2019经济学人考研英文文章阅读十六
考研英语阅读理解外刊原文经济学人
The Guardian view on unaffordable homes: building injustice into the economy《卫报》关于难以负担的住房的观点：在经济中制造不公The average wage of the top 1% in Britain rose to £13,770 a month in December. Jeevun Sandher, an economist at King’s College London, points out the very richest saw their incomes rise the fastest during the pandemic. This group were also likely to have been able to save the most while Covid raged. Where do the very wealthiest spend their cash? One place is housing, for which there is a low level of stock being released on to the market. The result is rising house prices. Over the past 12 months, asking prices have gone up by 9.5%.12月，英国最富有的1%人群的平均工资上升至每月13770英镑。
伦敦国王学院的经济学家桑德尔指出，在疫情期间，最富有的人的收入增长最快。
在新冠病毒肆虐期间，这一群体也可能是能够存最多钱的人。
最富有的人把钱花在哪里？其中一个地方就是住房，因为住房市场上的存量很低。
结果就是房价上涨。
在过去12个月里，住房要价上涨了9.5%。
This has a knock-on effect for renters. UK rents rose by 8.3% in the last three months of 2021. For would-be first-time buyers, the situation is as bad if not worse, with the current average price of £277,000 nearly £25,000 higher than just a year ago. Those looking to have a roof to live under will find little solace in official figures. These record an 11% drop in the number of total homes added in 2021 compared with the year before. The number of new affordable houses that began being built dropped 16% year-on-year. Shortages of labour and materials, as well as planning delays, will make it harder for the 11th Tory housing minister since 2010 to meet government targets for new homes.这对租客产生了连锁反应。
2019经济学人考研英文文章阅读一二六
Defending Switzerland’s coffee stockpile捍卫瑞士的咖啡储备If disaster strikes,the Swiss want to be caffeinated当灾难来袭时，瑞士人需要咖啡因To defend their independence the Swiss have mountains,conscription and a fierce sense of self-reliance.They also have a vast stockpile of food, medicine,animal feed and cooking oil,which they have maintained since the1920s.This makes sieges easier to withstand,but costs a fortune.瑞士人靠着山脉、兵役制度和强烈的自力更生精神捍卫着国家的主权独立。
自上世纪20年代以来，瑞士一直保持着大量的食品、药品、动物饲料和食用油储备。
这使得瑞士更容易抵御敌人的围攻，但这同时代价不菲。
So in April the Federal Office for National Economic Supply announced a plan to trim it a little.In future,it suggested,it would no longer pay for a huge emergency supply of coffee.This wonderful drink,it claimed,is not “vital for life”.因此，今年4月，瑞士联邦国家经济供应办公室宣布了一项略微削减开支的计划。
它表示，今后将废除紧急物资储备中的咖啡储备。
理由则是，这种美味的饮品并不是“攸关生死的”。
考研英语阅读理解外刊原文经济学人
A global house-price slump is coming全球房价即将暴跌It won’t blow up the financial system, but it will be scary虽然不会摧毁金融体系，但仍然令人恐慌Over the past decade owning a house has meant easy money. Prices rose reliably for years and then went bizarrely ballistic in the pandemic. Yet today if your wealth is tied up in bricks and mortar it is time to get nervous.过去十年里，拥有一套房就意味着轻松赚钱。
房价多年来一直稳步上涨，甚至在疫情期间还异乎寻常地飙升了。
然而现如今，如果你的财富被套牢在房产上，那你应该感到紧张了。
House prices are now falling in nine rich economies. The drops in America are small so far, but in the wildest markets they are already dramatic. In condo-crazed Canada homes cost 9% less than they did in February.九个发达经济体的房价都在下跌。
到目前为止，美国房价的跌幅还不大，但最疯狂的市场的房价跌幅已经非常大了。
在热衷于共管公寓的加拿大，房价较今年2月下跌了9%。
As inflation and recession stalk the world a deepening correction is likely—even estate agents are gloomy. Although this will not detonate global banks as in 2007-09, it will intensify the downturn, leave a cohort of people with wrecked finances and start a political storm.随着通货膨胀和经济衰退的风险在全球范围内蔓延，房价或将迎来一场深度调整——甚至房地产经纪人也对此感到悲观。
