(完整word版)高级英语第三课Ships in the Desert

高级英语第一册第三课Ships in the desert词汇 (Vocabulary)lap ( v．) : (of waves，etc．)move or strike gently with a light ，splashing sound such as a dog makes in lapping(波浪 )拍打；泼溅----------------------------------------------------------------------------------divert ( v ．) : turn(a person or thing)aside(from a course，direction，etc．)；deflect转移；使 (人或物 )转向；岔开，使偏斜----------------------------------------------------------------------------------Antarctic ( adj. ) : of or near the South Pole or the region around it 南极的；近南极的；南极区的；南极地带的；南极四周的----------------------------------------------------------------------------------Trans— Antarctic (adj.) : crossing or spanning the Antarctic横贯南极的；横贯南极地带的----------------------------------------------------------------------------------parka ( n.) : a hip —length pullover fur garment with a hood ， worn 1n arctic regions 风雪大衣，派克大衣----------------------------------------------------------------------------------glacier ( n.) : a slowly moving river or mass of ice and snow that forms in areas where the rate of snowfall constantly exceeds the rate at which the snow melts冰河；冰川----------------------------------------------------------------------------------accessible ( adj.) : that can be approached or entered；easy to approach or enter可以靠近的；可以进去的；易靠近的；易进去的----------------------------------------------------------------------------------trap ( v．) : catch in or as in a trap； entrap 诱捕；计捉----------------------------------------------------------------------------------inexorable ( adj.) :that cannot be altered， checked，etc．不行变的；不行抗拒的；无情的----------------------------------------------------------------------------------graph ( n.) : a diagram consisting of nodes and links and representing logical relationships or sequences of events(曲线 )图，标画图；图表；图形----------------------------------------------------------------------------------slab ( n.) : a piece that is flat，broad， and fairly thick 平板；厚片----------------------------------------------------------------------------------frigid ( adj.) : extremely cold ；without heat or warmth 极冷的，寒冷的，寒冷的----------------------------------------------------------------------------------snowmobile ( n.) : any of various motor vehicles for traveling over snow，usually with steerable runners at the front and tractor treads at the rear(灵活 )雪车； (履带式 )雪上汽车----------------------------------------------------------------------------------rendezvous ( n.) : [Fr．] a place designated for meeting or assembling法[语 ]指定会集地；会集点----------------------------------------------------------------------------------hover ( v．) : stay suspended or flutter in the air near oneplace回旋----------------------------------------------------------------------------------eerie，eery ( adj. ) : mysterious，uncanny，or weird ，esp. in such a way as to frighten or make uneasy神奇的，离奇的，独特的；阴沉的，恐惧的，可怕的／ eerily adv．----------------------------------------------------------------------------------hummock ( n.) : ridge or rise in an ice field 冰群； (冰原上的 )冰丘----------------------------------------------------------------------------------collide ( v ．) : come into violent contact ； strike violently against each other；crash碰撞；猛撞；互撞----------------------------------------------------------------------------------scenario ( n.) : a sequence 0f events esp. when imagined；an account or synopsis of a projected course of action or events(假想中的 )将来局势；方案----------------------------------------------------------------------------------controversial ( adj. ) : of，subject to， or stirring up controversy；debatable争辩的；惹起争辩的；----------------------------------------------------------------------------------tundra ( n.) : any of the vast，nearly level， treeless plains of the arctic regions冻原；苔原；冻土带----------------------------------------------------------------------------------equator ( n.) : an imaginary circle around the earth，equally distant at all points from both the North Pole and the South Pole，dividing the earth's surface into the Northern Hemisphere and the Southern Hemisphere赤道----------------------------------------------------------------------------------billow ( v ． ) : surge，swell，or rise like or in a billow( 巨浪 )奔跑； (波浪 )汹----------------------------------------------------------------------------------pasture ( n.) : ground suitable for grazing牧场----------------------------------------------------------------------------------slash (v．) : cut or wound with a sweeping stroke or strokes，as of a knife(用刀等 )猛砍，乱砍----------------------------------------------------------------------------------blot (v ．) : make blots on ； spot；stain；blur(esp. used in blot out ：darken orhide entirely； obscure)涂污；玷辱；把弄模糊；遮暗 (尤用于 bolt out：把弄模糊；遮暗，掩盖；遮蔽)----------------------------------------------------------------------------------noctilucent (adj.) : designating or of a luminous cloud of unknown composition。

第三课沙漠之舟艾尔•戈尔我头顶烈日站在一艘渔船的滚烫的钢甲板上。

这艘渔船在丰收季节一天所处理加工的鱼可达15吨。

但现在可不是丰收季节。

这艘渔船此时此刻停泊的地方虽说曾是整个中亚地区最大的渔业基地，但当我站在船头向远处眺望时，却看出渔业丰收的希望非常渺茫。

极目四顾，原先那种湛蓝色海涛轻拍船舷的景象已不复存在，取而代之的是茫茫的一片干燥灼热的沙漠。

渔船队的其他渔船也都搁浅在沙漠上，散见于陂陀起伏、绵延至天边的沙丘间。

十年前，咸海还是世界上第四大内陆湖泊，可与北美大湖区五大湖中的最大湖泊相媲美。

而今，由于兴建了一项考虑欠周的水利工程，原来注入此湖的水被引入沙漠灌溉棉田，咸海这座大湖的水面已渐渐变小，新形成的湖岸距离这些渔船永远停泊的位置差不多有40公里远。

与此同时，这儿附近的莫里那克镇上人们仍在生产鱼罐头，但所用的鱼已不是咸海所产，而是从一千多英里以外的太平洋渔业基地穿越西伯利亚运到这儿来的。

我因要对造成环境危机的原因进行调查而得以周游世界，考察和研究许多类似这样破坏生态环境的事例。

一九八八年深秋时节，我来到地球的最南端。

高耸的南极山脉中太阳在午夜穿过天空中的一个孔洞照射着地面，我站在令人难以置信的寒冷中，与一位科学家进行着一场谈话，内容是他正在挖掘的时间隧道。

这位科学家一撩开他的派克皮大衣，我便注意到他脸上因烈日的曝晒而皮肤皲裂，干裂的皮屑正一层层地剥落。

他一边讲话一边指给我看。

从我们脚下的冰川中挖出的一块岩心标本上的年层。

他将手指．到二十年前的冰层上，告诉我说，“这儿就是美国国会审议通过化空气法案的地方。

”这里虽处地球之顶端，距美国首都华盛顿两大洲之遥，但世界上任何一个国家只要将废气排放量减少一席在空气污染程度上引起的相应变化便能在南极这个地球上最偏而人迹难至的地方反映出来。

迄今为止，地球大气层最重要的变化始于上世纪初的工业命，变化速度自那以后逐渐加快。

工业意味着先是煤、后是石油消耗。

我们燃烧了大量的煤和石油——导致大气层二氧化碳含的增加，这就使更多的热量得以留存在大气层中，从而使地球的候逐渐变暖。

In the scorching desert, one can always find sand ships passing by in the silent night.Sand ships are a unique feature of the desert, a kind of common transportaion specifically used in desert areas. Most of them are made of carpets, which can be spread out on the sand like a sailboat, allowing people to ride on them for a long distance. Some are also made of cloth, sheepskin and other materials according to their preferences.The most special thing about sand ships is that they are heading east and west in the desert like ghosts in the middle of the night. No one can know exactly where they are heading or what they are looking for, except that they are travelling between the east and the west, like the wind in the desert, blurring and disappearing in the darkness.Although sand ships seem to be out of place in the desert, they are an indispensable part of its ecosystem. Under such a harsh climate, sand ships have become an important means of transportation in some remote desert areas. It saves time, money and trouble as well as reduce the difficulty of travelling in the desert.In the desert night,the figure of sand ships never stops passing by. They always representing the endless beauty and mystery of the desert.在灼热的沙漠中，人们总能在寂静的夜晚找到过往的沙船。

