新视野大学英语第三版b4u4texta课文中英对照版
小海螺-非主流经典语录
unit4 TextA
Achieving sustainable
environmentalism
实现可持续性发展的环保主义
1
Environmental sensitivity is now as required an
attitude in polite society as is, say, belief in
democracy or
disapproval of plastic surgery.
But now that everyone from Ted Turner to George H.
W. Bush has claimed love for
Mother Earth, how
are we to choose among the dozens of conflicting
proposals, regulations and laws advanced by
congressmen and constituents alike in the name
of the environment Clearly, not everything with an
environmental
claim is worth doing. How do we
segregate the best options and consolidate our
varying interests into a single,
sound policy
在上流社会,对环境的敏感就如同信仰民主、反对整容一样,是一种不可或缺的态度。然而,既然从泰德
·特纳到
乔治·.布什,每个人都声称自己热爱地球母亲,那么,在由议员、选民之类的人以环境名义而
提出的众多的相互矛
盾的提案、规章和法规中,我们又该如何做出选择呢显而易见,并不是每一项冠以环
境保护名义的事情都值得去
做。我们怎样才能分离出最佳选择,并且把我们各自不同的兴趣统一在同一个
合理的政策当中呢
2 There is a simple way. First,
differentiate between environmental luxuries and
environmental necessities. Luxuries
are those
things that would be nice to have if costless.
Necessities are those things we must have
regardless. Call
this distinction the
definitive rule of sane environmentalism, which
stipulates that combating ecological change that
directly threatens the health and safety of
people is an environmental necessity. All else is
luxury.
有一种简便的方法。首先要区分什么是环境奢侈品,什么是环境必需品。奢侈品是指那
些无需人类付出代价就
能拥有的给人美好感受的东西。必需品则是指那些无论付出什么代价,都一定要去
拥有的东西。这一区分原则
可以被称为理性环保主义的至高原则。它规定,对那些直接威胁人类健康与安
全的生态变化采取应对措施是环
境保护的必需品,而其他则都属于奢侈品。
3
For example, preserving the atmosphere —stopping
ozone depletion and the greenhouse effect —is an
environmental necessity. Recently, scientists
reported that ozone damage is far worse than
previously thought.
Ozone depletion has a
correlation not only with skin cancer and eye
problems, it also destroys the ocean's ecology,
the beginning of the food chain atop which we
humans sit.
例,保护大气层——阻止臭氧损耗及控制温室效应——是环境保护的必需品。
近来,科学家报告说臭氧层遭受破
坏的程度远比我们先前认为的要严重得多。臭氧损耗不仅与皮肤癌及眼
疾有关,而且它还会破坏海洋生态。而
海洋生态是食物链的起点,人类则位于该食物链的顶端。
4 The possible thermal consequences of
the greenhouse effect are far deadlier: melting
ice caps, flooded coastlines,
disrupted
climate, dry plains and, ultimately, empty
breadbaskets. The American Midwest feeds people at
all corners
of the atlas. With the planetary
climate changes, are we prepared to see Iowa take
on New Mexico's desert climate,
or Siberia
take on Iowa's moderate climate
温室效应所可能引发的热效应是
非常具有毁灭性的:冰川融化、海岸线被淹没、气候遭受破坏、平原干涸,最终
食物消失殆尽。美国中西
部地区的粮食供养着全世界。随着全球气候的变化,我们难道准备看到衣阿华州变成
新墨西哥州的沙漠气
候,而西伯利亚变成衣阿华州的温和气候吗
5 Ozone depletion and
the greenhouse effect are human disasters, and
they are urgent because they directly
threaten
humanity and are not easily reversible. A sane
environmentalism, the only kind of
environmentalism that
will strike a chord with
the general public, begins by openly declaring
that nature is here to serve human beings. A
sane environmentalism is entirely a human
focused regime: It calls upon humanity to preserve
nature, but merely
within the parameters of
self-survival.
臭氧损耗和温室效应是人类的灾难,而且是需要紧急处理的灾难,因为
它们直接威胁到人类,且后果很难扭转。
理性环保主义——唯一能够引起公众共鸣的环保主张——首先公
开声明,自然是服务于人类的。理性环保主义
是一种完全以人类为中心的思想。它号召人类保护自然,但
是是在人类自我生存得到保证的前提之下。
6 Of course, this
human focus runs against the grain of a
contemporary environmentalism that indulges in
overt
earth worship. Some people even allege
that the earth is a living organism. This kind of
environmentalism likes to
consider itself
spiritual. It is nothing more than sentimental. It
takes, for example, a highly selective view of the
kindness of nature, one that is incompatible
with the reality of natural disasters. My nature
worship stops with the
twister that came
through Kansas or the dreadful rains in Bangladesh
that eradicated whole villages and left millions
homeless.
当然,这种以人类为中心的主张与当下盛行的环保主义是格格不入的,后
者已经沉溺于对地球的公然崇拜。有的
人甚至声称地球是一个活的生物体。这种环保主义喜欢把自己看作
是神圣的,其实它只是感情用事而已。比如,
在自然是否友善的问题上,当下的环保主义采取了高度选择
性的片面的观点,而这种观点与自然造成的灾难这
一现实是不相协调的。当龙卷风肆虐堪萨斯州,当瓢泼
大雨袭击孟加拉国,毁灭了整座整座的村庄,使几百万人
失去家园的时候,我对自然的崇拜便停止了。
7 A non-sentimental environmentalism is
one founded on Protagoras's idea that
In
establishing the sovereignty of man, such a
principle helps us through the dense forest of
environmental
arguments. Take the current
debate raging over oil drilling in a corner of the
Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR).
