using land wisely 原文加翻譯

1、Using Land WiselyA very important world problem-in fact, I am inclined to say it is the most important of all the great world problems which face us at the present time-is the rapidly increasing pressure of population on land and on land resources. 一個十分重要的世界性難題（事實 上我更傾向于說它是我們目前所面臨的所有世界性大難題中 最重要的）是對于

2、土地和土地資源來說快速增長的人口壓力。It is not so much the actual population of the world but its rate of increase which is important. It works out to be about 1.6per cent per annum net increase.重要的是人口的增長率而不是實際世 界人口數(shù)量。世界人口正大約以每年1.6%的凈速率在增長。In terms of numbers this means something like forty to fifty-five million addi

3、tional people every year-Canada has a population of twenty million-rather less than six months, climb in world population. 從 數(shù)字上看來，這意味著，甚至在少于六個月的時間里，世界人 口中就會增加大約40,000, 000到55, 000,000個人。TakeAustralia. There are ten million people in Australia. So, it takes the world less than three months to add to

4、 itself a population which peoples that vast country.以澳大利亞為例，那兒有一千萬人口，所以 只需要花費不到三個月的時間增長的世界人口數(shù)就能達到這 個碩大的國家的人口水平。Let us take our own crowded country-England and Wales: forty-five to fifty million people-just about a Years supply. By this time tomorrow, and every day, there will be added to the earth

5、about 120,000 extra people - just about the population of the city of York.再以人口密度大的國家英格蘭 和威爾士為例，45,000, 000到50, 000, 000的人口相當(dāng)于一年 的世界人口增長量。直至今日，每天地球上都會多出12萬人 口，這相當(dāng)于約克市的人口數(shù)量。I am not talking about birth rate. This is net increase. To give you some idea of birth rate, look at the second hand of your wa

6、tch. Every second three babies are born somewhere in the world. Another baby! Another baby! Another baby! You cannot speak quickly enough to keep pace with the birth rate.我在討論的不是出生率，而是凈增長。為了讓你大概了解出生率，請看著手表的秒針，每一秒都有三 個嬰兒在世界的某個地方出生。一個！又一個！再一個！你說 的再快也趕不上出生率。This enormous increase of population will cre

7、ate immense problems.By A.D- 2000, unless something desperate happens, there will be as manyas 7,000,000,000 people on the problem which you are going to 增長會帶來巨大的問題。到 生，地球上的人口將會達到 年會遇到的問題。surface of this earth! So this is asee in your lifetime.巨大的人口2000年，除非有令人絕望的事發(fā)70億之多。所以這是在你有生之Why is this enormous

8、 increase in population taking place? It is really due to the spread of the knowledge and the practice of what is的概念。coming to be called Death Control. You have heard of Birth Control? Death Control is something rather different.為什么人口的大量增 長會發(fā)生呢？這是因為知識的傳播和將會被成為“死亡控制” 的舉措。你聽說過“計劃生育”吧？ “死亡控制”是完全不同Death

9、 Control recognizes the work of doctors and the nursesand the hospitals and the death services in keeping alive people who, a few years ago, would have died of some of the incredibly serious killing disease and dirt, Medical examinations at school catch diseases.“死亡控制”是醫(yī)生護士、醫(yī)院和殯葬服務(wù)機構(gòu)的工作，這個工作是讓幾年前就可能

10、因為難以治愈的疾病和學(xué)校體 檢中發(fā)現(xiàn)的疾病而死亡的人們舌下來。If you are seriously ill there is an ambulance to take you to a modern hospital. Medical care helps to keep people alive longer. We used to think seventy was a good age; now eighty, ninety, it may be, are coming to be recognized as a normal age for human beings. People

11、 are living longer because of this Death Control, and fewer children are dying, so the population of the world is shooting up.如果你病入膏肓了，救護車會把你送進現(xiàn) 代化醫(yī)院。醫(yī)療護理會幫助人們活得更久。我們過去常認為70 歲已是高齡?，F(xiàn)在，80或90歲將有可能被認為是人類的正常 歲數(shù)。因為“死亡控制”，人們活得更久，更少的孩子會死亡， 所以世界人口數(shù)量直線上升。Imagine the position if you and I and everyone else liv

12、ing on earth shared the surface between us. How much should we have each? It would be just over twelve acres-the sort of size of a small holding- 想象 著如果我們每個生活在地球上的人要分配地表面積。我們每人 應(yīng)該擁有多少呢？應(yīng)該只有12英畝多的一小塊地。But not all that is useful land which is going to produce food. We can cut out one-fifth of it, for

