VOA标准英语2013--Soaring Population, Climate Change Stress Resources
时间:2019-01-13 作者:英语课 分类:VOA标准英语2013年(一月)
Soaring Population, Climate Change Stress Resources
Advances and losses
Progress has been made. Since world leaders met in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, for the first Earth Summit on Sustainable Development 20 years ago, global poverty has fallen by half, per capita income has doubled and life expectancy 1 has increased by four years.
Yet those advances have come at a very high cost to the global environment, says Andrew Steer 2, president of the World Resources Institute.
“We’ve had 3.3 million deaths every year over the last 20 years from pollution. We’ve been losing forests, 13 million hectares every year. That’s the size of England every single year. We’ve had a 50 percent increase in carbon dioxide and we’re now heading towards a world in which average temperatures will be four degrees Celsius 3 above what they were historically.”
Currently 1.3 billion people lack electricity, even as a burgeoning 4 middle class - expected to grow from 2 billion to 5 billion people by 2050 - is demanding more electric power.
Steers 5 says 1,200 coal-fired power plants have been proposed globally in 59 countries, largely in China and India, two of the world’s biggest sources of carbon emissions 6. He notes renewable energy investment fell in 2012 for the first time in eight years.
But Steers is encouraged by government policies which could help reverse that trend.
“Over 100 countries now have renewable energy targets. And so what we’re looking out for this year is whether some of those new policies have bite and whether we are going to cross a threshold so that renewable energy is recognized as a truly economically viable 7 solution.”
Ken 9 Green, who directs the Center for Energy and Natural Resources Studies at the Fraser Institute, a free-market public policy research group based in Canada, says the market share for renewables is slim and doesn’t see them making headway any time soon.?
Instead he expects what he calls the renewal bubble to burst.
“The growth in green investments that have been inflated 10 by governments spending themselves into huge debts and deficits 11, and from the look of things in Europe and in the U.S., all that debt-fueled spending is going to have to come to an end sooner rather than later, based on their economies," Green says. "So I'd expect green investments to decline as more private investors 12 realize that it’s a highly uncertain place to put your money.”
Sustainable energy by 2030
In 2012, the United Nations launched an initiative to provide universal access to energy, double energy efficiency and double the share of renewables in the global energy mix by 2030.
The World Bank is a partner in the effort. Rachel Kyte, the bank's vice 13 president for Sustainable Development, says to meet those goals and reduce the risks of runaway 14 climate change, nations must consider a greener energy mix that includes renewable sources and natural gas.
“There have been a series of very big natural gas finds offshore 15 of the developing world. That becomes a huge opportunity to substitute for coal and to move to a greener energy mix in the short-to-medium term," Kyte says. "We’ve seen what gas has done for the U.S. emissions profile and for the U.S. economy and gas is changing the geopolitics of energy as a result.”
Infrastructure 16 gap
The World Bank calculates there is a one-trillion-dollar gap in financing for infrastructure in the developing world. In spite of global economic uncertainty 17, Kyte says, ways must be found to cut investment risk.
She suggests, for example, tapping the $500 billion industrial nations spend for fossil fuel subsidies 18.
"You can take that $500 billion and repurpose it to make the kinds of investments in the green infrastructure that you need for the future and the competitive jobs that people need to have in the future."
Putting climate on political agenda
Scientists are predicting more extreme weather like the droughts, storms and wildfires that spread across the globe in 2012 as the planet heats up with man-made carbon emissions from factories, cars and buildings.
Kyte says more frequent and severe weather may be the impetus 19 for more climate-savvy environmental policies.
“This is going to be a repeated pattern through 2013 and 2014, the intensity 20 of these weather events. And nobody is immune. Nobody is immune. And so this will continue I think to push the [climate] agenda to the top of political priorities.”
Kyte says what needs to be done is mostly known. What is missing is the political will to act.
- Japanese people have a very high life expectancy.日本人的平均寿命非常长。
- The atomosphere of tense expectancy sobered everyone.这种期望的紧张气氛使每个人变得严肃起来。
- If you push the car, I'll steer it.如果你来推车,我就来驾车。
- It's no use trying to steer the boy into a course of action that suits you.想说服这孩子按你的方式行事是徒劳的。
- The temperature tonight will fall to seven degrees Celsius.今晚气温将下降到七摄氏度。
- The maximum temperature in July may be 36 degrees Celsius.七月份最高温度可能达到36摄氏度。
- Our company's business is burgeoning now. 我们公司的业务现在发展很迅速。 来自《简明英汉词典》
- These efforts were insufficient to contain the burgeoning crisis. 这些努力不足以抑制迅速扩散的危机。 来自辞典例句
- This car steers easily. 这部车子易于驾驶。 来自《简明英汉词典》
- Good fodder fleshed the steers up. 优质饲料使菜牛长肉。 来自辞典例句
- Most scientists accept that climate change is linked to carbon emissions. 大多数科学家都相信气候变化与排放的含碳气体有关。
- Dangerous emissions radiate from plutonium. 危险的辐射物从钚放散出来。
- The scheme is economically viable.这个计划从经济效益来看是可行的。
- The economy of the country is not viable.这个国家经济是难以维持的。
- Her contract is coming up for renewal in the autumn.她的合同秋天就应该续签了。
- Easter eggs symbolize the renewal of life.复活蛋象征新生。
- Such things are beyond my ken.我可不懂这些事。
- Abstract words are beyond the ken of children.抽象的言辞超出小孩所理解的范围.
- He has an inflated sense of his own importance. 他自视过高。
- They all seem to take an inflated view of their collective identity. 他们对自己的集体身份似乎都持有一种夸大的看法。 来自《简明英汉词典》
- The Ministry of Finance consistently overestimated its budget deficits. 财政部一贯高估预算赤字。 来自《简明英汉词典》
- Many of the world's farmers are also incurring economic deficits. 世界上许多农民还在遭受经济上的亏损。 来自辞典例句
- a con man who bilked investors out of millions of dollars 诈取投资者几百万元的骗子
- a cash bonanza for investors 投资者的赚钱机会
- He guarded himself against vice.他避免染上坏习惯。
- They are sunk in the depth of vice.他们堕入了罪恶的深渊。
- The police have not found the runaway to date.警察迄今没抓到逃犯。
- He was praised for bringing up the runaway horse.他勒住了脱缰之马受到了表扬。
- A big program of oil exploration has begun offshore.一个大规模的石油勘探计划正在近海展开。
- A gentle current carried them slowly offshore.和缓的潮流慢慢地把他们带离了海岸。
- We should step up the development of infrastructure for research.加强科学基础设施建设。
- We should strengthen cultural infrastructure and boost various types of popular culture.加强文化基础设施建设,发展各类群众文化。
- Her comments will add to the uncertainty of the situation.她的批评将会使局势更加不稳定。
- After six weeks of uncertainty,the strain was beginning to take its toll.6个星期的忐忑不安后,压力开始产生影响了。
- European agriculture ministers failed to break the deadlock over farm subsidies. 欧洲各国农业部长在农业补贴问题上未能打破僵局。
- Agricultural subsidies absorb about half the EU's income. 农业补贴占去了欧盟收入的大约一半。 来自《简明英汉词典》
- This is the primary impetus behind the economic recovery.这是促使经济复苏的主要动力。
- Her speech gave an impetus to my ideas.她的讲话激发了我的思绪。