Unit  8  _Text  B                       
                                         
                                                    Excerpts from Silent Spring
The history of life on earth has been a history of interaction between living things and their surroundings. To a large  extent,  the  physical  form  and  the  habits  of  the  earth’s  vegetation  and  its  animal  life  have  been  molded  by  the environment.  Considering  the  whole  span  of  earthly  time,  the  opposite  effect,  in  which  life  actually  modifies  its surroundings,  has  been  relatively  slight.  Only  within  the  moment of  time  represented  by  the  present  century  has  one species—man—acquired significant power to alter the nature of his world.
地球上生命的历史一直是生物及其周围环境相互作用的历史。可以说在很大程度上，地球上植物和动物的自然形态和习性都是由环境塑造成的。就地球时间的整个阶段而言，生命改造环境的反作用实际上一直是相对微小的。仅仅在出现了生命新种——人类之后，生命才具有了改造其周围大自然的异常能力。long spring是什么意思
During the past quarter century this power has not only increased to one of disturbing magnitude but it has changed in character. The most alarming of all man’s assaults upon the environment is the contamination of air, earth, rivers, and sea with dangerous and even lethal materials. This pollution is for the most part irrecoverable;
在过去的四分之一世纪里，这种力量不仅在数量上增长到产生骚扰的程度，而且发生了质的变化。在人对环境的所有袭击中最令人震惊的是空气、土地、河流以及大海受到了危险的、甚至致命物质的污染。这种污染在很大程度上是难以恢复的。
the chain of evil it initiates not only  in  the  world  that  must  support  life  but  in  living  tissues  is  for  the  most  part  irreversible.  In  this  now  universal contamination  of  the  environment,  chemicals  are  the  sinister  and  little-recognized  partners  of radiation  in  changing  the very nature of the world—the very nature of its life. Strontium 90, released through nuclear explosions into the air, comes to  earth  in rain or  drifts  down  as  fallout, lodges in  soil, enters into  the  grass  or  corn  or  wheat  grown  there,  and  in time takes  up  its  abode  in  the  bones  of  a  human  being,  there  to  remain  until  his  death.
它不仅进入了生命赖以生存的世界，而且也进入了生物组织内。这一邪恶的环链在很大程度上是无法逆转的。在当前这种环境的普遍污染中，在改变大自然及其生命本性的过程中，化学药品起着有害的作用，它们至少可以与放射性危害相提并论。在核爆炸中所释放出的锶90，会随着雨水和飘尘争先恐后地降落到地面，停驻在土壤里，然后进入其生长的草、谷物或小麦里，并不断进入到人类的骨头里，它将一直保留在那儿，直到完全衰亡。
Similarly, chemicals sprayed on croplands or forests or gardens lie long in soil, entering into living organisms, passing from one to another in a chain of poisoning and death. Or they pass mysteriously by underground streams until they emerge and, through the magical of air  and sunlight, combine into new forms that kill vegetation, sicken cattle, and work unknown harm on those who drink from once pure wells. As Albert Schweitzer has said, ‘Man can hardly even recognize the devils of his own creation.’
同样地，被撒向农田、森林和菜园里的化学药品也长期地存在于土壤里，然后进入生物的组织中，并在一个引起中毒和死亡的环链中不断传递迁移。有时它们随着地下水流神秘地转移，等到它们再度显现出来时，它们会在空气和太阳光的作用下结合成为新的形式，这种新
物质可以杀伤植物和家畜，使那些曾经长期饮用井水的人们受到不知不觉的伤害。正如阿伯特·济慈所说：  “人们恰恰很难辨认自己创造出的魔鬼。
It  took  hundreds  of  millions  of  years  to  produce  the  life  that  now  inhabits  the  earth—eons  of  time  in  which  that developing  and  evolving  and  diversifying  life  reached  a  state  of  adjustment  and  balance  with  its  surroundings.  The environment,  rigorously  shaping  and  directing  the  life  it  supported,  contained  elements  that  were  hostile  as  well  as supporting.  Certain  rocks  gave  out  dangerous radiation;  even  within  the  light  of  the  sun,  from  which  all  life  draws  its energy,  there  were  short-wave  radiations  with  power  to  injure. Given time—time not in years but in millennia—life adjusts, and a balance has been reached. For time is the essential ingredient; but in the modern world there is no time.
为了产生现在居住于地球上的生命已用去了千百万年，在这个时间里，不断发展、进化和演变着的生命与其周围环境达到了一个协调和平衡的状态。在有着严格构成和支配生命的环境中，包含着对生命有害和有益的元素。一些岩石放射出危险的射线，甚至在所有生命从中获
取能量的太阳光中也包含着具有伤害能力的短波射线。生命要调整它原有的平衡所需要的时间不是以年计而是以千年计。时间是根本的因素，但是现今的世界变化之速已来不及调整。
The rapidity of change and the speed with which new situations are created follow the rush and heedless pace of man rather than the deliberate pace of nature. Radiation  is  no  longer  merely  the  background  radiation  of  rocks,  the bombardment of cosmic rays, the ultraviolet of the sun that have existed before there was any life on earth; radiation is now the unnatural creation of man’s interfere with the atom. The chemicals to which life is asked to make its adjustment are no longer merely the calcium and silica and copper and all the rest of the minerals washed out of the rocks and carried in rivers to the sea; they are the synthetic creations of man’s inventive mind, brewed in his laboratories, and having no counterparts in nature.
新情况产生的速度和变化之快已反映出人们激烈而轻率的步伐胜过了大自然的从容步态。放射性远在地球上还没有任何生命以前就已经存在于岩石放射性本底、宇宙射线爆炸和太阳紫外线中了；现在的放射性是人们干预原子时的人工创造。生命在本身调整中所遭遇的化学物
质再也远远不仅是从岩石里冲刷出来的和由江河带到大海去的钙、硅、铜以及其他的无机物了，它们是人们发达的头脑在实验室里所创造的人工合成物，而这些东西在自然界是没有对应物的。

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