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新视野大学英语4:Unit4 TextA课文+译文

时间:2022-03-17 11:18:43 大学英语 我要投稿

新视野大学英语4:Unit4 TextA(课文+译文)

  《新视野大学英语》是教育部“新世纪网络课程建设工程”大学英语网络课程的出版用名。使用对象为非英语专业的本科生。下面是小编为大家带来的新视野大学英语4:Unit4 TextA(课文+译文),欢迎阅读!

新视野大学英语4:Unit4 TextA(课文+译文)

  1.Environmental sensitivity is now as required an attitude in polite society as is, say, belief in democracy or disapproval of plastic surgery. But now that everyone from Ted Turner to George H. W. Bush has claimed love for Mother Earth, how are we to choose among the dozens of conflicting proposals, regulations and laws advanced by congressmen and constituents alike in the name of the environment? Clearly, not everything with an environmental claim is worth doing. How do we segregate the best options and consolidate our varying interests into a single, sound policy?

  1.在上流社会,对环境的敏感就如同信仰民主、反对整容一样,是一种不可或缺的态度。然而,既然从泰德特纳到乔治W.H.布什,每个人都声称自己热爱地球母亲,那么,在由议员、选民之类的人以环境名义而提出的众多的相互矛盾的提案、规章和法规中,我们又该如何做出选择呢?显而易见,并不是每一项冠以环境保护名义的事情都值得去做。我们怎样才能分离出最佳选择,并且把我们各自不同的兴趣统一在同一个合理的政策当中呢?

  2.There is a simple way. First, differentiate between environmental luxuries and environmental necessities. Luxuries are those things that would be nice to have if costless. Necessities are those things we must have regardless. Call this distinction the definitive rule of sane environmentalism, which stipulates that combating ecological change that directly threatens the health and safety of people is an environmental necessity. All else is luxury.

  2.有一种简便的方法。首先要区分什么是环境奢侈品,什么是环境必需品。奢侈品是指那些无需人类付出代价就能拥有的给人美好感受的东西。必需品则是指那些无论付出什么代价,都一定要去拥有的东西。这一区分原则可以被称为理性环保主义的至高原则。它规定,对那些直接威胁人类健康与安全的生态变化采取应对措施是环境保护的必需品,而其他则都属于奢侈品。

  3.For example, preserving the atmosphere - stopping ozone depletion and the greenhouse effect - is an environmental necessity. Recently, scientists reported that ozone damage is far worse than previously thought. Ozone depletion has a correlation not only with skin cancer and eye problems, it also destroys the ocean's ecology, the beginning of the food chain atop which we humans sit.

  3.例如,保护大气层——阻止臭氧损耗及控制温室效应——是环境保护的必需品。近来,科学家报告说臭氧层遭受破坏的程度远比我们先前认为的要严重得多。臭氧损耗不仅与皮肤癌及眼疾有关,而且它还会破坏海洋生态。而海洋生态是食物链的起点,人类则位于该食物链的顶端。

  4.The possible thermal consequences of the greenhouse effect are far deadlier: melting ice caps, flooded coastlines, disrupted climate, dry plains and, ultimately, empty breadbaskets. The American Midwest feeds people at all corners of the atlas. With the planetary climate changes, are we prepared to see Iowa take on New Mexico's desert climate, or Siberia take on Iowa's moderate climate?

  4.温室效应所可能引发的热效应是非常具有毁灭性的:冰川融化、海岸线被淹没、气候遭受破坏、平原干涸,最终食物消失殆尽。美国中西部地区的粮食供养着全世界。随着全球气候的变化,我们难道准备看到衣阿华州变成新墨西哥州的沙漠气候,而西伯利亚变成衣阿华州的温和气候吗?

  5.Ozone depletion and the greenhouse effect are human disasters, and they are urgent because they directly threaten humanity and are not easily reversible. A sane environmentalism, the only kind of environmentalism that will strike a chord with the general public, begins by openly declaring that nature is here to serve human beings. A sane environmentalism is entirely a human focused regime: It calls upon humanity to preserve nature, but merely within the parameters of self-survival.

