现代大学英语精读(第2版)第五册:U9 Al Gore's Nobel Peace Prize Acceptable Speech(5)
日期:2019-12-21 17:44

(单词翻译:单击)

In the years since this prize was first awarded, the entire relationship between human kind and the earth has been radically transformed. And still we have remained largely oblivious to the impact of our cumulative actions.
自诺贝尔奖设立至今,人类与自然的关系已发生了重大变化。但我们却对自己的行为对地球日积月累造成的影响视而不见。
Indeed without realizing it, we have begun to wage war on the earth itself. Now we and the earth's climate are locked in a relationship familiar to war planners: "Mutually assured destruction."
事实上,我们在不知不觉间已经向地球开战。如今我们与地球气候之间的关系陷入僵局,正如战略家们所熟悉的用语:“两败俱伤。”
More than two decades ago, scientists calculated that nuclear war could throw so much debris and smoke into the air that it would block life-giving sunlight from our atmosphere, causing a nuclear winter. Their eloquent warnings here in Oslo helped galvanize the world's resolve to halt the nuclear arms race.
二十多年前,科学家计算得出,核战争会将大量的灰尘和烟雾释放到大气中,隔绝我们赖以生存的阳光,造成“核冬天”。就在这里,奥斯陆,他们的雄辩警示推动了全球抑制核军备竞赛的决心。
Now science is warning us that if we do not quickly reduce the global warming pollution that is trapping so much of the heat our planet normally radiates back out of the atmosphere, we are in danger of creating a permanent "carbon summer."
现在科学家警告我们,如果我们不迅速减少温室气体排放,原本被地球反射出大气层外的热量就会被聚集在大气层中,越聚越多,我们将面临一个永久“碳夏天”的危险。
As the American poet Robert Frost wrote, "Some say the world will end in fire, some say in ice." Either, he notes, "would suffice."
正如美国诗人罗伯特·弗罗斯特曾写道:“有人说世界将毁于火,有人说毁于冰。”他评注说:“两者皆能导向灭亡。”
But neither need be our fate. It is time to make peace with the planet.
但这两者未必就是我们的命运。是时候与地球握手言和了。
We must quickly mobilize our civilization with the urgency and resolve that has previously been seen only when nations mobilized for war. These prior struggles for survival were won when leaders found words at the 11th hour that released a mighty surge of courage, hope and readiness to sacrifice for a protracted and mortal struggle.
我们必须迅速动员起来,让全社会都产生危机感和决心,就像我们以前动员全民应对战争一样。领袖们曾经在生死存亡之际发表的演说使人们心中涌起勇气和希望,愿意为一场持久的、崇高的战争牺牲自我。我们因此在这场为生存而战的斗争中获得了胜利。
These were not comforting and misleading assurances that the threat was not real, or imminent, that it would afflict others but not ourselves; that ordinary life might be lived even in the presence of extraordinary threat; that Providence could be trusted to do for us what we would not do for ourselves.
这些演说不是安慰,不是误导人们相信这些威胁都是虚假的、遥远的,或这些威胁只会危害到其他人而不会危害到我们自己;也不是让人以为即使出现了超乎寻常的危险,我们依然能维持正常生活;更不是让人相信上帝会替我们去做这些我们自己不愿做的事情。
No, these were calls to come to the defense of the common future.
不,这些演说是召唤我们一起捍卫我们共同的未来。

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