Who has the original translation of Silent Spring, the third intensive reading of College English?

Rachel Carlson

In the middle of the United States, there was once a town where all living things lived in harmony with the environment. The town is located on a fertile farm. In summer, white clouds float like petals on the green Yuan Ye. In autumn, in a pine forest, colorful oak trees, maple trees and birch trees compete to open, foxes crow in the mountains, and deer quietly pass through Yuan Ye.

Since years ago, osmanthus trees, ferns and wild flowers growing on the roadside have always made passers-by happy. Even in winter, there are beautiful scenery on the roadside, countless birds come back here to eat berries, and many hay seeds are exposed from the snow. In fact, this village is famous for its rich and varied birds. When a large number of migratory birds flock in spring and autumn, people will come from far away to watch. Others will fish by the stream, cool streams will flow out from the mountains, and trout will swim around in small pools covered with trees. Until one day many years ago, the first settlers came here to build houses, dig wells and build stables.

Later, an evil spell appeared in this village: mysterious diseases swept the flocks of chickens; Cattle and sheep began to get sick and die. In the town, doctors become more and more confused when they see new diseases in patients. There are also some unexplained sudden deaths, including adults and children.

There is also a strange silence. Like birds, where have they all gone? The backyard of the house is deserted to feed the birds, and the few birds that can be seen are just shaking violently and can't fly. This spring is silent. Once, flocks of birds sang happily in the morning. Now, there is silence here, only the silence over the fields, Woods and wetlands.

Both sides of the once beautiful road are now covered with brown withered plants, as if they had been burned. All this is silent and abandoned by all life. Even the stream is lifeless. All the fish died, and the anglers stopped visiting here.

A few weeks ago, a white powder fell like snowflakes on the roofs, lawns, fields and streams here.

In this devastated area, new life is no longer born. This is not witchcraft, nor is it the behavior of any enemy. All this is caused by human beings themselves.

This town doesn't actually exist. I don't know which village has experienced all the misfortunes I have described here. At that time, every disaster here happened somewhere, and many real villages suffered many disasters. This imaginary tragedy will soon become a cruel reality that we have to face.

What makes countless towns in the United States silent in spring? This book tries to explain the problem to you.

The history of life on earth is the history of the interaction between life, the moon and the environment. To a great extent, physical form, plant habits and animal life are all shaped by the environment. On the other hand, considering the whole time period of the earth, life has shaped a relatively tiny environment. Only at this moment, a species-human-has gained some ability to change the natural world.

In the past quarter century, this ability has not only become stronger and stronger, but also changed in nature. Humans violate the environment in this way, and the most worrying thing is to pollute the atmosphere, soil, rivers and oceans with dangerous or even deadly substances. Most of this pollution is irreversible. At present, the environmental pollution of our team is very common, and chemicals and harmful rays are like a pair of evil partners. It is changing the true nature of the world-it is changing the true nature of the world-it is also changing the true nature of life. Chemicals scattered in crops, forests and gardens will stay in the soil for a long time, enter organisms, and pass from one individual to another in the cycle of poisoning and death. Or, they mysteriously pass through stagnant water. It is a new form that kills plants, makes animals sick and causes unknown harm to human beings until it finally appears. You know, they drink once pure well water. As a scientist said, "man can't even realize the evil he has created."

Today, life on earth took hundreds of millions of years to form. If there is enough time-not a few years, but thousands of years-life can still enjoy adjustment and achieve a new ecological balance. But now, we have no time.

The change of environment follows the rapid development of human beings, not the leisurely rhythm of nature itself. Today's rays are unnatural products of human interference with atoms, and chemical substances are also synthetic substances created by human beings. There is no corresponding substance in nature.

Adapting to these chemicals requires not only years of human efforts, but also generations of efforts. If there is no miracle, such efforts will be in vain, because new chemicals will be continuously produced from the laboratory; In the United States alone, about 500 kinds are put into use every year.

Many of them are used by humans to deal with nature. Since the mid-1940s, human beings have produced more than 200 kinds of basic chemicals to kill insects, weeds and organisms called "pests". Thousands of different brands are selling them.

Nowadays, these chemicals are almost universally used to kill insects in farms, gardens, forests and homes, regardless of whether they are "good" or "harmful". Although their initial target may only be a few weeds or insects, they have caused everything below-birds stopped singing, fish stopped jumping, leaves were coated with bright poison, and a lot of harmful substances remained in the soil. Someone really believes that we put. We shouldn't call them pesticides, we should call them pesticides.

The process of spraying pesticides seems to be caught in an endless vicious circle. This is because, according to Darwin's theory of survival of the fittest, these insects can evolve species that are immune to a certain pesticide, so humans must invent a more deadly pesticide, and then a more deadly pesticide. There are also some pests who will "retaliate" or revive after spraying pesticides, and the number will be more than before spraying pesticides. In this way, the chemical war will never end.

How can smart people pollute the whole environment in order to control a limited number of pests, and even threaten themselves with disease and death? But this is really what we are doing now.

All this doesn't mean that we don't have pest problems. We don't need to control them. I mean, the promised activities must respect the reality. The methods adopted must keep us from being destroyed by pests.

Under primitive agricultural conditions, farmers have almost no problem of pests. Nature endows the earth with diversity, and keeps species within a limited range through internal control and balance. A very important natural control factor is that the suitable habitat of each species is limited. Agricultural production is highly concentrated, and a large amount of soil is used to grow a certain crop, so the insect problem will follow. This system makes it possible for insects to explode. Well, obviously, insects that feed on wheat will be abundant if they are only planted in wheat fields, but they will be much less if they are mixed with other crops that are not suitable for the growth of this insect.

Another reason for the problem of modern insects is that thousands of different creatures spread from their original homes. About hundreds of millions of years ago, floods cut off the land bridges between continents, and creatures found that they could only be confined to what ecologists called "huge and separated nature reserves." There, because they are isolated from many other species, organisms can develop many new varieties. About 6.5438+0.5 million years ago, when some lands were reconnected, these creatures began to migrate into new territories-this migration not only continued, but also received great help from human beings.

In the spread of modern organisms, the import of plants is a very important motive, because animals are almost always associated with plants. In the United States, almost half of the 65,438+080 major pests were accidentally brought in from abroad, and most of them hitchhiked with plants.

In the new field, because there are no native natural enemies to limit their numbers, their numbers can become very large. Therefore, it is no accident that our most troublesome pests are exotic species.

Dr. Elton said that we are facing "a need, which is related to our life and death, not only to find new technical means to control this plant or that animal." On the contrary, what we need is the most basic knowledge about the number of animals and their relationship with the environment, which will "promote a stable balance and control the outbreak and new invasion of pests."

My point is not to say that pesticides will never be used. I just want to emphasize that we indiscriminately hand over toxic biochemical chemicals to humans who have no knowledge of their potential harm. We forced a large number of people to come into contact with poisons, but they didn't get their unity, even without their knowledge. Also, I want to emphasize that we are allowed to use these chemicals. However, there is little or no in-depth investigation on their effects on soil, water, wildlife and human beings. Nature supports all life, we don't care about its harmony and unity, and our descendants will never forgive us.