  5.臭氧损耗和温室效应是人类的灾难,而且是需要紧急处理的灾难,因为它们直接威胁到人类,且后果很难扭转。理性环保主义——唯一能够引起公众共鸣的环保主张——首先公开声明,自然是服务于人类的。理性环保主义是一种完全以人类为中心的思想。它号召人类保护自然,但是是在人类自我生存得到保证的前提之下。

  6.Of course, this human focus runs against the grain of a contemporary environmentalism that indulges in overt earth worship. Some people even allege that the 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 kindness of nature, one that is incompatible with the reality of natural disasters. My nature worship stops with the twister that came through Kansas or the dreadful rains in Bangladesh that eradicated whole villages and left millions homeless.

  6.当然,这种以人类为中心的主张与当下盛行的环保主义是格格不入的,后者已经沉溺于对地球的公然崇拜。有的人甚至声称地球是一个活的生物体。这种环保主义喜欢把自己看作是神圣的,其实它只是感情用事而已。比如,在自然是否友善的问题上,当下的环保主义采取了高度选择性的片面的观点,而这种观点与自然造成的灾难这一现实是不相协调的。当龙卷风肆虐堪萨斯州,当瓢泼大雨袭击孟加拉国,毁灭了整座整座的村庄,使几百万人失去家园的时候,我对自然的崇拜便停止了。

  7.A non-sentimental environmentalism is one founded on Protagoras's idea that "Man is the measure of all things." In establishing the sovereignty of man, such a principle helps us through the dense forest of environmental arguments. Take the current debate raging over oil drilling in a corner of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). Environmentalist coalitions, mobilizing against a legislative action working its way through the US Congress for the legalization of such exploration, propagate that Americans should be preserving and economizing energy instead of drilling for it. This is a false either-or proposition. The US does need a sizable energy tax to reduce consumption. But it needs more production too. Government estimates indicate a nearly fifty-fifty chance that under the ANWR rests one of the five largest oil fields ever discovered in America. It seems illogical that we are not finding safe ways to drill for oil in the ANWR.

  7.非感情用事的环保主义是建立在普罗泰哥拉的格言“人是万物的尺度”的基础上的。在建立人类权威的过程中,这条原则会帮助我们梳理各种错综复杂的关于环境保护的争议。就以当前关于是否在北极国家野生动物保护区的某一角落开采石油的激烈争论为例吧。环保主义者联盟动员人们反对目前正在试图通过美国国会审议、使这一开采行为变得合法化的一项立法行动。他们散布说美国应该保护并且节约能源而不是开采能源。这其实是一个错误的非此即彼的主张。美国确实需要征收高额的能源税以减少能源消耗,但同时也需要生产更多的能源。政府的估测表明,在北极国家野生动物保护区的地下蕴藏着美国五大油田之一的可能性几乎到达 50%。我们没有寻找安全的方法开采北极国家野生动物保护区地下的石油,这看上去是不符合情理的。

  8.The US 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 birthing grounds of Arctic caribou.

  8.美国刚刚经历了一场战争,其部分原因就是为了获取石油。对能源的依赖使美国不但付出了金钱的代价,而且也付出了生命的代价。就因为可能破坏北美驯鹿的繁衍地而放弃能够以和平手段获得的石油,这是一种十分怪异的感情用事。

  9.I like the caribou as much as the next person. And I would be rather sorry if their mating patterns were disturbed. But you can't have your cake and eat it too. And in the standoff of the welfare of caribou versus reducing an oil reliance that gets people killed in wars, I choose people over caribou every time.

  9.我像别人一样喜欢驯鹿。如果他们的结合模式受到干扰,我会感到非常遗憾。但是,鱼和熊掌不能兼得。是要保护驯鹿,还是要为了避免人们在战争中丧生而减少对石油的依赖,面对这一僵局,我每次都会选择人类而不是驯鹿。

  10.I feel similarly about the spotted owl in Oregon. I am no enemy of the owl. If it could be preserved at a negligible cost, I would agree that it should be - biodiversity is after all necessary to the ecosystem. But we must remember that not every species is needed to keep that diversity. Sometimes aesthetic aspects of life have to be sacrificed to more fundamental ones. If the cost of preserving the spotted owl is the loss of livelihood for 30,000 logging families, I choose the families (with their saws and chopped timber) over the owl.

