17 No More Silent Spring

Rachel Carson was a scientist and a bird watcher. She noticed, in the late '50s, the gradual disappearance of some birds, and linked it to our use of 1)pesticides. She wrote a book about her fear that 2)robins would sing no more in future spring times. She called it Silent Spring. With that revolutionary book, Rachel Carson launched the environmental movement, a force that has swept the world.

Rachel: Humans have now acquired a fateful power to 3)alter and to destroy nature. But man is a part of nature, and his war against nature is inevitably a war against himself.

Journalist: What do you think, just in an 4)overview, the effect that this woman’s work has had on this country, and the world?

Interviewee: Her work helped to produce the first Earth Day.

TV: Earth Day - we can see what we all have in common: our planet!

Interviewee: The clean water act, the clean air act, the super fund, some of these were indirect results, but all of them 5)stemmed from the new awareness that was born as a result of Silent Spring’s publication.

In that century’s end, environmental challenges round the world make Carson’s words all the more timely: rain forest in danger, animal species dying up, people 6)choking on pollution, from Eastern Europe to China.

Rachel: We’re challenged, as mankind has never been challenged before, to prove our 7)maturity and our 8)mastery, not of nature, but of ourselves.

Rachel Carson died of cancer in 1964. There’s a wildlife preserve, named for her, in Maine, and her publishers still get occasional letters from people who just read Silent Spring.

1、pesticide n. 杀虫剂，农药

2、robin n. 知更鸟

3、alter v. 改变

4、overview n. 总体印象，总体看法

5、stem v. 起源，发生

6、choke v. 呛，噎

7、maturity n. 成熟

8、mastery n. 优势，精通

17 告别寂静的春天

拉琪尔•卡森是一位科学家兼鸟类观察家。在50年代末，她发现一些鸟类的逐渐灭绝和人们使用的除虫剂有关。她把对知更鸟在来年春天便不再歌唱的担忧写在一本书里，书名叫《寂静的春天》。拉琪尔•卡森用这本革命性的书发动环境保护运动，运动波及全球。

拉琪尔：如今人类用一种致命的力量来改变和摧毁着大自然。但是，人类本是自然的一分子，与自然对抗作战显然就是在与自己对抗作战。

记者：你的总看法是什么，这位妇女的著作对这个国家和世界有什么影响呢？

采访对象：她的著作帮助成立了第一个地球日。

电视：地球日--让我们看到我们大家共同拥有的是：地球！

采访对象：还有一些是间接产生的结果，如：净水法、空气清新法和大基金会，但那些追根究底都是在《寂静的春天》出版后唤起的新意识。

在世纪末，全球面临的环境问题使卡森的话更显得合时合宜：雨林危机、动物物种濒临灭绝、污染危及人类，这些问题从东欧直至中国都在发生。

拉琪尔：我们所遇到的挑战，是人类前所未有的挑战。我们要证明的是自己的稳健与才智，而非自然的。

拉琪尔•卡森1964年死于癌症。在缅因州，有以她的名字命名的野生动物保护区，她的出版商还不时地收到刚阅读过《寂静的春天》的人写来的信。