学位英语/公共英语等级考试三级PETS3学习笔记（四）

Unit4 Environment

Phrases and Sentences:

1、He is famous for vigorously opposing the use of chemicals to kill pets.

PS:解析vigorously opposing 并翻译这句话。

==>vigorously opposing积极反对

全句翻译：他因为积极反对用化学品杀宠物而出名。

2、What would you recommend for a tenth-grader?

PS:解析tenth-grader到底是十年级的学生，还是十岁的小孩?

==>tenth-grade是“十年级”，所以tenth-grader当然是“十年纪的学生”了。十岁的小孩是：teenager

3、They used Singapore as a microcosm for examining a regionwide tropical biodiversity crisis,and compiled population data from the past two centuries.

PS:翻译这句话。

==>他们用新加坡作为检查热带地区的区域性的生活差异危机一个缩影，并用过去两个世纪(的历史)来编纂人口数据。

其中biodiversity是由前缀bio-和diversity组合而成的，意思是生命的差异性。

4、Animals that call the forest home have suffered enormously.

PS:翻译这句话，重点解析"call"在这句话的意思。

==>call称为，当作。

全句翻译：以森林为家的动物们受到了巨大的灾难。

5、American and Europe will pool research into hydrogen-powered fuel cells.

PS:翻译这句话，重点解析"pool"在这句话的意思。

==>pool集中投入，pool的名词意思是“池塘”，动词本义是“汇合成塘”的意思，这里用的是比喻义，想象一下不难理解的。

全句翻译：美国和欧洲将集中注资到氢燃料电池的研究中。

6、It shows the United States is out to make peace with eco-friendly Europe.

PS:翻译这句话

==>这表明美国将尽力与生态环境好的欧洲和平相处。

out这里是副词，表示“致力于”。

7、Fuel cells create electricity by combining oxygen and hydrogen without producing harmful emissions, and technical construction poses few basic challenges.

PS:翻译这句话，重点解析"call"在这句话的意思。

==>燃料电池通过氧气和氢气反应来发电而不发出有害物质，并且在技术的组建上提出了很少的挑战。

这里没有call,只有cell,是电池的意思，名词。pose challenge提出挑战，就是指技术上的难关。

8、But opinion is sharply divided over how to obtain hydrogen without wasting more natural resources.

PS:翻译这句话，重点解析"over"在这句话的意思。

==>但是在如何不浪费更多自然资源的情况下获得氢气这个问题上，意见出现了分歧。

其中的over相当于on,就是“关于”的意思。

9、That means making use of renewable resources for the task, say wind and solar resources.

PS:翻译这句话，重点解析"say"在这句话的意思。

==>那意味着该任务是要利用可再生资源，比如风能和太阳能。

其中的say是副词，比如，相当于for example.

10、Whitman assured the public that the air was safe before testing was conclusive. In addition, all EPA statements were required to be screened by the White House.

PS:翻译这句话

==>惠特曼向公众保证在测试下结论之前空气是安全的。而且，所有的EPA(美国环保署)申明都要求经过白宫的筛选。

screen：动词，筛选/过滤。

11、But New York Sen.(senator,参议员。)Hillary Clinton is calling for an investigation, saying somebody surely leaned on the EPA to lie, which Whitman strongly denies.

PS:翻译这句话

==>但是纽约的科学家希拉里.克林顿要求调查此事，说某些人明显的偏向于EPA(美国环保署)而说谎，对于这个，惠特曼坚决否认。

call for:相当于demand,require，

lean on:偏向于。

Passage:

When it comes to air pollution, the simple life isn’t necessarily the safest. The most poisonous atmosphere in Asia is found not in rapidly modernizing cities like New Delhi or Beijing but inside the kitchens of homes in rural Asia. Millions of families in the countryside heat their abodes and cook with open fires using cheap fuels that belch carbon monoxide and other noxious fumes at level up to 500 times international safety limits. Rural women and children often spend hours each day in poorly, ventilated kitchens, breathing this putrid air. “This is a problem that has been around forever, as long as humankind has existed, but it’s been ignored,” says Eva Rehfuess, a World Health Organization expert on indoor air pollution. “If you walked into these kitchens, your eyes would start tearing and you would find it difficult to breathe. It’s terrible. ”

The WHO estimates that indoor air pollution cause 1.6 million deaths per year in developing countries around the world, up to 555,000 of which occur in India alone-and overwhelmingly it’s the poor who are dying. Villagers have no choice but to use wood, coal or dung fires, raising the risk that young children will be killed by carbon-monoxide poisoning or a bad case of pneumonia ravaging weakened lungs. Likewise, the women who typically keep their home fires burning are vulnerable to chronic respiratory diseases. “Day in and day out for 50 years, some of these women might be cooking six hours a day, exposed to pollutions,” says Rehfuess.