考研英语阅读英文原刊《经济学人》：收入与幸福感
考研英语阅读英文原刊《经济学人》：收入与幸福感Happiness and Income收入与幸福感Everything that rises must converge幸福的家庭总是相似的Emerging markets are catching up with the West inthe happiness stakes新兴国家的幸福指数将要赶上西方POETS, songwriters and left-wing politicians hate theidea, but for decades opinion-poll evidence has been clear: money buys happiness and thericher you are, the more likely you are to express satisfaction with your life. Until now. Asurvey of 43 countries published on October 30th by the Pew Research Centre of Washington,DC, shows that people in emerging markets are within a whisker of expressing the same levelof satisfaction as people in rich countries. It is the biggest qualification to the standard viewof happiness and income seen so far.诗人，作词家，左翼政治家总是反驳这样一个观点：钱可以买到幸福，一个人越有钱，他对生活的满意感就可能越高。
但是十年来民意调查却清楚证明了这一点。
不过，位于华盛顿特区的皮尤研究中心调查了43个国家后，发现发展中国家的人对生活满意度与富有国家的人们生活满意度相差无几。
2019经济学人考研英文文章阅读一一一
The legal cannabis market shrank in California last year去年，加州的合法大麻市场在萎缩Harbourside Cannabis in Oakland is a modern-day temple to the delights and possibilities of the botanical marvel that is the plant Cannabis sativa. Around the airy shop move a well-heeled clientele.They browse among offerings ranging from cannabis-infused chocolate to sparkling water and vape pens.奥克兰的哈伯赛德大麻公司是一座可供寻求快乐和见识到大麻种植奇观的现代庙宇。
一群有钱人在通透的大麻商店里来来往往。
他们浏览着从大麻巧克力到大麻起泡水和大麻电子烟等各式各样的大麻商品。
California was the first state to allow sales of medical cannabis in1996, and Harbourside one of the first shops in America to sell pot legally.Since January last year,the firm has also been able to sell pot for purely recreational purposes.1996年，加州成为美国首个允许销售医用大麻的州，哈伯赛德也是美国首批合法销售大麻的商店之一。
自去年1月以来，哈伯赛德也能销售纯娱乐用途的大麻了。
Thanks to its large number of“medical”users,California’s is the largest legal cannabis market in the world.But since the legalisation of adult sales, that market has been shrinking.得益于大批的“医疗”用户，加州成为了全球最大的合法大麻市场。
2019经济学人考研英文文章阅读一二七
Why eating bugs is so popular in Congo刚果人为什么这么爱吃虫子？The creepy superfood is rich in protein and magnesium这种让人毛骨悚然的超级食物富含蛋白质和镁At a market in Goma,a city in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo,an old woman pulls the wings off live grasshoppers and tosses their wriggling bodies into a bucket.She collected the insects from the airport at5am that morning,and will go back the next day.Grasshopper season has just begun.在刚果民主共和国东部城市戈马的一个市场上，一位老妇人将活蚱蜢的翅膀扯下来，然后把它们扭动的身体丢进桶里。
早上5点，她便去机场捉蚱蜢，直到第二天才回来。
蚱蜢繁殖的季节才刚刚开始。
Throughout November dozens of grasshopper-hunters gather at Goma airport most mornings.It is one of the few buildings in the city with constant electricity,and the lights that mark the runway attract swarms of the bug.整个11月，几乎每天都有几十个蚱蜢猎人聚集在戈马机场。
戈马机场是整个城市为数不多的几个持续供电的建筑之一，飞机跑道上的灯光吸引了成群结队的蚱蜢。
People stuff them into plastic bottles to take to market.Buyers season them with salt and eat them with rice or cassava.他们捉住蚱蜢塞进塑料瓶，然后拿到市场上去卖。
2019经济学人考研英文文章阅读一一七
In praise of dissenters赞扬那些持不同意见的人It pays companies to encourage a variety of opinions鼓励员工发出不同的声音有利于公司的发展The story of the emperor’s new clothes is one of Hans Christian Andersen’s best-known fables.Conmen fool the monarch into believing they have made him a fabulous suit that the unworthy will be unable to see.Courtiers dare not say that the emperor is naked;it takes a child to point out the obvious.《皇帝的新装》是安徒生最著名的寓言之一。
