TED演讲：改变荒漠现状,扭转气候变化(3)

 　　When I was a young man, a young biologist in Africa, I was involved in setting aside marvelous areas as future national parks.  我年轻的时候，是非洲的一个年轻生物学家，我参与了一个项目，为国家公园规划未来的野生区域。

　　Now no sooner — this was in the 1950s — and no sooner did we remove the hunting,  不久后——这是1950年——我们刚取消打猎，

　　drum-beating people to protect the animals, than the land began to deteriorate¹, as you see in this park that we formed.  鼓动人们保护动物，接着土地开始恶化，这是我们建立的公园。

　　Now, no livestock² were involved, but suspecting that we had too many elephants now,  这里并没有牲畜（破坏植被），于是我们怀疑是大象的数量太多了，

　　I did the research and I proved we had too many,  我做过调查，并得出了大象数量过多的结论，

　　and I recommended that we would have to reduce their numbers and bring them down to a level that the land could sustain.  我建议应该减少它们的数量，把数量降到土地能承受的水平。

　　Now, that was a terrible decision for me to have to make, and it was political dynamite³, frankly⁴.  对我来说，我不得不承认这个可怕的结论，而坦率地说，这是个政治炸弹。

　　So our government formed a team of experts to evaluate my research.  所以政府组了一个专家团来评估我的调查结果。

　　They did. They agreed with me, and over the following years, we shot 40,000 elephants to try to stop the damage.  他们评估之后，也同意我的观点，在接下来的那些年，我们射杀了4万头大象来停止土地退化。

　　And it got worse, not better.  情形变得更坏了，而不是更好。

　　Loving elephants as I do, that was the saddest and greatest blunder of my life, and I will carry that to my grave.  我很喜欢大象的，这是我人生中最悲哀的、最大的错误，我会带进坟墓。

　　One good thing did come out of it. It made me absolutely determined⁵ to devote my life to finding solutions. 也有一件好事。它使我下定决心奉献我的一生去寻找解决方案。

　　When I came to the United States, I got a shock, to find national parks like this one desertifying as badly as anything in Africa.  我来到美国，我大吃一惊，发现美国国家公园竟然是这个样子，荒漠化的程度跟非洲一样糟糕。

　　And there'd been no livestock on this land for over 70 years.  在这片土地上已经70多年没有牲畜的。

　　And I found that American scientists had no explanation for this except that it is arid⁶ and natural.  我发现美国科学家对此的解释没有什么特别，认为无非是干旱和自然条件导致。

　　So I then began looking at all the research plots I could over the whole of the Western United States  于是我开始收集和分析，我能找到的整个美国西部所有的野外，

　　where cattle had been removed to prove that it would stop desertification,  研究站的数据，那些地方的牛群都被移走了，来证明这样会停止荒漠化，

　　but I found the opposite, as we see on this research station, where this grassland⁷ that was green in 1961, by 2002 had changed to that situation.  可是我发现的却相反，看这个研究站，在1961年这片草地是绿的，到2002年变成这种状况。

　　And the authors of the position paper on climate change from which I obtained these pictures attribute this change to "unknown processes." 这些图片来自于研究气候变化的研究人员的论文，他们在观点论文中这种变化归因为“未知进程”。

1 deteriorate   

v.变坏；恶化；退化

参考例句：

• Do you think relations between China and Japan will continue to deteriorate?你认为中日关系会继续恶化吗？
• He held that this would only cause the situation to deteriorate further.他认为，这只会使局势更加恶化。

2 livestock   

n.家畜，牲畜

参考例句：

• Both men and livestock are flourishing.人畜两旺。
• The heavy rains and flooding killed scores of livestock.暴雨和大水淹死了许多牲口。

3 dynamite   

n./vt.(用)炸药(爆破)

参考例句：

• The workmen detonated the dynamite.工人们把炸药引爆了。
• The philosopher was still political dynamite.那位哲学家仍旧是政治上的爆炸性人物。

4 frankly   

adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说

参考例句：

• To speak frankly, I don't like the idea at all.老实说，我一点也不赞成这个主意。
• Frankly speaking, I'm not opposed to reform.坦率地说，我不反对改革。

5 determined   

adj.坚定的；有决心的

参考例句：

• I have determined on going to Tibet after graduation.我已决定毕业后去西藏。
• He determined to view the rooms behind the office.他决定查看一下办公室后面的房间。

6 arid   

adj.干旱的；(土地)贫瘠的

参考例句：

• These trees will shield off arid winds and protect the fields.这些树能挡住旱风,保护农田。
• There are serious problems of land degradation in some arid zones.在一些干旱地带存在严重的土地退化问题。

7 grassland   

n.牧场，草地，草原

参考例句：

• There is a reach of grassland in the distance.远处是连绵一片的草原。
• The snowstorm swept the vast expanse of grassland.暴风雪袭击了辽阔的草原。