Curtailing indoor air pollution can be as simple as replacing open wood fires with better-ventilated cookstoves, but more sophisticated stoves can cost up to $120. China and India, home to the world’s largest rural populations, have launched ambitious national programs in recent decades to supply villagers with safer stoves at subsidized prices. But the programs have not always worked, in India, for example, some 33 million stoves were given out free to villagers in rural areas from 1984 to 2000—but because of a lack of health education or follow-up maintenance, most families abandoned the cookstoves for their old fires within a few years.

That’s left nongovernmental organizations like the shell Foundation to step into the gap. It has begun a pilot program with local Indian NGOs in a pair of rural states to develop and market clean, wood-burning stoves that cost just $5-$10 yet can reduce emissions by up to 40%. The project is on track to sell 1000,000 stoves by the end of 2005, and the groups plan to expand the program nationally in the future. Program manager Karen Westley says Shell and its partner NGOs made an effort to sell their customers not just more efficient tools but also the idea that different is better. “You have to make sure people actually want that damn thing,” says Westely. “They need to make the connection between having a better stove, breathing less smoke and experiencing better health in the end.”

But habits ingrained by tradition can be hard to break. “They’ve been living with this always, and so have their mothers and grandmothers,” says Rehfuess. “You have to give people the felling they can do something about it.” And that they’ll breathe a lot easier for their trouble.

参考译文:

说到空气污染，并不是说简单的日常生活就必然是最安全的。研究显示，在亚洲，毒气最浓的空气并不在新德里和北京这样的现代化速度很快的城市，而是在亚洲农村家庭的厨房里。

在农村，上百万的家庭用明火取暖或是做饭，他们使用的是廉价的燃料，这些燃料所释放的一氧化碳量和其他有毒烟雾量是国际标准的500倍。

农村地区的妇女和孩子经常每天在通风不好的厨房里待上几个小时，呼吸这种有毒的空气。

“这个问题从人类诞生以来就一直存在着，但是却一直被忽视了，”一位名叫伊娃.瑞弗丝的世界卫生组织室内空气污染方面的专家说道，“走进厨房你的眼睛就开始流泪，而且你会觉得呼吸困难，这太可怕了。”

世界卫生组织估计，在发展中国家，室内空气污染造成每年160万人死亡，其中印度占55万——而且死亡的大部分都是穷人。村民们除了用木头，煤或者是粪肥来烧火之外别无选择，这样会增加小孩子一氧化碳中毒死亡的危险，肺功能减弱，肺炎得病率增加。同样，那些在家里生火的妇女很容易得慢性呼吸道疾病。

瑞弗丝说“有些妇女一天要花6小时做饭，五十年里日复一日，每天都生活在污染中。”

减少室内空气污染其实非常简单，只要用一套通风比较好的厨灶来代替木头生火就可以了，但是比较高级的厨灶要花120美元。

中国和印度是世界上两个农村地区人口最多的国家，在最近几十年里启动了全国范围的救助项目，以补贴价格供给农村居民安全性能最好的厨灶。但是，这个项目并不是一直起作用。

例如，印度政府在1984-2000年间免费发放了三百三十万套厨灶给农村地区农民，但是由于缺少健康知识教育和相关维护，多数家庭几年之后就又回到他们原来的取火方式了。

这使得一些像谢尔基金会这样的非政府组织参与进来。

该组织与印度当地非政府组织在一些乡村地区开始小规模实验项目，开发和推广干净的、燃烧木头的厨灶，并使之市场化。这样厨灶可以减少40%的氧化排放量，并且只需要5-10美元。