Lesson 3 Ships in the Desert课后练习答案及补充练习习题全解I.1)The writer went to the Aral Sea to search for the underlying causes of the environmentalcrisis. What he saw there was hot dry sand.2)It was the annual layers of ice in a core sample dug from the glacier.3)Scientists were monitoring the air several times a day to chart the course of the climatechange.4)Because the polar cap plays a crucial role in the world's weather system, the thinning ofthe polar cap might cause flood in many places of the world.5)There are more different species of birds in each square mile of the Amazon than exist inall of North America. The destruction of the Amazon rain forest will mean silencing thousandsof songs we have never even heard.6)The writer calls noctilucent clouds"ghosts in the sky". As a result of pollution, the clouds occasionally appear when the earth is first cloaked in the evening darkness. And they appearmore often because of a huge buildup of methane gas in the atmosphere.deal w ith t he c limate7)Because weare n ot yet a wakened to take effective measures tochange.8)Carbon dioxide's ability to trap heat in the atmosphere causes global warming. Becauseequilibrium that determines the pat-the global climateglobal warmingseriously threatensand s ea level. These in turntern o f winds, rainfall, surface temperatures,ocean cur- rents,determine the distribution of vegetative and animal life on land and sea and have a great effecton the location and pattern of human societies.9)The t wo key factors a re human p opulation and the scientific and technologicaldevelopment. The dramatic changes that have occurred in these two factors are a sudden andstartling s urge i n human p opulation and a sudden acceleration of the scientific andtechnological revolution.10)The writer's s olution to our ecologicalproblems is to reinvent and f inally h eal t herelationship between human beings and the earth by carrying out a careful reassessment of allthe {actors that led to the relatively recent dramatic change in the relationship.Ⅱ.1)It was not at all possible to catch a large amount of fish.thethe place wherelayers of ice in t he core sample, his finger came to2)Following thelayer of ice was formed 2050 years ago.3)keeps its engines running for fear that if he stops them, the metal parts would be frozen solid and the engines would not be able to start again4)Bit by bit trees in the rain forest are felled and the land is cleared and turned into pasture where cattle can be raised quickly and slaughtered and the beef can be used in ham- burgers.5)Since miles of forest are being destroyed and the habitat for these rare birds no longer exists, thousands of birds which we have not even had a chance to see will become extinct.6)Thinking about how a series of events might happen as a consequence of the thinning of the polar cap is not just a kind of practice in conjecture (speculation), it has got practical Value.7) We are using and destroying resources in such a huge amount that we are disturbing the balance between daylight and darkness.8) Or have we been so accustomed to the bright electric lights that we fail to understand the threatening implication of these clouds.9)To put forword the question in a different way10)and greatly affect the living places and activities of human societiesll)We seem unaware that the earth's natural systems are delicate.12)And this continuing revolution has also suddenly developed at a speed that doubled and tripled the original speed.Ⅲ. See the translation of the text.IV.1)transportation, imitation, destruction 2)encirclement, enrichment, enlightenment3)postage, coinage, advantage4)sharpness, boldness, smoothness5)admission, concession, depression 6)productivity, sensitivity, desirability8)independence, prudence, impudence7)posture, departure, indenture9)flagrancy, consistency, potency 10)analysis, metabasis, metamorphosis12)depth, length, birthll)dictatorship, ownership, partnershipV.技术1)technology2)ecology 生态学3)hydrology水文学颅像学4)phrenology5)neurology 神经病学6)pathology 病理学7)physiology生理学药理学8)pharmacology妇科学9)gynaecology海洋学10) oceanology词汇学11)lexicology考古学12)archaeology13)anthropology人类学犯罪学14)criminologyⅥ．1)anarchist无政府主义者2)naturalist自然主义者3)biologist生物学家心理学家4)psychologist5)satirist 讽刺作家百科全书编纂者6)encyclopaedist7)geologist地质学家8)sociologist社会学家9)zoologist动物学家印象派艺术家10)impressionist环境保护论者11)environmentalist恐怖主义分子12)terroristⅦ．1)submarine潜水艇淹没，潜入水中2)submerge亚南极的3)subantartic4)subsolar在太阳正下面的，赤道的小标题5)subhead半水栖的6)subaquatic把??再分7)subdivide8)suboxide低氧化物9)subclass亚纲亚顶极群落10) subclimax小组委员会11)subcommittee12)subconscious下意识的次大陆13)subcontinent转包合同14)subcontract亚文化群15)subculture亚种16)subspecies17)subsoil 底土毒药量等) 尚不致命的18)sublethal (Ⅷ.carbon dioxide, polar i ce c ap, g lobalinland sea, desert, core s ample, glacier, atmosphere,warming, Amazon rain forest, species of birds, ecological balance, noctilucent cloud, methaneatmosphere,gas, natural gas, landfills, coal m ines, rice p addies, termites, biomass, upperwaste, acid rain, chlorine,vapor, growing mountains ofelephants, greenhouse gases,waterhuman activities, heat-absorbing molecules, global climate equilibrium, winds, rainfall, surface temperatures, ocean currents, sea level, vegetative and animal life, etc.IX.1)basic examples2)unalterable3)meeting5)set up4)characterized strike against each other6)see, attack7)at the same time8)balance9)increasing, existence10)task11)out-of-dateX.1)consequences2)results3)results4)outcome5)results,6)outcome7)causes8)causes9)reason10)reason11)relations12)relationship13) relations14)relationship15)complex16)complex17)complicated18)complex19)simple20)simplisticXI.1)with2)of3)on4)of5)in6)in7)against8)than9)of10)as11)as12)with13)of14)of15)for16)ofXII.that, dumping, dispose, drown, relationship, environment, garbage, what, endless, allow,having, old, mind, r unning, waste, it, sight, recent, debates, disposal, ocean, elsewhere,we, used, interdependent,chosen, confront, capacity, of, quantities, only, c hange, reduce,unless, dramatically, thinking, humankind, inheritXIII. Omitted.XIV.We Must Protect Our Ecological SystemWith the development of human civilization, man has created countless wonders, but athas b eenon which all animals' existence depends,what a price! O ur e cological sys-tem,seriously damaged and is still being threatened. The earth's temperature is getting higher, more and more forests are being felled, large numbers of animals are facing extinction, and deserts are expanding at an incredible rate.two of the majormanifold. Perhapsfor the worsening ecologicalsystem areThe causesproblems lie in people's pursuit of short-term interests with little attention to long-terminterest sand theirthe firstthan c ollective interests. Inpursuit of individual interests rathercase, many lakes are filled to grow crops or even build houses; trees are cut down, only bareno water when it rains. In themountains stand cold in thewind a nd are capable of holdingnewly established nearbydirty a nd d eserted because ofsecond case, scenic spots becomefactories producing waste water and air; industrial countries invest heavily in chemical factories in the Third World nations, keeping their own land relatively clean.above, we should try our best t o balance short-term To solve the problems mentionedinterests with long-term ones by making long-term plans and taking as many things as possible into consideration. We're living today and are still to live tomorrow we and our posterity bothtaken to protect our ecologicalaction should behave to live on the e arth. B esides,Globaleastern or western, rich or poor, s hould join their hands to prevent oursystem. People,ecological system from being further damaged. We have only one earth and we have to make it a better world.《高级英语》第一册练习Lesson 3Ships in the DesertⅠ. Choose the best words to complete the sentences.1. This thought _______ their objections.A. underliedB. processedC. scatteredD. slipped2. She wore a dress that _______ her stomach.A. pointedB. revealedC. burned3. The boiling water _______ the glass.A. crashedB. stretchedC. changedD. cracked4. The patient showed signs of ________.A. distressB. layersC. atmosphereD. slab5. The trade union _______a new contract with the owner.A. monitoredB. absorbedC. negotiatedD. comprehend??l? t?r?l]附属担保品6. The bank required collateral to _______ the loan agreement.