admin管理员组文章数量:1568563
2023年12月29日发(作者:)
1At the outside limit, the earth will
probably last another 4 billion to 5 billion
years. By that time, scientists predict, the
sun will have burned up so much of its own
hydrogen fuel that it will expand and
incinerate the surrounding planets,
including the earth. A nuclear cataclysm, on
the other hand, could destroy the earth
tomorrow. Somewhere within those
extremes lies the life expectancy of this
wondrous, swirling globe. How long it
endures and the quality of life it can
support do not depend alone on the
immutable laws of physics. For man has
reached a point in his evolution where he
has the power to affect, for better or worse,
the present and future state of the planet.
1 或许地球至多能生存40至50亿年。到那时,科学家们预测,太阳将会烧掉如此之多的氢燃料以至于它会膨胀并且焚毁周围的行星,包括地球。另一方面核战争能在未来摧毁地球。这个奇异的、旋转的球体的寿命在两种极端之间延续着。地球能生存多久以及地球所能维持的生命质量不仅仅依赖于不可更改的物理学原理。因为不管怎样人类在其进化过程中已经达到能够影响地球的现在与将来的程度。
2Through most of his 2 million
years or so of existence, man has
thrived in earth’s environment --
perhaps too well. By 1800 there
were 1 billion human beings
bestriding the planet. That number
had doubled by 1930 and doubled
again by current birthrates
hold, the world’s present
population of 5.1 billion will
double again in 40 more years.
The frightening irony is that
thisexponential growth in the
human population — the very sign
of Homo sapiens’ success as an
organism — could doom the earth
as a human habitat.
2 人类在二百万年左右的历史中在地球上繁衍生命,兴旺发达——也许人口过于兴旺了。截止到1800年时地球上有10亿人口。 到1930年时这个数字翻了一番,到1975年时又翻了一番。以目前的出生率,现有51亿人口在40多年后还将再次翻番。这一令人可怕的讽刺意味就在于,人口增长越来越快,虽然它是现代人作为生物体智慧的象征,然而它却能够彻底地毁掉地球——人类的栖息地。
3The reason is not so much the
sheer numbers, though 40,000
babies die of starvation each day
in Third World countries, but the
reckless way in which humanity
has treated its planetary host. Like
the evil genies that flew
fromPandora’s box, technological
advances have provided the means
of upsetting nature’s equilibrium,
that intricate set of biological,
physical and chemical interactions
that make up the web of life.
Starting at the dawn of the
Industrial Revolution,
smokestacks have disgorged
noxious gases into the atmosphere,factories have dumped toxic
wastes into rivers and streams,
automobiles haveguzzled
irreplaceable fossil fuels and
fouled the air with their detritus.
In the name of progress, forests
have been denuded, lakes
poisoned with pesticides,
underground aquifers pumped dry.
For decades, scientists have
warned of the possible
consequences of all this
profligacy. No one paid much
attention .
3
虽然在第三世界各国每天有4万婴儿死于饥饿,但是其原因并不在于死亡人数众多而在于人类对待地球主人的不计后果的做法上。正如从潘多拉魔盒中飞出的邪恶妖怪一样,科技进步打破了自然界的平衡,自然界平衡是组成日常生活网的一套错综复杂的生物、物理和化学的相互作用体系。 在工业革命初期,大烟囱向大气中喷出许多有毒的气体,工厂向众多大小河流倾倒许多有毒的垃圾,汽车耗费掉许多不可替代的矿物燃料,并且污染了空气。人们以社会进步为借口,砍伐森林,用杀虫剂污染湖水,地下水被抽干。几十年来科学家提醒人们注意这种恣意挥霍带来的可能后果,但是没有人引起重视。
4This year the earth spoke, like
God warning Noah of the deluge.