  10.我对俄勒冈州的斑点猫头鹰的态度也是一样。我绝不是仇视猫头鹰。如果花很少的代价就可以保护猫头鹰,我会赞同它应受保护——毕竟,生物多样性对生态系统是非常必要的。但是,我们必须记住,保持生物多样性并不意味着要留住每一种物种。有时候,为了更加根本的利益,我们不得不牺牲一部分生活中美的东西。如果为了保护斑点猫头鹰而让三万伐木工家庭失去生计,我会选择伐木工家庭(包括他们的锯子和砍伐的木材),而不是猫头鹰。

  11. The important distinction is between those environmental goods that are fundamental and those that are not. Nature is our ward, not our master. It is to be respected and even cultivated. But when humans have to choose between their own well-being and that of nature, nature will have to accommodate.

  11.重要的'是,我们要区分哪些东西对环境保护是根本性的,哪些是非根本性的。自然受我们的监护,而不是我们的主人。我们应该尊重自然,也可以开发利用自然。但是,如果人类必须在自身的福利和自然的福利之间作出选择,自然则必须作出让步。

  12 .Humanity should accommodate only when its fate and that of nature are inseparably bound up. The most urgent maneuver must be undertaken when the very integrity of humanity's habitat, e.g., the atmosphere or the essential geology that sustains the core of the earth, is threatened. When the threat to humanity is lower in the hierarchy of necessity, a more modest accommodation that balances economic against health concerns is in order. But in either case the principle is the same: protect the environment - because it is humanity's environment.

  12.只有当人类的命运与自然的命运密不可分时,人类才应该作出让步。当人类栖息地的完整性(比如大气层或维持地球核心的基本地质状况)受到威胁时,人类就必须立即调整自己的行为。而当人类受到的威胁不大,不太需要对自己的行为进行调整时,恰当的做法是平衡考虑经济方面和与之相对的健康方面的因素,以便作出适度的调整。但是,无论是哪种情况,其遵循的原则是一致的:保护环境,因为这是我们人类的环境。

  13 .The sentimental environmentalists will call this saving nature with a totally wrong frame of mind. Exactly. A sane and intelligible environmentalism does it not for nature's sake but for our own.

  13.感情用事的环保主义者会说这种拯救自然的思路是完全错误的。的确是这样。理性、明确的环保主义保护环境是为了人类自身,而不是为了自然。

  新视野大学英语4:Unit2 TextA(课文+译文)

  1.If you're a man, at some point a woman will ask you how she looks.

  2.You must be careful how you answer this question. The best technique is to from an honest yet sensitive response, then promptly excuse yourself for some kind of emergency. Trust me, this is the easiest way out. No amount of rehearsal will help you come up with the right answer.

  1.如果你是一位男士,肯定在某个时候会有女士问你她看起来怎么样。

  2.对于如何应对这个问题,你一定得小心。最好的对策是给你个诚实但又谨慎的回答。然后借口有急事马上脱身。相信我,这是最简单的方法,对于她的这一问题,无论你事先练习多少次,都不会找到正确答案。

  3.He problem is that men do not think of themselves in seventh grade and stick to it for the rest of themselves in seventh grade and stick to it for the rest of their lives. Some men think they're irresistibly desirable, and they refuse to change this opinion even when they grow bald and their faces visibly wrinkle as they age.

  3.其原因是,男性和女性对外表的看法截然不同,大多数男性对自己的外表在七年级的时候就形成了,而且终生不变,有些男性认为自己有不可抗拒的魅力,即使随着年龄的增长,他们的头发掉光了,脸上布满皱纹,他们仍然拒绝改变这种看法。

  4.Most men, I believe, are not arrogant about their minds at all, they like to think of themselves as average-looking. Being average doesn't bother them; average is fine. They don't affix much value to their looks, or think of them in terms of aesthetics. Their primary form of beauty care is to shave themselves, which is essentially the same care they give to their lawns. If, at the end of his four-minute allotment of time for grooming, a man has managed of wipe most of the shaving cream out of the strands of his hair and isn't bleeding too badly, he feels he's done all he can.

