高级英语Lesson 3 Ships in the Desert

Lesson 3 Ships in the Desert

Ships in the Desert

AL Gore

I was standing in the sun on the hot steel deck of a

fishing ship capable of processing a fifty-ton catch on a good day. But it wasn' t a good day. We were anchored in what used to be the most productive fishing site in all of central Asia, but as I looked out over the bow , the prospects of a good catch looked bleak. Where there should have been gentle

blue-green waves lapping against the side of the ship, there was nothing but hot dry sand – as far as I could see in all

directions. The other ships of the fleet were also at rest in the sand, scattered in the dunes that stretched all the way to the horizon . Ten year s ago the Aral was the fourth-largest inland sea in the world, comparable to the largest of North America's Great Lakes. Now it is disappearing because the water that

used to feed it has been diverted in an ill-considered irrigation scheme to grow cotton In the user t. The new shoreline was almost forty kilometers across the sand from where the fishing fleet was now permanently docked. Meanwhile, in the nearby town of Muynak the people were still canning fish – brought not from the Aral Sea but shipped by rail through Siberia from the Pacific Ocean, more than a thousand miles away.

My search for the underlying causes of the environmental crisis has led me to travel around the world to examine and

study many of these images of destruction. At the very bottom of the earth, high in the Trans-Antarctic Mountains, with the

sun glaring at midnight through a hole in the sky, I stood in the

unbelievable coldness and talked with a scientist in the late tall of 1988 about the tunnel he was digging through time. Slipping his parka back to reveal a badly burned face that was cracked and peeling, he pointed to the annual layers of ice in a core sample dug from the glacier on which we were standing. He moved his finger back in time to the ice of two decades ago. "Here's where t he U. S Congress passed the Clean Air Act, ” he said. At the bottom of the world, two continents away from Washington, D. C., even a small reduction in one country's emissions had changed the amount of pollution found in the remotest end least accessible place on earth.

But the most significant change thus far in the earth' s atmosphere is the one that began with the industrial r evolution early in the last century and has picked up speed ever since. Industry meant coal, and later oil, and we began to burn lots of it – bringing rising levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) , with its ability to trap more heat in the atmosphere and slowly warm the earth. Fewer than a hundred yards from the South Pole, upwind from the ice runway where the ski plane lands and keeps its engines running to prevent the metal parts from freeze-locking together, scientists monitor the air sever al times ever y day to chart the course of that inexorable change. During my visit, I watched one scientist draw the results of that day's measurements, pushing the end of a steep line still higher on the graph. He told me how easy it is – there at the end of the earth – to see that this enormous change in the global atmosphere is still picking up speed.

Two and a half years later I slept under the midnight sun at the other end of our planet, in a small tent pitched on a

twelve-toot-thick slab of ice floating in the frigid Arctic Ocean. After a hearty breakfast, my companions and I traveled by snowmobiles a few miles farther north to a rendezvous point where the ice was thinner – only three and a half feet thick –and a nuclear submarine hovered in the water below. After it crashed through the ice, took on its new passengers, and resubmerged, I talked with scientists who were trying to measure more accurately the thickness of the polar ice cap, which many believe is thinning as a re-suit of global warming. I had just negotiated an agreement between ice scientists and the U. S. Navy to secure the re-lease of previously top secret data from submarine sonar tracks, data that could help them learn what is happening to the north polar cap. Now, I wanted to see the pole it-self, and some eight hours after we met the submarine, we were crashing through that ice, surfacing, and then I was standing in an eerily beautiful snowcape, windswept and sparkling white, with the horizon defined by little hummocks, or "pressure ridges " of ice that are pushed up like tiny mountain ranges when separate sheets collide. But here too, CD, levels are rising just as rapidly, and ultimately temperature will rise with them – indeed, global warming is expected to push temperatures up much more rapidly in the polar regions than in the rest of the world. As the polar air warms, the ice her e will thin; and since the polar cap plays such a crucial role in the world's weather system, the consequences of a thinning cap could be disastrous.

Considering such scenarios is not a purely speculative exercise. Six months after I returned from the North Pole, a team of scientists reported dramatic changes in the pattern of

ice distribution in the Arctic, and a second team reported a still controversial claim (which a variety of data now suggest) that, over all, the north polar cap has thinned by 2 per cent in just the last decade. Moreover, scientists established several years ago that in many land areas north of the Arctic Circle, the spring snowmelt now comes earlier every year, and deep in the tundra below, the temperature e of the earth is steadily rising.