13、example, as being too cold. That is land which is covered with ice and snow-Antarctica and Greenland and the great frozen areas of northern Canada. 但是不是所有都是可以用來生產(chǎn) 食物的有用的地。比如我們可以減去其中五十分之一的過于寒 冷的土地，例如南極和格陵蘭島和加拿大北部的大冰凍地區(qū)的 土地，那些土地被冰雪覆蓋。Then we can cut out another fifth as being too dry-the great deserts

14、 of the world like the Sahara and the heart of Australia and other areas where there is no known water supply to feed crops and so to produce food. 然后我們可以再減去其中五 十分之一的過于干旱的土地一撒哈拉等地球上的大沙漠、澳大 利亞中部和其他沒有可以澆灌莊稼和生產(chǎn)食物的水源的地方。Then we can cut out another fifth as being too mountainous or with too great an elev

15、ation above sea level. Then we can cut out another tenth as land which has insufficient soil, probably just rock at the surface. 我們還可以再減去其中五十分之一的過于多山或海拔過高的 土地，再減去另外十分之一的貧瘠的、大部分地表是巖石的土 地。Now, out of the twelve acres only about four are left as suitable for producing food. But not all that is used. It

16、 includes land with enough rainfall or water, and enough heat which, at present, we are not using, such as, for example, the great Amazon forests and Congo forest and the grasslands of Africa.現(xiàn)在，12 英畝的土地中只剩 下了 4英畝是適合于生產(chǎn)食物的。但是不是所有這些土地都利 用了。它還包括一些地方，那里有足夠水或降雨量和熱量，但 如今我們還沒有使用，例如亞馬遜大森林、剛果森林和非洲草 原。How mu

17、ch are we actually using? Only a little over one acre is what is required to support one human being on an average at the present time.我們實際上用了多少土地呢？現(xiàn)今平均只有一英畝多的 土地可以用來養(yǎng)活一個人類。Now we come to the next point, and that is, the haves and the have-nots amongst the countries of the world. The standard share

18、per person for the world is a little over twelve acres perhead; potentially usable, about four acres; and actually used about 1.1 acre. 現(xiàn)在我 們來看下一點，就是國家間的貧富差距。起初世界每個人分到 的土地標(biāo)準(zhǔn)是12英畝多；潛在可用的是4英畝；實際上已經(jīng) 被用的是1.1英畝。We are very often told in Britain to take the United States as an example of what is done or w

19、hat might be done. Every little American is born into this world with a heritage of the home country, the continental United States, of just about the world average about twelve acres.在英國，我們經(jīng)常要以美國為例，關(guān)于在 做什么和將要做什么。每一個美國人生來就有國家的遺產(chǎn)（美 國大陸）和世界平均的12英畝的土地。We can estimate that probably some six acres of the

20、 total of twelve of the American homeland is cultivable in the sense I have just given you. But the amount actually used -what the Americans call Improved land in crops and pasture on farms-is three and a half acres. 用我告訴你的方法來 估計，彳艮可能12英畝的美國的土地中有6英畝是可以耕種的。 但是實際使用的畝數(shù)是3.5英畝，美國人稱之為適合于莊稼和 農(nóng)場畜牧的“優(yōu)質(zhì)土地”。So

21、 the Americans have over three times the world average of land on which to produce food for themselves. On that land they produce more food than they actually require, so they have a surplus for export.所以把，美國人擁有世界平均水平的 三倍的土地用于為自己生產(chǎn)食物。在那土地上，他們生產(chǎn)多過 于實際需求的食物，所以他們有剩余的食物用于出口。Now suppose we take the Unite

22、d States great neighbour to the north, Canada. Every Canadian has 140 acres to roam around in. A lot of it is away in the frozen north, but there is still an enormous area of land in Canada waiting to be settled and developed. The official figure is twenty-two acres. The Canadians use at the moment

23、four acres, and they too have a large food surplus available for export. 現(xiàn)在我們 探討一下美國北部的鄰國，加拿大。每個加拿大人有140英畝 的土地可以用來閑逛。許多土地遠在寒冷的北方，但是加拿大 仍然有巨大面積的土地在等待著被居住和開發(fā)。官方數(shù)據(jù)是22英畝。加拿大人現(xiàn)在使用了 4英畝，他們也有許多多余的食物 可以用于出口。Now turn to our own country-including land of all sorts, there is just over one acre per head in the

