[00:00.00] CHAPTERS 3 ENVIRONMENT
[00:13.19]Unit 3 Environment
[00:18.76]Conversations
[00:22.28]Mr.Zhang visits his hometown,where he spent his childhood.
[00:30.54]Now he is talking with Mr.Jackson.
[00:35.29]We're nearly there.All has come back to me.
[00:40.54]Look,the old park"People's Park"is still there.
[00:46.79]I used to pass the park to go scholl each day.
[00:51.93]True?I thought you are living in Xi'an city all your life.
[00:58.91]No,I used to live in this old city from 1970s to early 1980s.
[01:07.27]Have you ever been back since you left here?
[01:12.41]No,but I'm always dreaming of visiting it.
[01:18.18]I didn't have enough time,so I've never come back here.
[01:23.83]Now,we are in the city center?
[01:29.39]Er,oh,yes,you're right.The busy road,the skyscrapers..
[01:37.46]It seems that the old department store has disappeared.
[01:42.79]It's there!Right?
[01:46.74]Yeah,it has changed a lot,bigger and taller than ever,
[01:52.69]but there was no flyover here in 1980s.
[01:57.84]Look at these skyscrapers!
[02:03.12]Wonderful!But in the past,there were only small shops.
[02:09.96]I especially liked t buy sweets in one of them,
[02:15.13]its name was"Xiao Hong Shop".
[02:20.70]Twenty years have passed.Great changes have taken place,
[02:26.76]we have been getting older,just as a saying goes"Time is waiting for no man"!
[02:34.20]I agree with you.My old guy,let's find a parking lot and walk around the city,OK?
[02:42.85]OK,I'm glad to.
[02:47.11]Tim and Am are talking about Mr.Mark's new house.
[02:56.07]Ann,have you received your invitation?
[03:00.43]No,I haven't.My invitation?By whom?
[03:06.88]A house warming party next Sunday.
[03:11.32]Whose party?
[03:14.56]Mr.Mark's.They have bought a new house beside the North Gate.
[03:21.33]It's a bout half an hour's wark from here.
[03:26.00]Have you seen the house?
[03:29.84]Of course.I went there yesterday.
[03:34.28]Is it quite nice?
[03:38.12]Yes.Their house is surrounded by a large and beautiful garden,
[03:44.50]full of all kinds of flowers.
[03:48.75]The house is standing in the middle of the garden.
[03:53.40]It has three storeys.
[03:57.06]It sounds good!
[04:00.82]The house has five bedrooms,a big living room,a dining room,
[04:07.28]a kitchen and three bathrooms.
[04:12.03]The carpet in his sitting room is made in China.
[04:16.89]It must be very delicate.
[04:21.33]Yes,it goes very well with the curtain and their sofas.
[04:26.79]Anything else?
[04:30.05]Mr.Mark has decorated his study with many expensive works of art.
[04:36.72]It's well known that he likes to collect works of art wherever he goes.
[04:43.17]They also have a four-car garage.
[04:47.82]Really?It's just his dream.
[04:52.99]How I wish I had a house like his!
[04:57.64]It's a piece of cake.
[05:01.71]I suggest that you sell up all your stocks for a new house.
[05:07.46]Mr.Brown and his son Robert are walking along the river.
[05:15.40]Dad,how foggy it is this morning!
[05:20.65]Yes,it's a new problem.
[05:24.73]A new problem?Why do you say so?
[05:30.00]The problem results from smog.
[05:35.05]Smog?What is it?
[05:39.41]Smog is blended with two words"smoke"and "fog".
[05:46.57]It has seriously affected people more than any other type of air pollution.
[05:53.12]I see.Look,there are some plastic bags floating on the river.
[06:00.07]Some citizens are still ignorant of the environmental protection.
[06:07.02]It's really a pity!
[06:10.86]But,anyway,public concern over the environmental pollution has greatly increased.
[06:19.12]There is hope for the future.
[06:22.88]Passage In Our"Rurban"Age-To know the countryside,you must live in the city
[06:32.62]In his book Badgers,the naturalist Michael Clark describes
[06:39.78]surveying the animal back in the 1960s.
