第一篇 Passage 1

The World’s Population

The first fifty years of the next millennium will be critical for the world’s population. By 2050 population growth should have leveled off, but by then we’ll have 10 billion people------two thirds as many again as we have today. The rate of population growth is something we can choose right now, though, it is not something that just happens, but a matter of human choice. People’s fertility behavior changes as things around them change------particularly the position of women. The choice is a complicated one, with many variables, but it remains a choice.

If we want to prevent a population explosion, we should take action now------or assist the poorer countries to do so. They need better governments, better institutions, better labor and capital markets, better schools.

Anything that increases the value of women’s time and adds to the cost of caring for a child makes a woman less likely to have that child. Since big families are often seen as safety nets for illness and old age, improving poor people’s access to insurance, pensions and welfare institutions also has a major impact. This can be as simple as rural credit, providing a means of saving. Finally, there is education------both for women and, perhaps even more important, for the next generation of children.

These steps are there to be taken, but there appears to be two groups of countries that are not seriously trying at the moment. The first is in sub-Saharan Africa, where both markets and governments work so badly that such policies can’t find a foothold. The second are those countries, like some in the Middle East, which feel threatened by their neighbors or have a dictator at the helm. You need democratic government for effective development, and if we cannot achieve that we will certainly not control population.

That said: I don’t feel pessimistic that we are going to run out of resources; we are becoming more efficient at producing food faster than the rate at which population is increasing. There is, however, a risk that we will wreck the environment so effectively that the world will no longer be an attractive place to live. That really would be a dismal outcome: to reach world population equilibrium only to find we’d destroyed the natural environment in the process.

But when I look at the Third World and think, “What can I do to solve this?” my reaction isn’t to say, “Let’s bring population down immediately”. Population growth is an intermediate variable; it is not the real cause of the problems—that lies with the institutions that channel people’s choices. And even if we succeed in controlling population growth, we will still have huge environmental problems to deal with.

课文词语 Words and Expressions from the Text

level off 平衡，平稳

fertility behavior 生育行为

make…less likely to 减少了……的可能性；使……不太可能

rural credit 农村信贷

find a foothold 找到立足之地

run out of 耗尽；用完

at the helm 掌舵；掌权

equilibrium 平衡； 均衡

intermediate variable 中间变量