47 · 代价太高？
Too High a Price?
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Pollution is the price we pay for an overpopulated, over industrialized planet. When you come to think about it, there are only four ways you can deal with rubbish: dump it, burn it, turn it into something you can use again, attempt to produce less of it. We keep trying all four methods, but the sheer volume of rubbish we produce worldwide threatens to overwhelm us.
Rubbish, however, is only part of the problem of polluting our planet. The need to produce ever-increasing quantities of cheap food leads to a different kind of pollution. Industrialized farming methods produce cheap meat products: beef, pork and chicken. The use of pesticides and fertilizers produces cheap grain and vegetables. The price we pay for cheap food may be already too high: Mad Cow Disease
BSE in cattle, salmonella in chicken and eggs, and listeria in dairy products. And if you think you'll abandon meat and become a vegetarian, you have the choice of very expensive organically-grown vegetables or a steady diet of pesticides every time you think you're eating fresh salads and vegetables, or just having an innocent glass of water!
However, there is an even more insidious kind of pollution that particularly affects urban areas and invades our daily lives, and that is noise. Burglar alarms going off at any time of the day or night serve only to annoy passers-by and actually assist burglars to burgle. Car alarms constantly scream at us in the street and are a source of profound irritation. A recent survey of the effects of noise revealed surprisingly? that dogs barking incessantly in the night rated the highest form of noise pollution on a scale ranging from 1 to 7. The survey revealed a large number of sources of noise that we really dislike. Lawn mowers whining on a summer's day, late-night parties in apartment blocks, noisy neighbours, vehicles of all kinds, especially large container trucks thundering through quiet villages, planes and helicopters flying overhead, large radios carried round in public places and played at maximum volume. New technology has also made its own contribution to noise. A lot of people object to mobile phones, especially when they are used in public places like restaurants or on public transport. Loud conversations on mobile phones invade our thoughts or interrupt the pleasure of meeting friends for a quiet chat. The noise pollution survey revealed a rather surprising and possibly amusing old-fashioned source of noise. It turned out to be snoring! Men were found to be the worst offenders. It was revealed that 20% of men in their mid-thirties snore. This figure rises to a staggering 60% of men in their sixties. Against these figures, it was found that only 5% of women snore regularly, while the rest are constantly woken or kept awake by their trumpeting partners. Whatever the source of noise, one thing is certain: silence, it seems, has become a golden memory.
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整篇课文
Pollution is the price we pay for an overpopulated, over industrialized planet. When you come to think about it, there are only four ways you can deal with rubbish: dump it, burn it, turn it into something you can use again, attempt to produce less of it. We keep trying all four methods, but the sheer volume of rubbish we produce worldwide threatens to overwhelm us.
Rubbish, however, is only part of the problem of polluting our planet. The need to produce ever-increasing quantities of cheap food leads to a different kind of pollution. Industrialized farming methods produce cheap meat products: beef, pork and chicken. The use of pesticides and fertilizers produces cheap grain and vegetables. The price we pay for cheap food may be already too high: Mad Cow Disease
BSE in cattle, salmonella in chicken and eggs, and listeria in dairy products. And if you think you'll abandon meat and become a vegetarian, you have the choice of very expensive organically-grown vegetables or a steady diet of pesticides every time you think you're eating fresh salads and vegetables, or just having an innocent glass of water!
However, there is an even more insidious kind of pollution that particularly affects urban areas and invades our daily lives, and that is noise. Burglar alarms going off at any time of the day or night serve only to annoy passers-by and actually assist burglars to burgle. Car alarms constantly scream at us in the street and are a source of profound irritation. A recent survey of the effects of noise revealed surprisingly? that dogs barking incessantly in the night rated the highest form of noise pollution on a scale ranging from 1 to 7. The survey revealed a large number of sources of noise that we really dislike. Lawn mowers whining on a summer's day, late-night parties in apartment blocks, noisy neighbours, vehicles of all kinds, especially large container trucks thundering through quiet villages, planes and helicopters flying overhead, large radios carried round in public places and played at maximum volume. New technology has also made its own contribution to noise. A lot of people object to mobile phones, especially when they are used in public places like restaurants or on public transport. Loud conversations on mobile phones invade our thoughts or interrupt the pleasure of meeting friends for a quiet chat. The noise pollution survey revealed a rather surprising and possibly amusing old-fashioned source of noise. It turned out to be snoring! Men were found to be the worst offenders. It was revealed that 20% of men in their mid-thirties snore. This figure rises to a staggering 60% of men in their sixties. Against these figures, it was found that only 5% of women snore regularly, while the rest are constantly woken or kept awake by their trumpeting partners. Whatever the source of noise, one thing is certain: silence, it seems, has become a golden memory.
污染，是我们为这个人口过多、工业化过度的星球付出的代价。仔细想想，处理垃圾无非四种办法：丢弃、焚烧、回收利用，或者设法少产生一些。四种办法我们都在尝试，可全球制造的垃圾实在太多，正威胁着把我们自己淹没。
然而，垃圾只是地球污染问题的一部分。为了生产越来越多的廉价食品，我们又造成了另一种污染。工业化养殖提供了便宜的牛肉、猪肉和鸡肉，农药与化肥的使用则带来低价的谷物和蔬菜。可我们为廉价食品付出的代价，也许已经太高了，疯牛病便是一个例子。
这种病又称牛海绵状脑病，简称BSE，发生在牛群中；类似的风险还有鸡肉、鸡蛋中的沙门氏菌，以及乳制品中的李斯特菌。如果你打算不吃肉、改当素食者，也无非是两个选择：买价格昂贵的有机蔬菜，或者照常吃新鲜的沙拉、蔬菜，放心地喝水，却在不知不觉中一次次摄入农药。
不过，还有一种污染更加隐蔽，尤其侵扰城市，渗入我们的日常生活，那就是噪声。防盗警报不分昼夜地响，往往只会惹恼路人，反而给窃贼行窃帮了忙。街上的汽车警报不停尖叫，令人烦躁不堪。最近一项噪声影响调查发现了一个出人意料的结果：在一到七级的评定中，夜里不停的犬吠被列为最严重的噪声污染。调查还列出了许多我们深恶痛绝的声音：夏日割草机的嗡鸣、公寓楼里的深夜聚会、吵闹的邻居、各类车辆，尤其是轰隆隆穿过宁静村庄的大型集装箱卡车，还有头顶的飞机和直升机，以及在公共场所被人提着走、开到最大音量的大收音机。新技术也为噪声“出了一份力”。许多人反感手机，尤其反感有人在餐馆、公共交通工具等场所使用。对着手机大声交谈，会打断别人的思绪，也破坏朋友间安静聊天的兴致。调查还发现一种老派的噪声来源，既令人意外，又有点好笑，那就是打鼾！男性被发现是最严重的“肇事者”：三十五岁左右的男性有20%打鼾，到了六十多岁，比例竟高达60%。相比之下，经常打鼾的女性只有5%；其余女性却不断被伴侣如吹喇叭般的鼾声吵醒，或者根本无法入睡。不管噪声来自哪里，有一点似乎很明确：安静，已经成了一段珍贵的回忆。
学完这一课
对一个问题提出三种同层级办法，保持动词形式平行。
译文依据整理稿，由本站按中文表达重新校订；解析据吴应时、何景霖整理资料及首轮审校稿；词伙与练习提示为本站学习设计。原PDF第163—166页，2022年2月第3版。