[06:45.13]Calling at a farm cottage,
[06:49.21]he asked an old countryman whether he knew of any badgers living nearby.
[06:56.16]"What's badgers?"came the reply.
[07:01.02]The countryman,Clark writes,"genuinely did not know of the species".
[07:09.27]You can be a countryman,it seems,and know little of the country.
[07:16.11]But traditionally,country folks are regarded as being in tune with the land.
[07:23.98]They live there,don't they?What can townies know of the "way of nature"?
[07:31.24]This assumption infects much of our culture.
[07:36.20]It predicates the existence of a clear division between town and country.
[07:43.57]It enables the rural to characterize itself as an indigenous culture,
[07:51.12]its"native"traditions and pastimes"hunting and fishing"
[07:57.28]threatened by an oppressive urban majority.
[08:02.14]The underlying message lies
[08:06.50]in that the countryside is best managed by country people.
[08:12.15]After all,the know about such things...
[08:18.10]Unfortunately,too often,they don't.
[08:24.35]As the historian Keith Thomas showed in his study Man and the Natural World,
[08:32.29]the growth of our knowledge about nature has come by correcting
[08:38.06]the "vulgar errors"of country people.
[08:42.61]And although Thomas was writing about the period between 1500 and 1800,
[08:50.68]that process continues today
[08:55.41]-what country dwellers take for granted is still being confounded
[09:01.65]by the careful observation of reality.
[09:06.61]A study,from York University,
[09:11.65]has cast strange new light on the farmers' enemy-foxes.
[09:18.89]The more foxes a farmer kills,the more lambs he appears to lose to foxes.
[09:27.43]Theat is because:
[09:31.56]new foxes will almost certainly occupy the slain animals' territory,
[09:38.93]and new animals,unused to the terrain,
[09:44.78]may then choose more obvious prey-such as lambs.
[09:50.94]The message of studies such as this is that matural systems are complex,
[09:58.18]unpredictable:
[10:01.42]understanding them requires patient observation and careful analysis.
[10:08.57]The lack of these conditions explains why,in the early modern era,
[10:16.02]grass snakes were killed as venomous,
[10:21.37]and gardeners destroyed worms because they were thought to gnaw plant roots.
[10:28.92]The assumption that people"ought"to know
[10:34.17]such things is based on an urban-rural divide that opened up in the 18th century.
[10:43.42]For a couple fo centuries,city and country people did inhabit separate realms.
[10:52.36]But the car,the phone,the media and the Internet
[10:59.12]have contributed to the unifying tendency of what we call modern lifestyle;
[11:06.78]and the vast population outflow from cities into rural areas
[11:13.62]blurred the difference between urban and rural.
[11:19.08]Thus,a new word-"rurban"-has been coined to describe this condition.
[11:27.83]Most of us now work indoors or in an office,
[11:33.71]and even if we are involved in our primary industries,
[11:39.66]we are far more likely to be staring
[11:44.31]at a computer than communicating with the landscape.
[11:49.77]Human life has turned generally into a monoculture by work,
[11:55.94]sleep,shopping and TV
[12:00.67]-all actually identical whether performed in town or country.