24、United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. That is why we have to be so very careful with it. How much do we actually use? Just over half an acre to produce food that is as farm land. 現(xiàn)在反過來說我們國家，包括所有種類的 土地，英聯(lián)邦和北愛爾蘭的人平均只有1英畝多的土地。這就 是我們對土地如此關(guān)心的原因。我們實際使用多少土地呢？只 有半英畝多的土地作為農(nóng)田用于種植糧食。 The story

25、is much the same if you separate off Northern Ireland and Scotland and just take England and Wales. In this very crowded country, we have only 0.8 acres per head of land of all sorts to do everything with which we need. That is why we have to think so very carefully of this problem. 如果你 撇開北愛爾蘭和蘇格蘭不說

26、，只看英格蘭和威爾士也是一樣 的。在這個十分擁擠的國家，包含所有種類的土地，我們?nèi)司?只有0.8英畝的土地來做我們需要做的所有的事。這就是我們 對這個問題如此關(guān)心的原因。India, with 25 acres per head, has considerably more land than we have in this country. Not all of it is usable for food production. But there is land which could be reclaimed by modern methods, that is being tackle

27、d at the present time. 印度每人有25英畝的土地，比我國 的人擁有的要多得多。雖然不是所有的土地都能用于食物生 產(chǎn)，但是有些土地可以用現(xiàn)在已經(jīng)掌握的現(xiàn)代化方法開墾。The crucial figure is the actual area in agricultural use-threequarters an acre! The yields from this land are low, methods of production are primitive, and that is why the Indians are so very near the starv

28、ation level for almost every year of their lives. But they are not as badly off where land is concerned as Japan.最重要的數(shù)據(jù)是實際的農(nóng)用 土地的利用率是四分之三。這片土地的出產(chǎn)量低，生產(chǎn)方式原 始，這就是為什么幾乎每年印度人的生活都接近于饑餓水平。 但是他們的土地還沒有日本的糟糕。The Japanese figures are the same as our own country in overall land-1.1 acres per person-but it is a

29、very mountainous country with volcanoes, and so much less is cultivable. Less than a fifth of an acre-0.17 of an acre-is under cultivation. You see at once the tremendous land problem which there is in Japan.包含所有的土地， 日本的數(shù)據(jù)和我國一樣，每個人1.1英畝。但是日本是個多山 的、多火山的國家，所以可以耕種的土地就更少了。你立刻就 能看到日本巨大的土地問題了。There is a g

30、reat variation, of course, in the intensity with which land is used. In the United States they are extravagant in the use of land and take, perhaps, twenty times as much to feed one person as in Japan. You may talk about the Japanese agriculture being twenty times as efficient as the American, but t

31、hat raises a lot of questions 當(dāng) 然，土地的使用強度上會有很大的變動。在美國，他們揮霍土 地，用日本的二十倍的土地來養(yǎng)活一個人。你可能會說日本的 農(nóng)業(yè)比美國高效二十倍，但是那引起了許多問題。The intensive cultivation characteristic of Japan uses every little bit of land and only the barren hillsides are not required. Much of the agriculture is based on rice. The farm workers pla

32、nt by hand every individual rice plant, and this kind of intensive cultivation enables the Japanese to support seven persons per acre. 日本的集約栽培 使用每一寸土地，只有貧瘠的山丘不被使用。大部分的農(nóng)業(yè)種 植大米。農(nóng)民親手種植每一棵水稻。這種集約栽培使得日本人 能用1英畝的土地養(yǎng)活七個人。By contrast, think of the ranch lands in North and South America, with animals ranging

33、over immense tracts of land. A diet of beef and of milk is extravagant of land; in other words, it takes a lot of land for the number of calories produced-in this sense it is less efficient than the Japanese rice-growing agriculture. But not everyone likes eating rice.相比之下，想到北美和南美的大牧場上，動物馳騁 在大片的土地上。

34、一頓牛肉和牛奶是對土地的浪費。換句話說， 生產(chǎn)一定量的卡路里需要使用許多土地，從這個意義上講，這 比日本的水稻種植農(nóng)業(yè)要低效的多。但是不是每個人都喜歡吃 大米的。Where the sea is concerned, we are scarcely, at the present time, out of the Old Stone Age. In the Stone Age the people simply went out,killed wild animals-if they were lucky-and had a good meal； if they were unlucky they just went hungry. At the present day we do almostthe same thing in the sea, hunting wild fish from boats. In the future, perhaps, we shall cultivate the sea; we shall grow small fish and fishspawn in tanks