2025年06月六级第3套长篇阅读匹配原文翻译及答案

A) As the scale and impacts of climate change become increasingly alarming, meat is a popular target for action. Advocates for the protection of the natural environment from destruction or pollution urge the public to eat less meat. Some activists have even called for taxing meat to reduce consumption of it.

随着气候变化的规模和影响日益令人担忧，肉类成为行动的热门目标。主张保护自然环境免受破坏或污染的倡导者敦促公众少吃肉。一些活动人士甚至呼吁对肉类征税以减少其消费。

B) A key claim underlying these arguments holds that globally, meat production generates more greenhouse gases than the entire transportation sector. However, this claim is demonstrably wrong, as I will show. And its persistence has led to false assumptions about the linkage between meat and climate change.

这些论点背后的一个核心主张是，全球范围内，肉类生产产生的温室气体比整个交通运输部门还多。然而，这一主张明显是错误的，正如我将展示的那样。它的持续存在导致了对肉类与气候变化之间联系的错误假设。

C) My recent research focuses on ways in which animal agriculture affects air quality and climate change. In my view, there are many reasons for either choosing animal protein or opting for a vegetarian selection. However, abandoning meat and meat products is not the environmental panacea (万灵药) many would have us believe. And if taken to an extreme, it also could have harmful nutritional consequences.

我最近的研究关注动物农业影响空气质量和气候变化的方式。在我看来，选择动物蛋白或选择素食有很多理由。然而，放弃肉类和肉制品并非许多人让我们相信的环保万灵药。如果走向极端，它还可能带来有害的营养后果。

D) A healthy portion of meat's negative reputation centers on the assertion that livestock is the largest source of greenhouse gases worldwide. For example, an analysis published in 2009 by the World Watch Institute based in Washington, D.C. asserted that 51 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions come from rearing and processing livestock. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the largest sources of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions in 2016 were electricity production (28 percent of total emissions), transportation (28 percent) and industry (22 percent). All of agriculture accounted for a total of 9 percent, but all of animal agriculture contributes less than half of this amount, representing 3.9 percent of the total greenhouse emission in the U.S. That is very different from claiming that livestock represents as much as or more than transportation.

肉类负面声誉的相当部分源于一个断言，即畜牧业是全球最大的温室气体来源。例如，2009年由位于华盛顿的世界观察研究所发布的一项分析声称，全球51%的温室气体排放来自饲养和加工牲畜。根据美国环境保护署的数据，2016年美国温室气体排放的最大来源是电力生产（占总排放的28%）、交通运输（28%）和工业（22%）。所有农业总共占9%，但整个动物农业的贡献不到这个数字的一半，占美国总温室气体排放的3.9%。这与声称畜牧业等于或超过交通运输的说法大相径庭。

E) Why is there such a misconception? In 2006 the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) published a study titled "Livestock's Long Shadow", which received widespread international attention. It stated that livestock produced a staggering 18 percent of the world's greenhouse gas emissions. The agency drew a startling conclusion that livestock was doing more to harm the climate than all modes of transportation combined. This latter claim was wrong, and has since been corrected by Henning Steinfeld, the report's senior author.

为什么会有这样的误解？2006年，联合国粮农组织（FAO）发布了一份题为《牲畜的巨大阴影》的研究报告，引起了国际社会的广泛关注。报告指出，牲畜产生了惊人的18%的世界温室气体排放。该机构得出了一个令人震惊的结论：畜牧业对气候的损害比所有交通运输方式加起来还大。后一个说法是错误的，并且已经被该报告的资深作者亨宁·斯坦菲尔德更正。

F) The problem was that analysts from the FAO used a comprehensive life-cycle assessment to study the climate impact of livestock, but a different method when they analyzed transportation. For livestock, they considered every factor associated with producing meat. This included emissions from fertilizer production, converting land from forests to pastures, growing feed, and direct emissions from animals (manure as well as expelling of gas from the stomach) from birth to death.

问题在于，FAO的分析师使用了全面的生命周期评估来研究畜牧业的气候影响，但在分析交通运输时却使用了不同的方法。对于畜牧业，他们考虑了与生产肉类相关的每一个因素。这包括肥料生产、将土地从森林转化为牧场、种植饲料以及从出生到死亡的动物直接排放（粪便和胃部气体排放）。

G) However, when they looked at transportation's carbon footprint, they ignored impacts on the climate from manufacturing vehicle materials and parts, assembling vehicles and maintaining roads, bridges and airports. Instead, they only considered the exhaust smoke emitted by finished cars, trucks, trains and planes. As a result, the FAO's comparison of greenhouse gas emissions from livestock to those from transportation was greatly distorted.