[12:07.54]Words and Expressions
[12:11.66]badger naturalist survey call at
[12:15.53]n.獾 n.自然主义者 vt.仔细全面地观察 访问;停靠
[12:19.40]countryman genuinely species traditionally
[12:23.52]n.乡下人 adv.真正的;真实地 n.种 adv.传统上
[12:27.65]townie assumption infect culture
[12:31.44]n.城里人 n.假定,假设 vt.感染,影响 n.文化;文明
[12:35.23]predicate existence division enable
[12:39.20]vt.断言 n.存在 n.分开,分割 vt.使能够;授予权力或方法
[12:43.17]rural lobby characterize indigenous
[12:47.24]adj.乡下的 n.游说议员者 vt.表..的特点 adj.本土的
[12:51.32]pastime hunting fishing threaten
[12:55.25]n.消遣,娱乐 n.狩猎,猎狐 n.捕鱼 vt.威胁;预示
[12:59.18]oppressive urban underlying
[13:02.42]adj.压制性的,压迫的 adj.城市的,市内的 adj.潜在的,出现但不明显示的
[13:05.66]historian vulgar error process
[13:09.63]n.历史学家的 adj.粗俗的 n.错误,过失 n.过程,程序
[13:13.60]dweller confound observation cast
[13:17.73]n.居住者;居民 vt.使窘迫;使羞愧 n.观察,观测 v.投,抛,投射
[13:21.85]lamb occupy slay territory
[13:26.39]n.小羊 vt.占,占领 vt.杀,杀死 n.领土
[13:30.92]unused terrain obvious prey
[13:34.80]adj.不习惯..的 n.地势,地形 adj.明显的,显而易见 n.被捕食的动物
[13:38.68]complex unpredictable analysis era
[13:43.09]adj.复杂的;综合的 adj.不可预知的 n.分析,分解 n.时代,纪元,时期
[13:47.51]venomous gardener gnaw inhabit
[13:51.33]adj.有毒的,分泌毒液的n.园丁 v.咬,啃,啮 vt.居住于;存在于
[13:55.16]realm Internet contribute unify
[13:59.09]n.领域,范围 n.因特网,国际互联网 vi.帮助实现,有助于 vt.统一,使成一体
[14:03.02]tendency lifestyle outflow blur
[14:07.11]n.趋向,倾向 n.生活方式 n.流出,流出物 vt.使模糊
[14:11.20]indoors likely communicate landscape
[14:15.47]adv.在户内 adj.很可能的,有希望的v.沟通 n.风景;山水画
[14:19.74]generally monoculture identical
[14:22.92]adv.广泛地,普通地 n.单一文化 adj.同一的,同样的
[14:26.09]Exercises
[14:29.75]Section I listening Comprehension
[14:35.10]Listen to the record.
[14:39.36]Answer each question by chossing A,B,C or D from the four possible choices.
[14:48.42]1.Any news in the newspaper?
[14:54.48]Yes.A black was beaten and thrown into prison only because of his complaints.
[15:02.56]2.Would you like to go to the beach for sunbath?
[15:08.72]I'm glas to.It's said that the smell of beach
[15:14.29]can soothe people who suffer from anxiety.
[15:19.25]3.The kitchen is filled with smoke.I can hardly breathe.
[15:26.41]True?But I have got used to it.
[15:32.15]4.Good afternoon,I'm living in the suburb now.
[15:38.32]The heavy traffic is quite terrible in the city.
[15:43.88]I have thought that you want to buy a big apartment.
[15:49.24]5.Darling,I can't tolerate my mother any more.
[15:56.08]She always complains.Can we find another house,however big it is!
[16:03.24]OK,let's read the newspaper with ads.
[16:08.70]B
[16:11.65]Wang Hua is talking with a foreign student,Peter,about the environment.
[16:18.81]Hello,how long have you been here?
[16:23.77]Actually I planned to come here in November,
[16:28.03]but my parents suggested that I observe the Christmas,so I started in January.
[16:35.89]That's less than two months.What do you think of here?
[16:41.74]It's old with a long history.At the first sight,it's so beautiful.
[16:49.79]Then,what do you mean?
[16:53.94]Yesterday,when I was walking with a Chinese friend along a river,
[17:00.29]I was surprised. Why?
[17:05.04]Living in such a beautiful city,
[17:09.30]some people seem to be deliberate to throw the wastes
[17:15.26]or rubbish anywhere they like.
[17:19.62]So this is why some dustbins are standing along the road.
[17:25.86]This is less important.pollution,yes,
[17:31.90]air and water pollution can endanger human health
[17:36.00]and produce harmful effects on living things and other materials.
[17:42.16]It's a global problem.It has already caught the public attention.
[17:49.04]So,in Europe,environmentalists formed the party
[17:55.28]and campaigned for the protection of environment.
[18:00.32]Little by little,people have become aware of the problems facing us.
[18:07.90]Our Chinese government has passed laws to protect our environment.
[18:14.14]The same case in our country.
[18:18.61]People in the world have begun to know how to value the protection of themselves
[18:25.27]on the basis of protection of their world.