Its message was loud and clear,
and suddenly people began to
listen, to ponder whatportents the
message held. In the U.S., a
three-month drought baked the
soil from California to Georgia,
reducing the country’s grain
harvest by 31% and killing
thousands of head of livestock. A
stubborn seven-week heat wave
drove temperatures above 100°F
across much of the country,
raising fears that the dreaded
“green-house effect” — global
warming as a result of the buildup
of carbon dioxide and other gases
in the atmosphere — might
already be under way. Parched by
the lack of rain, the Western
forests of the U.S., including
Yellowstone National Park, went
up in flames, also igniting a
bitter conservationist controversy.
And on many of the country’s
beaches, garbage, raw sewage and
medical wastes washed up to spoil
the fun of bathers and confront
them personally with the growing
despoliation of the oceans.
4 正像上帝提醒诺亚洪水即将到来一样,今年地球发布了信息。这一信息既响亮又清晰易懂,人们突然开始倾听,并考虑这个信息含有什么凶兆。在美国三个月的旱灾晒硬了从加利福尼亚到乔治亚的土壤。因此国家的粮食产量削减30%, 牲畜死亡数以千头。持续七周的热浪使国内许多地区的温度达到华氏100度以上,增加了人们对可怕的温室效应的恐惧,温室效应即由于大气中二氧化碳以及其它气体的逐步增加造成的全球变暖,它也许已经开始出现。由于缺雨,土地干裂,美国的西部森林,包括黄石国家公园,已毁于大火,由此也引发了一场有关自然环境保护的激烈争论。在国内许多海滩上,生活垃圾,未经处理的污水和医学垃圾被冲到岸上,破坏了游泳人的兴致,使他们很不开心,并且亲身面临了海洋日益严重的自然环境的破坏。
5Similar pollution closed beaches
on the Mediterranean, the North
Sea and the English Channel.
Killer hurricanes ripped through
the Caribbean andfloods
devastated Bangladesh, reminders
of nature’s raw power. In Soviet
Armenia a monstrous earthquake
killed some 55,000 people. That
too was a natural disaster, but its
high casualty count, owing largely
to the construction of cheap
high-rise apartment blocks over a
well-known fault area illustrated
the carelessness that has become
humanity’s habit in dealing with
nature.
5
类似的污染也触及到了地中海、北海和英吉利海峡。能直接导致死亡的飓风迅猛地席卷了加勒比海地区,洪水毁灭了孟加拉国,这些事件提醒人们认识到大自然的威力是多么可 怕。在前苏联加盟共和国亚美尼亚,巨大的地震使55,000人丧生。那也是自然灾害,但是主要原因是在人所共知的断层带上建造质量低劣的高层建筑所致,众多伤亡人数其次也表 明人类在与大自然打交道时的粗心大意的习性。
6There were other forebodings of
environmental disaster. In the U.S.
it was revealed that federal
weapons-making plants had
recklessly and secretly littered
large areas with radioactive waste.
The further depletion of the
atmosphere’s ozone layer, which
helps block cancer-causing
ultraviolet rays, testified to the
continued overuse of
atmosphere-destroyingchlorofluorocarbons emanating from such
sources as spray cans and
air-conditioners. Perhaps most
ominous of all, the destruction of
the tropical forests, home to at
least half the earth’s plant and
animal species, continued at a rate
equal to one football field a
second.
6 环境灾害还会有其它的不祥预感。在美国联邦武器制造厂不计后果地秘密地用放射性废物污染了大片地区。 臭氧层的进一步减少表明人类继续在过度使用由喷雾罐和空调散发出的污染空气的含氯氟烃,臭氧层有助于阻挡能致癌的紫外线的照射。也许对人类构成的最大威胁就是对热带雨林的毁灭,热带雨林中有地球上至少一半的动植物,它正以每秒钟一个足球场地大小的速度遭受人类的毁灭。
7Most of these evils had been
going on for a long time, and some
of the worst disasters apparently
had nothing to do with human
behavior. Yet this year’sbout of
freakish weather and
environmental horror stories
seemed to act as a powerful
catalyst for world-wide public
opinion. Everyone suddenly
sensed that this gyrating globe,
this precious repository of all the
life that we know of, was in
danger. No single individual, no
event, no movement captured
imaginations or dominated
headlines more than the clump of
rock and soil and water and air
that is our common home. Thus in
a rare but not unprecedented
departure from its tradition of
naming a Man of the Year, TIME
has designated Endangered Earth
as Planet of the Year for 1988.