骗子欺骗国王，让国王相信他们为其做了一件愚人看不见的精美的服装。
大臣们不敢说国王是赤裸着身体的；只有一个小孩说出了显而易见的事实。
The moral is that people are often too hidebound by social convention to state their views.How many companies have ploughed ahead with expensive projects that were favoured by the chief executive,even when other managers have had doubts?这则寓言的寓意是，人们往往过于墨守成规，而不愿意说出自己的观点。
有多少公司会奋力推行首席执行官所青睐的成本高昂的项目，即使有其他管理者对该项目表示怀疑？In his new book“Rebel Ideas:The Power of Diverse Thinking”,Matthew Syed,a sportsman-turned-journalist,argues that the key to dealing withthis problem is“cognitive diversity”.In other words,assembling a team of people with different perspectives and intellectual backgrounds.运动员出身的记者马修·施雅德在其新书《反叛思想：多元化思维的力量》中认为，解决这一问题的关键在于“认知多样性”。
2019经济学人考研英文文章阅读一二十
Wealth taxes have moved up the political agenda征收财富税已经被提上了政治议程Some economists are reconsidering their aversion to levies on large fortunes一些经济学家正在转变他们对向巨额财富征税的反感态度Five years ago Thomas Piketty’s“Capital in the Twenty-First Century”, a weighty analysis of rising inequality,flew off shelves and ignited fiery debate.Fans and detractors alike tended to agree on one thing,at least: its proposal to fix inequality—a tax on wealth—was a dud.五年前，托马斯·皮凯蒂撰写的《21世纪的资本》（一本对日益加剧的不平等现象进行了深入分析的著作）一经上架便引发了激烈的辩论。
支持者和反对者至少在一件事上达成了一致：书中所提出的解决不平等问题的提议（征收财富税）是没用的。
A half-decade later the mood has shifted.Several candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination promise to tax wealth;Bernie Sanders recently announced a plan to tax fortunes of more than$32m at1%per year,and those larger than$10bn at8%.五年后的今天，人们的态度发生了转变。
考研英语阅读理解外刊原文经济学人
Have baby, stay in school生孩子还是继续上学？Why teenage mothers in Zimbabwe struggle to get educated为什么津巴布韦的未成年妈妈很难继续接受教育Brilliant Ndlovu has never really known childhood. Since the age of seven she has headed her household in Tsholotsho, a town in rural western Zimbabwe, after her parents went to work abroad. The oldest of five, she scraped a living growing crops while trying to keep up with her schoolwork.聪明的恩德洛夫从未真正经历过童年。
自从7岁起，她的父母去国外工作后，她就一直在津巴布韦西部乡村小镇茨洛特肖主持家务。
她是五个孩子中的老大，一边靠种庄稼勉强糊口，一边还要努力完成学业。
But in 2020 the covid-19 pandemic struck, coming shortly after a devastating drought. Farmers could not afford to pay child labourers like Ms Ndlovu. “So I looked for a man to help support my family,” she recalls. She found one who demanded sex in exchange for money. Aged 17, she got pregnant.但在2020年，经历一场毁灭性的干旱后，新冠疫情又紧随其后。
考研英语阅读理解外刊原文经济学人
Britain’s young face a poorer future英国年轻一代面临更加贫穷的未来Economic statistics will never fully capture the extent of the sacrifices of Britain’s youth during the pandemic. For a generation of students and pupils it was a lost chance to make friends, explore who they are and, gradually, become adults — as well as to learn, in person. In the face of the deaths in the broader population, it is easy to dismiss as frivolous the setbacks of those who missed partying, travelling and dating during the long months stuck inside but these are still years of carefree youth they will not get back. What is more, most of these privations were primarily to protect those from older generations, the most vulnerable to the coronavirus.经济统计数字将永远不能完全反映出英国青年在这场大流行病中牺牲了多少。
