英语课本上的一篇课文，大家谈谈自己的理解。

甘心

为了人类而拯救自然

查尔斯  克劳特哈默

         环境意识，正如对民主制度的信奉，或是对尼龙的厌恶，已成为当今上流社会一种必备的态度。但是既然人人都有权热爱地球母亲，面对好几十种以环境为名提出的相互矛盾的建议、计划、规则和法律时，我们怎样才能从中做出选择呢？显然不是每一件声称要保护环境的事都值得做。如何取舍呢？

       有一种简单的方法。首先，要区分哪些是保护环境的奢求，哪些是必需。奢求指的是那些如果无需付出代价便无妨拥有的事物。必需则是那些不计代价也必须拥有的事物。然后运用一条规则，可以称之为理性环境保护论的基本原则：遏制直接威胁人们健康和安全的生态变化是保护环境的必需。其他的都是奢求。

       例如：通过保护臭氧层和遏制温室效应来保护大气层是保护环境的必需。4月份科学家报告说，臭氧层的破坏远比之前预想的要严重。臭氧减少不仅引发皮肤癌和白内障，它还毁灭浮游生物，而在人类赖以生存的食物链中，浮游生物是第一环。

       温室效应的现实状况目前难以确定，但其可能产生的后果破坏性更大：冰盖融化、海岸线被淹没、气候异常、平原干涸，并最终导致我们的粮仓空匮。美国的中西部，是世界的粮仓。如果看到爱荷华州出现南端的阿尔伯克基的气候、而北端的西伯利亚则出现爱荷华州的气候，我们会愿意吗？

       臭氧层减少和温室效应都是人类的灾难。它们恰巧又都出现在环境中。但它们直接威胁到人类，因此需紧急处理。理性的环境保护论，也是唯一能赢得大众广泛支持的环境保护论，首先就坦然宣称大自然是为人类服务的。它是完全以人为中心的：它呼吁人们保护自然，但目的是为了保护人本身。

       理性的环境保护论对地球不感情用事。它不要求人们为了其他生物而牺牲自己。毕竟，让人为了其他人作出牺牲已经够难的了。（想想公众对支援外国、福利救助的抵制情绪。）如果你要求勤劳的选民为蜗牛鱼做出牺牲，他们若还客气一点的话，也就对你耸耸肩罢了。

       当然，这种能够以人为本的精神和当今极度崇拜地球的环境保护主义是格格不入的。有一种科学理论，就是盖亚理论，居然断言地球是个有生命的机体。这种环境保护主义喜欢自诩为精神高尚。但这不过是感情用事。例如，对于大自然的仁慈，它的观点就非常片面。当五月风暴夺去了12.5万多孟加拉人的生命并使1000万孟加拉人无家可归后，我对大自然的崇拜也就烟消云散了。

       理性的自然保护论建立在普罗泰格拉的原则之上：“人是衡量一切事物的标准。”这条原则帮助我们解决形形色色的环保纷争。举个例吧，人们正对是否要在阿拉斯加国家野生动植物保护区一角开采石油炸开激烈争论。一项议案正设法让国会批准开采，环保主义者则竭力反对，理由是我们应当节约而不是开采能源。这种非此即彼的提法是错误的。我们国家确实需要对能源征收重税以降低石油消耗。但同时也要提高石油产量。根据政府的估计，在阿拉斯加野生动植物保护区下面可能埋藏着迄今为止在美国发现的五大油田之一，其可能性几乎有50%。

       我们刚刚经历过一场战争，这场战争部分是因为石油而起：美国人依赖他人供给能源，损失的不仅是金钱，而且还有生命。仅仅因为可能破坏北极驯鹿的繁殖地而使自己用不上可以和平获得的石油，这样的感情用事实属荒唐。

       我对驯鹿的喜爱不逊于他人。如果它们的交配规律被打乱，我也会感到很遗憾。但是，你不可能事事周全。一面是驯鹿的安乐，一面是减少使人们在战争中丧生的石油依赖，如果要在这两者之间做出选择，我每次都是选择人而舍弃驯鹿。

       斑枭也一样。我和斑枭并无冤仇。如果能够不付代价或以很小的代价保护斑枭，我就会同意：自然界的多样化是好事，是美学上的大好事。但也仅此而已。有时，美学上的好事不得不让位于更基本的利益。如果保护斑枭的代价是使三万户伐木工人家庭失去生路，我选择要伐木工而不是斑枭。