  4.我相信,大多数人对他们的想法并不傲慢,他们喜欢把自己看成是普通人。平均不会打扰他们;平均是很好。他们不会给他们的外表贴上多少价值,也不能从美学角度考虑他们。他们的主要美容形式是刮胡子,这与他们给自家草坪的护理基本相同。如果在他的四分钟时间分配给他的时候,一个男人已经设法将大部分剃须从他的头发斯特兰兹了,而且不会太严重,他觉得他已经尽力了。

  5.Women do not look at themselves this way. If I had to guess what most women think about their appearance, it would be:"Not good enough." No matter how attractive a woman may be, her perception of herself is eclipsed by the beauty industry. She has trouble thinking"I'm beautiful." She magnifies the smallest imperfections in her body and imagines them as glaring flaws the whole world will notice and ridicule.

  5.女性可不是这样看待自己的,如果非要我猜测大多数女性对自己的相貌是如何评价的话,那肯定是"还不够好",一位女士,无论她看起来多么吸引人,他对自己的看法总是由于受美容业的影响而蒙着一层阴影。要他认为"我很漂亮"是一件难事。他把身体上的极小的不完美之处加以放大,并且幻想这些缺点十分明显以至于全世界的人都会注意到并且嘲笑他 。

  6.Why do women consider their looks so deficient? This chronic insecurity isn't inborn, but created though the interaction of many complex psychological and societal factors, beginning so that, if they were human, they would be seven feet tall and weigh 61 pounds, with tiny thighs and a large upper body. This is an absurd standard to live up to, especially when you consider the size of the doll's waist, a relative measurement physically impossible for a living human to achieve. Contrast this absurd standard with that presented to little boys with their "action figures". Most of the toys that young boys have played with were weird-looking, like the one called Buzz-Off that was part human, part flying insect. This guy was not a looker, but he was still extremely self-confident. You could not imagine him saying to the others,"Is this accessory the right shade of violet for this outfit?"

  6.为什么女性会把自己的外貌想的这么差呢? 这种长期的不安全感并不是与生俱来的,而是由许多复杂的心理和社会因素的相互作用造成的从小时候大人们给他们买洋娃娃时候开始了,女孩成长过程中摆弄的洋娃娃,如果按照身材比例还原位真人大小的话,就会是7英尺高,61英镑重,大腿纤细,上身丰满,要达到这样的标准是很荒唐的,尤其是当我们想想那种洋娃娃的腰围尺寸,就知道其相对尺寸对任何一个活人来说都是不可企及的,与女孩玩具的这种荒唐标准相比小男孩们得到的动作玩哦却是完全不同的模样。大多数男孩的玩具都样貌古怪,例如那个叫做"蜜蜂侠"的玩哦,一半像人,一半是会飞的昆虫。这个玩哦尽管样子不好看,但仍然非常自信,你肯定无法想象他会问别人说"这个配饰的紫罗兰色和这件外套配不配呢?

  7.But women grow up thinking they need to look like Barbie dolls or girls on magazine covers, which for most women is impossible. Nonetheless, the multibillion-dollar beauty industry, complete with its own aisle in the grocery store, is devoted to constant warfare on female self-esteem, convincing women that they must buy all the newest moisturizing creams, bronzing powders and appliances that promise to "stimulate and restore" their skin. I once saw an Oprah Show in which supermodel Cindy Crawford dispensed makeup tips to the studio audience. Cindy had all these middle-aged women apply clay masks and other"wrinkle-removing" products to their faces; she stressed how important it was to adhere to the guidelines, like applying products via the tips of their fingers to protect elasticity. All the women dutifully did this, even though it was obvious to any rational observer that, no matter how carefully they applied these products, they would never have Cindy Crawford's face or complexion.