对于这一代学生来说，他们失去了结交朋友、探索自我并逐渐成长为人,以及亲身学习的机会。
在有人死于新冠疫情之际，我们很容易认为被困在室内长达数月而错过聚会、旅行和约会的人所经历的这些挫折无关痛痒，但这是他们再也无法重返的无忧无虑的青春时光。
考研英语阅读理解外刊原文阅读经济学人
China’s “dreamchild” is stealthily winning the battery race中国“梦之子”悄然引领电池竞赛In America, if you want to dominate an industry, you channel your inner Elon Musk and shout about it. But CATL, the Chinese company that makes batteries for some of Mr Musk’s Tesla electric vehicles (EVs), is different. When your columnist first contacted it in 2017, the brush-off was swift.在美国，如果你想主宰一个行业，你就得调动自己内心的埃隆·马斯克并大声咆哮。
但为马斯克的部分特斯拉电动汽车供应电池的中国公司宁德时代则不同。
当笔者在2017年第一次与该公司取得联系时，对方直接拒绝了我们的采访。
“We want to concentrate on our products only and do not accept any interviews at present.” These days it is only marginally less blunt. “Unfortunately, we are sorry that it’s hard for us to arrange [interviews] at the moment.” The temptation is to give it a dose of its own medicine and ignore it.“我们只想专注于我们的产品，目前不接受任何采访。
”如今，该公司的态度没有过去那么生硬了，但也只是稍微缓和。
2019经济学人考研英文文章阅读一二一
Japan’s state-owned version of Tinder日本官方版TinderLocal authorities are setting up matchmaking websites to pair their residents with lonely-hearts in the cities政府当局创办相亲网站，为当地居民牵线搭桥Even after years of attending match-making parties,a professional in Tokyo explains,she has not found any suitable marriage prospects.“I’m tired of going to these events and not meeting anyone,”she gripes.东京一名职场人士表示，虽然参加了多年的相亲会，但她仍然没有找到合适的结婚对象。
她抱怨道：“我对参加这些活动感到厌倦了，却没有遇见一个合适的人。
”So she has decided to expand her pool of prospective partners by looking for love outside the capital.To that end she has filled out an online profile detailing her name,job,hobbies and even weight on a match-making site that pairs up single urbanites with people from rural areas.因此，她决定将她寻找伴侣的范围扩大到首都之外。
为此，她在一个为城市和农村的单身人士配对的婚配网站上填写了一份个人资料，详细描述了自己的姓名、工作、爱好，甚至体重。
考研英语阅读理解外刊原文经济学人
Plastic surgeons make a bundle despite Lebanon’s economic crisis尽管黎巴嫩遭遇经济危机，但整形外科医生还是赚了一大笔钱Many people have no jobs. Others, nose jobs许多人失业了，除了隆鼻医生Rhinoplasty has long been a rite of passage in Lebanon. Teenage girls want a dainty new nose in time for their graduation parties, celebrated in selfies. Lebanon’s many woes have not hindered the habit.隆鼻手术一直以来都是黎巴嫩人的一种成人礼。
十几岁的女孩想要一个精致的新鼻子，以便在毕业派对上自拍庆祝。
黎巴嫩的许多苦难并没有妨碍这种习惯。
Plastic surgeons are apparently making as much as or more than they did before an economic crisis, starting in 2019, that the World Bank has ranked as the third-worst anywhere, ever.从2019年开始，整形外科医生的收入显然与经济危机（世界银行将其列为有史以来最严重的第三大经济危机）前持平，甚至更高。
The World Health Organisation reckons that Lebanon’s economic meltdown prompted nearly 40% of the country’s doctors to leave. But for those who have stayed, the pickings, especially for nose jobs, may have increased. The pool of patients has stayed the same. There are fewer dexterous doctors to paddle in it.世界卫生组织估计，黎巴嫩的经济崩溃促使该国近40%的医生离开。
2019经济学人考研英文文章阅读九十六
The absurd language used by job adverts招聘广告走向了夸张化Superheroes need not apply超级英雄才不需要去应聘呢There is an old Army joke about a sergeant-major who asks his platoon whether any of them are interested in music.When four hands go up,the sergeant says“Right,lads.You can carry this grand piano down to the officers’mess.”军队里有个广为流传的笑话，长官问他的队伍中是否有人对音乐感兴趣。
当有四人举起手时，长官便说：“很好，伙计们。
你们几个把这架钢琴搬去军官餐厅吧。