[kA. adjustB. secureC. reservedD. shimmered7. The film will soon be _______.A. threatenedB. understoodC. releasedD. shimmered8. The noise outside _____ my attention.A. distractsB. transformsC. resistsD. changes9. The amount of rain _____ the growth of crops.A. influencedB. effectedD. impacted10. He _____ several important changes.A. emergedB. submergedC. restrainedD. effected11. Scientists ____ that there is no animal life on the Mars.A. presentB. assumeC. assessD. require12. This is a fact even our enemies have to _____.A. holdB. leapfrogC. complicateD. acknowledge13. He tried to _______ his anger.A. disarmB. restrainC. poseD. include14. I have got ___ in the quarrel between Tom and Jack.A. involvedB. inspiredC. concludedD. accomplished15. An airliner ____west of the city last night.A. aroseB. landedC. crashedD. dropped16. I saw a clearly __ shape outside the window in a flash of light.A. developedB. acceleratedD. defined17. The milk __ over the table.A. distributedB. reshapedC. lastedD. spilled18. Can't you guess the meaning of the word from the _______?A. environmentB. atmosphereC. contextD. relationship19. The children were thin and badly in need of ________.A. precedentsB. sustenanceC. speciesD. regulation20. This microscope has a _____ of eight.A. magnificationB. accelerationC. transformationD. collisionⅡ. Spell out the words according to the meaning and the first letter of the word is given.l1. to move or hit with little waves.s2. a large-scale plan produced by a government.3. lasting forever. p4. an enclosed area in a harbor where ships go to be loaded, unloaded and repaired. de5. the release of sth. such as gas.6. able to be reached. ac7. person who goes with another.c8. to meet and strike together violently.9. causing much argument c2-1: / 答案:lap 2-2: / 答案:scheme 2-3: / 答案:permanent2-4: / 答案:dock 2-5: / 答案:emission 2-6: / 答案:accessible2-7: / 答案:companion 2-8: / 答案:collide 2-9: / 答案:controversial10. land where grass is grown for cattle ps11. a group of plants or animals that are of the same kind.12. typical example id13. great suffering of the mind or body.14. a large group of insects moving in a mass.sf15. the repeated happening of sth.16. to make impure or bad. c17. an outer sign of inner change.si18. to add pictures to show the meaning of sth.s19. to go under the surface of water.20. to get rid of as useless. d2-10: / 答案:pasture 2-11: / 答案:species 2-12: / 答案:image2-13: / 答案:distress 2-14: / 答案:swarm 2-15: / 答案:frequency2-16: / 答案:contaminate 2-17: / 答案:symptom 2-18: / 答案:illustrate2-19: / 答案:subemerge 2-20: / 答案:discardⅢ. Fill in the blank with the following phrases and make changes if necessary.__________________________________a good catch, at best, at rest, at stake, in time to, blot out, comparable to,in nature, in progress, in the process, in turn, present ?with, reserve for,taken together, to the point__________________________________1. Nothing is______her beauty.2. The mist came down and _______ the view好配偶for some young woman.3. He is__.4. Our work is ___nowtold Sheila.5. I told Frank and he______6. They are trying to extend the range of goods they sell and,_____ to appeal to a new type of customer.3-1: /答案:comparable to 3-2: / 答案:blotted out 3-3: / 答案:a good catch 3-4: /答案:in progress. 3-5: /答案:in turn 3-6: / 答案:in the process 3-7: / 答案:at stake.7. The company is on the verge of bankruptcy, and hundreds of jobs are____8. These seats are _____ old and sick people.9. Our class ____the school ____a clock.____’_ .clock10. We can ’t get home before nine o11. The machine is _______.3-8: / 答案:reserved for 3-9: / 答案:presented with 3-10: / 答案: at best.3-11: / 答案:at rest 3-12: / 答案:in time to 3-13: / 答案:to the point3-14: / 答案:Taken together 3-15: / 答案:in nature12. The audience clapped_______the music.13. The temperature rose ____ that the firemen had to leave from building.总体来说these measures should create a lot of new jobs.14._______,15. The two things are the same in outward form but different _____ .Ⅳ. Text comprehension:1. By saying “It wasn ’t a good day, ”the author meant ______.A. there wasn ’t any fishB. the weather was not goodC. they were not feeling goodD. it ’s impossible to have a good catch of fish2. In order to search for the underlying causes of the environmental crisis, the author has been to ________.A. the equatorB. the North poleC. the South poleD. all the above4-1: / 答案:D 4-2: / 答案:D 4-3: / 答案:C 4-4: / 答案:D 4-5: / 答案:C3. According to the author, _______ is the worst among the following problems.A. acid rainB. large oil spillsC. global warmingD. the contamination of underground aquifers4. The eventual solution to the arms race exists in _______.A. disarmament of one sideB. a new deployment of forces on either sideC. some ultimate weapon owned by one side or anotherD. new understanding and a mutual transformation of relationship itself5. From this text we learned the best way to settle the environmental crisis is to ______.A. return to natureB. stop deforestationC. educate people about environmentD. reduce our power to affect the worldⅤ. Write T for a true statement and F for a false statement, according to the text.1. The c ore s ample dug from the glacier showed that a small reduction in one c ountry ’semissions had changed the amount of pollution found in the Antarctic.in allof the Amazon than3. There are m ore d ifferent species of birds in each square mileAmericas.4. In high northern latitude, you can sometimes see a strange kind of cloud high in the sky, if the sky is clear after sunset.in5. All the water p ollution, air pollution, and i llegal waste dumping are essentially localnature.5-1: / 答案:T 5-3: / 答案:F 5-4: / 答案:T 5-5: / 答案:F5-6: / 答案:T 5-7: / 答案:T 5-8: / 答案:T 5-9: / 答案:F5-10: / 答案:F6. Human civilization is now the main cause of change in the global environment.key f actors that define the physical realityof our7. The 20th c entury has witnessed tworelationship to the earth are: a sudden and starling surge in human population and a sudden acceleration of the scientific and technological revolution.8. The startling images of environmental destruction now occurring all over the world have so much in common that they do not shock and awake us any more.9. The problem of the unclear arms race is primarily caused by technology.10. The key changes in the transformation of the way we relate to the earth involve more new technologies than new ways of thinking about the relationship itself.Ⅵ. Point out the right rhetorical device for the following used in the text.1. ? b u a t s I looked out over the bow, the prospects of a good catch looked bleak.2. Acre by acre, the rain forest is being burned to create fast pasture for fast-food beef:3. What should we feel toward these ghosts in the sky?’t it startle us that we have now put these 4. But, without even considering that threat, shouldnclouds in the evening sky which glisten with a spectral light?5. And in our own time we have reshaped a large part of the earth ’s face with concrete in our cities ?6-1: / 答案:understatement 6-2: / 答案:alliteration6-3: / 答案:metaphor 6-4: / 答案:rhetorical question6-5: / 答案:metonymy第一册第 3 课练习答案1-1: / 答案:A 1-2: / 答案:B 1-3: / 答案:D 1-4: / 答案:A 1-5: / 答案:C 1-6: / 答案:B 1-7: / 答案:C 1-8: / 答案:A 1-9: / 答案:C 1-10: / 答案:D 1-11: / 答案:B 1-12: / 答案:D 1-13: / 答案:B 1-14: / 答案:A 1-15: / 答案:C 1-16: / 答案:D 1-17: / 答案:D 1-18: / 答案:C 1-19: / 答案:B 1-20: / 答案:A 2-1: / 答案:lap 2-2: / 答案:scheme 2-3: / 答案:permanent2-4: / 答案:dock 2-5: / 答案:emission 2-6: / 答案:accessible2-7: / 答案:companion 2-8: / 答案:collide 2-9: / 答案:controversial2-10: / 答案:pasture 2-11: / 答案:species 2-12: / 答案:image2-13: / 答案:distress 2-14: / 答案:swarm 2-15: / 答案:frequency2-16: / 答案:contaminate 2-17: / 答案:symptom 2-18: / 答案:illustrate2-19: / 答案:subemerge 2-20: / 答案:discard 3-1: / 答案:comparable to3-2: / 答案:blotted out 3-3: / 答案:a good catch 3-4: / 答案:in progress.3-5: / 答案:in turn 3-6: / 答案:in the process 3-7: / 答案:at stake3-8: / 答案:reserved for 3-9: / 答案:presented with 3-10: / 答案: at best.3-11: / 答案:at rest 3-12: / 答案:in time to 3-13: / 答案:to the point3-14: / 答案:Taken together 3-15: / 答案:in nature 4-1: / 答案:D4-2: / 答案:D 4-3: / 答案:C 4-4: / 答案:D 4-5: / 答案:C 5-1: / 答案:T 5-2: / 答案:F 5-3: / 答案:F 5-4: / 答案:T 5-5: / 答案:F5-6: / 答案:T 5-7: / 答案:T 5-8: / 答案:T 5-9: / 答案:F5-10: / 答案:F 6-1: / 答案:understatement 6-2: / 答案:alliteration6-3: / 答案:metaphor 6-4: / 答案:rhetorical question6-5: / 答案:metonymy。