Environmentalist coalitions, mobilizing
against a legislative action working its way
through the US Congress for the
legalization
of such exploration, propagate that Americans
should be preserving and economizing energy
instead of
drilling for it. This is a
false either-or proposition. The US does need a
sizable energy tax to reduce consumption. But
it needs more production too. Government
estimates indicate a nearly fifty-fifty chance
that under the ANWR rests
one of the five
largest oil fields ever discovered in America. It
seems illogical that we are not finding safe ways
to drill
for oil in the ANWR.
非感情用事的环保主义是建
立在普罗泰哥拉的格言“人是万物的尺度”的基础上的。在建立人类权威的过程中,
这条原则会帮助我们
梳理各种错综复杂的关于环境保护的争议。就以当前关于是否在北极国家野生动物保护
区的某一角落开采
石油的激烈争论为例吧。环保主义者联盟动员人们反对目前正在试图通过美国国会审议、
使这一开采行为
变得合法化的一项立法行动。他们散布说美国应该保护并且节约能源而不是开采能源。这其
实是一个错误
的非此即彼的主张。美国确实需要征收高额的能源税以减少能源消耗,但同时也需要生产更多的
能源。政
府的估测表明,在北极国家野生动物保护区的地下蕴藏着美国五大油田之一的可能性几乎到达50%。
我
们没有寻找安全的方法开采北极国家野生动物保护区地下的石油,这看上去是不符合情理的。
8 The US has just come through a war fought in
part over oil. Energy dependence costs Americans
not just dollars
but lives. It is a bizarre
sentimentalism that would deny oil that is
peacefully attainable because it risks disrupting
the birthing grounds of Arctic caribou.
美国
刚刚经历了一场战争,其部分原因就是为了获取石油。对能源的依赖使美国不但付出了金钱的代价,而且也
付出了生命的代价。就因为可能破坏北美驯鹿的繁衍地而放弃能够以和平手段获得的石油,这是一种十分怪异<
br>的感情用事。
9 I like the caribou as much as
the next person. And I would be rather sorry if
their mating patterns were disturbed.
But you
can't have your cake and eat it too. And in the
standoff of the welfare of caribou versus reducing
an oil
reliance that gets people killed in
wars, I choose people over caribou every time.
我像别人一样喜欢驯鹿。如果他们的交配模式受到干扰,我会感到非常遗憾。但是,鱼和熊掌不能兼得。是要保
护驯鹿,还是要为了避免人们在战争中丧生而减少对石油的依赖,面对这一僵局,我每次都会选择人类而
不是驯
鹿。
10 I feel similarly about the
spotted owl in Oregon. I am no enemy of the owl.
If it could be preserved at a negligible
cost,
I would agree that it should be —biodiversity is
after all necessary to the ecosystem. But we must
remember
that not every species is needed to
keep that diversity. Sometimes aesthetic aspects
of life have to be sacrificed to
more
fundamental ones. If the cost of preserving the
spotted owl is the loss of livelihood for 30,000
logging families,
I choose the families (with
their saws and chopped timber) over the owl.
我对俄勒冈州的斑点猫头鹰的态度也是一样。我绝不是仇视猫头鹰。如果花很少的代价就可以保护猫头鹰
,我
会赞同它应受保护——毕竟,生物多样性对生态系统是非常必要的。但是,我们必须
记住,保持生物多样性并不意
味着要留住每一种物种。有时候,为了更加根本的利益,我们不得不牺牲一
部分生活中美的东西。如果为了保护
斑点猫头鹰而让三万伐木工家庭失去生计,我会选择伐木工家庭(包
括他们的锯子和砍伐的木材),而不是猫头
鹰。
11 The important
distinction is between those environmental goods
that are fundamental and those that are not.
Nature is our ward, not our master. It is to
be respected and even cultivated. But when humans
have to choose
between their own well-being
and that of nature, nature will have to
accommodate.
重要的是,我们要区分哪些东西对环境保护是根本性的,哪些是非根本性的
。自然受我们的监护,而不是我们的
主人。我们应该尊重自然,也可以开发利用自然。但是,如果人类必
须在自身的福利和自然的福利之间作出选择,
自然则必须作出让步。
12
Humanity should accommodate only when its fate and
that of nature are inseparably bound up. The most
urgent
maneuver must be undertaken when the
very integrity of humanity's habitat, ., the
atmosphere or the essential
geology that
sustains the core of the earth, is threatened.
When the threat to humanity is lower in the
hierarchy of
necessity, a more modest
accommodation that balances economic against
health concerns is in order. But in either
case the principle is the same: protect the
environment —because it is humanity's environment.
只有当人类的命运与自然的命运密不可分时,人类才应该作出让步。当人类栖息地的完整性(比如大气层
或维持
地球核心的基本地质状况)受到威胁时,人类就必须立即调整自己的行为。而当人类受到的威胁不
大,不太需要
对自己的行为进行调整时,恰当的做法是平衡考虑经济方面和与之相对的健康方面的因素,
以便作出适度的调
整。但是,无论是哪种情况,其遵循的原则是一致的:保护环境,因为这是我们人类的
环境。
13 The sentimental environmentalists
will call this saving nature with a totally wrong
frame of mind. Exactly. A sane
and
intelligible environmentalism does it not for
nature's sake but for our own.
感情用事的环保主义者会说这种拯
救自然的思路是完全错误的。的确是这样。理性、明确的环保主义保护环
境是为了人类自身,而不是为了
自然。