As it happens, some of the most disturbing images of environmental destruction can be found exactly halfway between the North and South poles – precisely at the equator in Brazil – where billowing clouds of smoke regularly black-en the sky above the immense but now threatened Amazon rain forest. Acre by acre, the rain forest is being burned to create fast pasture for fast-food beef; as I learned when I went there in early 1989, the fires are set earlier and earlier in the dry season now, with more than one Tennessee's worth of rain forest being slashed and burned each year. According to our guide, the biologist Tom Lovejoy, there are more different species of birds in each square mile of the Amazon than exist in all of North America – which means we are silencing thousands of songs we have never even heard.

But one doesn't have to travel around the world to

wit-ness humankind's assault on the earth. Images that signal the distress of our global environment are now commonly seen almost anywhere. On some nights, in high northern latitudes, the sky itself offers another ghostly image that signals the loss of ecological balance now in progress. If the sky is clear after sunset -- and it you are watching from a place where pollution

hasn't blotted out the night sky altogether -- you can sometimes see a strange kind of cloud high in the sky. This "noctilucent cloud" occasionally appears when the earth is first cloaked in the evening dark-ness; shimmering above us with a translucent whiteness, these clouds seem quite unnatural. And they should: noctilucent clouds have begun to appear more often because of a huge buildup of methane gas in the atmosphere. (Also called natural gas, methane is released from landfills , from coal mines and rice paddies, from billions of termites that swarm through the freshly cut forestland, from the burning of biomass and from a variety of other human activities. ) Even though noctilucent clouds were sometimes seen in the past., all this extra methane carries more water vapor into the upper atmosphere, where it condenses at much higher altitudes to form more clouds that the sun's rays still strike long after sunset has brought the beginning of night to the surface far beneath them.

What should we feel toward these ghosts in the sky? Simple wonder or the mix of emotions we feel at the zoo? Perhaps we should feel awe for our own power: just as men "ear tusks from elephants’ heads in such quantity as to threaten the beast with extinction, we are ripping matter from its place in the earth in such volume as to upset the balance between daylight and darkness. In the process, we are once again adding to the threat of global warming, be-cause methane has been one of the fastest-growing green-house gases, and is third only to carbon dioxide and water vapor in total volume, changing the chemistry of the upper atmosphere. But, without even considering that threat, shouldn't it startle us

that we have now put these clouds in the evening sky which glisten with a spectral light? Or have our eyes adjusted so completely to the bright lights of civilization that we can't see these clouds for what they are – a physical manifestation of the violent collision between human civilization and the earth?

Even though it is sometimes hard to see their meaning, we have by now all witnessed surprising experiences that signal the damage from our assault on the environment --whether it's the new frequency of days when the temperature exceeds 100 degrees, the new speed with which the -un burns our skin, or the new constancy of public debate over what to do with growing mountains of waste. But our response to these signals is puzzling. Why haven't we launched a massive effort to save our environment? To come at the question another way' Why do some images startle us into immediate action and focus our attention or ways to respond effectively? And why do other images, though sometimes equally dramatic, produce instead a Kin. of paralysis, focusing our attention not on ways to respond but rather on some convenient, less painful distraction?

Still, there are so many distressing images of

environ-mental destruction that sometimes it seems impossible to know how to absorb or comprehend them. Before considering the threats themselves, it may be helpful to classify them and thus begin to organize our thoughts and feelings so that we may be able to respond appropriately.

A useful system comes from the military, which frequently places a conflict in one of three different categories, according to the theater in which it takes place. There are "local"

skirmishes, "regional" battles, and "strategic" conflicts. This third category is reserved for struggles that can threaten a nation's survival and must be under stood in a global context. Environmental threats can be considered in the same way. For example, most instances of water pollution, air pollution, and illegal waste dumping are essentially local in nature. Problems like acid rain, the contamination of under-ground aquifers, and large oil spills are fundamentally regional. In both of these categories, there may be so many similar instances of particular local and regional problems occurring simultaneously all over the world that the patter n appears to be global, but the problems themselves are still not truly strategic because the operation of- the global environment is not affected and the survival of civilization is not at stake.

However, a new class of environmental problems does affect the global ecological system, and these threats are fundamentally strategic. The 600 percent increase in the amount of chlorine in the atmosphere during the last forty years has taken place not just in those countries producing the chlorofluorocarbons responsible but in the air above every country, above Antarctica, above the North Pole and the Pacific Ocean – all the way from the surface of the earth to the top of the sky. The increased levels of chlorine disrupt the global process by which the earth regulates the amount of ultraviolet radiation from the sun that is allowed through the atmosphere to the surface; and it we let chlorine levels continue to increase, the radiation levels will al-so increase – to the point that all animal and plant life will face a new threat to their survival.

Global warming is also a strategic threat. The concentration of carbon dioxide and other heat-absorbing molecules has increased by almost 25 per cent since World War II, posing a worldwide threat to the earth's ability to regulate the amount of heat from the sun retained in the atmosphere. This increase in heat seriously threatens the global climate equilibrium that determines the pattern of winds, rainfall, surface temperatures, ocean currents, and sea level. These in turn determine the distribution of vegetative and animal life on land and sea and have a great effect on the location and pattern of human societies.