Lesson 3 Ships in the DesertAL Gore1. I was standing in the sun on the hot steel deck of a fishing ship capable of processing afifty -ton catch on a good day. But it wasn’ t a good day. We were anchored in what used to be th most productive fishing site in all of central Asia, but as I looked out over the bow, the prospects ofa good catch looked bleak. Where there should have been gentle blue-green waves lapping againstthe side of the ship, there was nothing but hot dry sand——as far as I could see in all direct The other ships of the fleet were also at rest in the sand, scattered in the dunes that stretched all theway to the horizon. Ten years ago the Aral was the fourth -largest inland sea in the world,comparable to the largest of North America ’Greats Lakes. Now it is disappearing because thewater that used to feed it has been diverted in an ill-considered irrigation scheme to grow cotton inthe desert. The new shoreline was almost forty kilometers across the sand from where the fishingfleet was now permanently docked. Meanwhile, in the nearby town of Muynak the people werestill canning fish——brought not from the Aral Sea but shipped by rail through Siberia from the Pacific Ocean, more than a thousand miles away.2. My search for the underlying causes of the environmental crisis has led me to travel aroundthe world to examine and study many of these images of destruction. At the very bottom of theearth, high in the Trans-Antarctic Mountains, with the sun glaring at midnight through a hole in thesky, I stood in the unbelievable coldness and talked with a scientist in the late tall of 1988 about thetunnel he was digging through time. Slipping his parka back to reveal a badly burned face that was cracked and peeling, he pointed to the annual layers of ice in a core sample dug from the glacier onwhich we were standing. He moved his finger back in time to the ice of two decades ago.where the U.S Congress passed the Clean Air Act, ”he said. At the bottom of the world, twocontinents away from Washington, D.C., even a small reduction in one country's emissions hadchanged the amount of pollution found in the remotest end least accessible place on earth.3. But the most significant change thus far in the earth’ s atmosphere is the one that be the industrial revolution early in the last century and has picked up speed ever since. Industrymeant coal, and later oil, and we began to burn lots of it —— bringing rising levels of carbondioxide (CO2) , with its ability to trap more heat in the atmosphere and slowly warm the earth.Fewer than a hundred yards from the South Pole, upwind from the ice runway where the ski planelands and keeps its engines running to prevent the metal parts from freeze-locking together,scientists monitor the air several times every day to chart the course of that inexorable change.During my visit, I watched one scientist draw the results of that day’ s measurements, end of a steep line still higher on the graph. He told me how easy it is——there at the earth —— to see that this enormous change in the global atmosphere is still picking up speed.4. Two and a half years later I slept under the midnight sun at the other end of our planet, in asmall tent pitched on a twelve-toot-thick slab of ice floating in the frigid Arctic Ocean. After ahearty breakfast, my companions and I traveled by snowmobiles a few miles farther north to arendezvous point where the ice was thinner——only three and a half feet thick——and submarine hovered in the water below. After it crashed through the ice, took on its new passengers,and resub merged, I talked with scientists who were trying to measure more accurately thethickness of the polar ice cap, which many believe is thinning as a result of global warming. I hadjust negotiated an agreement between ice scientists and the U.S. Navy to secure the release ofpreviously top secret data from submarine sonar tracks, data that could help them learn what ishappening to the north polar cap. Now, I wanted to see the pole it-self, and some eight hours afterwe met the submarine, we were crashing through that ice, surfacing, and then I was standing in aneerily beautiful snowscape, windswept and sparkling white, with the horizon defined by little hummocks, or“ pressure ridges” of ice that are pushed up like tiny mountain ranges when separate sheets collide. But here too, CO2 , levels are rising just as rapidly, and ultimately temperature willrise with them——indeed, global warming is expected to push temperatures up much more rapidlyin the polar regions than in the rest of the world. As the polar air warms, the ice here will thin; andsince the polar cap plays such a crucial role in the world’ s weather system, the consequ thinning cap could be disastrous.5.Considering such scenarios is not a purely speculative exercise. Six months after I returnedfrom the North Pole, a team of scientists reported dramatic changes in the pattern of ice distributionin the Arctic, and a second team reported a still controversial claim (which a variety of data now suggest) that, over all, the north polar cap has thinned by 2 percent in just the last decade.Moreover, scientists established several years ago that in many land areas north of the Arctic Circle,the spring snowmelt now comes earlier every year, and deep in the tundra below, the temperatureof the earth is steadily rising.*6. As it happens, some of the most disturbing images of environmental destruction can befound exactly halfway between the North and South poles —— precisely athe equator in Brazil ——where billowing clouds of smoke regularly blacken the sky above the immense but nowthreatened Amazon rain forest. Acre by acre, the rain forest is being burned to create fastpasture for fast-food beef; as I learned when I went there in early 1989, the fires are set earlierand earlier in the dry season now, with more than one Tennessee ’worths of rain forest beingslashed and burned each year. According to our guide, the biologist Tom Lovejoy, there are more different species of birds in each square mile of the Amazon than exist in all of North America*7. But one doesn't have to travel around the world to witness humankind’ s assault on Images that signal the distress of our global environment are now commonly seen almost anywhere.On some nights, in high northern latitudes, the sky itself offers another ghostly image that signalsthe loss of ecological balance now in progress. If the sky is clear after sunset——a watching from a place where pollution hasn't blotted out the night sky altogether——youcan sometimes see a strange kind of cloud high in the sky. This “ noctilucentcloud ”occasionallyappears when the earth is first cloaked in the evening darkness; shimmering above us with atranslucent whiteness, these clouds seem quite unnatural. And they should: noctilucent clouds havebegun to appear more often because of a huge buildup of methane gas in the atmosphere. (Alsocalled natural gas, methane is released from landfills, from coal mines and rice paddies, frombillions of termites that swarm through the freshly cut forestland, from the burning of biomass andfrom a variety of other human activities. ) Even though noctilucent clouds were sometimes seen inthe past, all this extra methane carries more water vapor into the upper atmosphere, where itcondenses at much higher altitudes to form more clouds that the sun’ s rays still strike lon sunset has brought the beginning of night to the surface far beneath them.8. What should we feel toward these ghosts in the sky? Simple wonder or the mix of emotionswe feel at the zoo? Perhaps we should feel awe for our own power: just as men tear tusks fromelephants ’ headsuchin quantity as to threaten the beast with extinction, we are ripping matterfrom its place in the earth in such volume as to upset the balance between daylight and darkness. Inthe process, we are once again adding to the threat of global warming, because methane has beenone of the fastest-growing green-house gases, and is third only to carbon dioxide and water vaporin total volume, changing the chemistry of the upper atmosphere. But, without even consideringglisten with a spectral light? Or have our eyes adjusted so completely to the bright lights ofcivilization that we can’seet these clouds for what they are —— aphysical manifestation of theviolent collision between human civilization and the earth?*9. Even though it is sometimes hard to see their meaning, we have by now all witnessedsurprising experiences that signal the damage from our assault on the environment——the new frequency of days when the temperature exceeds 100 degrees, the new speed with whichthe sun burns our skin, or the new constancy of public debate over what to do with growingmountains of waste. But our response to these signals is puzzling. Why haven’wet launched amassive effort to save our environment? To come at the question another way: Why do someimages startle us into immediate action and focus our attention or ways to respond effectively? Andwhy do other images, though sometimes equally dramatic, produce instead a Kin. of paralysis,focusing our attention not on ways to respond but rather on some convenient, less painfuldistraction?10.Still, there are so many distressing images of environmental destruction that sometimes itseems impossible to know how to absorb or comprehend them. Before considering the threats themselves, it may be helpful to classify them and thus begin to organize our thoughts and feelings so that we may be able to respond appropriately.11.A useful system comes from the military, which frequently places a conflict in one of threedifferent categories, according to the theater in which it takes place. There are“ l “ regional” battles, and“ strategic” conflicts. This third category is reserved for struggles thatthreaten a nation’ s survival and must be under stood in a global context.12.Environmental threats can be considered in the same way. For example, most instanceslike acid rain, the contamination of underground aquifers, and large oil spills are fundamentally regional. In both of these categories, there may be so many similar instances of particular local and regional problems occurring simultaneously all over the world that the patter n appears