saving nature,but only for man.doc

Saving Nature, But Only for Man Mary1.Environmental sensitivity is now as required an attitude in polite section as is, say,belief in democracy. But now that everyone from Ted Turner to George Bush,Dow to Exxon has professed love for Mother Earth,how are we to choose among the dozens of conflicting proposals,restrictions,projects,regulations and laws advanced in the name of the environment?Clearly not everything with an environmental claim is worth doing.How to choose?自然的敏感性现在如同信仰民主一样需要一种礼貌的态度。但是既然每一个从TED Turner 到George Bush,Dow 到Exxon 对母亲地球有公开声称的爱。我们怎样选择其中许多冠有环境名称的有冲突的提议、限制、计划、规则和法律的进步？清楚的是，关于环境的声明不是每一件事都值得去做！怎样选择？mary2、There is a simple way. First, distinguish between environmental luxuries and environmental necessities. Luxuries are those things it would be nice to have if costless. Necessities are those things we must have regardless. Then apply a rule. Call it the fundamental principle of sensible environmentalism: Combating ecological change that directly threatens the health and safety of people is an environmental necessity. All else is luxury. 有一个简单的方法。首先，分清环境的“奢侈品”和环境的“必须品”。奢侈品是那些如果不须代价，有了会很好的事情。必须品是那些我们必须有却视而不见的事。那么，适用一个规则。被理性的环境保护论者称之为基本的公理：与改变生态系统直接伤害人类健康和安全作斗争是一个环境保护者必须的。其他的所有是奢侈品。3、 For example: preserving the atmosphere, by both protecting the ozone layer and halting the greenhouse effect, is an environmental necessity. In April scientists reported that ozone damage is far worse than previously thought. Ozone reduction not only causes skin cancer and eye cataracts, it also destroys plankton, the beginning of the food chain on top of which we humans sit. 例如，通过保护臭氧层和终止温室效应来保护大气，是一种有关环境保护的必要性。4月，科学家报道臭氧的破坏已经远远超乎过去的想法。臭氧的减少不仅引起了皮肤癌和白内障，还破坏了浮游生物我们人类赖以生存的食物链的起点。4、 The reality of the greenhouse effect is more speculative, though its possible consequences are far deadlier: melting ice caps, flooded coastlines, disturbed climate, dried up plains and, ultimately, empty breadbaskets. The American Midwest feeds the world. Are we prepared to see Iowa acquire Albuquerques climate? And Siberia acquire Iowas? 温室效应的实际情况更加不确定，尽管它可能的后果更加致命：冰山融化，洪水泛滥，气候反常，平原干涸，最后，地球就变得好像一个空的面包篮。美国的中西部哺育这个世界。但是我们可曾见过衣阿华州得到阿尔布开克的气候？或者西伯利亚得到衣阿华州的气候？Mary 5、 Ozone reduction and the greenhouse effect are human disasters. They happen to occur in the environment. But they are urgent because they directly threaten man. A sensible environmentalism, the only kind of environmentalism that will win universal public support, begins by unashamedly declaring that nature is here to serve man. A sensible environmentalism is entirely man-centered: it calls for man to preserve nature, but on the grounds of self-preservation. 臭氧的减少和温室效应是人类的灾害。（灾害）他们发生出现在此环境中的人身上。但是（他们）灾害的后果是紧急的因为他们直接伤害人。一种明智的环境保护论，仅是一种会赢得全世界公众支持的环境保护论。首先通过厚颜无耻的声明：自然在这里是人类服务的。一个理智的环境保护论者是完全以人类为中心的。称之为了人类保护自然，但是根据自我保护为基础。 Mary 6、 A sensible environmentalism does not sentimentalize the earth. It does not ask people to sacrifice in the name of other creatures. After all, it is hard enough to ask people to sacrifice in the name of other humans. (Think of the public resistance to foreign aid and welfare.) 一个明智的环境保护论不会为地球感到伤感。它不是叫人类为了其他生物去牺牲。毕竟，叫人类为了其他人去牺牲是非常困难的。