In other words, the entire relationship between humankind and the earth has been transformed because our civilization is suddenly capable of affecting the entire global environment, not just a particular area. All of us know that human civilization has usually had a large impact on the environment; to mention just one example, there is evidence that even in prehistoric times, vast areas were sometimes intentionally burned by people in their search for food. And in our own time we have reshaped a large part of the earth's surface with concrete in our cities and carefully tended rice paddies, pastures, wheat fields, and other croplands in the countryside. But these changes, while sometimes appearing to be pervasive , have, until recently, been relatively trivial factors in the global ecological sys-tem. Indeed, until our lifetime, it was always safe to assume that nothing we did or could do would have any lasting effect on the global environment. But it is precisely that assumption which must now be discarded so that we can think strategically about our new relationship to the environment.

Human civilization is now the dominant cause of change in the global environment. Yet we resist this truth and find it hard to imagine that our effect on the earth must now be measured by the same yardstick used to calculate the strength of the moon's pull on the oceans or the force of the wind against the mountains. And it we are now capable of changing something so basic as the relationship between the earth and the sun, surely we must acknowledge a new responsibility to use that power wisely and with appropriate restraint. So far, however, We seem oblivious of the fragility of the earth's natural systems.

This century has witnessed dramatic changes in two key factors that define the physical reality of our relation-ship to the earth: a sudden and startling surge in human population, with the addition of one China's worth of people every ten years, and a sudden acceleration of the scientific and technological revolution, which has allowed an almost unimaginable magnification of our power to affect the world around us by burning, cutting, digging, moving, and trans-forming the physical matter that makes up the earth. The surge in population is both a cause of the changed relationship and one of the clearest illustrations of how startling the change has been, especially when viewed in a historical context. From the emergence of modern humans 200 000 years ago until Julius Caesar's time, fewer than 250 million people walked on the face of the earth. When Christopher Columbus set sail for the New World 1500 years later, there were approximately 500 million people on earth. By the time Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence in 1776, the number had

doubled again, to 1 billion. By midway through this century, at the end of World War II, the number had risen to just above 2 billion people. In other words, from the beginning of humanity's appearance on earth to 1945, it took more than ten thousand generations to reach a world population of 2 billion people. Now, in the course of one human lifetime -- mine -- the world population will increase from 2 to more than 9 million, and it is already more than halfway there.

Like the population explosion, the scientific and technological revolution began to pick up speed slowly during the eighteenth century. And this ongoing revolution has also suddenly accelerated exponentially. For example, it is now an axiom in many fields of science that more new and important discoveries have taken place in the last ten years that. in the entire previous history of science. While no single discover y has had the kind of effect on our relationship to the earth that unclear weapons have had on our relationship to warfare, it is nevertheless true that taken together, they have completely transformed our cumulative ability to exploit the earth for sustenance -- making the consequences, of unrestrained exploitation every bit as unthinkable as the consequences of unrestrained nuclear war.

Now that our relationship to the earth has changed so utterly, we have to see that change and understand its implications. Our challenge is to recognize that the startling images of environmental destruction now occurring all over the world have much more in common than their ability to shock and awaken us. They are symptoms of an underlying problem broader in scope and more serious than any we have ever

faced. Global warming, ozone depletion, the loss of living species, deforestation -- they all have a common cause: the new relationship between human civilization and the earth's natural balance. There are actually two aspects to this challenge. The first is to realize that our power to harm the earth can in-deed have global and even permanent effects. The second is to realize that the only way to understand our new role as a co-architect of nature is to see ourselves as part of a complex system that does not operate according to the same simple rules of cause and effect we are used to. The problem is not our effect on the environment so much as our relationship with the environment. As a result, any solution to the problem will require a careful assessment of that relationship as well as the complex interrelationship among factors within civilization and between them and the major natural components of the earth's ecological system.

There is only one precedent for this kind of challenge to our thinking, and again it is military. The invention of nuclear weapons and the subsequent development by the Unit-ed States and the Soviet Union of many thousands of strategic nuclear weapons forced a slow and painful recognition that the new power thus acquired forever changed not only the relationship between the two superpowers but also the relationship of humankind to the institution at war-fare itself. The consequences of all-out war between nations armed with nuclear weapons suddenly included the possibility of the destruction of both nations – completely and simultaneously. That sobering realization led to a careful reassessment of every aspect of our mutual relationship to the prospect of such

a war. As early as 1946 one strategist concluded that strategic bombing with missiles "may well tear away the veil of illusion that has so long obscured the reality of the change in warfare –from a fight to a process of destruction.”