”Job recruitment has become more sophisticated since that story first did the rounds.Today’s careers require a lot more than just raw muscle but that sometimes makes jobs hard to define.The unfortunate result is a form of“adjective inflation”in recruitment ads as employers attempt to make routine tasks sound exciting.自这个笑话流传以来，求职招聘变得越来越复杂了。
如今的职场所需的不仅仅是蛮力了，但这就使得人们有时很难给职位下定义。
雇主想让日常工作听上去激动人心，这就导致了一个不幸的结果，招聘广告会出现“夸张化”的现象。
Candidates must sometimes wonder whether they are applying for a 9-to-5role or to become part of the Marvel“Avengers”franchise.应聘者有时不免会感到困惑，他们到底是在申请一份朝九晚五的工作，还是准备成为漫威系列电影《复仇者联盟》中的一位超级英雄。
考研英语经济学人文章阅读训练十六
The rise of the rooftop farmer越来越多人在屋顶种菜Government subsidies make excellent fertiliser政府补贴成为了最好的肥料Benjamin Swan’s farm is on the fourth floor of an office building in an industrial part of Singapore.To see his crops,visitors are escorted past a door unlocked with a thumbprint and through an airlock.(“Our air is certified,”says an assistant.)Room after room is filled with plumes of kale and lettuce,evenly spaced on long trays stacked in floor-to-ceiling racks.本杰明·斯旺的农场位于新加坡工业区一幢办公楼的四楼。
想要看看他的庄家，参观者必须通过一扇装有指纹锁的大门以及一道气闸室。
（一位助理说：“内部空气已经过认证。
”）一间间房里种满了羽衣甘蓝和生菜，它们均匀地生长在长长的托盘里，架子上的一个个托盘从地面一直堆叠至天花板。
Cables snake across the racks and ceilings,like an electrical root system. LED lights,designed to emit only the part of the electromagnetic spectrum that plants can absorb,cast a purple glow.The greens are planted in a substrate—not a speck of soil is in sight.电线蜿蜒曲折地穿过架子和天花板，仿佛电子根系一般。
2019经济学人考研英文文章阅读一一六
How spider silk avoids hungry bacteria蜘蛛丝是如何免于被饥肠辘辘的细菌蚕食的No antibiotics are involved它们并非以抗生素抗菌Tougher than any fibre made by humans and extraordinarily good at transmitting vibrations to the predators that weave it,spider silk has been a source of inspiration for the development of everything from scaffolding for regenerating bones to bulletproof vests,remote sensors and noise reducers.蜘蛛丝比任何人类制造的纤维都要坚韧，而且它还特别利于将震动传递给编织出它的捕食者。
从用于骨骼再生的支架到防弹背心，再从远程传感器到降噪器，蜘蛛丝一直是人类各种发明的灵感源泉。
Yet one of its most remarkable attributes,its resistance to decay,has received little attention.Some researchers speculate that spider silk keeps hungry bacteria at bay by being laced with antibiotics.然而，作为其最显著特性之一的抗腐坏性却很少受到人们的关注。
一些研究人员推测，蜘蛛丝是因为添加了抗生素才得以远离饥肠辘辘的细菌的。
But work by Wang Pi-Han and Tso I-Min at Tunghai University,in Taiwan, published in the Journal of Experimental Biology,suggests this is not thecase.Rather,silk manages to avoid being eaten by locking the nutrients it contains behind an impenetrable barrier.但据台湾东海大学的王必汉和曹一鸣发表在《实验生物学杂志》上的研究表明，事实并非如此。
2019年经济学人考研英语双语阅读
There is no cure for HIV—but scientists may be getting closer科学家们虽然无法根治艾滋病- 但希望还是有的By Alice Park文/爱丽斯·帕克CURE ISN’T A WORD NORMALLY USED IN THE CONTEXT OF AIDS.“根治”一词通常不适用于艾滋病这一语境。
For most of the 35 years since HIV, the virus responsible for the disease, was first identified,自艾滋病病毒，也即诱发艾滋病的病毒，被首次发现以来的35年间，doctors have viewed the notion of a cure as more fantasy than fact.大部分时间医生们都认为根治艾滋病的概念更像是一种幻想而非事实。
That’s because HIV is a virus unlike any other.这是因为艾滋病病毒不同于其他任何一种病毒。
It disables the very immune cells that are supposed to destroy it and also sequesters itself in the body’s cells,它能摧毁原本应该反过来摧毁它的免疫细胞，然后将自身隔离在人体的细胞中，staging the ultimate deadly ambush whenever the immune defense’s guard comes down, months or sometimes even years later.准备着发动最后的致命伏击，只等免疫系统受损，无论是数月之后还是数年之后。
