外刊高翻第37课

“北极熊之都”的北极熊未来何在？

3,000 Miles From Glasgow,

a Town and Its Polar Bears Face the Future

第一段

CHURCHILL, MANITOBA — This is not another story about saving Hudson Bay’s polar bears. It’s too late for that. This is a story about what comes next for a small town that bills itself as the Polar Bear Capital of the World.

加拿大曼尼托巴省丘吉尔镇——这里发生的并不是又一个拯救哈德逊湾北极熊的故事。拯救已经来不及了。现在要说的是，一个以“世界北极熊之都”自居的小镇，接下来该怎办。

In Churchill, an isolated town perched on the southern edge of the Arctic, climate change is not a looming danger. It imbues daily life. It is broken sewer lines and taller trees, longer summers and bigger snowstorms and moose where caribou used to go. Most of all, it is the fear that Americans won’t come visit anymore.

丘吉尔镇是座落在北极圈南缘的一座偏远城镇，对这里来说，气候变化不是迫在眉睫的威胁，而是充斥于日常生活中的现实。气候变化是破裂的下水管道、更高的树木、更长的夏天以及更猛烈的暴风雪，在以往驯鹿出没的地方见到的却是驼鹿。最大的担忧是，美国人不会来这里旅游了。

1.bills itself以什么自居，号称

2.Perch栖息，坐落，此处的被动：perch sth on sth of

3.Sth is looming指不好的事情 the danger is looming

4.Sewer lines下水管道 sewerage污水处理 sewage污水

5.Caribou 驯鹿/moose驼鹿

第二段

In 2014, a Canadian doctor visiting Churchill from southern Ontario took a photograph of climate change. It shows a red fox holding an arctic fox in its mouth, the blood of the smaller creature staining its snow-white fur.

2014年，一位来自安大略省南部的加拿大医生去了丘吉尔镇，拍下了一张呈现气候变化的照片。一只赤狐嘴里叼着一只北极狐，后者身形较小，雪白的毛上沾满了血迹。

Warmer weather is endangering Arctic species, in part by opening the gates for other animals, like red foxes, wolves and brown bears, as well as a host of smaller species, to move north. “We haven’t found anything that isn’t changing” in the Hudson Bay ecosystem, said David Barber, a professor at the University of Manitoba who studies climate change as scientific director of the Churchill Marine Observatory. “From the viruses and the bacteria right up to the whales, every single thing is being affected by climate change.”That includes the local celebrities: Ursus maritimus, or polar bears.

气候变暖正在危及北极物种，部分是因为它导致赤狐、狼、棕熊以及许多较小的物种向北迁移。马尼托巴大学教授戴维·巴伯说，在哈德逊湾的生态系统中，“我们没有发现任何不变的东西，”同时在丘吉尔海洋天文台以科学总监的身份研究气候变化的巴伯说。“从病毒、细菌到鲸鱼，一切都在受到气候变化的影响。”这其中也包括当地的著名物种：Ursus maritimus，北极熊。

While the polar bears are on land, people in Churchill are careful to make wide turns around street corners. They avoid walking alone at night. They guard their trash with the kind of care usually reserved for things that are valuable. Everyone has a story about a close encounter. Joseph Michel Boudreau, 74, told me that one morning he made the mistake of cooking bacon without turning on the stovetop vent. A bear put a paw through a front window. Mr. Boudreau went out the back door.

当北极熊在陆地上时，丘吉尔镇的人们在街角转弯都会小心翼翼。他们避免在夜间独自行走。他们像保护财物一样小心翼翼地保护着自己的垃圾。每个人都有和北极熊亲密接触的故事。74岁的约瑟夫·米歇尔·布德罗告诉我，有一天早上，他犯了一个错误，煎培根时没有打开炉灶上的通风口。一只熊把爪子伸进前窗。布德罗从后门溜走了。

The bears are not just a nuisance, however. They are also the mainstays of the local economy. Great White Bear Tours, Lazy Bear Expeditions and other companies with similar names cater to an annual influx of wealthy tourists, carrying them in big-wheeled buses to the shoreline, where the bears congregate. The warnings about bears in town add a little excitement to the experience.

然而，这些熊不仅仅是惹麻烦的东西。它们也是当地经济的支柱。“大白熊旅游”、“懒熊探险”以及其他有类似名字的公司，每年都会接待大量涌入的富有游客，公司会用大巴把他们拉到北极熊聚集的海岸线上。镇上关于北极熊的警告给这样的体验增加了一点刺激性。

Churchill is stuffed with bearskins, but these days, every effort is made to keep the animals alive. Bears that don’t behave used to be shot. Now they’re trapped, taken to “bear jail” — an airport hangar with reinforced cells — and eventually airlifted about 70 kilometers (about 43 miles) north, where there are even fewer people.