Nevertheless, during the earlier stages of the nuclear arms race, each of the superpower s assumed that its actions would have a simple and direct effect on the thinking of the other. For decades, each new advance in weaponry was deployed by one side for the purpose of inspiring fear in the other. But each such deployment led to an effort by the other to leapfrog the first one with a more advanced deployment of its own. Slowly, it has become apparent that the problem of the nuclear arms r ace is not primarily caused by technology. It is complicated by technology, true; but it arises out of the relationship between the superpowers and is based on an obsolete understanding of what war is all about.

The eventual solution to the arms race will be found, not in a new deployment by one side or the other of some ultimate weapon or in a decision by either side to disarm unilaterally , but ratter in new understandings and in a mutual transformation of the relationship itself. This transformation will involve changes in the technology of weaponry and the denial of nuclear technology to rogue states. But the key changes will be in the way we think about the institution of war far e and about the relationship between states.

The strategic nature of the threat now posed by human civilization to the global environment and the strategic nature of the threat to human civilization now posed by changes in the global environment present us with a similar set of challenges

and false hopes. Some argue that a new ultimate technology, whether nuclear power or genetic engineering, will solve the problem. Others hold that only a drastic reduction of our reliance on technology can improve the conditions of life -- a simplistic notion at best. But the real solution will be found in reinventing and finally healing the relationship between civilization and the earth. This can only be accomplished by undertaking a careful reassessment of all the factors that led to the relatively recent dramatic change in the relationship. The transformation of the way we relate to the earth will of course involve new technologies, but the key changes will involve new ways of thinking about the relationship itself.

NOTES

I) Al Gore: born in 1948 in Washington D. C., U. S. Senator (1984-1992) from the State of Tennessee,and U. S.

Vice-President ( l 992-) under President Bill Clinton. He is the author of the book Earth in the Balance from which this piece is taken.

2) Aral Sea: inland sea and the world’s fourth largest lake, c.

26 000 sqmiles, SW Kazakhstan and NW Uzbekhstan, E of the Caspian Sea

3) Great Lakes: group of five freshwater lakes, Central North America, between the United States and Canada, largest body of fresh water in the world. From west to east, they are Lake Superior,Lake Michigan,Lake Huron, Lake Erie, and Lake Ontario.

4) Trans-Antarctic Mountains: mountain chain stretching

across Antarctica from Victoria I and to Coats I and; separating the E Antarctic and W Antarctic subcontinents

5) Clean Air Act: one of the oldest environmental laws of the U. S., as well as the most far-reaching, the costliest, and the most controversial. It was passed in 1970.

6) Washington D. C.: capital of the United States. D. C. (District of Columbia).is added to distinguish it from the State of Washington and 3 other cities in the U. S bearing the sonic name.

7) freeze-locking: the metal parts are frozen solid and unable to move freely

8)midnight sun: phenomenon in which the sun remains visible in the sky for 24 hours or longer, occurring only in the polar regions

9)global warming; The earth is getting warmer. The temperature of the earth's atmosphere and its surface is steadily rising.

10) Submarine sonar tracks: the term sonar is an acronym for sound navigation ranging. It is used for communication between submerged submarines or between a submarine and a surface vessel, for locating mines and underwater hazards to navigation, and also as a fathometer, or depth finder.

11) greenhouse (effect): process whereby heat is trapped at the surface of the earth by the atmosphere. An increase of man-made pollutants in the atmosphere will lead to a long-term warming of the earth's climate.

12) Julius Caesar: (102? B. C -- 44 B. C:. ), Roman statesman and general

13) Christopher Columbus: ( 1451-1506), discoverer of

America, born Genoa, Italy

14) Thomas Jefferson: (17-13-1826 ), 3d President of the United States(1801-1809), author of the Declaration of Independence.

15) Declaration of Independence: full and formal declaration adopted July 4,1776, by representatives of the thirteen colonies in North America announcing the separation of those colonies from Great Britain and making them into the United States

16)Ozone depletion: A layer of ozone in the stratosphere prevents most ultraviolet and other high-energy radiation, which is harmful to life, from penetrating to the earth's surface.Some.environmental, scientists fear that certain

man-made pollutants, e.g. nitric oxide,

CFCs(Chlorofluorocarbons), etc., may interfere with the

delica te balance of reactions that maintains the ozone’ s concentration, possibly leading to a drastic depletion of stratospheric ozone. This is now happening in the stratosphere above the polar regions.