to be global,but the problems themselves are still not truly strategic because the operation of the global environment is not affected and the survival of civilization is not at stake.13.However, a new class of environmental problems does affect the global ecological system,and these threats are fundamentally strategic. The 600 percent increase in the amount of chlorinein the atmosphere during the last forty years has taken place not just in those countries producingthe chlorofluorocarbons responsible but in the air above every country, above Antarctica, above the North Pole and the Pacific Ocean —— all the way from the surface of the earth to the top of the sky. The increased levels of chlorine disrupt the global process by which the earth regulates the amountof ultraviolet radiation from the sun that is allowed through the atmosphere to the surface; and itwe let chlorine levels continue to increase, the radiation levels will also increasethat all animal and plant life will face a new threat to their survival.14.Global warming is also a strategic threat. The concentration of carbon dioxide and otherheat-absorbing molecules has increased by almost 25 per cent since World War II, posing aworldwide threat to the earth’ s ability to regulate the amount of heat from the sun retained in the atmosphere. This increase in heat seriously threatens the global climate equilibrium that determinesthe pattern of winds, rainfall, surface temperatures,ocean currents, and sea level. These in turn determine the distribution of vegetative and animal life on land and sea and have a great effect onthe location and pattern of human societies.15.In other words, the entire relationship between humankind and the earth has beentransformed because our civilization is suddenly capable of affecting the entire global environment,not just a particular area. All of us know that human civilization has usually had a large impact onthe environment; to mention just one example, there is evidence that even in prehistoric times, vastareas were sometimes intentionally burned by people in their search for food. And in our own timewe have reshaped a large part of the earth’ s surface with concrete in our cities and carefully ten rice paddies, pastures, wheat fields, and other croplands in the countryside. But these changes,while sometimes appearing to be pervasive, have, until recently, been relatively trivial factors inthe global ecological sys-tem. Indeed, until our lifetime, it was always safe to assume that nothingwe did or could do would have any lasting effect on the global environment. But it is precisely that assumption which must now be discarded so that we can think strategically about our newrelationship to the environment.16. Human civilization is now the dominant cause of change in the global environment. Yet weresist this truth and find it hard to imagine that our effect on the earth must now be measured bythe same yardstick used to calculate the strength of the moon’ s pull on the oceans or the f the wind against the mountains. And it we are now capable of changing something so basic as the relationship between the earth and the sun, surely we must acknowledge a new responsibility touse that power wisely and with appropriate restraint. So far, however, We seem oblivious of thefragility of the earth’ s natural systems.*17.This century has witnessed dramatic changes in two key factors that define the physicalreality of our relationship to the earth: a sudden and startling surge in human population, with theaddition of one China ’ s worth of people every ten years, and a sudden acceleration of the scientific and technological revolution, which has allowed an almost unimaginable magnification of ourpower to affect the world around us by burning, cutting, digging, moving,and transforming the18.The surge in population is both a cause of the changed relationship and one of the clearest illustrations of how startling the change has been, especially when viewed in a historical context.From the emergence of modern humans 200,000 years ago until Julius Caesar’ s time, fewe 250 million people walked on the face of the earth. When Christopher Columbus set sail for theNew World 1,500 years later, there were approximately 500 million people on earth. By the timeThomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence in 1776, the number had doubled again,to 1 billion. By midway through this century, at the end of World War II, the number had risen tojust above 2 billion people.19. In other words, from the beginning of humanity’ s appearance on earth to 1945, it took m than ten thousand generations to reach a world population of 2 billion people. Now, in the courseof one human lifetime——mine——theworld population will increase from 2 to more than 9billion, and it is already more than halfway there.20.Like the population explosion, the scientific and technological revolution began to pick upspeed slowly during the eighteenth century. And this ongoing revolution has also suddenly accelerated exponentially. For example, it is now an axiom in many fields of science that more newand important discoveries have taken place in the last ten years that. in the entire previous historyof science. While no single discovery has had the kind of effect on our relationship to the earth thatunclear weapons have had on our relationship to warfare, it is nevertheless true that taken together,they have completely transformed our cumulative ability to exploit the earth for sustenancemaking the consequences of unrestrained exploitation every bit as unthinkable as the consequencesof unrestrained nuclear war.21.Now that our relationship to the earth has changed so utterly, we have to see that changeand understand its implications. Our challenge is to recognize that the startling images ofenvironmental destruction now occurring all over the world have much more in common than their ability to shock and awaken us. They are symptoms of an underlying problem broader in scope and more serious than any we have ever faced. Global warming, ozone depletion, the loss of living species, deforestation——theyall have a common cause: the new relationship between human civilization and the earth’ s natural balance.22.There are actually two aspects to this challenge. The first is to realize that our power to harm the earth can indeed have global and even permanent effects. The second is to realize that the only way to understand our new role as a co-architect of nature is to see ourselves as part of a complex system that does not operate according to the same simple rules of cause and effect we are used to. The problem is not our effect on the environment so much as our relationship with the environment. As a result, any solution to the problem will require a careful assessmentof thatrelationship as well as the complex interrelationship among factors within civilization and between them and the major natural components of the earth’ s ecological system.23.There is only one precedent for this kind of challenge to our thinking, and again it is military. The invention of nuclear weapons and the subsequent development by the United States and the Soviet Union of many thousands of strategic nuclear weapons forced a slow and painfulrecognition that the new power thus acquired forever changed not only the relationship betweenthe two superpowers but also the relationship of humankind to the institution at war-fare itself. The consequences of all-out war between nations armed with nuclear weapons suddenly included the possibility of the destruction of both nations —— completelyand simultaneously. That sobering realization led to a careful reassessment of every aspect of our mutual relationship to the prospectof such a war. As early as 1946 one strategist concluded that strategic bombing with missileswell tear away the veil of illusion that has so long obscured the reality of the change inwarfare —— from a fight to a process of destruction.”24.Nevertheless, during the earlier stages of the nuclear arms race, each of the superpower s assumed that its actions would have a simple and direct effect on the thinking of the other. For decades, each new advance in weaponry was deployed by one side for the purpose of inspiring fear in the other. But each such deployment led to an effort by the other to leapfrog the first one with a more advanced deployment of its own. Slowly, it has become apparent that the problem of the nuclear arms race is not primarily caused by technology. It is complicated by technology, true; but it arises out of the relationship between the superpowers and is based on an obsolete understanding of what war is all about.25.The eventual solution to the arms race will be found, not in a new deployment by one sideor the other of some ultimate weapon or in a decision by either side to disarm unilaterally , but ratter in new understandings and in a mutual transformation of the relationship itself. This transformation will involve changes in the technology of weaponry and the denial of nuclear technology to rogue states. But the key changes will be in the way we think about the institution of warfare and about the relationship between states.26. The strategic nature of the threat now posed by human civilization to the global environment and the strategic nature of the threat to human civilization now posed by changes in the global environment present us with a similar set of challenges and false hopes. Some argue that a new ultimate technology, whether nuclear power or genetic engineering, will solve the problem. Others hold that only a drastic reduction of our reliance on technology can improve the conditionsof life——a simplistic notion at best. But the real solution will be found in reinventing and finally healing the relationship between civilization and the earth. This can only be accomplished by undertaking a careful reassessmentof all the factors that led to the relatively recent dramaticchange in the relationship. The transformation of the way we relate to the earth will of course involve new technologies, but the key changes will involve new ways of thinking about the relationship itself.( from Earth in the Balance: Ecology and the Human Spirit, 1992 )11。

