时间:2018-12-24 作者:英语课 分类:2016年Scientific American(十一)月


英语课

 


The Unnatural 1 World is the title of a new book by former Scientific American environment editor David Biello. The subtitle 2: The Race to Remake Civilization in Earth’s Newest Age. And that age has been dubbed 3 the Anthropocene—in which humanity (anthro) has become, as the book puts it, a world-changing force of nature.


Biello talked about The Unnatural World recently at the BookCourt bookstore in Brooklyn. He was asked who he met in his research who stood out as someone trying to take steps to address the issues of this age. 


“His name is Fan Changwei, and he is an environmental bureaucrat 4 in a small coastal 5 town (Rizhao) in China. And he has been tasked by his provincial 6 government and his local government with trying to turn a city carbon neutral. So this means that would emit no more CO2 than they also kind of took in and destroyed, which is a beautiful sounding circular economy kind of concept—turns out to be incredibly difficult in practice, as Fan is finding out. And that struggle is the one that we’re all facing. And certainly it’s a struggle that, it’s more important that it happen in China than anywhere else. And maybe India right after it…


“You know, we have cleaner air, cleaner water, and that’ because we decided 7 that we didn’t want killer 8 smogs, and the Chinese people are deciding that right now, and perhaps the Indians will decide not to have killer smogs before they have them.”


More from David Biello about his book The Unnatural World in an upcoming episode of the Science Talk podcast.


—Steve Mirsky



1 unnatural
adj.不自然的;反常的
  • Did her behaviour seem unnatural in any way?她有任何反常表现吗?
  • She has an unnatural smile on her face.她脸上挂着做作的微笑。
2 subtitle
n.副题(书本中的),说明对白的字幕
  • His new book has a subtitle.他的新书有一个副标题。
  • Ah!I don't know why they don't subtitle these movies.唉!我不知道这些电影为什么不打字幕。
3 dubbed
v.给…起绰号( dub的过去式和过去分词 );把…称为;配音;复制
  • Mathematics was once dubbed the handmaiden of the sciences. 数学曾一度被视为各门科学的基础。
  • Is the movie dubbed or does it have subtitles? 这部电影是配音的还是打字幕的? 来自《简明英汉词典》
4 bureaucrat
n. 官僚作风的人,官僚,官僚政治论者
  • He was just another faceless bureaucrat.他只不过是一个典型呆板的官员。
  • The economy is still controlled by bureaucrats.经济依然被官僚们所掌控。
5 coastal
adj.海岸的,沿海的,沿岸的
  • The ocean waves are slowly eating away the coastal rocks.大海的波浪慢慢地侵蚀着岸边的岩石。
  • This country will fortify the coastal areas.该国将加强沿海地区的防御。
6 provincial
adj.省的,地方的;n.外省人,乡下人
  • City dwellers think country folk have provincial attitudes.城里人以为乡下人思想迂腐。
  • Two leading cadres came down from the provincial capital yesterday.昨天从省里下来了两位领导干部。
7 decided
adj.决定了的,坚决的;明显的,明确的
  • This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
  • There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。
8 killer
n.杀人者,杀人犯,杀手,屠杀者
  • Heart attacks have become Britain's No.1 killer disease.心脏病已成为英国的头号致命疾病。
  • The bulk of the evidence points to him as her killer.大量证据证明是他杀死她的。
学英语单词
.cf
above-threshold region
adjustable tilt conveyor
administered strength
arisaema nanjenense
arraiolos
articular meniscus meniscus articularis
aspiration condenser
audiosensory
autothreshold control
bawk
Billroth's cords
blueprint machine
bursting disk of heat-insulating jacketed wall
calyx canthus
cast in situ pile
character interleaved
check test
circumbinary
cluster well
Coniferopsida
controller conventional design
cuspate ripple mark
CYP2B
decrease deduction
demix
dentinal fiber
diffley
direction-finder antenna
disclaimings
dispanperize
drudgeries
dysbetalipoproteinemias
elegantissima
enterprise on small scale
Everöd
fender stay
flat-bed lock stitch machine
four-card
frog tongue
ground-state transition
Henle's membrane
herd-grass
hot stage microscope
hydrated chloral
Hüytenii Jisa
Ibn Najm, Hawr
idle machines
in every possible way
inconvertible note(s)
infrared absorption band
injector anode
inroaded
intestinal crisis
lie like a gas meter
life wisdom
limoni
lipocaic hormone
long-term instability
Mau Aimma
Meisen
minicomputer controlled terminal
monach is. (heisker is.)
Montaudin
multi-wire channel
New Mexicans
Noxyfiex
numerical model
order of predicate
orii's mustachioed bat
overbold
pearl earring
phenetic classification
phototub
prime swarm
primitive orbital fissure
radar homing beacon
randomized response model
Raudolfin
Red Hill
ringers
Roegneria dura
Schneider
secondary node
self-correctives
shunt-field relay
silver ion laser
single-pin type spanner wrench
slide tool rest
spun bonding
tailordom
the lung-qi being kept pure and descendant
thermokarst mound
this case
Titus Tatius
unbalanced polyploid
underking
venous valves
Wideband Code Division Multiple Access
wtmp
yhugged
Young construction