第三课

沙漠之舟

艾尔?戈尔

我头顶烈日站在一艘渔船的滚烫的钢甲板上。这艘渔船在丰收季节

一天所处理加工的鱼可达15吨。但现在可不是丰收季节。这艘渔船此时此刻停泊的地方虽说曾是整个中亚地区最大的渔业基地，但当我站在船头向远处眺望时，却看出渔业丰收的希望非常渺茫。极目四顾，原先那种湛蓝色海

涛轻拍船舷的景象已不复存在，取而代之的是茫茫的一片干燥灼热的沙漠。渔船队的其他渔船也都搁浅在沙漠上，散见于陂陀起伏、绵延至天边的沙丘间。十年前，咸海还是世界上第四大内陆湖泊，可与北美大湖区五大湖中的最大湖泊相媲美。而今，由于兴建了一项考虑欠周的水利工程，原来注入此湖的水被引入沙漠灌溉棉田，咸海这座大湖的水面已渐渐变小，新形成的湖岸距离这些渔船永远停泊的位置差不多有40公里远。与此同时，这儿附近的莫里那克镇上人们仍在生产鱼罐头，但所用的鱼已不是咸海所产，而是从一千多英里以外的太平洋渔业基地穿越西伯利亚运到这儿来的。

我因要对造成环境危机的原因进行调查而得以周游世界，考察和研究许多类似这样破坏生态环境的事例。一九八八年深秋时节，我来到地球的最南端。高耸的南极山脉中太阳在午夜穿过天空中的一个孔洞照射着地面，我站在令人难以置信的寒冷中，与一位科学家进行着一场谈话，内容是他正在挖掘的时间隧道。这位科学家一撩开他的派克皮大衣，我便注意到他脸上因烈日的曝晒而皮肤皲裂，干裂的皮屑正一层层地剥落。他一边讲话一边指给我看。从我们脚下的冰川中挖出的一块岩心标本上的年层。他将手指．到二十年前的冰层上，告诉我说，“这儿就是美国国会审议通过化空气法案的地方。”这里虽处地球之顶端，距美国首都华盛顿两大洲之遥，但世界上任何一个国家只要将废气排放量减少一席在空气污染程度上引起的相应变化便能在南极这个地球上最偏而人迹难至的地方反映出来。

迄今为止，地球大气层最重要的变化始于上世纪初的工业命，变化速度自那以后逐渐加快。工业意味着先是煤、后是石油消耗。我们燃烧了大量的煤和石油——导致大气层二氧化碳含的增加，这就使更多的热量得以留存在大气层中，从而使地球的候逐渐变暖。离南极极点不到一百码远，在雪上飞机降落的冰铺道上风处，科学家们一日数次地测量大气，以便绘制图表记录下无情的变化。雪上飞机在冰铺跑道上降落后，引擎仍得保持运聋以防金属部件冻住而无法发动。在我访问期间，我观看了一位科家绘出那天的测量结果，把图表上一条斜度很大的上升的线再上推进。他告诉我——在这地球的

尽头——很容易看清全球大层的巨大变化的速度仍在加快。

两年半以后，在地球的另一端，在寒冷至极的北冰洋上漂浮的一块十二英尺厚的冰板上搭起的小帐篷里我又体验到了在午的阳光下睡觉的滋味。饱吃了一顿早餐后，我和同伴们一起乘雪防滑汽车北行数英里，到了约定会合地点，那儿的冰层较薄——有三英尺半厚——水下有一艘核潜艇在那儿徘徊着。潜艇破冰上来，载上新的乘客后又潜了下去。我也就开始同那些正设法以高的精确度测量极地冰帽厚度的科学家们进行交谈。许多人认北极冰层由于地球气候的转暖而正在变薄。此前我刚刚通过谈使美国海军方面与研究北极冰层的科学家达成协议，向他们提由水下声纳系统探测得到的本来属于最高机密的有关资料，这资料有助于他们了解北极冰层所发生的情况。现在我想实地考一下北极极点。我们登上潜艇约八个小时后，潜艇冲破冰层浮上面。于是，我便置身于一片神奇瑰丽的冰雪世界中。雪原上寒风劲扫，银光闪耀，其边缘则是一道由连绵起伏的小冰丘或由冰席相撞、相互挤压而形成小型山脉的冰层“压脊”勾勒出的地平线。但即使在这儿，空气中二氧化碳的含量也在不断上升，最后气温也必然会随之上升——事实上，地球气候变暖会使南北极地区在气温上升的速度上远高于世界的其他地区。随着极地气温的升高，这里的冰层会融化变薄。由于南北极的冰帽对全球的气候有着至关重要的调节作用，它们的融化将会带来灾难性的后果。

探索这些问题并不是一种纯理论性的工作。我从北极回来后过了六个月，就有一队科学家报称北极冰层的分布结构已发生显著变化；另一队科学家则在考察报告中提出了一个更有争议的说法(如今已有大量资料可以佐证)：总体说来，仅在过去十年当中，北极冰层已融化了百分之二。另外，科学家们还在几年前就已证实，在北极圈以北的许多地区，春季雪融的时间逐年提前，而且冻土带的地下深处的温度都在稳步上升。

