精美英文欣赏:No More Silent Spring 告别寂静的春天
日期:2009-11-16 10:10

(单词翻译:单击)

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

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重点单词
  • timelyadj. 及时的,适时的 adv. 及时的
  • movementn. 活动,运动,移动,[音]乐章
  • disappearancen. 消失
  • inevitablyadv. 不可避免地
  • stemn. 茎,干,柄,船首 vi. 起源于 vt. 抽去 .
  • maturityn. 成熟,(支票等的)到期
  • chokevi. 窒息,阻塞 vt. (掐住或阻塞气管)使(某人)
  • awarenessn. 认识,意识,了解
  • indirectadj. 间接的,迂回的,次要的,不坦率的,欺骗的
  • producen. 产品,农作物 vt. 生产,提出,引起,分娩,制片