今日主題：Ranchers v bison-huggers 農場主對戰北美野牛極端保護者
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/…/ecob0112_5420256myJ.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：
Lexington-- Ranchers v bison-huggers
萊辛頓--農場主對戰北美野牛極端保護者
What the ceaseless rows over Yellowstone National Park reveal about America
有關黃石國家公園無休止的爭論，為我們揭示出美國的哪些？
THE most original political book of early 2015 is not formally about politics at all. Instead “The Battle for Yellowstone” by Justin Farrell, a young scholar at Yale University, ponders venomous rows that have shaken Yellowstone National Park in recent decades, and why they are so intractable. The rows turn on such questions as wolf re-introduction, bison roaming-rights and snowmobile access to that lovely corner of the Rocky Mountains.
2015年初第一本政治性書籍形式上並不和政治相關，而是一本“為黃石公園而戰”的書，作者是耶魯大學的一名年輕的學者賈斯丁•法雷爾，他在該文中對最近 幾十年撼動了黃石國家公園的惡毒爭吵進行了思考，以及它們為何如此棘手的原因。這些爭吵引發了許多問題，如狼群的再引進，野牛的漫步權力，以及雪地摩托車 對洛磯山脈中這個景色優美的角落的接近。
It is nearly half a century since biologists first asked Congress to re-introduce wolves into Yellowstone, so that they might usefully eat some of the elk then lumbering about in over-large herds. Getting to the point of releasing wolves in the mid-1990s involved executive actions and directives from six presidents, debates in dozens of congressional committees, 120 public hearings, more than 160,000 public submissions to federal wildlife bosses and at least $12m-worth of scientific research. Pro- and anti-wolf types drew up competing technical reports about the value of wolves as “apex predators”, economic costs to cattle ranchers, tourism benefits and elk ecology. This techno-rationalist arms race bought no peace: the wolf-wars blaze as fiercely as ever.
近半個世紀以前，生物學家首次要求國會再次為黃石公園引進狼群，讓它們吃掉馬鹿，以有效減少這個過於龐大的群體。在20世紀90年代中期，釋放狼群這個決 定牽扯了行政措施以及六名總統的指令，國會委員會進行了多次爭辯，召開了120場公眾聽證會，野生生物管理局官員們收到了超過160,000篇公眾意見 書，政府投入了至少一億兩千萬去進行科學研究。支持引入狼群和反對者們競相起草各種科技報告，如關於狼群作為“頂端捕食者”的價值，養牛場場主的經濟成 本，旅遊收益以及馬鹿生態。這種技術武裝的理論者競爭鬧得沒有寧日：狼群之爭一如既往地激烈。
Yellowstone's wild bison trigger ferocious rows, too, each time they amble outside the national park. Let them roam, cry fans of these last genetically pure survivors of the vast herds that once filled the West. Stop them, bellow ranchers who fear the bison will infect their cattle with brucellosis, a nasty disease. Tottering stacks of brucellosis research have not resolved the dispute. Since 1997 more than 5,000 volunteers—many of them young, affluent outsiders, some adopting such “forest names” as Chipmunk, Grumble or Frog—have catalogued countless allegations of bison-bullying outside park boundaries, but changed few minds about the rights and wrongs of it.
每當黃石公園的野牛在國家公園週邊漫步時，它們都會引發激烈的爭辯。這個龐大的群體一度遍佈西方世界，而如今只剩下了這些最後的純種倖存者，讓它們盡情漫 步吧！野牛群體的粉絲們大聲呼喊。阻止它們！農場主們怒吼，因為他們害怕野牛們會向家牛傳染討厭的布魯菌病。而那些大堆關於布魯菌病的研究也未解決這場爭 辯。自1997年起就有超過五千名志願者—大多數都是年輕人和富裕的外來者，也有一些採用了 “森林之名”，如花栗鼠、咕噥或者青蛙，他們將無數關於北美野牛在公園邊界週邊橫行霸道的指控進行了編目，但只改變了一小批人的是非觀念。
As for snowmobilers and their right to roar along Yellowstone trails when winter descends, millions of dollars have been spent on lawsuits in Wyoming and Washington, DC since the late 1990s, backed by studies of engine-noise, exhaust-pollution and wildlife behaviour. Some wrangling continues.
關於冬天來臨時駕雪車者以及他們在黃石山徑呼嘯而過的事情，自20世紀90年代後期，懷俄明州和華盛頓已經有數百萬美元的法律訴訟了，這些訴訟由發動機噪音研究、廢氣污染研究以及野生生物行為研究支持。有些爭辯如今仍在繼續。
All this puzzled Mr Farrell, a sociologist at Yale's school of forestry and environmental studies, whose book is due out this summer, under the full title “The Battle for Yellowstone: Morality and the Sacred Roots of Environmental Conflict”. He spent two years asking folk in and around Yellowstone why they are so cross. Beneath debates about science and economics he found arguments about morality and the proper relations between humans and nature—though those involved often do not, or will not acknowledge this. In short, all sides purport to be weighing what is true and false, while really arguing about right and wrong.
所有這些都使法雷爾先生很困惑，他是一名來自耶魯大學林學與環境研究院的社會學家，他的著作將於今年夏天出爐，全稱是“為黃石公園而戰：道德與環境衝突的 神聖根源”。他花了兩年時間詢問黃石公園之中以及周邊的居民他們如此生氣的原因。在關於科學和經濟的爭辯之下他發現了關於道德和人類與自然之間合適關係的 論證—儘管那些參與爭論的人經常意識不到，或者不承認這點。總之，各方都聲稱在他們爭辯對錯時確實仔細考慮了是非對錯。
Pro-wolf biologists and officials call themselves dispassionate custodians of a unique place. But they give themselves away with quasi-spiritual talk of wolves restoring “wholeness” to a landscape damaged by man. Indeed, when the first Yellowstone wolves were released in 1995, the then-interior secretary, Bruce Babbit, called it “a day of redemption”. While living with pro-bison activists, a startled Mr Farrell heard them telling various furry specimens “We love you,” or “We are here to protect you, you big sacred boy,” and spouting bowdlerised Native-American teachings about the animals' ancient souls (while simultaneously insisting, in many cases, that they distrusted religion and its works).