Lesson 3 Ships in the DesertShips in the DesertAL Gore1. I was standing in the sun on the hot steel deck of a fishing ship capableof processing a fifty-ton catch on a good day. But it wasn' t a good day. We were anchored in what used to be the most productive fishing site in all of central Asia, but as I looked out over the bow , the prospects of a good catch looked bleak. Where there should have been gentle blue-green waves lapping against the side of the ship, there was nothing but hot dry sand – as far as I could see in all directions. The other ships of the fleet were also at rest in the sand, scattered in the dunes that stretched all the way to the horizon . Ten year s ago the Aral was the fourth-largest inland sea in the world, comparable to the largest of North America's Great Lakes. Now it is disappearing because the water that used to feed it has been diverted in an ill-considered irrigation scheme to grow cotton In the user t. The new shoreline was almost forty kilometers across the sand from where the fishing fleet was now permanently docked. Meanwhile, in the nearby town of Muynak the people were still canning fish – brought not from the Aral Sea but shipped by rail through Siberia from the Pacific Ocean, more than a thousand miles away.2. My search for the underlying causes of the environmental crisis has led me to travel around the world to examine and study many of these images of destruction. At the very bottom of the earth, high in the Trans-Antarctic Mountains, with the sun glaring at midnight through a hole in the sky, I stood in the unbelievable coldness and talked with a scientist in the late tall of 1988 about the tunnel he was digging through time. Slipping his parka back to reveal a badly burned face that was cracked and peeling, he pointed to the annual layers of ice in a core sample dug from the glacier on which we were standing. He moved his finger back in time to the ice of two decades ago. "Here's where the U. S Congress passed the Clean Air Act, ” he said. At the bottom of the world, two continents away from Washington, D. C., even a small reduction in one country's emissions had changed the amount of pollution found in the remotest end least accessible place on earth.3. But the most significant change thus far in the earth' s atmosphere is the one that began with the industrial r evolution early in the last century and has picked up speed ever since. Industry meant coal, and later oil, and we began to burn lots of it –bringing rising levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) , with its ability to trap more heat in the atmosphere and slowly warm the earth. Fewer than a hundred yards from the South Pole, upwind from the ice runway where the ski plane lands and keeps its engines running to prevent the metal parts from freeze-locking together, scientists monitor the air sever al times ever y day to chart the course of that inexorable change. During my visit, I watched one scientist draw the results of that day's measurements, pushing the end of a steep line still higher on the graph. He told me how easy it is –there at the end of the earth –to see that this enormous change in the global atmosphere is still picking up speed.4. Two and a half years later I slept under the midnight sun at the other end of our planet, in a small tent pitched on a twelve-toot-thick slab of ice floating in the frigid Arctic Ocean. After a hearty breakfast, my companions and I traveled by snowmobiles a few miles farther north to a rendezvous point where the ice was thinner – only three and a half feet thick –and a nuclear submarine hovered in the water below. After it crashed through the ice, took on its new passengers, and resubmerged, I talked with scientists who were trying to measure more accurately the thickness of the polar ice cap, which many believe is thinning as a re-suit of global warming. I had just negotiated an agreement between ice scientists and the U. S. Navy to secure the re-lease of previously top secret data from submarine sonar tracks, data that could help them learn what is happening to the north polar cap. Now, I wanted to see the pole it-self, and some eight hours after we met the submarine, we were crashing through that ice, surfacing, and then I was standing in an eerily beautiful snowcape, windswept and sparkling white, with the horizon defined by little hummocks, or "pressure ridges " of ice that are pushed up like tiny mountain ranges when separate sheets collide. But here too, CD, levels are rising just as rapidly, and ultimately temperature will rise with them –indeed, global warming is expected to push temperatures up much more rapidly in the polar regions than in the rest of the world. As the polar air warms, the ice her e will thin; and since the polar cap plays such a crucial role in the world's weather system, the consequences of a thinning cap could be disastrous.5. Considering such scenarios is not a purely speculative exercise. Six months after I returned from the North Pole, a team of scientists reported dramatic changes in the pattern of ice distribution in the Arctic, and a second team reported a still controversialclaim (which a variety of data now suggest) that, over all, the north polar cap has thinned by 2 per cent in just the last decade. Moreover, scientists established several years ago that in many land areas north of the Arctic Circle, the spring snowmelt now comes earlier every year, and deep in the tundra below, the temperature e of the earth is steadily rising.6. As it happens, some of the most disturbing images of environmental destruction can be found exactly halfway between the North and South poles –precisely at the equator in Brazil –where billowing clouds of smoke regularly black-en the sky above the immense but now threatened Amazon rain forest. Acre by acre, the rain forest is being burned to create fast pasture for fast-food beef; as I learned when I went there in early 1989, the fires are set earlier and earlier in the dry season now, with more than one Tennessee's worth of rain forest being slashed and burned each year. According to our guide, the biologist Tom Lovejoy, there are more different species of birds in each square mile of the Amazon than exist in all of North America –which means we are silencing thousands of songs we have never even heard.7. But one doesn't have to travel around the world to wit-ness humankind's assault on the earth. Images that signal the distress of our global environment are nowcommonly seen almost anywhere. On some nights, in high northern latitudes, the sky itself offers another ghostly image that signals the loss of ecological balance now in progress. If the sky is clear after sunset -- and it you are watching from a place where pollution hasn't blotted out the night sky altogether -- you can sometimes see a strange kind of cloud high in the sky. This "noctilucent cloud" occasionally appears when the earth is first cloaked in the evening dark-ness; shimmering above us with a translucent whiteness, these clouds seem quite unnatural. And they should: noctilucent clouds have begun to appear more often because of a huge buildup of methane gas in the atmosphere. (Also called natural gas, methane is released from landfills , from coal mines and rice paddies, from billions of termites that swarm through the freshly cut forestland, from the burning of biomass and from a variety of other human activities. ) Even though noctilucent clouds were sometimes seen in the past., all this extra methane carries more water vapor into the upper atmosphere, where it condenses at much higher altitudes to form more clouds that the sun's rays still strike long after sunset has brought the beginning of night to the surface far beneath them.8. What should we feel toward these ghosts in the sky? Simple wonder or the mix of emotions we feel at the zoo? Perhaps we should feel awe for our own power: just as me n "ear tusks from elephants’ heads in such quantity as to threaten the beast with extinction, we are ripping matter from its place in the earth in such volume as to upset the balance between daylight and darkness. In the process, we are once again adding to the threat of global warming, be-cause methane has been one of the fastest-growing green-house gases, and is third only to carbon dioxide and water vapor in total volume, changing the chemistry of the upper atmosphere. But, without even considering that threat, shouldn't it startle us that we have now put these clouds in the evening sky which glisten with a spectral light? Or have our eyes adjusted so completely to the bright lights of civilization that we can't see these clouds for what they are – a physical manifestation of the violent collision between human civilization and the earth?9. Even though it is sometimes hard to see their meaning, we have by now all witnessed surprising experiences that signal the damage from our assault on the environment --whether it's the new frequency of days when the temperature exceeds 100 degrees, the new speed with which the -un burns our skin, or the new constancy of public debate over what to do with growing mountains of waste. But our response to these signals is puzzling. Why haven't we launched a massive effort to save our environment? To come at the question another way' Why do some images startle us into immediate action and focus our attention or ways to respond effectively? And why do other images, though sometimes equally dramatic, produce instead a Kin. of paralysis, focusing our attention not on ways to respond but rather on some convenient, less painful distraction?10. Still, there are so many distressing images of environ-mental destruction that sometimes it seems impossible to know how to absorb or comprehend them. Before considering the threats themselves, it may be helpful to classify them and thus begin to organize our thoughts and feelings so that we may be able to respond appropriately.11. A useful system comes from the military, which frequently places a conflictin one of three different categories, according to the theater in which it takes place. There are "local" skirmishes, "regional" battles, and "strategic" conflicts. This third category is reserved for struggles that can threaten a nation's survival and must be under stood in a global context.12. Environmental threats can be considered in the same way. For example, most instances of water pollution, air pollution, and illegal waste dumping are essentially local in nature. Problems like acid rain, the contamination of under-ground aquifers, and large oil spills are fundamentally regional. In both of these categories, there may be so many similar instances of particular local and regional problems occurring simultaneously all over the world that the patter n appears to be global, but the problems themselves are still not truly strategic because the operation of- the global environment is not affected and the survival of civilization is not at stake.13. However, a new class of environmental problems does affect the global ecological system, and these threats are fundamentally strategic. The 600 percent increase in the amount of chlorine in the atmosphere during the last forty years has taken place not just in those countries producing the chlorofluorocarbons responsible but in the air above every country, above Antarctica, above the North Pole and the Pacific Ocean – all the way from the surface of the earth to the top of the sky. The increased levels of chlorine disrupt the global process by which the earth regulates the amount of ultraviolet radiation from the sun that is allowed through the atmosphere to the surface; and it we let chlorine levels continue to increase, the radiation levels will al-so increase – to the point that all animal and plant life will face a new threat to their survival.14. Global warming is also a strategic threat. The concentration of carbon dioxide and other heat-absorbing molecules has increased by almost 25 per cent since World War II, posing a worldwide threat to the earth's ability to regulate the amount of heat from the sun retained in the atmosphere. This increase in heat seriously threatens the global climate equilibrium that determines the pattern of winds, rainfall, surface temperatures, ocean currents, and sea level. These in turn determine the distribution of vegetative and animal life on land and sea and have a great effect on the location and pattern of human societies.15. In other words, the entire relationship between humankind and the earth has been transformed because our civilization is suddenly capable of affecting the entire global environment, not just a particular area. All of us know that human civilization has usually had a large impact on the environment; to mention just one example, there is evidence that even in prehistoric times, vast areas were sometimes intentionally burned by people in their search for food. And in our own time we have reshaped a large part of the earth's surface with concrete in our cities and carefully tended rice paddies, pastures, wheat fields, and other croplands in the countryside. But these changes, while sometimes appearing to be pervasive , have, until recently, been relatively trivial factors in the global ecological sys-tem. Indeed, until our lifetime, it was always safe to assume that nothing we did or could do would have any lasting effect on the global environment. But it is precisely that assumption which must now be discarded so that we can think strategically about our new relationship to theenvironment.16. Human civilization is now the dominant cause of change in the global environment. Yet we resist this truth and find it hard to imagine that our effect on the earth must now be measured by the same yardstick used to calculate the strength of the moon's pull on the oceans or the force of the wind against the mountains. And it we are now capable of changing something so basic as the relationship between the earth and the sun, surely we must acknowledge a new responsibility to use that power wisely and with appropriate restraint. So far, however, We seem oblivious of the fragility of the earth's natural systems.17. This century has witnessed dramatic changes in two key factors that define the physical reality of our relation-ship to the earth: a sudden and startling surge in human population, with the addition of one China's worth of people every ten years, and a sudden acceleration of the scientific and technological revolution, which has allowed an almost unimaginable magnification of our power to affect the world around us by burning, cutting, digging, moving, and trans-forming the physical matter that makes up the earth.18. The surge in population is both a cause of the changed relationship and one of the clearest illustrations of how startling the change has been, especially when viewed in a historical context. From the emergence of modern humans 200 000 years ago until Julius Caesar's time, fewer than 250 million people walked on the face of the earth. When Christopher Columbus set sail for the New World 1500 years later, there were approximately 500 million people on earth. By the time Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence in 1776, the number had doubled again, to 1 billion. By midway through this century, at the end of World War II, the number had risen to just above 2 billion people.19. In other words, from the beginning of humanity's appearance on earth to 1945, it took more than ten thousand generations to reach a world population of 2 billion people. Now, in the course of one human lifetime -- mine -- the world population will increase from 2 to more than 9 million, and it is already more than halfway there.20. Like the population explosion, the scientific and technological revolution began to pick up speed slowly during the eighteenth century. And this ongoing revolution has also suddenly accelerated exponentially. For example, it is now an axiom in many fields of science that more new and important discoveries have taken place in the last ten years that. in the entire previous history of science. While no single discover y has had the kind of effect on our relationship to the earth that unclear weapons have had on our relationship to warfare, it is nevertheless true that taken together, they have completely transformed our cumulative ability to exploit the earth for sustenance -- making the consequences, of unrestrained exploitation every bit as unthinkable as the consequences of unrestrained nuclear war.21. Now that our relationship to the earth has changed so utterly, we have to see that change and understand its implications. Our challenge is to recognize that thestartling images of environmental destruction now occurring all over the world have much more in common than their ability to shock and awaken us. They are symptoms of an underlying problem broader in scope and more serious than any we have ever faced. Global warming, ozone depletion, the loss of living species, deforestation -- they all have a common cause: the new relationship between human civilization and the earth's natural balance.22. There are actually two aspects to this challenge. The first is to realize that our power to harm the earth can in-deed have global and even permanent effects. The second is to realize that the only way to understand our new role as a co-architect of nature is to see ourselves as part of a complex system that does not operate according to the same simple rules of cause and effect we are used to. The problem is not our effect on the environment so much as our relationship with the environment. As a result, any solution to the problem will require a careful assessment of that relationship as well as the complex interrelationship among factors within civilization and between them and the major natural components of the earth's ecological system.23. The strategic nature of the threat now posed by human civilization to the global environment and the strategic nature of the threat to human civilization now posed by changes in the global environment present us with a similar set of challenges and false hopes. Some argue that a new ultimate technology, whether nuclear power or genetic engineering, will solve the problem. Others hold that only a drastic reduction of our reliance on technology can improve the conditions of life -- a simplistic notion at best. But the real solution will be found in reinventing and finally healing the relationship between civilization and the earth. This can only be accomplished by undertaking a careful reassessment of all the factors that led to the relatively recent dramatic change in the relationship. The transformation of the way we relate to the earth will of course involve new technologies, but the key changes will involve new ways of thinking about the relationship itself.。

