2011年高考英语湖北卷 - 阅读理解D

Feeling blue about world? "Cheer up," Says science writer Matt Ridley," The world has never been a better place to live in, and it will keep on getting better both for humans and for nature."
对世界感到沮丧？“振作起来，”科学作家马特·雷德利说，“世界从来都没有成为一个更好的居住地，无论是对人类还是对自然，它将继续变得更好。”

Ridley calls himself a rational optimist - rational, because he's carefully weighed the evidence; optimistic, because that evidence shows human progress to be both unavoidable and good. And this is what he's set out to prove from unique point of view in his most recent book. The Rational anal Optimist. He views mankind as grand enterprise that, on the whole, has done little but progress for 100, 000 years. He backs his finding with hard gathered through years of research.
雷德利称自己为理性乐观主义者——理性，因为他仔细权衡了证据；乐观，因为这些证据表明人类的进步是不可避免的，而且是好的。这就是他在最近的书《理性的乐观主义者》中从独特的角度出发所要证明的。他认为人类是一项伟大的事业，总的来说，10万年来，人类除了进步外，几乎什么也没做。经过多年的研究，他以辛勤的努力支持了自己的发现。

Here's how he explains his views．
以下是他的解释。

1）Shopping fuels invention
1）购物推动发明

It is reported that there are more than ten billion different products for sale in London alone. Even allowing for the many people who still live in poverty, our own generation has access to more nutritious food, more convenient transport, bigger houses, better cars, and of course, more pounds and dollars than any who lived before us. This will continue as long as we use these things to make other things. The more we specialize and exchange, the better off we'll be.
据报道，仅在伦敦就有100多亿种不同的产品可供出售。即使考虑到仍生活在贫困中的许多人，我们这一代人也能比前人获得更有营养的食物、更方便的交通、更大的房子、更好的汽车，当然还有更多的英镑和美元。只要我们用这些物品制造其他物品，这种情况就会持续下去。我们越专业，交易越多，我们的生活就会越好。

2）Brilliant advances
2） 辉煌的进步

One reason we are richer, healthier, taller, cleverer, longer-lived and freer than ener before is that the four most basie human needs - food, clothing, fuel and shelter- have grown a lot cheaper. Take one example. In 1800 a candle providing one hour's light cost six hours'work. In the 1880s the same light from an oil lamp took 15 minutes' work to pay for. In 1950 it was eight seconds. Today it's half second.
我们比以前更富有、更健康、更高、更聪明、寿命更长、更自由的一个原因是，人类最基本的四种需求——食物、衣服、燃料和住所——已经变得便宜了很多。举个例子。1800年，提供一小时光亮的一支蜡烛需要六小时的工作。在19世纪80年代，同样的来自油灯的光亮需要15分钟的工作。1950年是8秒。今天是半秒。

3）Let's not kill ourselves for climate change
3） 不要为了气候变化干蠢事

Mitigating climate change could prove just as damaging to human welface as climate change itself. A child that dies from indoor smoke in a village, where the use of fossil-fuel electrieity is forhidden by well-meaming members of green political movements trying to save the world, is just as great a tragedy as a child that dies in a flood caused by climate change. If climate change proves to be mild, but cutting carbon causes real pain, we may well find that we have stopped a nose-bleed by putting a tournquet around our necks.
缓解气候变化对人类健康的破坏可能与气候变化本身一样严重。在一个村庄里，一个孩子死于室内烟雾，因为在这里试图拯救世界的绿色政治运动的一些好心成员不使用化石燃料发电，这就像一名儿童在气候变化引发的洪水中死亡一样，是一场巨大的悲剧。如果气候变化被证明是温和的，但减少碳排放会带来真正的痛苦，我们很可能会发现，我们通过在脖子上戴止血带已经止住了鼻子流血。