贊成引進狼群的生物學家和官員們自稱為獨特地方的冷靜管理員。但他們類似精神的談話暴露了自己的狐狸尾巴，稱狼群可以將被人類破壞的風景“完全”恢復。確 實，當黃石公園在1995年第一次放出狼群時，當時的內政部長布魯斯•巴比特把這天叫做“救贖日”。而在與贊成保護野牛的活動家們一起居住時，法雷爾先生 聽到了一些令他震驚的話：他們對著各種毛絨絨的標本說“我們愛你們”，或“神聖的孩子們，我們來保護你們了”，並唾棄有所刪節的美國本土關於動物古老靈魂 的學說（同時在許多情況下，他們也堅持不信任宗教和其作品）。
As for anti-wolf types, when offered financial compensation for wolf-attacks on their livestock, some turn it down—suggesting that more than economics is at stake. Dig a bit, and a culture war is raging between the “old West” of rugged ranchers and hunters, who once earned respect and status by taming nature, but who now find themselves called environmental menaces by “new West” incomers with big-city ideas about animal rights and natural ecosystems. Behind that local clash—pitting folk with gun racks on their trucks against those with bike racks, as Mr Farrell puts it—there lurks a still larger suspicion of the federal government. Many “old West” types see a plot to drive ranchers from the land. They talk of “federal wolves” undermining their property rights, and challenging the God-ordained duty of humans to protect their own families, and exercise dominion over Creation.
對於反對引入狼群的人來說，當向他們提供狼群襲擊家畜的財政補貼時，有些人拒絕了，並建議說處於險境的並不只是他們的經濟。更深入一點，在“老西部”的堅 毅農場主與獵人中正在發生著一場激烈的文化戰爭，他們曾經因為馴化制服自然而獲得尊敬與地位，但如今卻發現自己被持有動物權利與自然生態等大都市思想的 “新西部”移民們叫做環境威脅。在當地的衝突中，武裝居民把槍架在卡車上，與另一隊把槍架在自行車上的居民對峙，正如法雷爾提出的那樣，那裡隱藏著對聯邦 政府更大的猜疑。許多“老西部”居民都能看出一場要把農場主趕出這片土地的陰謀。他們說“聯邦狼”暗中破壞了他們的財產權，挑戰了上帝規定的人類要保護自 己家庭的責任，而且濫用了上帝的造物權。
Crying wolf
嚎叫的狼
Yellowstone's hidden moral disputes offer wider lessons to America, a country that is increasingly divided and unusually keen on tackling complex ethical questions in judicial and quasi-judicial settings. Lots of other countries debate such issues as the death penalty, abortion, gun control or global warming in parliament, allowing partisans to admit when they are advancing emotional or religious arguments. From its earliest days American law courts and congressional hearings have rung to the noise of impassioned partisans, hurling facts (and, all too often, confected para-facts) at one another in a bid to prove the other side wrong.
黃石公園中隱藏的道德之爭為美國提供了更廣泛的教訓，這個國家分歧日漸增多，經常熱衷於處理司法與准司法背景的複雜道德問題。許多其他國家都在國會上爭辯 如死刑、墮胎、槍支管理或全球變暖之類的問題，當黨派人員推動情感或宗教爭辯時，就允許他們加入。早期美國法院與國會聽證會會收到充滿激情的黨派人員們的 爭論電話，互相用事實（並且常常是特意尋出的側面事實）攻擊對方以證明另一方是錯誤的。
Mr Farrell is not the only scholar testing the thesis that this approach has its limits. Earlier this winter the Faith Angle Forum—a twice-yearly conference bringing together theologians, scientists and political journalists—heard from academics working to bridge divides between science and Americans of deep religious faith. Many partisans subscribe to the post-Enlightenment idea that giving people lots of facts ought to be enough to convince them, noted Jeff Hardin of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, a zoologist and devout Christian. But “most of us hold our beliefs in a tangled ball of yarn”, especially in a religious, polarised place such as America. Tug at one thread, and people fear that their very identity is under attack.
法雷爾並不是測試這種方法具有限制性這個論題的唯一學者。今年冬天早期信仰天使座談會—一個兩年一次的會議，聚集了大量神學家、科學家和政治新聞記者—聽 說學術界正在致力於溝通科學與美國居民根深蒂固的宗教信仰之間的分歧。威斯康辛大學的動物學家以及虔誠的基督徒傑夫•哈丁表明，許多黨派人員們都認同了後 啟蒙思想，認為後啟蒙思想為人們帶來的大量事實足以使人們信服。但“大部分人的信仰都是一團亂麻”，特別是在美國這樣宗教化、極端化的地區。這是懸在人們 頭上的一柄達摩克利斯之劍，人們都擔憂自己的身份會遭受攻擊。
This is not a call to abandon rationality or to scorn facts. It is a call for more empathy in American political debate, and more honesty about the tangled agendas that lurk in every breast. That would not end every conflict: just look at Yellowstone and its unending rows. But even agreeing to disagree would be a start.
這並不是號召放棄理性或嘲笑事實。這是號召美國政治辯論對於潛藏在每個人心中的混亂議題應該更同情，更誠實。這不會終結所有衝突：去看看黃石公園和它那無休止爭吵你就知道了。但即使是求同存異，也將會是個開始。
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