2019年翻譯資格考試中級(jí)筆譯練習(xí)題：環(huán)境危機(jī)

　　漢譯英

　　環(huán)境危機(jī)

　　近年來我們逐漸認(rèn)識(shí)到，有幾種對(duì)環(huán)境構(gòu)成的威脅是根本性的，其中之一便是酸雨。酸雨現(xiàn)象是由大量二氧化硫和氧化氮造成的。在北美洲，大煙囪和汽車尾氣管每天都排放出大量的二氧化硫和氧化氮。這些氧化物在空氣中和水蒸汽結(jié)合，轉(zhuǎn)化為弱硫酸和弱氮酸，降落到地面便形成酸雨。酸雨現(xiàn)象不但導(dǎo)致湖泊酸性提高，使魚類繁殖能力下降;而且隨著土壤里酸性物質(zhì)的激增，樹木的生長速度開始放慢，對(duì)疾病的抵抗力明顯下降。

　　新聞曝光使污染問題的外延性更加清晰。比如最近有報(bào)道稱：居住在瑞典和挪威北部的拉普蘭人被禁止食用當(dāng)?shù)芈谷�，因�(yàn)檫h(yuǎn)在烏克蘭的切爾諾貝利城發(fā)生核事故，污染波及到了拉普蘭人的鹿群。無獨(dú)有偶，加拿大野生動(dòng)物學(xué)家發(fā)現(xiàn)，北極熊肝內(nèi)合有大量聚氯聯(lián)二苯和其他污染物。

　　另外，有些污染問題的外延性很大，全世界都無法幸免。溫室效應(yīng)便是一例。由于大氣中的二氧化碳分子日益聚集，濃度越來越高，而且很難分解，它使地球熱量滯留，無法散發(fā)，導(dǎo)致全球氣候變暖。據(jù)估計(jì)，人類在未來五十年內(nèi)也許將面臨巨大災(zāi)難：部分經(jīng)濟(jì)落后國家將爆發(fā)大面積饑荒，整個(gè)沿海地區(qū)將被淹沒，加拿大平原地區(qū)則可能遭受嚴(yán)重的旱災(zāi)。

　　對(duì)全球氣候的另一威脅來自大氣層上端越來越稀薄的臭氧層。臭氧層是由一團(tuán)微藍(lán)色的氣體構(gòu)成，該氣團(tuán)能遮擋來自太陽的紫外線�，F(xiàn)在它正被一種叫氯氟甲烷的合成化學(xué)物質(zhì)所吞噬。臭氧層變薄，人類患皮膚癌的機(jī)率比1950年增長了8% -16%。

　　另外，大量由核電廠、工廠、實(shí)驗(yàn)室和制藥廠排放的有毒廢棄物未得到妥善處理，它們可能對(duì)所有的有機(jī)體構(gòu)成威脅。不幸的是，迄今為止，該問題很少有人理會(huì)。不少工業(yè)發(fā)達(dá)的國家干脆把問題轉(zhuǎn)嫁給極度貧困的國家，這些落后國家沒有廢物堆積和處理設(shè)備，更沒有能力應(yīng)對(duì)此后的隱患。1988年幾內(nèi)亞(比紹)政府與英國兩個(gè)公司簽訂合同，同意在其后五年中接收1500萬噸制藥廢物。作為交換的費(fèi)用對(duì)英國公司是區(qū)區(qū)小數(shù)，但卻是幾內(nèi)亞(比紹)國民產(chǎn)值的四倍多。世界上有些國家極度貧窮，這種交易對(duì)于他們來說還非常“劃得來”。因此，解決這個(gè)問題絕非易事。

　　我們提醒那些利用世界上的資源的人們，在做出決定時(shí)必須三思，想想外部世界會(huì)為他們的行為付出什么樣的代價(jià)。有人正以每小時(shí)1200公頃的速度砍伐雨林，他們砍的其實(shí)是地球的肺臟，因?yàn)橛炅质堑厍虼髿鈱又醒鯕獾闹饕�供給者之一。但這些人并不郝是邪惡之徒。他們?yōu)榱藝�家和自己眼前的生�?jì)，過度利用環(huán)境，實(shí)屬無奈。例如，有些發(fā)展中國家不得不超速砍伐樹木，以換取必需的外匯以進(jìn)口物品。他們實(shí)在無力顧及將來。

