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本帖最后由 vivicat 于 2009-8-7 22:44 编辑
【中文标题】全球变暖和穷人们
【原文标题】Global Warming and the Poor
【登载媒体】华尔街日报
【来源地址】http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204313604574327992553917308.html
【译者】 Hotline
【翻译方式】人工
【声明】本翻译供Anti-CNN使用，未经AC或译者许可，不得转载。
【原文库链接】http://bbs.m4.cn/thread-187396-1-1.html
【译文】
A funny thing happened on the way to saving the world’s poor from the ravages of global warming. The poor told the warming alarmists to get lost.
在拯救全世界的穷人免于全球变暖的灾难的路上，发生了一件有趣的事情。穷人告诉全球变暖的警告者（alarmists, 原意是大惊小怪者或者杞人忧天者，但我认为作者只是引用了警告之意——译者注）——滚蛋！
This spring, the Geneva-based Global Humanitarian Forum, led by former U.N. General Secretary Kofi Annan, issued a report warning that “mass starvation, mass migration, and mass sickness” would ensue if the world did not agree to “the most ambitious international agreement ever negotiated” on global warming at a forthcoming conference in Copenhagen.
今年春天，基于日内瓦的、由前联合国秘书长科菲安南领导的世界人权论坛发布了一个报告。该报告警告说，如果全世界不能在即将在哥本哈根召开的大会上就关于全球变暖的，“迄今谈判过的最雄心勃勃的国际协议”达成一致，“大规模饥荒、大规模迁徙以及大规模疾病”必将发生。
According to Mr. Annan’s report, climate change-induced disasters now account for 315,000 deaths each year and $125 billion in damages, numbers set to rise to 500,000 deaths and $340 billion in damages by 2030. The numbers are hotly contested by University of Colorado disaster-trends expert Roger Pielke Jr., who calls them a “poster child for how to lie with statistics.”
根据科菲安南先生的报告，由气候变化所引起的灾害每年夺去315000人的生命，并且造成1250亿美元的损失。这两个数字到2030年将会达到500000人和3400亿美元。这两个数字遭到了科罗拉多大学灾害趋势专家Roger Pielke Jr.的强烈质疑。他称它们是“用统计数据撒谎的榜样”。
But never mind about that. The more interesting kiss-off took place in New Delhi late last month, when Indian Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh told visiting Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that there was no way India would sign on to any global scheme to cap carbon emissions.
不过没关系。上个月末，更有趣的拒绝发生在新德里。印度环境部长Jairam Ramesh告诉到访的美国国务卿希拉里.克林顿，印度不可能在任何限制碳排放的全球计划上面签字。
“There is simply no case for the pressure that we, who have among the lowest emissions per capita, face to actually reduce emissions,” Mr. Ramesh told Mrs. Clinton. “And as if this pressure was not enough, we also face the threat of carbon tariffs on our exports to countries such as yours.” The Chinese—the world’s largest emitter of CO2—have told the Obama administration essentially the same thing.
“作为全球人均排放最低的国家之一，我们所面对的减少排放的压力是不成立的。”Ramesh先生告诉克林顿夫人。“而且好像这个压力还不是全部，我们还面对着出口到像贵国那样的国家的产品会被征收碳关税的威胁。”中国人——全球最大的CO2排放者——对奥巴马政府说了本质上面相同的话。
Roughly 75% of Indians—some 800 million people—live on $2 a day or less, adjusted for purchasing power parity. In China, it’s about 36%, or about 480 million. That means the two governments alone are responsible for one in every two people living at that income level.
大约75%的印度人——大约8亿人——每天靠2美元或者更少的钱生活（按照购买力水平调整之后）。这个数字在中国大概是4.8亿人，大约36%的人口。这也就意味着中国和印度政府要为全球1/2的生活在此水平上的人负责。
If climate change is the threat Mr. Annan claims it is, India and China ought to be eagerly beating the path to Copenhagen. So why aren’t they?
如果气候变化是如安南先生所声称的威胁，那么中国和印度应该迫切地赶赴哥本哈根。那么为什么他们没有这么做呢？
To listen to the climate alarmists, it’s all America’s fault. “What the Chinese are chiefly guilty of is emulating the American economic model,” wrote environmental writer Jacques Leslie last year in the Christian Science Monitor. “The United States passed up the opportunity it had at the beginning of China’s economic transformation to guide it toward sustainability, and the loss is already incalculable.”
依气候警告者的观点，这全都是美国的错。“中国最主要的罪过，就是复制了美国的经济模式，”环境作家Jacques Leslie去年在《基督教科学箴言》上写到。“美国错过了在中国经济转型的初期引导中国走向可持续发展的机会，而损失已经是不可估量的了”
Facts tell a different story. When Deng Xiaoping began introducing elements of a market economy in 1980, Chinese life expectancy at birth was 65.3 years. Today it is about 73 years. The numbers are probably a bit inflated, as most numbers are in the People’s Republic, but the trend line is undeniable. In India, life expectancy rose from 52.5 years in 1980 to about 67 years today. If this is the consequence of following the “American economic model” then poor countries need more of it.
