名校励志英语演讲 28:如何解决这个世界上最严重的不平等?

 　　I left campus knowing little about the millions of young people cheated out of educational opportunities here in this country. And I knew nothing about the millions of people living in unspeakable poverty and disease in developing countries.

　　我离开校园的时候，根本不知道在这个国家有数百万年轻人无法获得接受教育的机会。我也不知道，发展中国家里有无数的人们生活在无法形容的贫穷和疾病中。

　　It took me decades to find out.

　　我花了几十年才明白了这些事情。

　　You graduates came to Harvard at a different time. You know more about the world's inequities than the classes that came before. In your years here, I hope you've had a chance to think about how—in this age of accelerating technology—we can finally take on these inequities, and we can solve them.

　　在座的各位同学，你们是在与我不同的时代来到哈佛的。你们比以前的学生更了解世界的不平等。你们在哈佛求学的几年里，我希望你们已经思考过一个问题：在这个新技术加速发展的时代，我们如何最终应对这种不平等，如何解决这个问题。

　　Imagine, just for the sake of discussion, that you had a few hours a week and a few dollars a month to donate to a cause—and you wanted to spend that time and money where it would have the greatest impact in saving and improving lives. Where would you spend it

　　为了便于讨论，假想你每个星期可以捐献一些时间、每个月可以捐献一些钱——你希望这些时间和金钱可以用到对拯救生命和改善人类生活有最大作用的地方。你会选择什么地方？

　　For Melinda and for me, the challenge is the same: how can we do the most good for the greatest number with the resources we have.

　　我和美琳达也面临着这样的问题：我们如何能将我们拥有的资源发挥出最大的作用，为最多的人做有益的事情。

　　During our discussions on this question, Melinda and I read an article about the millions of children who were dying every year in poor countries from diseases that we had long ago made harmless in this country. Measles¹, malaria², pneumonia³, hepatitis B, yellow fever. One disease I had never even heard of, rotavirus, was killing⁴ half a million kids each year—none of them in the United States.

　　在讨论这个问题的过程中，我和美琳达读到了一篇文章，说在那些贫穷的国家，每年有数百万的儿童死于那些在美国早已不成问题的疾病。麻疹、疟疾、肺炎、乙型肝炎、黄热病、还有一种我以前从未听说过的轮状病毒，这些疾病每年导致50万儿童死亡，但是在美国没有一例死亡。

　　accelerating

　　adj. 加速的

　　eg. China's chemical industry is accelerating the pace of opening up to the outside world, and striding into the world.

　　中国化学工业加快对外开放步伐，大步走向世界。

　　malaria

　　n. 疟疾

　　eg. The malaria victim fevers intermittently⁵.

　　疟疾病人间歇地发热。

　　pneumonia

　　n. [医]肺炎

　　eg. Penicillin⁶ cured him of pneumonia.

　　青霉素治好了他的肺炎。

　　hepatitis B

　　乙型肝炎

　　eg. All infants should receive the hepatitis B vaccine⁷.

　　所有婴儿应接种乙型肝炎疫苗。

　　rotavirus

　　n. [微]轮状病毒（一种致婴儿或新生畜胃肠炎的病毒）

　　eg. Rotavirus can cause very unpleasant vomiting⁸ and diarrhoea.

　　轮状病毒能引起严重呕吐和腹泻。

1 measles   

n.麻疹，风疹，包虫病，痧子

参考例句：

• The doctor is quite definite about Tom having measles.医生十分肯定汤姆得了麻疹。
• The doctor told her to watch out for symptoms of measles.医生叫她注意麻疹出现的症状。

2 malaria   

n.疟疾

参考例句：

• He had frequent attacks of malaria.他常患疟疾。
• Malaria is a kind of serious malady.疟疾是一种严重的疾病。

3 pneumonia   

n.肺炎

参考例句：

• Cage was struck with pneumonia in her youth.凯奇年轻时得过肺炎。
• Pneumonia carried him off last week.肺炎上星期夺去了他的生命。

4 killing   

n.巨额利润；突然赚大钱，发大财

参考例句：

• Investors are set to make a killing from the sell-off.投资者准备清仓以便大赚一笔。
• Last week my brother made a killing on Wall Street.上个周我兄弟在华尔街赚了一大笔。

5 intermittently   

adv.间歇地；断断续续

参考例句：

• Winston could not intermittently remember why the pain was happening. 温斯顿只能断断续续地记得为什么这么痛。 来自英汉文学
• The resin moves intermittently down and out of the bed. 树脂周期地向下移动和移出床层。 来自辞典例句

6 penicillin   

n.青霉素，盘尼西林

参考例句：

• I should have asked him for a shot of penicillin.我应当让他给我打一针青霉素的。
• Penicillin was an extremely significant medical discovery.青霉素是极其重要的医学发现。

7 vaccine   

n.牛痘苗，疫苗；adj.牛痘的，疫苗的

参考例句：

• The polio vaccine has saved millions of lives.脊髓灰质炎疫苗挽救了数以百万计的生命。
• She takes a vaccine against influenza every fall.她每年秋季接种流感疫苗。

8 vomiting   

吐

参考例句：

• Symptoms include diarrhoea and vomiting. 症状有腹泻和呕吐。
• Especially when I feel seasick, I can't stand watching someone else vomiting." 尤其晕船的时候，看不得人家呕。”