7
长久以来大部分的灾祸一直在持续着,然而一些最严重的灾难显然与人类行为无关。本年度反常的天气和与环境有关的恐怖的新闻记事似乎成了全世界舆论的强效催化剂。突然所有人感觉到这个旋转的球体——我们所熟知的所有生物的宝库——正处于危险之中。没有任何人,任何事件,任何活动能比构成我们共同家园的岩石,土壤,水和空气更激发想象力并主宰各大报刊的主要标题。《时代》杂志以少有的,但并不是空前的违背传统的命名人类年的做法,把濒危的地球确定为1988年地球年。
8What would happen if nothing
were done about the earth’s
imperiled state? According to
computer projections, the
accumulation of CO2 in the
atmosphere could drive up the
planet’s average temperature 3°F
to 9°F by the middle of the next
century. That could cause the
oceans to rise by several feet,
flooding coastal areas and ruining
huge tracts of farmland through
salinization. Changing weather
patterns could make huge areas
infertile or
uninhabitable,touching off
refugee movements unprecedented
in history.
8 如果人类不采取任何措施拯救濒危的地球,那么会出现什么情况呢?根据电脑的预测,大气中二氧化碳的积聚会使地球的平均温度到下个世纪中叶上升3℉至9℉,从而使海洋升高好几英尺,淹没沿海的陆地并且由于土壤的盐碱化彻底毁掉大片的农田。天气的变化模式会使土地变得不肥沃或不适合居住,结果引发历史上前所未有的难民迁徙。
9Toxic waste and radioactive
contamination could lead to
shortages of safe drinking water,
the sine qua non of human
existence. And in a world that
could house between 8 billion and
14 billion people by the mid-21st
century, there is a strong
likelihood of mass starvation. It is
even possible to envisionthe world
so wryly and chillingly prophesied
by the typewriting cockroach
inDonald Marquis’ archy and
mehitabel: “man is making deserts
of the earth/it won’t be long now/
before man will have it used up/so
that nothing but ants/and
centipedes and scorpions can find
a living on it.”
9 有毒的污水和放射性污染能够导致安全饮用水的短缺,安全的饮用水是人类生存的必要条件。在这个到21世纪中叶能够容纳80至140亿人口的地球上,完全有可能面临饥饿的威胁。在唐纳德•马奎斯的《阿尔奇与梅希塔贝尔》中会打字的蟑螂用讽刺的、令人恐惧的语气预言未来世界:“人类正在变地球为沙漠/很快/人类将会消耗殆尽万物/因此只有蚂蚁、蜈蚣、和蝎子/能够生存。”
10Humanity’s current predatory
relationship with nature reflects a
man-centered world view that has
evolved over the ages. Almost
every society has had its myths
about the earth and its origins.
The ancient Chinese
depictedChaos as an enormous egg
whose parts separated into earth
and sky, yin and yang. The Greeks
believed Gaia, the earth, was
created immediately after Chaos
and gave birth to the gods. In
many pagan societies, the earth
was seen as a mother, a fertile
giver of life. Nature — the soil,
forest, sea — was endowed with
divinity, and mortals were
subordinate to it.
10 人类与大自然目前掠夺性的关系反映了经过许多世纪逐渐形成的以人类为中心的世界观。几乎每个社会都对地球和地球的起源流传着许多神话。古代中国人认为宇宙形成前是模糊的一团就像一个巨大的鸡蛋,后来分裂成大地与天空,即阴与阳。希腊人认为吉亚,大地女神,是在宇宙形成之后即刻产生的,然后生下众神。在许多无宗教信仰的社会里,地球被看作是母亲——生命的给与者,大自然——土壤,森林和大海——被赋予神性,人类从属于它。
11The Judeo-Christian tradition
introduced a radically different
concept. The earth was the
creation of a monotheistic God,
who, after shaping it, ordered its
inhabitants, in the words of
Genesis: “Be fruitful and multiply,and replenish the earth and subdue
it: and have dominion over the
fish of the sea and over the fowl
of the air and over every living
thing that moveth upon the
earth. ”The idea of dominion
could be interpreted as an
invitation to use nature as a
convenience. Thus the spread of
Christianity, which is generally
considered to have paved the way
for the development of technology,
may at the same time have carried
the seeds of the wanton
exploitation of nature that often
accompanied technical progress.