凑巧的是，破坏生态环境的一些最典型的、最令人担忧的事例刚好都发生在南北极正中间的地方——巴西境内的赤道带上——那儿滚滚浓烟时常

弥漫着辽阔但现又面临着破坏的亚马孙热带雨林的上空。亚马孙雨林正被人们大片大片地烧毁，以便腾出空地作饲养速食肉牛的牧场。我1989年初去那儿时得知，现在旱季时节放火焚烧森林的时间正逐年提前，其结果是每年都有面积比整个田纳西州还大的大片森林遭到砍伐焚烧。据给我们当向导的生物学家汤姆?洛夫乔伊介绍，亚马孙雨林中每平方英里的林区栖息的禽鸟种类多于整个北美洲现存的禽鸟种类——这就意味着我们正在使成千上万

种我们从来没有听到过的飞禽的歌声永远消失。

人们也不一定非要周游世界才能目睹人类对地球的破坏。今天的世界上，预示着地球生态危机的景象已是随处可见。在北方高纬度地区，夜晚的天空有时也会呈现出另一种预示地球上日趋严重的生态失衡的阴森景象。假如日落后天空明朗无云——而且你又置身于一个空气污染还没有严重到足

以完全遮蔽夜空的地方进行观察的话——你会看见天空高处有时会出现一

种奇异的云团。这种“夜光云团”偶尔出现于夜幕开始笼罩大地的时候，它呈半透明的白色，在高空中闪烁发光，看起来颇不像自然之物。其实，这种云团也确非自然之物：近年来由于大气中甲烷含量的大幅度增高，夜光云团的出现频率也随着上升了。(甲烷又称天然气，它产生于填土、煤矿、糠壳、新砍伐的林地里群聚的白蚁、燃烧生物以及人类许多其他的活动过程中。)虽说过去天空偶尔也出现过夜光云团，但大气层中所含的那些过量的甲烷会将更多的水蒸气带到高层大气中；水蒸气在更高处凝结，会形成更厚的云层，夜幕降临以后很久，这些位于高空的云层下方还在受着太阳光的照射。

对天空中出现的这些奇异现象我们应当如何看待呢?是仅仅叹为奇观还是怀着像我们在动物园中观看动物时感受到的那种复杂的感情?也许我们应当为自己所具有的破坏力而惊奇赞叹：正如人类由于大量猎取象牙致使大象面临灭种威胁一样，我们今天正由于大量糟蹋和破坏地球上的自然资源而使白天和黑夜之间的平衡遭到破坏。我们的这种行为更进一步地增加了地球变暖的危险，因为甲烷是一种形成速度极快韵温室效应气体，它在大气中的总含量仅次于二氧化碳和水蒸气，使高空大气层的化学成分都发生了变化。即

使不去考虑这种危险，但只要意识到我们让这些闪烁着阴森森的鬼火般光亮的云团笼罩着自己头顶上的夜空，这还不就足以令我们警醒吗?难道说是我们的眼睛因为过分习惯于人类文明之光而对这些云团视而不见——看不出

它们乃是人类文明同地球之间的激烈冲突的一种具体表现形式吗?

尽管有时很难理解其真正含义，我们大家都曾耳闻目睹过一些反映人类对生态环境造成破坏的惊人的现象——或是气温超过一百度的高温天气出

现频率的增加，或是太阳灼伤人的皮肤的速度的加快，或是公众对越积越多的废物该如何处理这一问题进行讨论的热情的高涨。但是，我们大家对这些现象所作的反应却很有点奇怪。我们为何不采取切实有效的行动来保护生态环境呢?这个问题也可以换一种方式来问：为什么有些现象会引起我们重视，促使我们立即采取行动，努力寻求有效对策?为什么另外一些现象，虽然有时也同样严重，却让人们无动于衷，人们的注意力不是集中在寻求积极有效的对策而是某种方便省事的规避策略呢?

话说回来，由于令人担忧的生态环境受到破坏的现象太多了，使人有时确乎难以认识其实质意义和影响。在对这些威胁生态环境的现象进行考察分析之前，下面的做法也许是有益的：对这些现象进行分级归类，从而使我们的思想感情条理化，以便根据实际情况采取相应的合理的对策。

有一套行之有效的分级归类方法源自于军队。他们经常将冲突根据其发生范围的大小分为三级，即“局部性冲突”，“地区性战斗”，及“战略性对抗”。第三级指的是直接威胁到一个国家的生存，因而必须以全球局势为背景来进行认识的军事对抗行为。

对生态环境方面的危机也可以这样来加以考虑。比如，水域的污染、空气的污染和非法倾倒垃圾的行为多半属于局部性的问题，而诸如酸雨、地下含水层的污染以及大面积的石油泄漏一类的问题则基本上是地区性的。这两类问题都带有普遍性，世界各地可能同时出现性质相同的局部性问题和地区