Yet for the first time in the HIV epidemic that currently affects nearly 37 million people worldwide,然而，就在目前影响着全世界近3700万人的这一流行病领域，some experts are starting to aim for a cure—cautiously—as they fashion the next generation of HIV treatments.一些专家率先开始了 - 谨慎地开始了- 艾滋病的根治研究，研制出了新一代艾滋病疗法。
考研英语经济学人文章阅读训练2019122101
A new idea for diagnosis一个关于疾病诊断的新想法A system based on AI will scan the retina for signs of Alzheimer’s一个基于人工智能的系统将通过眼部扫描来探寻痴呆症的患病迹象And,after that,of stroke susceptibility and heart disease此外，还包括中风和心脏病的诊断The different parts of a health-care system have different focuses.A hospital’s dementia unit keeps records of patients’mental abilities.The stroke unit monitors blood flow in the brain.The cardiac unit is interested in that same flow,but through and from the heart.医疗卫生体系的不同部门有着不同的关注点。
一家医院的痴呆症科室所记录下的是病人的思维能力。
中风科室则会监测病人大脑中的血液流动情况。
心脏病科室同样关注于血液流动，但关注的却是经过和来自心脏的血液。
Each agglomeration of equipment and data is effective in its own domain, but for the most part has little relevance to other bits of the body and the conditions that plague them.每一组仪器及数据都能够有效用于各自疾病的诊断，但往往无法用于同样折磨着病人的其他部位疾病的诊断。
Thus,like the proverbial blind men feeling an elephant,modern health care offers many fragmented pictures of a patient,but rarely a useful cohesive one.因此，就如同成语盲人摸象一般，现代医疗为病人提供的是许多零碎的疾病画像，但却无法汇聚为一个有用的整体画像。
考研英语阅读理解外刊原文经济学人
The 19th century French philosopher Auguste Comte got it wrong: demography is not destiny.19世纪法国哲学家奥古斯特•孔德错了：人口并不决定命运。
Population trends are some of the strongest forces in economics, affecting global prosperity, the growth of individual nations and the strength of public finances. But reducing the success of countries and regions to their trends in births, deaths and migration is a simplification too far.各种人口趋势是经济学中最强大的一些力量，影响着全球繁荣、单个国家的增长和公共财政的实力。
但是，将国家和区域的成功归结于其出生、死亡和人口移徙趋势是一种过于简单化的做法。
As the coronavirus pandemic has shown, the confident predictions in 2020 of a lockdown baby boom followed by the 2021 fear of a Covid baby bust demonstrate that demographic trends are far less stable than often imagined. Small changes in fertility, mortality and migration can have immense effects.正如新冠疫情所显示的那样，2020年对疫情封锁会带来一波婴儿潮的自信预测，以及接下来的2021年对疫情会造成婴儿荒的担忧，表明人口趋势远没有通常想象的那么稳定。
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Climate change and the threat to companies
气候变化和企业面临的风险
Firms urgently need to rethink how they approach climate risk
企业迫切需要重新考虑如果应对气候风险了
C hief executives who care about climate change—and these days most profess to—often highlight headquarters bedecked with solar panels and other efforts to lower their carbon footprint.
那些关心气候变化的首席执行官们（如今大多数的CEO都自称如此）常常强调，他们的公司总部采用了太阳能电池板以及其他措施来减少碳足迹。
Last week Volkswagen, a carmaker, told its 40,000 suppliers to cut emissions or risk losing its custom.
上周，汽车制造商大众集团要求其4万家供应商减少碳排放，否则他们将面临失去大众这位客户的风险。
Plenty of investors, meanwhile, say they are worried about being saddled with worthless stakes in coal-fired power plants if carbon taxes eventually bite. Yet the reality is that meaningful global environmental regulations are nowhere on the horizon.
与此同时，许多投资者表示，他们担心如果碳排放税最终开始实施，那么他们所持有的燃煤电厂的股票将变得一文不值。
然而，现实情况是，有实际意义的全球性环境法规还遥遥无期。
The risk of severe climate change is thus rising, posing physical threats to many firms. Most remain blind to these, often wilfully so. They should start worrying about them.