丘吉尔镇上到处都是熊皮，但在近来，人们竭尽全力让这些动物活下来。行为恶劣的熊过去会遭到射杀。如今它们会被困在“熊监狱”里——一个有加固牢房的机场飞机库——最终被空运到北边70公里的地方，那里的人更少。

1.it shows sth +doing补充说明  stain玷污/soil弄脏

2.arctic北极的，严寒的（arct熊+ic形容词）

3.Warmer weather：global warming全球变暖 risen temperature

4.Open the gate for sth,此处没有直译出来，属于去形象化

5.A host of许多，一系列：此处不能用a series of (排序列） a number of可以用于人 /a batch of必须是产品编号，不能用于人

6.Director/head/chief  头  /国际组织的负责人：dead of the International Organization ;head还可动词 be headed by sb由..担任

7.Roam across漫步  well-travelled遍游海外的  well-read 博览群书的 well-trained训练有素的 travel the world /well-educated受过良好教育的/well-brought有教养的

8.独行快众行远 if you want to walk fast,walk alone;if you want to walk far,walk together.

9.Walk the talk付诸行动,talk the talk夸夸其谈 walk the walk付诸实践

10.变废为宝upcycle 循环利用

11.However很少用在句首

12.Paradigm  wealthy  well-heeled有钱的 people with deep pocket有钱人 deep-pocked

13.Keep sth alive传承  keep the tradition alive

第三段

One immediate impact of global warming is that the bears are spending more time around Churchill as the sea ice forms later in the year and melts earlier. On land, polar bears lose about 1 kilogram (2.2 pounds) of their weight each day. As ice season shrinks, the bears face the double pain of fewer days of hunting and more days of fasting. Between 1980 and 2019, the weight of the average pregnant polar bear in the Churchill region declined by 15 percent, according to Nick Lunn, a Canadian government scientist. New births are in decline. The number of polar bears in western Hudson Bay fell by 30 percent from 1987 to 2016, and some experts think the population already is in terminal decline.

由于今年海冰形成时间较晚，融化时间较早，北极熊在丘吉尔镇附近的时间越来越多，这也是全球变暖的一个直接影响。在陆地上，北极熊每天减重约1公斤。随着冰期缩短，北极熊们面临着双重痛苦：更短的捕猎时间和更长的断食时间。根据加拿大政府科学家尼克·伦恩的说法，1980年至2019年期间，丘吉尔地区怀孕北极熊的平均体重下降了15%。新生幼崽的数量在下降。从1987年到2016年，哈德逊湾西部的北极熊数量下降了30%，一些专家认为，北极熊的状况已经岌岌可危。

Some bears may survive, at least for a time, by moving farther north. But over the coming decades, if greenhouse gas emissions continue to build at the current pace, the disappearance of polar bears from the Hudson Bay region is inevitable, according to a 2020 study conducted by scientists at Polar Bears International, a research and advocacy group. Steven Amstrup, its chief scientist, said it’s not too late. “I am confident that holding the global temperature rise below two degrees Celsius will preserve polar bears in parts of their current range,” he said. That is the goal nations set at the Paris climate meetings in 2015. But the commitments that nations have made are inadequate to achieve that goal. Scientists estimate global temperatures are on pace to rise by roughly three degrees Celsius above the preindustrial norm by the end of the century.

一些熊可能会向北迁移，从而至少在一段时间内存活下来。但研究和倡导组织“北极熊国际”的科学家2020年进行的一项研究显示，在未来几十年里，如果温室气体排放继续以目前的速度增加，哈德逊湾地区的北极熊将会不可避免地消失。该公司首席科学家史蒂芬·阿姆斯特拉普表示，现在还不算太晚。“我相信，将全球气温上升控制在2摄氏度以内，可以保护北极熊在目前活动范围内的部分活动，”他说。这是各国在2015年巴黎气候会议上设定的目标。但是，各国作出的承诺不足以实现这一目标。科学家估计，到本世纪末，全球气温将比工业化前的标准上升大约3摄氏度。

In his 2019 book, “The Wizard and the Prophet,” the science writer Charles C. Mann described a long-running argument between those who believe humans can survive in the long term only by accepting the limits of nature and those who believe humans can survive by reshaping nature. Wittingly or otherwise, we are placing our chips in the second basket.

在2019年的书《巫师与先知》中，科学作家查尔斯·C·曼谈到一场持续多年的争论，争论的一方认为，人类要想生存下去，必须首先承认大自然是有极限的，而另一方认为人类可以通过重塑自然来求生。不管是否出于有意，我们现在把筹码放在了第二个篮子里。

1.as the sea ice forms later in the year原因放在了后面（事实背景）重要的信息放在前面

2.Sth is in decline=be on the decrease下降 

3.Terminal不可逆转 be terminally ill病入膏肓

4.at the current pace：at the current rate照这种速度发展下去

5.are on pace to rise：be on track / course to do将要，将会

6.多注意小词的使用以及断句的变化

7.a long-running argument 长期争论

8.Wittingly or otherwise, we are placing our chips in the second basket.不管是有意还是无意，我们都在把筹码放在第二个篮子里