性问题，因此，这些局部性问题和地区性问题又似乎可以看作是全球性的问题。但它们并不属于战略性问题，因为这些问题并没有对全球生态环境的本质结构造成影响，也没有直接威胁到人类社会的生存。

然而，新的一类环境问题确实影响全球生态系统，而这些威胁基本上是战略性的。过去四十年中大气层氯的含量增加了百分之六百，这不仅发生在那些生产与此直接相关的氟里昂的国家，而且发生在所有国家的上空，还同样发生在南极上空、北极上空和太平洋上空——从地球表面一直到天空深处。氯含量的增加破坏了地球调节太阳通过大气层射到地面的紫外线辐射量的全球程序。如果我们让氯含量继续增加，那么紫外线辐射量也将增加——终有一天会威胁到所有的动植物的生存。

地球气候转暖也是一种战略性威胁。自第二次世界大战以来，大气层中二氧化碳和其他一些吸热物质分子的含量已增加了近百分之二十五，这便对地球自身具有的调节太阳热量在大气层中存留量的能力构成了世界性的威胁。由此导致的大气层中热量的增高会严重破坏地球的气候平衡机制，从而影响到地球上的风量、雨量、地面温度、洋流和海面高度，而正是这些因素反过来又决定着陆地和海上动植物的生态分布，也在很大程度上决定着人类社会的定居地点和生活方式。

换句话说，由于人类社会已突然具备了改变整个地球而不只是某一特定地区的生态环境的能力，人类与地球之间的关系便整个地发生了改变。众所周知，人类文明对地球上的环境一贯有着极大的影响。且举一例来说明吧：还在远古时代，人类为了觅食求生，有时便纵火焚毁大片原始森林，这是有据可考的。而在今天我们这个时代，人类已经把地球表面的很大一部分完全改换了面貌，城镇里的地面换成了混凝土，乡村里的地面则改造成了精心培育的稻田、牧场、麦田和其他农作物种植地。人类加于地球上的这类改变，有时虽然似乎有着深远的影响，但它们对全球生态系统直到最近仍只产生着微不足道的影响。在我们这个时代以前，的确可以高枕无忧地认为，无论是

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3.谓语的替代 在as和than 引导的比较状语从句中，由于句式同前面 主句相同，为避免重复，常把主句中出现而从句中又出现的动词用do的适当形式来代替。 John speaks German as fluently as Mary does. 4.前后的比较对象应一致 不管后面连词是than 还是as,前后的比较对象应一致。The weather of Beijing is colder than Guangzhou. x than前面比较对象是“天气”，than 后面比较对象是“广州”，不能相比较。应改为: The weather of Bejing is colder than that of Guangzhou. 再如: His handwriting is as good as me. 应改为: His handwriting is as good as mine. 5.可以修饰比较级的词 常用来修饰比较级的词或短语有: Much,even,far,a little,a lot,a bit,by far,rather,any,still,a great deal等。 by far的用法: 用于强调，意为“...得多”“最最...”“显然”等，可修饰形容词或副词的比较级和最高级，通常置于其后，但是若比较级或最高级前有冠词，则可置于其前或其后。

高级英语lesson2原文及其翻译

“Hiroshima! Everybody off!” That must be what the man in the Japanese stationmaster's uniform shouted, as the fastest train in the world slipped to a stop in Hiroshima Station. I did not understand what he was saying. First of all, because he was shouting in Japanese. And secondly, because I had a lump in my throat and a lot of sad thoughts on my mind that had little to do with anything a Nippon railways official might say. The very act of stepping on this soil, in breathing this air of Hiroshima, was for me a far greater adventure than any trip or any reportorial assignment I'd previously taken. Was I not at the scene of the crime? The Japanese crowd did not appear to have the same preoccupations that I had. From the sidewalk outside the station, things seemed much the same as in other Japanese cities. Little girls and elderly ladies in kimonos rubbed shoulders with teenagers and women in western dress. Serious looking men spoke to one another as if they were oblivious of the crowds about them, and bobbed up and down re-heatedly in little bows, as they exchanged the ritual formula of gratitude and respect: "Tomo aligato gozayimas." Others were using little red telephones that hung on the facades of grocery stores and tobacco shops. "Hi! Hi!" said the cab driver, whose door popped open at the very sight of a traveler. "Hi", or something that sounds very much like it, means "yes". "Can you take me to City Hall?" He grinned at me in the rear-view mirror and repeated "Hi!" "Hi! ’ We set off at top speed throug h the narrow streets of Hiroshima. The tall buildings of the martyred city flashed by as we lurched from side to side in response to the driver's sharp twists of the wheel. Just as I was beginning to find the ride long, the taxi screeched to a halt, and the driver got out and went over to a policeman to ask the way. As in Tokyo, taxi drivers in Hiroshima often know little of their city, but to avoid loss of face before foreigners, will not admit their ignorance, and will accept any destination without concern for how long it may take them to find it. At last this intermezzo came to an end, and I found myself in front of the gigantic City Hall. The usher bowed deeply and heaved a long, almost musical sigh, when I showed him the invitation which the mayor had sent me in response to my request for an interview. "That is not here, sir," he said in English. "The mayor expects you tonight for dinner with other foreigners or, the restaurant boat. See? This is where it is.” He sketched a little map for me on the back of my invitation. Thanks to his map, I was able to find a taxi driver who could take me straight to the canal

