雷天放口译教程13单元重点练习

The Indian Ocean Tsunami that took place at the end of 2004 drove the whole world into shock and grief. It swept many countries along Indian Ocean like Indonesia, Thailand, Sri Lanka, leading to nearly 300 thousand deaths, among whom 100 thousand deathswere Indonesian. Numerous families lost their folks in this unexpected disaster. The number of people who suffered directly or indirectly reached 5 million. The international society efficiently organized rescue and donation for the disaster-stricken areas. The donation from the Chinese government and the public reached over 1.2 million RMB. In the 21th century, this kind of tremendous tragedy did make people reflect on the reasons why the catastrophe would take place, and how we could avoid it. So that people carried out an extensive discussion and analysis about it.
First, it’s the punishment by nature for the improper behavior of human being. The primary cause of this severe disaster was that people built a great deal of houses alongthe coast and destroy the natural environment. Although earthquakes and their accompanying tsunami is the normal natural phenomena, the fact that a tsunami caused tens of thousands of deaths could not totally attribute to the nature for the places that human should not have occupied. In order to attract tourists, plenty of hotels and restaurants have been built tightly along the seashore, which undoubtedly increased the risks that people might be suddenly hit by tsunami. Some experts put it that the coral reef and the mangroves growing in the shallow water areas could protect people from being hit. However in the past two to three decades, people have fished and shrimped as well as logged the seaside mangroves in great quantity, for which they suffered a heavy loss.
Second, the lack of the preventive and warning mechanisms make people unprepared and unprotected. This disaster was caused by the earthquake, but what made people suffered a lot was the tsunami instead of the earthquake. The earthquake had taken place two hours before the tsunami, which could be felt in many areas. If there was a pretty effective preventive and warning mechanism ahead of time, the local people could have enough time to escape, so that the number of casualty and the loss could decrease in some way.
After the catastrophe, leaders from some countries made speeches to urge the international society to take preventive measures together and make the greatest efforts to minimize the loss cause by this kind of natural disaster. People should learn from the disaster and hold responsible for the protection of the global environmentaltogether. The governments of relevant countries should join together to establish a preventive and warning mechanism as soon as possible. The international society should learn from the disaster and find out the loopholes and enhance the awareness and education of the public about how to escape when the earthquake and tsunami took place. Though we could not avoid such similar natural disaster, as long as the whole world works together and make joint efforts, we can certainly minimize the loss caused by the disaster.
在各位贵宾面前讲话颇感惭愧，感觉班门弄斧一般。

我今天演讲实质上是想表达，永远不要低估下定决心的人改变世界的力量。

如果你们不记得我讲了什么，我希望你们也不要忘记，你们每一个人都可以做出一些改变在世界上变得不同。

更重要的是，如果你们团结一起，影响力可能会更大。

你们需要做出点不同的东西，因为我们的生存面临着现实又严峻的威胁。

我们要知道地球只有一个，然而人类却不愿尊重这么一个事实。

我们不断地破坏地球的生态，使其濒临毁灭。

地球从地平面上看上去庞大又不可摧毁，但美丽的蓝色海洋的表面下又隐藏着灾难。

大量的化肥、杀虫剂、其他化学品和煤粉都在不断地毒害和扼杀海洋生物。

在很多地方，海底地表变得贫瘠，因为海底拖网捕捞砍倒了大量古老的珊瑚礁和那些科学家仍不知道的独一无二的海底生物。

许多鱼类和海生哺乳动物和鸟类的种类已经灭绝或濒临灭绝。

全球的生态学家都在警告我们面临海洋生态灭亡，这意味着我们的捕鱼业也将不复存在。

气候变化是大量消耗化石燃料的一个直接结果，包括煤，煤气和汽油。

我们过度消耗汽油，仅仅一个世纪，就用光了地球上一半的汽油。

当我们消耗了地球上一半的汽油达到“汽油巅峰”时，无论我们如何努力开采汽油都是于事无补的了。

当我们到达那个顶峰，需求还会持续上升，这些需求不仅源于迄今已经消耗了大部分汽油的西方国家，还来自努力赶上近动画和工业化的国家，如中国和印度。

想像一下，如果那两个国家的20亿人像我们一样浪费资源，地球会变得怎么样？如果我们不减少能耗的话，就不要期望他们能够限制消费。

自然有他的极限，我们正在试探他的极限。

我们是自己最坏的敌人。

我们认为科技可以解决一切问题，然而实际上我们的科技，比如基因工程，也是其中一个问题。

我们不能打败自然，但是我们可以与之共存，有节制地获取资源而不是剥夺一切资源。

我们不能再让自然加速濒临奔溃的脚步，是时候要慢下来了。

是时候要停止贪婪，绿化生活了。

我们需要改变我们的生活方式，改变工作方式，改变商业模式，改变政府制定的规章制度。

这些都需要个人和政府的共同努力。