[18:30.23]Supplementary Reading
[18:34.28]Cleaner Ways of Travel
[18:38.72]A Dutch lawyer drove his car from his suburban home
[18:44.18]to the edge of Amsterdam and parked.
[18:48.62]He took out a collapsible bicycle,unfolded it,
[18:54.39]and fastened his brief case and tightly relled his umbrella to the side.
[19:00.85]Then he climbed on and cycled to his office.
[19:05.70]Not an eyebrow was raised,
[19:09.78]because the lawyer was only one of many Europeans
[19:14.74]who are switching form four wheels to two for in-city travel.
[19:21.22]Stories like these are told with such enthusiasm
[19:26.08]by experts on air pollution that one would expect to see hardly a car
[19:32.14]on the streets of London or Paris in rush hour.
[19:37.18]Of course,this is not the case.
[19:41.86]The use of the bicycle is the result of the increase,
[19:47.50]rather than the decrease,of cars in Europe.
[19:52.67]Although European cars release fewer poisonous fumes than large American models,
[20:00.33]smog is filling European air too.
[20:05.16]Cities are so jammed with cars that officials have hegun to take action.
[20:11.79]"People are beginning to realize what a dangerous contraption the car is,
[20:18.56]"says a Danish professor.
[20:22.92]Can the car then survive?Certainly no one today can imagine life without it.
[20:30.79]In America a car appears to be essential.
[20:35.93]Drivers will crawl through midtown traffic rather than give up their vehicles.
[20:42.98]Many families even own two cars.
[20:47.74]But we cannot continue to let car fums poison us.
[20:54.22]City dwellers are already beginning to choke in the smog.
[21:00.07]A drastic change is needed if we are going to go on driving.
[21:06.23]In the hunt for a way to save the car from extinction,
[21:11.80]all sorts of extreme methods have been proposed.
[21:17.26]The increased use of electric power
[21:21.70]is by far the most promising of the ideas put forward to date.
[21:27.76]Many pollution fighters have acclaimed it.
[21:32.43]At present,electric cars obtain their power from storage batteries.
[21:39.20]Every night the battery has to be recharged in the garage.
[21:45.08]This method is awkward,particularly for long-distance driving.
[21:51.61]It has been suggested that at some time in the future booths
[21:57.04]could be set up on high-ways.
[22:01.59]Drivers on the road would stop every so often,
[22:06.45]put a coin in the slot,
[22:10.10]and plug the battery into an electric socket for a recharge.
[22:15.75]In-city traffic would benefit most from electric cars.
[22:21.41]Stop-and-go driving causes far more poisonous gases to be released.
[22:29.36]An air monitor in one large city recently measured the poisonous gases
[22:35.91]coming from cars on therir way home in the evening rush hour.
[22:41.16]The amounts of hydrocarbons and carbon monoxide
[22:46.52]released were four times as great as those expelled from vehicles moving
[22:52.79]at a steady pace on the highway.
[22:56.73]In some American cities
[23:00.39]officials are not waiting for improved electric car models.
[23:06.16]They have ordered minibuses run on the standard-storage batteries.
[23:12.33]In this way they can reduce the number of diesel buses on the streets.
[23:18.57]Diesel exhaust not only smells worse than fumes from internal combustion engines,
[23:25.94]but also has large amounts of nitrogen oxides.
[23:31.11]Some people think that an elevated system like the mounts
[23:37.06]would help to reduce pollution.
[23:41.19]The monorail,which is also powered by electricity,
[23:47.44]is often seen at fairs and entertainment parks.
[23:52.90]Traveling over the fairgrounds on its single rail,
[23:58.04]the monorail offers and excellent view of the attractions below.
[24:04.08]One day it may offer rush-hour travelers as good a view of the city below.
[24:10.84]But a more electric world would not prevent air pollution.
[24:16.77]If power plants are to generate enough electricity to run transportation,
[24:23.30]as well as to produce heat,light,and energy for factories and homes,
[24:30.17]the plants will have to be greatly expanded.
[24:35.03]Moreover,utilities providing power have been repeatedly named as
[24:41.98]major offenders in air pollution.
[24:46.24]Nonetheless,it would be easier to control pollution
[24:51.70]from a few large sources than from every car,bus,industry,and house.