  7.然而,女性在成长过程中却认为自己应该长得像芭比娃娃或杂志封面的封面女郎一样,这对大多数女性来说是不可能的。尽管如此,产值达几十亿美元的美容业,在超市化妆品销售专区的配合下,总是在不停地攻击着女性的自尊,使其相信自己只有购买最新的保湿面霜、古铜散粉,以及各种美容器具,才能“激发和恢复”肌肤活力。我曾经看过一期《奥普拉脱口秀》,在节目中,超级名模辛迪·克劳馥和演播室里的观众分享了自己的化妆秘笈。辛迪要求这些中年妇女在脸上敷上黏土面膜和其他祛皱产品;她还强调一定要遵守这些方法,例如:往脸上涂抹这些产品时,要用指尖,这样可以保持肌肤的弹性。所有这些妇女都非常忠实地按照辛迪说的'做了。可是对任何一个理智的旁观者来说,无论她们如何认真的使用这些产品,他们都不可能拥有辛迪那样的面容或肤色。

  8.I'm not saying that men are superior. I'm just saying that you're not going to get a group of middle-aged men to plaster cosmetics to themselves under the instruction of Brad Pitt in hopes of looking more like him. Men don't face the same societal focus purely on physical beauty, and they're encouraged to reach out to other characteristics to promote their self-esteem. They might say to Bard:"Oh yeah? Well, what do you know about lawn care, pretty boy?"

  8. 我并不是说男性优于女性。我的意思是你不可能让一群中年男子在布拉德·皮特的指导下把化妆品敷到自己脸上,期望自己能看起来更像布拉德。与女性不同,男性的外貌美不是社会所关注的唯一焦点。人们会鼓励男性借助其他特征来提升自尊。他们也许会对布拉德说:“是吗?那么帅哥,你对维护草坪又知道多少?”

  9.Of course women argue that they become obsessed with appearance as a reaction to pressure from men. The truth is that most men think beauty is more than just lipstick and perfume and take no notice of these extra details. I have never once, in more than 40 years of listening to men talk about women, heard a man say,"She had gorgeous fingernails!" To most men, little things like fingernails are all homogeneous anyway, and one woman's flawless pink polish is exactly as invisible as another's bare nails.

  9. 当然,女性会争辩说她们对外表的热衷追求是出于对来自男性的压力的一种反应。而事实是,大多数男性认为美丽不仅仅来自于口红和香水,而且他们不会去注意这些额外的细节。四十多年来,我在听男性谈论女性时,从来没有一次听到过哪位男性这样说:“她的指甲真漂亮啊!”对大多数男性来说,像指甲这样小的东西看起来都一样,无论一个女生的指甲是用粉色指甲油涂的完美无瑕,还是光光的毫无修饰,男性都一概视而不见。

  10.By participating in this system of extreme conformity, women are actually opening themselves up to the scrutiny of other women, the only ones qualified to judge their efforts. What is the real benefit of working this hard to appease men who don't notice when it only exposes women to prosecution from other women?

  10.女性参与这种极端的从众行为,实际上是把自己置于其他女性的审视之下,因为只有那些女性才有资格评价她们所付出的努力。但是,如此费力地去取悦男性而他们根本不会注意,同时又只是招致其它女性的指责,这样做究竟有什么好处呢?

  11.Anyway, to get back to my original point: If you're a man, and a woman asks you how she looks, you can't say she looks bad without receiving immediate and well-deserved outrage. But you also can't shower her with empty compliments about how her shoes complement her dress nicely because she'll know you're lying. She has spent countless hours worrying about the differences between her looks and Cindy Crawford's. Also, she suspects that you're not qualified to voice a subjective opinion on anybody's appearance. This may be because you have shaving cream in your hair and inside the folds of your ears.

  11.不管怎样,言归正传:如果你是一位男性,当有女士问你她看起来怎么样时,你千万不能说她看起来很糟糕,那样肯定会使她立刻迁怒于你,这也是你咎由自取。但是,你也不能慷慨地大放空洞之词,赞美她的鞋子和裙子是多么相配,因为她知道你是在说谎。她已经花费了无数个小时发愁自己的容貌不能和辛迪·克劳馥的一样。而且,也许因为你的头发和耳廓上粘着剃须膏,她会怀疑你根本没有资格对任何人的外表给出主观评价。