2020年12月六级第1套仔细阅读 Passage 2 原文翻译及答案解析

Every five years, the government tries to tell Americans what to put in their bellies. Eat more vegetables. Dial back the fats. It's all based on the best available science for leading a healthy life. But the best available science also has a lot to say about what those food choices do to the environment, and some researchers are annoyed that new dietary recommendations of the USDA (United States Department of Agriculture) released yesterday seem to utterly ignore that fact.

每五年，政府都会试图告诉美国人该吃什么。多吃蔬菜。减少脂肪摄入。这一切都基于引领健康生活的最佳可用科学。但最佳可用科学也对这些食物选择对环境的影响有很多说法，一些研究人员对昨天发布的美国农业部（USDA）的新饮食建议似乎完全忽略这一事实感到恼火。

Broadly, the 2016-2020 dietary recommendations aim for balance: more vegetables, leaner meats and far less sugar.

总体而言，2016-2020年的饮食建议旨在实现平衡：更多的蔬菜、更瘦的肉类和少得多的糖。

But Americans consume more calories per capita than almost any other country in the world. So the things Americans eat have a huge impact on climate change. Soil tilling releases carbon dioxide, and delivery vehicles emit exhaust. The government's dietary guidelines could have done a lot to lower that climate cost. Not just because of their position of authority: The guidelines drive billions of dollars of food production through federal programs like school lunches and nutrition assistance for the needy.

但美国人均卡路里消耗量高于世界上几乎任何其他国家。因此，美国人吃的东西对气候变化有很大影响。土壤耕作释放二氧化碳，运输车辆排放废气。政府的饮食指南本可以大大降低这种气候成本。这不仅是因为它们的权威地位：这些指南通过学校午餐和对贫困人群的营养援助等联邦项目推动数十亿美元的食品生产。

On its own, plant and animal agriculture contributes 9 percent of all the country's greenhouse gas emissions. That's not counting the fuel burned in transportation, processing, refrigeration, and other waypoints between farm and belly. Red meats are among the biggest and most notorious emitters, but trucking a salad from California to Minnesota in January also carries a significant burden. And greenhouse gas emissions aren't the whole story. Food production is the largest user of fresh water, largest contributor to the loss of biodiversity, and a major contributor to using up natural resources.

仅植物和动物农业就贡献了全国温室气体排放的9%。这还不包括在运输、加工、冷藏以及从农场到餐桌之间的其他环节中燃烧的燃料。红肉是最大和最臭名昭著的排放者之一，但在一月份用卡车将沙拉从加利福尼亚州运到明尼苏达州也带来显著负担。温室气体排放还不是全部。食品生产是淡水的最大用户，是生物多样性丧失的最大贡献者，也是耗尽自然资源的主要贡献者。

All of these points and more showed up in the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee's scientific report, released last February. Miriam Nelson chaired the subcommittee in charge of sustainability for the report, and is disappointed that eating less meat and buying local food aren't in the final product. "Especially, if you consider that eating less meat, especially red and processed, has health benefits," she says.

所有这些观点以及更多内容都出现在去年二月发布的《饮食指南咨询委员会》的科学报告中。米里亚姆·尼尔森主持了该报告中负责可持续性的小组委员会，并对最终产品中没有包括少吃肉类和购买本地食品感到失望。“尤其是，如果你考虑到少吃肉类，特别是红肉和加工肉类，对健康有益，”她说。

So what happened? The official response is that sustainability falls too far outside the guidelines' official scope, which is to provide "nutritional and dietary information."

那么发生了什么？官方回应是，可持续性过于偏离指南的官方范围，即提供“营养和饮食信息”。

Possibly the agencies in charge of drafting the decisions are too close to the industries they are supposed to regulate. On one hand, the USDA is compiling dietary advice. On the other, their clients are US agriculture companies.

可能负责起草决策的机构过于接近它们本应监管的行业。一方面，美国农业部在编写饮食建议；另一方面，它们的客户是美国农业公司。

The line about keeping the guidelines' scope to nutrition and diet doesn't ring quite right with researchers. David Wallinga, for example, says, "In previous guidelines, they've always been concerned with things like food security—which is presumably the mission of the USDA. You absolutely need to be worried about climate impacts and future sustainability if you want secure food in the future."

关于将指南范围限制在营养和饮食上的说法，研究人员并不完全认同。例如，大卫·瓦林加说：“在之前的指南中，他们一直关注诸如粮食安全等问题——这大概是美国农业部的使命。如果你想要未来的粮食安全，你绝对需要担心气候影响和未来的可持续性。”