TED演讲:如何让世界到2030年时变得更好(2)

But please, I invite you to suspend your disbelief for just a moment.

但是我建议你先搁置你的怀疑一小会儿。

Because back in 2001, the UN agreed another set of goals, the Millennium¹ Development Goals.

因为回到2001年，那时联合国也同意了另一系列的目标，就是千年发展目标。

And the flagship target there was to halve² the proportion of people living in poverty by 2015.

当时的核心目标就是到2015年时使贫穷人口的比例减少一半。

The target was to take from a baseline of 1990,

那个目标是当时以1990年为基础设立的，

when 36 percent of the world's population lived in poverty, to get to 18 percent poverty this year.

当时有36%的世界人口的生活很贫穷，而目标是到今年这个指标要降到18%。

Did we hit this target? Well, no, we didn't. We exceeded it.

我们达到这个目标了吗？我们没有。我们超越了它。

This year, global poverty is going to fall to 12 percent.

今年，全球贫困人口比例将要降到12%。

Now, that's still not good enough, and the world does still have plenty of problems.

但是这仍不够好，因为这个世界还是存在很多的问题。

But the pessimists³ and doomsayers who say that the world can't get better are simply wrong.

但是那些说这个世界不能变得更好的悲观主义者和末日预言者们是真的错了。

So how did we achieve this success?

那么我们是如何取得这些成功的呢？

Well, a lot of it was because of economic growth.

其实，这很大程度上要归功于经济的增长。

Some of the biggest reductions in poverty were in countries such as China and India,

贫穷人口大量减少的一些地方是在像中国和印度这样的一些国家，

which have seen rapid economic growth in recent years.

而这些国家近几年的经济增长飞速。

So can we pull off the same trick again? Can economic growth get us to the Global Goals?

那现在我们能不能用同样的方式来达成目标呢？经济增长能让我们实现这些全球目标吗？

Well, to answer that question, we need to benchmark where the world is today against the Global Goals

那么，要回答这个问题的话，我们需要先弄明白如果要实现这些全球目标，我们当今的世界的状态是怎样的，

and figure out how far we have to travel.

并且要找出我们还有多少路要走。

1 millennium   

n.一千年，千禧年；太平盛世

参考例句：

• The whole world was counting down to the new millennium.全世界都在倒计时迎接新千年的到来。
• We waited as the clock ticked away the last few seconds of the old millennium.我们静候着时钟滴答走过千年的最后几秒钟。

2 halve   

vt.分成两半，平分；减少到一半

参考例句：

• Let's halve the project between our two teams.让我们两个队平均分担这项工程吧。
• I'll halve expenses with you.我要跟你平均分摊费用。

3 pessimists   

n.悲观主义者( pessimist的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Pessimists tell us that the family as we know it is doomed. 悲观主义者告诉我们说，我们现在的这种家庭注定要崩溃。 来自辞典例句
• Experts on the future are divided into pessimists and optimists. 对未来发展进行预测的专家可分为悲观主义者和乐观主义者两类。 来自互联网