因此，发生严重气候变化的风险正在上升，这对许多公司构成了实质性的威胁。
大多数公司对此视而不见，并且往往是故意如此。
但现在他们应该开始担心了。
Nature disrupting supply chains is nothing new. Businesses have coped with floods, droughts and storms since long before the joint-stock company became popular in the 19th century.
自然灾害破坏供应链已经不是什么新鲜事了。
早在19世纪股份公司开始流行之前，企业们就已经在应对洪水、干旱和风暴了。
Two things have changed. First, supply chains have grown complex and global (just look at VW). As links have multiplied so, too, have points of possible failure. Many sit in the tropics, more given to weather extremes than the temperate West.
有两件事发生了变化。
首先，供应链变得越来越复杂化和全球化了（看看大众公司就知道了）。
成倍增长的供应链使得出问题的可能性也增大了。
有很多中间链位于热带地区，受极端天气的影响要比处于温带的西方国家更大。
Second, global warming is fuelling more such extremes everywhere. In 2017 Houston experienced its third “500-year flood”in less than four decades, California suffered five of its 20 worst wildfires ever and parts of the Indian subcontinent were underwater for days following epic monsoon downpours.
其次，全球变暖正在世界各地引发更多的极端自然灾害。
2017年，休斯顿经历了近40年来的第三次“500年一遇的大洪水”，加州遭受了有史以来20场最严重的山林大火中的5场，印度次大陆的部分地区在季风暴雨过后遭水淹多日。
That year insurers paid out a monumental $135bn in compensation. Another $195bn in estimated losses was uninsured. Power plants often run slow because the river water they use for cooling is too hot.
那一年，保险公司总计支付了1350亿美元的巨额赔款。
据估计，另有1950亿的损失并未投保。
发电厂常常运行缓慢，因为用于冷却的河水温度过高。
Last year commercial traffic along the Rhine, the world’s busiest waterway, ran aground when rains failed to replenish its sources.
去年，世界上最繁忙的水路莱茵河因降雨不足未能补充水源而导致了商业通航的中断。
Corporate-risk managers have just about come to grips with tangled supply chains. But they are rotten at assessing their exposure to a changing climate (see article).
企业风险管理人员才刚刚开始着手解决错综复杂的供应链问题。
但他们对于评估企业在不断变化的气候中的暴露确是一塌糊涂。
Unfamiliar with bleeding-edge climate models, which tell you what disruption to expect next, risk managers fall back on retrospective tools like flood maps, which are tried, tested—and wrong.
由于不熟悉前沿的气候模型（这样的模型能够预测未来什么将遭到破坏），风险管理人员只能依赖洪水地图等这类回溯性工具，这类工具被反复的尝试、测试，但最终被证明是无效的。
One study last year found that accounting for physical risks to corporate assets would shave 2-3% off the total market value of over 11,000 globally listed firms.
去年的一项研究发现，如果把自然风险考虑在企业资产之内，会让全球1.1万多家上市公司的总市值减少2%-3%。
That is less than many stocks move in a given day, and a fraction of the estimated 15% downward effect of a transition to cleaner energy. Unlike the energy transition, though, some physical harm to corporate assets is all but guaranteed.
这远不及许多股票在某一天的涨幅，也远远小于向清洁新能源转型对公司股价影响的下行效应（即15％）。
不过，与能源转型不同的是，对企业资产的某些自然损害几乎是肯定会发生的。
Not only that, but the risks rise as the world warms. And the average conceals a huge range. Some companies would lose nearly one-fifth of their enterprise value. Most have no clue where they stand.
不仅如此，随着全球变暖，损害发生的风险也在上升。
而平均值掩盖了不同企业间遭受损害的巨大差异。
有些企业将会损失其五分之一的价值，而大多数企业都不知道自己面临着多大的风险。
(红色标注词为重难点词汇)
重难点词汇：
bedeck [bɪ'dɛk] vt. 装饰；修饰
wilfully ['wilfəli] adv. 任意地
subcontinent [,sʌb'kɑntɪnənt] n. 次大陆
downpour ['daʊnpɔr] n. 倾盆大雨；注下
monumental [,mɑnju'mɛntl] adj. 不朽的；纪念碑的；非常的compensation [,kɑmpɛn'seʃən] n. 补偿；报酬；赔偿金。