事实却在讲述不同的故事。当邓小平在1980年开始引入市场经济元素的时候，中国人的平均寿命是65.3岁，现在是大约73岁。这些数字可能是有些夸大的，就好象中华人民共和国的很多数字一样，但是这种趋势是无法否认的。在印度，平均寿命从1980年的52.5岁提高到现在的67岁。如果这是跟从“美国经济模式”的结果，那么贫穷的国家需要更多的美国模式。
But what about all the pollution in India and particularly China? In Mr. Leslie’s telling, CO2 emissions are part-and-parcel with common pollutants such as particulate matter, toxic waste, and everything else typically associated with a degraded environment. They’re not. The U.S. and China produce equivalent quantities of carbon dioxide. But try naming a U.S. city whose air quality is even remotely as bad as Beijing’s, or an American river as polluted as the Han: You can’t. America, the richer and more industrialized country, is also by far the cleaner one.
不过在印度，尤其是中国的污染又如何呢？在Leslie先生的陈述中，CO2排放是和如颗粒物,有毒废料以及任何通常与恶化的环境相关的普通污染物密切相关的。美国和中国制造相同数量的CO2。然而试试找一个空气质量哪怕只有一点点像北京那么糟的美国城市，或者一条和中国（此处他用了Han，无耻之极，想用汉族代替中国，无视中国是多民族国家的事实——译者注）一样污染的河流：你根本找不着。美国，一个更加富裕而且更加工业化的国家，同时也是干净得多的国家。
People who live in Third-World countries—like Mexico, where I grew up—tend to understand this, even if First-World environmentalists do not. People who live in oppressive Third World countries, like China, also understand that it isn’t just greater wealth that leads to a better environment, but greater freedom, too.
在第三世界国家——比如墨西哥，我长大的地方——生活的人比较能理解这些，即使第一世界的环境学家们不理解。在充满压迫的第三世界国家，比如中国，生活的人也能够理解更大的自由，而不仅仅是更多的财富，能够带来更好的环境。（作者开始切入正题了——译者注）
To return to Mr. Leslie, his complaint with China is that it has become too much of a consumer society, again in the American mold. Again he is ridiculous: China has one of the world’s highest personal savings rates—50% versus the U.S.’s 2.7%. The real source of China’s pollution problem is a state-led industrial policy geared toward production, and state-owned enterprises (especially in “dirty” sectors like coal and steel) that strive to meet production quotas, and state-appointed managers who don’t mind cutting corners in matters of safety or environmental responsibility, and typically have the political clout to insulate themselves from any public fallout.
回到Leslie先生这里，他抱怨中国过度地变成了消费社会，也就是美国模式。他很可笑：中国的个人储蓄率全球最高为50%，而美国只有2.7%。中国污染的最主要问题是国家领导的适应生产的工业政策，以及拼命完成生产指标的国有企业（尤其是那些如煤炭和钢铁这样的重污染行业），和那些不在意在安全和环境责任上投机取巧的由国家任命的管理者。他们往往有政治力量可以把他们和公共事件隔离开。
In other words, China’s pollution problems are not a function of laissez-faire policies and rampant consumerism, but of the regime’s excessive lingering control of the economy. A freer China means a cleaner China.
换句话说，中国的污染问题不是放任主义政策，或者无法控制的消费主义的结果，而是政府（此处用了regime，一般为贬义——译者注）对于经济过度的控制。一个更加自由的中国意味着一个更干净的中国。（逻辑极度混乱——译者注）
There’s a lesson in this for those who believe that the world’s environmental problems call for a new era of dirigisme. And there ought to be a lesson for those who claim to understand the problems of the poor better than the poor themselves. If global warming really is the catastrophe the alarmists claim, the least they can do for its victims is not to patronize them while impoverishing them in the bargain.
这给那些认为全球环境问题需要新时代的干预主义（政府对于国家经济的干预）的人上了一课。那些声称比穷人更了解穷人的问题的人也应该被上一课。如果全球变暖真的是如警告者们声称的大灾难，他们最不应该做的事情就是傲慢地对待那些受害者，并且在讨价还价之中让他们更加贫穷。
编译交流 见地板
But try naming a U.S. city whose air quality is even remotely as bad as Beijing’s, or an American river as polluted as the Han: You can’t.
然而试试找一个空气质量哪怕只有一点点像北京那么糟的美国城市，或者一条和中国（此处他用了Han，无耻之极，想用汉族代替中国，无视中国是多民族国家的事实——译者注）一样污染的河流：你根本找不着。
从上下文来看，这里的"the Han"似乎是指一条河。但不清楚是哪条河。是“汉江”么？
深深的红 发表于 2009-8-7 07:15  |
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