代价太高？
课文学习台
Too High a Price?
把人物、线索、转折和结果组织成连贯叙述，理解句子里的修饰层次。
课文精读第1 / 4段
本课原文与译文
展开完整文本 · 便于查阅与检索
第1段
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.
污染就是我们为这个人口过密、过度工业化的星球所付出的代价。当我们开始考虑垃圾问题时，我们只有4种对付垃圾的方法：倾倒、焚烧、再利用或干脆少产生一些垃圾。我们一直在用这4种方式，但是，在世界范围内产生的垃圾总量就有把我们埋了的危险。
第2段
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
然而，垃圾只是我们这个星球污染问题的一个方面。日益增长的对廉价食物的需求导致了另一种形式的污染。工业化的农作方式生产出廉价的肉类制品——牛肉、猪肉和鸡肉。使用杀虫剂和化肥生产出廉价的谷物和蔬菜。为了廉价食物我们付出的代价可能已经太高了：牛群中的疯牛病，鸡肉
第3段
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!
和鸡蛋中的沙门氏菌，奶制品中的利斯特杆菌。如果你想戒掉肉食而变成一位素食者，那么你可以两者择一：选用价格昂贵、有机培植的蔬菜，或是当你认为在享用新鲜色拉和新鲜蔬菜或饮用一杯无害的水的时候，实际上每次都在吃进杀虫剂。
第4段
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.
但是，还有一种更加隐蔽的污染，它尤其影响城镇地区，侵袭我们的日常生活，那就是噪音。防盗警报器不分白天黑夜地响着，它的作用只是骚扰过路行人，而实际上却帮助窃贼入室行窃。在街上，汽车的防盗警报不断对我们吼叫，这是人们极度烦躁的一个原因。最近一个有关噪音影响的调查（这真让人吃惊吗？）指出，夜间连续不断的狗叫声，在一个从1级至7级的刻度表上列为最严重的噪音污染。这个调查揭示了我们所不喜欢的大量噪音的来源：夏天嘎嘎作响的割草机，公寓楼里深夜聚会的喧哗声，大声吵闹的邻居，各式各样的车辆，特别是穿越宁静的村庄的集装箱卡车，从头顶飞过的飞机和直升机，被带到公共场所、音量开到最大的大功率收音机。新技术也为噪音作出了它的“贡献”。许多人都反对手机，特别是在如饭店、公交车等公共场所使用手机。用手机大声交谈干扰我们的思路，破坏我们和朋友一起轻声聊天的乐趣。这个有关噪音污染的调查还揭示了一种出人意外而同时可能会引人发笑的老式噪音源。它就是鼾声！男人是这方面的罪魁祸首。调查指出，20%的 35岁左右的男人打鼾；而到60来岁，这个数字上升到令人惊愕的60%。与这些数字相比，只有5% 的女性经常打鼾；而其余则经常被与她们同睡、像吹号似地打着呼噜的男人吵醒或弄得睡不着。不管噪声来自何方，有一点是可以肯定的：看来宁静已变成一种珍贵的回忆了。
学完这一课
保留原段的推进关系，换成自己的经历，写或说一段四五句的话。
译文与解析据吴应时、何景霖整理资料及本站首轮审校稿；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。