       重要的是区分根本的环保善举和只有美学意义的好事。大自然由我们掌管。它不是我们的主人。应当尊重甚至照管它。但这是人的世界。当人必须在自身的利益和自然的利益之间做出选择时，自然就得迁就人。

       人也要迁就，但那仅是当自身的命运和自然的命运密不可分时。当人所处的环境——比如大气臭氧层——其完整性受到威胁时，人就只能紧急调整自己。如果对人类的威胁相对较小（比如，燃煤和燃油发电机排出的污染物能使人致病致死，但对生态系统不造成致命的损害），就应该权衡经济发展与人类健康不同的需要而进行适当的调整。但在这两种情况中，原则都一样：保护环境——只因为这是我们人类的环境。

       感情用事的环境保护者会说这是用完全错误的心态保护环境。不错。理性的——人文的——环境保护论保护环境不是为了自然，而是为了人类自身。

甘心

这是翻译过的，英文原文见大学英语综合教程第二册第八单元。
Environmental sensitivity is now as required an attitude in polite society as is, belief in democracy or aversion to nylon. But now that everyone has claims to love Mother Earth, how are we to choose among the dozens of conflicting proposals, restrictions, projects, regulations and laws advanced in the name of the environment? Clearly not everything with an environmental claim is worth doing. How to choose?
There is a simple way. First, distinguish between environmental luxuries and environmental necessities. Luxuries are those things it would be nice to have if costless. Necessities are those things we must have regardless. Then apply a rule. Call it the fundamental principle of sensible environmentalism: Combating ecological change that directly threatens the health and safety of people is an environmental necessity. All else is luxury.
For example: preserving the atmosphere, by both protecting the ozone layer and halting the greenhouse effect, is an environmental necessity. In April scientists reported that ozone damage is far worse than previously thought. Ozone reduction not only causes skin cancer and eye cataracts, it also destroys plankton, the beginning of the food chain on top of which we humans sit.
The reality of the greenhouse effect is more speculative, though its possible consequences are far deadlier: melting ice caps, flooded coastlines, disturbed climate, dried up plains and, ultimately, empty breadbaskets. The American Midwest feeds the world. Are we prepared to see Iowa acquire Albuquerque's climate? And Siberia acquire Iowa's?
Ozone reduction and the greenhouse effect are human disasters. They happen to occur in the environment. But they are urgent because they directly threaten man. A sensible environmentalism, the only kind of environmentalism that will win universal public support, begins by unashamedly declaring that nature is here to serve man. A sensible environmentalism is entirely man-centered: it calls for man to preserve nature, but on the grounds of self-preservation.
A sensible environmentalism does not sentimentalize the earth. It does not ask people to sacrifice in the name of other creatures. After all, it is hard enough to ask people to sacrifice in the name of other humans. (Think of the public resistance to foreign aid and welfare.) Ask hardworking voters to sacrifice in the name of the snail darter, and, if they are feeling polite, they will give you a shrug.
Of course, this man-centeredness runs against the grain of a contemporary environmentalism that worships the earth to the point of excess. One scientific theory — Gaia theory — actually claims that 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 kindliness of nature. My nature worship stops with the May storms that killed more than 125,000 Bengalis and left 10 million homeless.
A non-sentimental environmentalism is one founded on Protagoras' principle that "Man is the measure of all things." Such a principle helps us to fight our way through the jungle of environmental argument. Take the current debate raging over oil drilling in a corner of the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge. Environmentalists, fighting against a bill working its way through Congress to permit such exploration, argue that we should be conserving energy instead of drilling for it. This is a false either/or proposition. The country does need a substantial energy tax to reduce consumption. But it needs more production too. Government estimates indicate a nearly fifty-fifty chance that under the ANWR lies one of the five largest oil fields ever discovered in America.
We have just come through a war fought in part over oil: Energy dependence costs Americans not just dollars but lives. It is a ridiculous sentimentalism that would deny ourselves oil that is peacefully attainable because it risks disrupting the breeding grounds of Arctic reindeer.
I like the reindeer as much as the next man. And I would be rather sorry if their mating patterns are disturbed. But you can't have everything. And if the choice is between the welfare of reindeer and reducing oil dependence that gets people killed in wars, I choose man over reindeer every time.
Similarly the spotted owl. I am no enemy of the owl. If it could be preserved at no or little cost, I would agree: the variety of nature is a good, a high aesthetic good. But it is no more than that. And sometimes aesthetic goods have to be sacrificed to the more fundamental ones. If the cost of preserving the spotted owl is the loss of livelihood for 30,000 logging families, I choose family over owl.
The important distinction is between those environmental goods that are fundamental and those that are merely aesthetic. Nature is our charge. It is not our master. It is to be respected and even cultivated. But it is man's world. And when man has to choose between his well-being and that of nature, nature will have to accommodate.
Man should accommodate only when his fate and that of nature are bound up together. The most urgent accommodation must be made when the very integrity of man's environment — e.g., atmospheric ozone — is threatened. When the threat to man is of a lesser order (say, the pollutants from coal- and oil-fired generators that cause death from disease but not fatal damage to the ecosystem), a more moderate 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 man's environment.
The sentimental environmentalists will call this saving nature with a totally wrong frame of mind. Exactly. A sensible — a humanistic — environmentalism does it not for nature's sake but for our own.

