字神帝國英語天地

  
 今日主題：Air pollution-- The big smoke  空氣污染--霧都

 康康精選GRE&GMAT會考的主題，堅持每天精讀一定會進步的哦!!
 MP3音檔 (按右鍵可下載聽)：喜歡的同學，幫忙推或按讚哦~~
http://xia2.kekenet.com/Sound/2015/…/ecow0115_3812978EGG.mp3

 只有音檔怎夠，聽不懂地方，不用怕，康康幫你準備好中英文稿了：

 中英文稿：
Air pollution-- The big smoke
空氣污染--霧都

Britain needs to do more to clean up its dirty air
英國需要採取更多措施來淨化污濁的空氣

VISITING Oxford Street, a road teeming with tatty shops and overcrowded with people, is plainly a trial. Less plainly, levels of nitrogen dioxide (NO2), a noxious gas, have been found to be around three times higher there than the legal limit. In 2013 the annual mean concentration of NO2 on the street was one of the highest levels found anywhere in Europe.
來到牛津街，你會看到街道兩邊佈滿了各式雜亂的商店，而道路上人滿為患。行走在這條街上，很明顯是個磨練。不為人覺察的是，這裡有毒氣體二氧化氮(NO2)測出含量超出法定水準的約三倍以上。２０１３年，這條街的NO2年均濃度是歐洲最高之一。

British air is far cleaner than it was a few decades ago. Fewer people use coal-burning stoves; old industrial plants have been decommissioned. But since 2009 levels of nitrogen oxides and particulate matter, coarse or fine particles that are linked to lung cancer and asthma, have fallen more slowly. The exact number of deaths caused by dirty air is unknown. But in 2010 a government advisory group estimated that removing man-made fine particulate matter from the atmosphere would increase life expectancy for those born in 2008 by an average of six months.
英國的空氣比幾十年前乾淨多了。使用燃煤爐灶的人越來越少；老工業廠已經停產。但自2009年起，氧化氮、微粒物質、以及與肺癌和哮喘相關的粗、細顆粒含 量的下降速度減慢了。因污濁空氣所引發的死亡人數是未知的。但2010年，一個政府顧問組估算如果將大氣中人為造成的微粒物質除去的話，2008年的出生 人口人均壽命將增加六個月。

Much of the slowdown is the result of fumes from diesel cars, which were championed by successive governments because they use less fuel and thus produce less carbon dioxide than petrol cars. In 2001 only 14% of all cars ran on diesel; by 2013 the proportion had increased to 35%. (Greener “hybrid” and electric cars have increased ninefold since 2006, but account for just 0.5% of the entire fleet.) Second-hand cars are particularly noxious, but even newer ones have not been as clean as hoped. Many cars that belched out few pollutants in tests produced more when on the roads.
下降速度放緩的大部分原因在於柴油汽車排放的尾氣—這為歷任政府所支持，因為柴油汽車耗用更少的能源，比汽油汽車排放更少的二氧化碳。2001年，僅 14%的汽車使用柴油。2013年，這個比例上漲到了35%。（更綠色的“混合動力”和電瓶車自2006年以來增加了九倍，但僅占汽車總量的0.5%。） 二手汽車尤其有害，但新車也沒所期望的那樣清潔。很多車在污染物排放測試中排放量低，車在上路時卻排放了更多。

Government dithering has not helped. Part of the problem is that several departments are responsible for air pollution. This means nobody has taken a lead on it, complains Joan Walley, a Labour MP who chairs an environmental committee that has released a series of damning reports. And few politicians are keen to bash drivers. Talking to Britons about car ownership is “like talking to an American about hand guns”, quips one air-pollution scientist.
政府的猶豫不決並沒有起到作用。部分問題在於有好幾個部門都對空氣污染負有責任。這意味著沒有人願意出頭，瓊•沃利抱怨道，她是一名工党議員，也是一個已 發佈一系列譴責報告的環境委員會的主席。很少有政客願意解雇司機。一名空氣污染科學界嘲諷說，跟英國人談論汽車所有權就像“跟美國人談論手槍一樣。”

Some improvements have been made. In 2008 a “low-emission zone” was created in London, which targets large vans and coaches. A smaller “ultra low-emission zone” has been proposed for 2020, which would charge all vehicles that are not of a certain standard 12.50 (18.80) a day. European Commission fines for breaching limits may encourage cities to do more. But other countries are more ambitious: 60 such zones exist in Germany, targeting private cars as well as vans. In December Anne Hidalgo, the mayor of Paris, announced that she wanted to ban diesel cars by 2020. Cities in Denmark and the Netherlands do more to boost cycling.
成效還是有的。2008年，倫敦設置了一個“低排放區域”，針對的是大卡車和長途公車。已有提案建議在2020年建立一個更小的“超低排放區”，對沒達到 一定標準的所有車輛一天收費12.5英鎊（18.8美元）。歐盟委員會對排煙限制的罰款措施可能促進城市採取進一步的行動。但是其他國家更加具備野心：德 國有60個類似的區域，既針對卡車也針對私人汽車。12月，巴黎市長安娜•伊達爾戈宣佈她希望在2020年前淘汰柴油汽車。丹麥城市和挪威更側重於鼓勵騎 自行車。

When a thick “pea souper” smog enveloped London in 1952, causing the deaths of around 4,000 people in one week, the government was compelled to push through legislation to clean the air. Perhaps the largest problem now is that, with rare exceptions such as a Saharan dust smog that covered the capital in April 2014, this new pollution is invisible. But policy-makers should not lose sight of it.
當1952年倫敦被濃濃的”淡黃色煙霧”籠罩時，在一周內造成了約4，000人死亡，政府不得不立法來淨化空氣。也許現在最大的問題是，除了像2014年4月籠罩首都的撒哈拉沙塵煙霧這樣的少數情況外，這種新污染是看不見的。但是政策制定者們不能看不見這一點。