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Move Over, Big Brother 1.Living without privacy, even in his bedroom, was no problem for Louis XIV. In fact, it was a way for the French king to demonstrate his absolute authority over even the most powerful members of the aristocracy. Each morning, they gathered to see the Sun King get up, pray, perform his bodily functions, choose his wig and so on. 2.Will this past—life without privacy—be our future? Many futurists, science fiction writers and privacy advocates believe so. Big Brother, they have long warned, is watching. Closed-circuit television cameras often track your moves; your mobile phone reveals your location; your transit pass and credit cards leave digital trails. Now there is the possibility that citizens are being watched. 3.But in the past few years, something strange has happened. Thanks to the spread of mobile phones, digital cameras and the internet, surveillance technology has become far more widely available. Bruce Schneier, a security guru, argues that a combination of forces—the miniaturisation of surveillance technologies, the falling price of digital storage and ever more sophisticated systems able to sort through large amounts of information—means that “surveillance abilities that used to be limited to governments are now, or soon will be, in the hands of everyone.” 4.Digital technologies, such as camera phones and the internet, are very different from their analogue counterparts. A digital image, unlike a conventional photograph, can be quickly and easily copied and distributed around the world. Another important difference is that digital devices are far more widespread. Most people take their camera phones with them everywhere. 5.The speed and ubiquity of digital cameras lets them do things that film-based cameras could not. In October, for example, the victim of a robbery in Nashville, Tennessee, used his camera-phone to take pictures of the thief and his getaway vehicle. The images were shown to the police, who broadcast descriptions of the man and his truck, leading to his arrest ten minutes later. 6.The democratisation of surveillance is a mixed blessing, however. Camera phones have led to voyeurisms and new legislation to strengthen people?s rights to their own ima ge. In September, America?s Congress passed the “Video Voyeurism Prevention Act”, which prohibits the photography of various parts of people?s unclothed bodies or undergarments without their consent. The legislation was prompted both by the spread of camera-phones and the growing incidence of hidden cameras in bedrooms, public showers, toilets and locker rooms. Similarly, Germany?s parliament has passed a bill that outlaws unauthorized photos within buildings. In Saudi Arabia, the import and sale of camera-phones has been banned, and religious authorities have denounced them for “spreading obscenity”. South Korea?s government has ordered manufacturers to design new phones so that they beep when taking a picture. 7.There are also concerns about the use of digital cameras and camera-phones for industrial espionage. Sprint, an American mobile operator, is now offering one of its best-selling phones without a camera in response to demands from its corporate customers, many of which have banned cameras in their workplaces. Some firms make visitors and staff leave camera-phones at the entrance of research and manufacturing facilities—including Samsung, the South Korean company that pioneered the camera phone. 8.Cheap surveillance technology facilitates other sorts of crime. Two employees at a petrol station in British Columbia, for example, installed a hidden camera in the ceiling above a card reader, and recorded the personal identification numbers of thousands of people. They also

人教版(新目标)初中英语形容词与副词的比较级与最高级

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用法： 1．原级比较：as + adj./adv. +as（否定为not so/as + adj./adv. +as）当as… as中间有名字时，采用as + adj. + a + n.或as + many / much + n. This is as good an example as the other is . I can carry as much paper as you can. 表示倍数的词或其他程度副词做修饰语时放在as的前面 This room is twice as big as that one. 倍数+as+adj.+as = 倍数+the +n.+of Your room is twice as larger as mine. = Your room is twice the size of mine. 2．比较级+ than 比较级前可加程度状语much, still, even, far, a lot, a little, three years. five times,20%等 He is three years older than I (am). 表示“（两个中）较……的那个”时，比较级前常加the（后面有名字时前面才能加冠词） He is the taller of the two brothers. / He is taller than his two brothers. Which is larger, Canada or Australia? / Which is the larger country, Canada or Australia? 可用比较级形式表示最高级概念，关键是要用或或否定词等把一事物（或人）与其他同类事物（或人）相分离 He is taller than any other boy / anybody else.

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高级英语第一册Unit12 课后练习题答案

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