高级英语第一册第三课Ships in the desert词汇(V ocabulary)lap ( v．) : (of waves，etc．)move or strike gently with a light，splashing sound such as a dog makes in lapping(波浪)拍打；泼溅----------------------------------------------------------------------------------divert ( v．) : turn(a person or thing)aside(from a course，direction，etc．)；deflect 转移；使(人或物)转向；岔开，使偏斜----------------------------------------------------------------------------------Antarctic ( adj. ) : of or near the South Pole or the region around it南极的；近南极的；南极区的；南极地带的；南极周围的---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Trans—Antarctic (adj.) : crossing or spanning the Antarctic横贯南极的；横贯南极地带的----------------------------------------------------------------------------------parka ( n.) : a hip—length pullover fur garment with a hood，worn 1n arctic regions 风雪大衣，派克大衣----------------------------------------------------------------------------------glacier ( n.) : a slowly moving river or mass of ice and snow that forms in areas where the rate of snowfall constantly exceeds the rate at which the snow melts冰河；冰川----------------------------------------------------------------------------------accessible ( adj.) : that can be approached or entered；easy to approach or enter能够接近的；能够进去的；易接近的；易进去的----------------------------------------------------------------------------------trap ( v．) : catch in or as in a trap；entrap诱捕；计捉----------------------------------------------------------------------------------inexorable ( adj.) :that cannot be altered，checked，etc．不可变的；不可抗拒的；无情的----------------------------------------------------------------------------------graph ( n.) : a diagram consisting of nodes and links and representing logical relationships or sequences of events(曲线)图，标绘图；图表；图形----------------------------------------------------------------------------------slab ( n.) : a piece that is flat，broad，and fairly thick平板；厚片----------------------------------------------------------------------------------frigid ( adj.) : extremely cold；without heat or warmth极冷的，寒冷的，严寒的----------------------------------------------------------------------------------snowmobile ( n.) : any of various motor vehicles for traveling over snow，usually with steerable runners at the front and tractor treads at the rear(机动)雪车；(履带式)雪上汽车----------------------------------------------------------------------------------rendezvous ( n.) : [Fr．] a place designated for meeting or assembling [法语]指定集合地；会合点----------------------------------------------------------------------------------hover ( v．) : stay suspended or flutter in the air near oneplace盘旋----------------------------------------------------------------------------------eerie，eery ( adj. ) : mysterious，uncanny，or weird，esp. in such a way as to frighten or make uneasy神秘的，离奇的，怪异的；阴森的，恐怖的，可怕的／eerily adv．----------------------------------------------------------------------------------hummock ( n.) : ridge or rise in an ice field冰群；(冰原上的)冰丘----------------------------------------------------------------------------------collide ( v．) : come into violent contact；strike violently against each other；crash 碰撞；猛撞；互撞----------------------------------------------------------------------------------scenario ( n.) : a sequence 0f events esp. when imagined；an account or synopsis of a projected course of action or events(设想中的)未来事态；方案----------------------------------------------------------------------------------controversial ( adj. ) : of，subject to，or stirring up controversy；debatable争论的；引起争论的；----------------------------------------------------------------------------------tundra ( n.) : any of the vast，nearly level，treeless plains of the arctic regions冻原；苔原；冻土带----------------------------------------------------------------------------------equator ( n.) : an imaginary circle around the earth，equally distant at all points from both the North Pole and the South Pole，dividing the earth's surface into the Northern Hemisphere and the Southern Hemisphere赤道----------------------------------------------------------------------------------billow ( v．) : surge，swell，or rise like or in a billow(巨浪)奔腾；(波涛)汹----------------------------------------------------------------------------------pasture ( n.) : ground suitable for grazing牧场----------------------------------------------------------------------------------slash (v．) : cut or wound with a sweeping stroke or strokes，as of a knife(用刀等)猛砍，乱砍----------------------------------------------------------------------------------blot (v．) : make blots on；spot；stain；blur(esp. used in blot out：darken or hide entirely；obscure)涂污；玷污；把……弄模糊；遮暗(尤用于bolt out：把……弄模糊；遮暗，遮蔽；掩蔽)----------------------------------------------------------------------------------noctilucent (adj.) : designating or of a luminous cloud of unknown composition。