11 犹太教与基督教提出了根本不同的看法。地球是由独一无二的上帝创造的,在使它成形之后,用《创世纪》中的话语命令它的居住者:“要多生育,多繁殖后代,要充满地球并且 征服它;要拥有对海里的鱼,空中的鸟以及地球上所有生物的统治权。对自然界拥有统治权的思想无疑于怂恿人类把自然界当作便利设施来加以利用。通常被认为是为科技发展创造有利条件的基督教,它的传播可能同时播下了对大自然恣意开发的种子,然而对自然界开发的同时也促进了工业技术的发展。
12Those tendencies were
compounded by the Enlightenment
notion of a mechanistic universe
that man could shape to his own
ends through science. The
exuberant optimism of that world
view was behind some of the
greatest achievements of modern
times: the invention of
laborsaving machines, the
discovery of anesthetics and
vaccines, the development of
efficient transportation and
communication systems. But,
increasingly, technology has come
up against the law of unexpected
consequences. Advances in health
care have lengthened life-spans,
lowered infant-mortality rates and,
thus,aggravated the population
problem. The use of pesticides
had increased crop yields but
polluted water supplies. The
invention of automobiles and jet
planes has revolutionized travel
but sullied the atmosphere.
12 十八世纪欧洲启蒙运动时期的机械论宇宙观使这一趋势更加严重,机械论宇宙观认为人类利用科学可以达到自己的目的。这种过于乐观的世界观的产生是由于现在人类取得了一些最伟大的成就:省力机器的发明,麻药和疫苗的发现,高效能的交通与通讯系统的研制。但是,科技却越来越多地出现违反常规现象,产生意想不到的后果。保健工作的进步延长了人类的寿命,降低了婴儿的死亡率,因此也加重了人口问题。杀虫剂的使用提高了粮食的产量,但是却污染了水源,汽车与喷气式飞机的发明根本改变了人们的旅行方式,但是却污染了空气。
13Yet the advance of technology
has never destroyed man’s wonder
and aweat the beauty of the earth.
The coming of England’s
Industrial Revolution, with its
“dark Satanic mills,” coincided
with the extraordinary flowering
of Romantic poetry, much of it
about the glory of nature. Many
people in this century voiced the
same tender feelings on seeing
the first images of the earth as
viewed from the moon. The sight
of that shimmering luminescent
ball set against the black void
inspired even normally prosaic
astronauts to flights of eloquence.
Edgar Mitchell, who flew to the
moon aboard Apollo 14 in 1971,
described the planet as “a
sparkling blue-and-white
jewel…laced with slowly swirling
veils like a small pearl
in a thick sea of black mystery.”
Photos of the earth from space
prompted geologist Preston Cloud
to write, “Mother Earth will never
seem the same again. No more can
thinking people take this little
planet…as an infinite theater of
action and provider of resources
for man, yielding new largesse to
every demand without limit.” That
conclusion seems all the more
imperative in the wake of the
environmental shocks of 1988.