　　顯然，如果不采用政治手段在落后國家和發(fā)達(dá)國家之間重新分配所得，并且重新界定環(huán)境所有權(quán)的話，很多環(huán)境問題便得不到解決。只有在人們充分理解污染的外延性的基礎(chǔ)上，才能使政治和制度朝正確的方向轉(zhuǎn)變。

　　發(fā)達(dá)國家必須積極合作，制訂出把收入向欠發(fā)達(dá)國家重新分配的全面有效的方案。阻止環(huán)境惡化是需要全人類同心協(xié)力，共同奮斗的大事，沒有發(fā)達(dá)國家的參與，落后國家孤軍奮戰(zhàn)，是不可能阻止環(huán)境繼續(xù)惡化的。

　　參考譯文

　　The Threatened Environment

　　In recent years we have come to realize that several threats to the environment are fundamental. One is acid rain, which is created by the millions of tones of sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxides spewed out of North American smokestacks and automobile exhaust pipes. The oxides mix with water vapor in the air to form weak sulphuric and nitric acid, which later falls as acid rain. The result is increased acidity in lakes, which has curtailed the ability of many fish to reproduce, and in the soil, which has slowed the growth of trees and increased their vulnerability to disease. With every news report, the externality dimension of environmental problems seems to become clearer. For instance, it was recently reported that Lapp villagers in northern Sweden and Norway were forbidden to eat local reindeer meat after their herds became contaminated by fallout from the nuclear accident at Chernobyl in far-off Ukraine. Similarly, Canadian wildlife scientists have found high levels of PCBs and other contaminants in polar-bear livers.

　　But some pollution problems involve such dramatic externalities that the whole world is affected. One example is the greenhouse effect. The steadily rising and essentially irreversible concentration of carbon dioxide in the earth's atmosphere causes it to trap increasing amounts of the heat radiated by the planet. The general warming trend is expected to have disastrous effects, including mass starvation in some less developed countries, flooding of entire coastal areas, and severe droughts on the Canadian Prairies, perhaps within the next fifty years.

　　Another worldwide threat is in the upper atmosphere - the thinning of the layer of ozone, a bluish gas that shields the earth from the sun's ultraviolet rays. Synthetic chemicals called chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) are depleting the ozone layer. One estimated result is that the chance of getting skin cancer is now 8 to 16 percent greater than it was in 1950. Hazardous wastes (such as those from nuclear plants, industrial manufacturing, laboratories, and medical institutions) represent yet another critical environmental problem improperly disposed, they can threaten all forms of organic life. Unfortunately, little has been done so far to solve this problem. Indeed there are many instances in which industrialized countries have literally just shipped the problem off toll the poorest of the less developed countries - countries unequipped with the necessary storage and treatment facilities, and certainly too poor to deal with the serious environmental problems that will follow. For example, in 1988 the government of Guinea Bissau signed a contract with two British firms to receive 15 million tonnes of pharmaceutical wastes over a five-year period. While this arrangement was very inexpensive from the firms' point of view, the payments to Guinea-Bissau totaled more than four times that county's national product. It makes it difficult to solve the problem when parts of the world are so poor that they are forced to regard such transactions as "good deals". The users of the world's resources simply must be made to take the external costs of their actions into consideration when making their decisions. The people who are hacking down the world's rain forests at the rate of 1200 hectares an hour are literally cutting away the lungs of the earth, since rain forests contribute a large percentage of the oxygen in the earth's atmosphere. But these individuals are not necessarily evil: in many cases, they are forced to overuse the environment for their own or their country's immediate survival. For example, some developing countries' needs for foreign exchange to pay for imports compel them to cut timber faster than it can be regenerated. They simply cannot afford to worry about the future.

　　Obviously, many of these problems cannot be solved without political decisions to redistribute income to the less developed countries, and to define property rights. But the right kinds of political and institutional changes will be forthcoming only if they are rooted in an understanding of the externality dimension of environmental issues.

　　Countries in the developed world must therefore learn to cooperate in order to devise a sufficiently comprehensive program of income redistribution to the less developed countries.

　　Without help from the developed world, these poorer countries cannot possibly make the sacrifices that the human race must make collectively to reverse the deterioration of the environment.