第三课沙漠之舟艾尔o戈尔我头顶烈日站在一艘渔船的滚烫的钢甲板上。

这艘渔船在丰收季节一天所处理加工的鱼可达15吨。

但现在可不是丰收季节。

这艘渔船此时此刻停泊的地方虽说曾是整个中亚地区最大的渔业基地，但当我站在船头向远处眺望时，却看出渔业丰收的希望非常渺茫。

极目四顾，原先那种湛蓝色海涛轻拍船舷的景象已不复存在，取而代之的是茫茫的一片干燥灼热的沙漠。

渔船队的其他渔船也都搁浅在沙漠上，散见于陂陀起伏、绵延至天边的沙丘间。

十年前，咸海还是世界上第四大内陆湖泊，可与北美大湖区五大湖中的最大湖泊相媲美。

而今，由于兴建了一项考虑欠周的水利工程，原来注入此湖的水被引入沙漠灌溉棉田，咸海这座大湖的水面已渐渐变小，新形成的湖岸距离这些渔船永远停泊的位置差不多有40公里远。

与此同时，这儿附近的莫里那克镇上人们仍在生产鱼罐头，但所用的鱼已不是咸海所产，而是从一千多英里以外的太平洋渔业基地穿越西伯利亚运到这儿来的。

我因要对造成环境危机的原因进行调查而得以周游世界，考察和研究许多类似这样破坏生态环境的事例。

一九八八年深秋时节，我来到地球的最南端。

高耸的南极山脉中太阳在午夜穿过天空中的一个孔洞照射着地面，我站在令人难以置信的寒冷中，与一位科学家进行着一场谈话，内容是他正在挖掘的时间隧道。

这位科学家一撩开他的派克皮大衣，我便注意到他脸上因烈日的曝晒而皮肤皲裂，干裂的皮屑正一层层地剥落。

他一边讲话一边指给我看。

从我们脚下的冰川中挖出的一块岩心标本上的年层。

他将手指．到二十年前的冰层上，告诉我说，"这儿就是美国国会审议通过化空气法案的地方。

"这里虽处地球之顶端，距美国首都华盛顿两大洲之遥，但世界上任何一个国家只要将废气排放量减少一席在空气污染程度上引起的相应变化便能在南极这个地球上最偏而人迹难至的地方反映出来。

迄今为止，地球大气层最重要的变化始于上世纪初的工业命，变化速度自那以后逐渐加快。

工业意味着先是煤、后是石油消耗。