13 然而科技的发展从未破坏人类对地球之美所感到的惊奇与敬畏。具有黑暗恐怖工厂的英国工业革命的到来,随之也出现了十九世纪浪漫主义诗歌的繁荣时期,诗歌的许多内容是有关赞美大自然的。本世纪的许多人在从月球上第一眼看见地球时表达了相同的美好情感。看见那个在漆黑的夜空衬托下闪烁发光的圆球,甚至平时没有任何诗意的宇航员竟突发奇思异想,侃侃而谈。1971年乘坐阿波罗14号飞到月球的埃德加•米歇尔把地球描绘成“亮晶晶的蓝白色宝石……它的周边缭绕着白色的面纱……恰似浩瀚神秘夜空中一颗璀璨的小珍珠。从太空中拍摄的地球照片激励地质学家普雷斯顿•克劳德写道,“地球母亲看上去永远不会再像以前一样了,有理性的人不能再把这颗小行星看作是人类行为无垠的剧场,自然资源的提供者,从而毫无限度地慷慨解囊以满足人类的每个需求。”1988年令人震惊的环境灾难过后,这一结论似乎更为重要。
14Let there be no illusions.
Taking effective action to halt the
massive injury to the earth’s
environment will require a
mobilization of political will,
international cooperation and
sacrifice unknown except in
wartime. Yet humanity is in a war
right now, and it is not too
Draconian to call it a war for
survival. It is a war in which all
nations must be allies. Both the
causes and effects of the problems
that threaten the earth are global,
and they must be attacked globally.
“All nations are tied together as to
their common fate,” observes
Peter Raven, director of the
Missouri Botanical Garden. “We
are all facing a common problem,
which is, how are we going to
keep this single resource we have,
namely the world, viable?”
14
让我们不要抱有任何幻想。采取有效措施阻止对地球生态环境的严重破坏将需要调动政治意志,国际合作和除战时以外从不存在的牺牲精神。然而人类现在正处于战争中,把它称为生存战争并非危言耸听,这是所有国家必须成为同盟者的战争。对地球构成威胁的所有问题的因果是全球性的,因此要在全球范围内处理问题。密苏里植物园主任彼德•雷文说: “共同的命运把世界上所有的国家联系在一起,”我们都面临一个共同的问题,那就是:如何让我们所拥有的唯一宝物,即地球,能够独立生存下去?”
15As man heads into the last
decade of the 20th century, he
finds himself at a crucial turning
point: the actions of those now
living will determine the future,
and possibly the very survival, of
the species. “We do not have
generations, we only have years,
in which to attempt to turn things
around,” warns Lester Brown,
president of the Washington-based
Worldwatch Institute. Every
individual on the planet must be
made aware of its vulnerability
and of the urgent need to preserve
it. No attempt to protect the
environment will be successful in
the long run unless ordinary
people — the California
housewife ,the Mexican peasant,
the Soviet factory worker, the
Chinese farmer — are willing to
adjust their lifestyles. Our
wasteful, careless ways must
become a thing of the past. We
must recycle more, procreate less,
turn off lights, use mass transit,
do a thousand things differently in
our everyday lives. We owe this
not only to ourselves and our
children but also to the unborn
generations who will one day
inherit the earth.
15 当人类进入到20世纪最后10 年时,人类发现自己正处在关键性转折点上:现在我们的所作所为决定着未来,也许决定物种的生存。“我们没有几代的时间,我们只有几年的时间试图扭转目前的局面.”华盛顿世界观察研究所所长莱斯特•布朗警告道。地球上的每个人要意识到地球的脆弱性和保护地球的迫切需要。除非普通人——加利福尼亚的家庭主妇,墨西哥的小农经济者,苏联的工人,中国的农民——愿意调整它们的生活方式,否则为保护生态环境所付出的所有努力都将以失败而告终。浪费、粗心大意必须成为昔日之事。我们必须多回收利用废品,少生育,关掉电灯,使用批量运输,在日常生活中用不同的方式做许多事情。我们这样做不仅是为了我们自己和我们的孩子,而且也是为了将来某一天继承地球的未出生的后代人。
版权声明:本文标题:what on earth we are doing 内容由热心网友自发贡献,该文观点仅代表作者本人, 转载请联系作者并注明出处:https://www.elefans.com/dianzi/1703820861a73392.html, 本站仅提供信息存储空间服务,不拥有所有权,不承担相关法律责任。如发现本站有涉嫌抄袭侵权/违法违规的内容,一经查实,本站将立刻删除。
发表评论