（想想公众对外援和福利的反对）Mary 7、Of course,this anthropocentrism runs against the grain of a contemporary environmentalism that indulges in earth worship to the point of idolatry. One scientific theory Gaia theory actually claims that 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 kindliness of nature. My nature worship stops with the May storms that killed more than 125,000 Bengalis and left 10 million homeless. 当然，这种人类中心说是同当代的环境保护论格格不入的，它纵容在地球上对偶象祟拜。一个科学的理论盖亚理论事实上声明地球是一个有生命的系统。这种环境保护论喜欢考虑它自己的精神。这仅仅不过是伤感主义。比如，它会采用大量有选择性的关于自然友好的观点。我的自然祟拜停止于五月暴风这让超过125，000孟加拉人死亡以及让一亿人无家可归。Mary 8、 A non-sentimental environmentalism is one founded on Protagoras principle that Man is the measure of all things. Such a principle helps us to fight our way through the jungle of environmental argument. Take the current debate raging over oil drilling in a corner of the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge. Environmentalists, mobilizing against a bill working its way through Congress to permit such exploration, argue that we should be conserving energy instead of drilling for it. This is a false either/or proposition. The country does need a substantial energy tax to reduce consumption. But it needs more production too. Government estimates indicate a nearly fifty-fifty chance that under the ANWR lies one of the five largest oil fields ever discovered in America. 一个感情脆弱的环境保护论是建立在普罗泰哥拉原则是“人是一功事物的标准”这样一准则帮助我们在环境争论的丛林中杀出一条路。拿当前激烈辩论的石油开采和阿拉斯加角落里的国家野生动保护区。环境保护论者，动员起来反对通过国会允许这样的开采议案运行，争论我们是否应该保存能量代替开采。这是一个错误的也许是错的吧主张。国家需要充实的能源税去减少消费。但是也需要更多的产量。政府评估指出一个几乎50对50 的机会，在阿拉斯加北极国家野生动物保护区下面蕴藏着美国曾经发现的五大油田之一。Mary9、The U.S. 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 calving grounds of Arctic caribou.美国为了部分额外的石油而战已经经历了一场成功战争！能源依赖使美国人付出的成本不只是美元还有生命，异乎寻常的情感主义者否认石油是可以和平取得的，因为战争的风险犹如切断了北极区北美驯鹿与产仔区的关系。Mary10、I like the caribou as much as the next man.And I would be rather sorry if their mating patterns are disturbed .But you cant have everthing.And if the choice is between the welfare of caribon and reducing an oil dependency that gets people killed in wars,I choose man over caribou every time.我喜欢北美驯鹿就象一个普通人，我也会觉得非常难过如果他们的交配模式被打扰。但是你不能拥有每一样东西。如果这种选择之一是北美驯鹿的安宁；之二是减少对石油的依赖让人在战争中死去。我每一次的选择是人类而不是驯鹿。 Mary11、 Similarly the spotted owl in Oregon. I am no enemy of the owl. If it could be preserved at no or little cost, I would agree: the variety of nature is a good, a high aesthetic good. But it is no more than that. And sometimes aesthetic goods have to be sacrificed to the more fundamental ones. If the cost of preserving the spotted owl is the loss of livelihood for 30,000 logging families, I choose family over owl. 同样的是在俄勒冈的斑点猫头鹰。我不是斑点猫头鹰的敌人。如果它被保护没有或只有很少的成本，我会同意：多样的自然是好的。但是仅止于此。有时具有美感的东西不得不为更多的有基本需要人类而牺牲。如果保护的斑点猫头鹰的成本是让30，000伐木工人的家庭失去了生计，我选择家庭超 过猫头鹰。Mary 12、The important distinction is between those environmental goods that are fundamental and those that are merely aesthetic. Nature is our ward. It is not our master. It is to be respected and even cultivated. But it is mans world. And when man has to choose between his well-being and that of nature, nature will have to accommodate. 最重要的区别是：那些环境的产物是基本的还是仅具有美感 的。自然是我们的监护者。它不仅仅是我们的掌管者。它是被尊敬的，甚至是被耕耘的。介是这是人类的世界。当人类不得不在健康财富和自然之间作出选择，自然不得不适应人类。王虹13. Man should accommodate only when his fate and that of nature are inextricably bound up. The most urgent accommodation must be made when the very integrity of mans habitate.g., atmospheric ozoneis threatened. When the threat to man is of a lesser order (say, the