龍龍

理性的——人文的——环境保护论保护环境不是为了自然，而是为了人类自身。

说到底，是人的自私，那么环境保护就是被动的，这样的话只需等着灾难大规模降临，那么各国首脑也许就会急了吧..............

反正，我很不赞同人为中心的法则。

pacan

说的底环保还是为了人类自身

绿爱熊猫

额呵呵美学上的好事不得不让位于更基本的利益。如果保护斑枭的代价是使三万户伐木工人家庭失去生路，我选择要伐木工而不是斑枭。
这是美学上的好事么，首先，接着选择伐木工就放弃了斑枭那选择斑枭就不能选择伐木工了么，伐木工可以提供机会让其选择伐木以外的事，比如保护林木的工作，或是合理伐木，为什么一定要伐那里的木呢，经济适用林是干嘛用的呢，还有就是每次选择了伐木工之后要拿什么来选择普通民众呢。。。 感觉问题都重复了。。。是否

maque

这个根本不是美学意义上的事

朴犷者

鼓励给你。不是你翻译的？

被封印的左手

看思维方式
一种行为
不同思维的人有不同的解释

甘心

朴犷者:鼓励给你。不是你翻译的？ (2011-12-04 23:46)

                               
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不是我翻译的。

不屈之火

人类中心思想，从动物本能角度出发是正确的，因为任何物种的存在意义都必须建立在其自身能够生存下去的基础上。说环保是为了人类自己这无可厚非。但从绝对高度的文明角度，这是错误的，原因就是众生应该是平等的。
        本文作者在麋鹿栖息地和石油开采的冲突上的观点其实已经有违人文精神（该部分中的“战争”基本可认定为伊拉克战争）。美国如果全国人民都节约能源的情况下，石油还是十分紧张，而且中东国家还有意提高卖给美国的石油价格，那么作者的观点还有点合理性。毕竟这种情况下真有被逼的成分。可事实是美国恰恰是作为人均能耗和人均汽车保有量最高的国家去攻打伊拉克的。这就想一个铺展浪费的地主以之家粮食太少为理由去加重对佃户的剥削。这种情况下说什么要减少发动夺油战争的可能性才不惜为了采集石油而破坏麋鹿的栖息地，那真的是在玩猫哭耗子的把戏了。
        斑枭的例子也是漏洞百出。自然多样性绝非美学意义上的好事。完整的生态就像完整的抽抽乐积木一样，破坏自然多样性就像从积木塔上抽出积木一样。不是抽掉一块积木，整座积木塔就会倒。但就算你再厉害，能抽出的积木数也是有限的。当然你也别想在塔不倒的情况下尽情的抽出积木，因为抽得越多塔就越容易被风吹倒。正因为这是一个量变引起质变的过程，所以才容易用文中的所谓“美学”理论欺骗别人。
        最恶心的是这句话：“大自然由我们掌管。”我们只是其中影响力最大的一个物种而已。如果我们真能掌管大自然，现在就不需要如此举棋不定了，我们可以无忧无虑的乱来了。反正有问题能马上解决好。
        综上所述我们不难发现，该文作者有着很重的人类自大思想和人类中心思想（似乎基督教徒也是如此，估计作者也是基督教徒）。这种人说的话根本和理性不沾边。还有看完这篇文章我想起了我们的“专家”和“学者”了。