美文欣赏

Rachel Carson was a scientist and a bird watcher. She noticed, in the late '50s, the gradual disappearance of some birds, and linked it to our use of 1)pesticides. She wrote a book about her fear that 2)robins would sing no more in future spring times. She called it Silent Spring. With that revolutionary book, Rachel Carson launched the environmental movement, a force that has swept the world.

Rachel: Humans have now acquired a fateful power to 3)alter and to destroy nature. But man is a part of nature, and his war against nature is inevitably a war against himself.

Journalist: What do you think, just in an 4)overview, the effect that this woman’s work has had on this country, and the world?

Interviewee: Her work helped to produce the first Earth Day.

TV: Earth Day - we can see what we all have in common: our planet!

Interviewee: The clean water act, the clean air act, the super fund, some of these were indirect results, but all of them 5)stemmed from the new awareness that was born as a result of Silent Spring’s publication.In that century’s end, environmental challenges round the world make Carson’s words all the more timely: rain forest in danger, animal species dying up, people 6)choking on pollution, from Eastern Europe to China.

Rachel: We’re challenged, as mankind has never been challenged before, to prove our 7)maturity and our 8)mastery, not of nature, but of ourselves.

Rachel Carson died of cancer in 1964. There’s a wildlife preserve, named for her, in Maine, and her publishers still get occasional letters from people who just read Silent Spring.

参考译文

拉琪尔•卡森是一位科学家兼鸟类观察家。在50年代末，她发现一些鸟类的逐渐灭绝和人们使用的除虫剂有关。她把对知更鸟在来年春天便不再歌唱的担忧写在一本书里，书名叫《寂静的春天》。拉琪尔•卡森用这本革命性的书发动环境保护运动，运动波及全球。

拉琪尔：如今人类用一种致命的力量来改变和摧毁着大自然。但是，人类本是自然的一分子，与自然对抗作战显然就是在与自己对抗作战。

记者：你的总看法是什么，这位妇女的著作对这个国家和世界有什么影响呢？

采访对象：她的著作帮助成立了第一个地球日。

电视：地球日--让我们看到我们大家共同拥有的是：地球！

采访对象：还有一些是间接产生的结果，如：净水法、空气清新法和大基金会，但那些追根究底都是在《寂静的春天》出版后唤起的新意识。

在世纪末，全球面临的环境问题使卡森的话更显得合时合宜：雨林危机、动物物种濒临灭绝、污染危及人类，这些问题从东欧直至中国都在发生。

拉琪尔：我们所遇到的挑战，是人类前所未有的挑战。我们要证明的是自己的稳健与才智，而非自然的。

拉琪尔•卡森1964年死于癌症。在缅因州，有以她的名字命名的野生动物保护区，她的出版商还不时地收到刚阅读过《寂静的春天》的人写来的信。

词汇释义

1、pesticide n. 杀虫剂，农药

2、robin n. 知更鸟

3、alter v. 改变

4、overview n. 总体印象，总体看法

5、stem v. 起源，发生

6、choke v. 呛，噎

7、maturity n. 成熟

8、mastery n. 优势，精通