然而，当他们考察交通运输的碳足迹时，他们忽略了制造车辆材料和部件、组装车辆以及维护道路、桥梁和机场对气候的影响。相反，他们只考虑了成品汽车、卡车、火车和飞机排放的尾气。结果，FAO对畜牧业与交通运输温室气体排放的比较被严重扭曲。

H) I pointed out this flaw during a speech to fellow scientists in San Francisco on March 22, 2010, which led to a flood of media coverage. To its credit, the FAO immediately owned up to its error. Unfortunately, the agency's initial claim that livestock was responsible for the lion's share of world greenhouse gas emissions had already received wide coverage. To this day, we struggle to "unring" the bell. In its most recent assessment report, the FAO estimated that livestock produces 14.5 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions from human activities. There is no comparable full life-cycle assessment for transportation. However, as Steinfeld has pointed out, direct emissions from transportation versus livestock can be compared and amount to 14 versus 5 percent, respectively.

我在2010年3月22日于旧金山向同行科学家发表演讲时指出了这一缺陷，引发了媒体广泛报道。值得赞扬的是，FAO立即承认了错误。不幸的是，该机构最初声称畜牧业占全球温室气体排放的大部分的报道已经广泛传播。直到今天，我们仍在努力“收回”这个说法。在最新的评估报告中，FAO估计畜牧业产生人类活动全球温室气体排放的14.5%。没有类似的全面生命周期评估用于交通运输。然而，正如斯坦菲尔德所指出的，交通运输与畜牧业的直接排放可以进行比较，分别为14%和5%。

I) Many people continue to think that avoiding meat as infrequently as once a week will make a significant difference to the climate. But according to one recent study, even if Americans eliminated all animal protein from their diets, they would reduce greenhouse gas emissions by only 2.6 percent. According to our research at the University of California, Davis, if the practice of Meatless Monday were to be adopted by all Americans, we'd see a reduction of only 0.5 percent.

许多人仍然认为，每周避免吃肉一次就能对气候产生重大影响。但根据最近的一项研究，即使美国人从饮食中完全消除动物蛋白，也只能减少2.6%的温室气体排放。根据我们在加州大学戴维斯分校的研究，如果所有美国人采用无肉星期一的做法，我们只能看到0.5%的减少。

J) Moreover, technological, genetic and management changes that have taken place in U.S. agriculture over the past 70 years have made livestock production more efficient and less greenhouse gas-intensive. According to the FAO's statistical database, total direct greenhouse gas emissions from U.S. livestock have declined by 11.3 percent since 1961, while production of livestock meat has more than doubled.

此外，过去70年美国农业中发生的技术、遗传和管理变革使畜牧业生产更加高效，温室气体排放强度降低。根据FAO的统计数据库，自1961年以来，美国畜牧业的直接温室气体总排放下降了11.3%，而畜肉产量增加了一倍以上。

K) Demand for meat is rising in developing and emerging economies, especially in the Middle East, North Africa and Southeast Asia. For example, raising livestock such as goats in Kenya is an important source of food and income for many small-scale farmers and herders. But meat consumption per person in these regions still lags that of developed countries. In 2015, average annual meat consumption per person in developed countries was 92 kilograms, compared to 24 kilograms in the Middle East and North Africa and 18 kilograms in Southeast Asia. Still, given projected population growth in the developing world, there will certainly be an opportunity for countries such as the United States to bring their sustainable livestock rearing practices to the table.

发展中国家和新兴经济体的肉类需求正在上升，尤其是在中东、北非和东南亚。例如，在肯尼亚饲养山羊等牲畜是许多小农户和牧民的重要食物和收入来源。但这些地区的人均肉类消费仍落后于发达国家。2015年，发达国家人均年肉类消费为92公斤，而中东和北非为24公斤，东南亚为18公斤。尽管如此，考虑到发展中国家预计的人口增长，美国等国家无疑将有机会将其可持续的畜牧业实践引入讨论。

L) Removing animals from U.S. agriculture would lower national greenhouse gas emissions to a small degree, but it would also make it harder to meet people's nutritional requirements. Many critics of animal agriculture are quick to point out that if farmers raised only plants, they could produce more pounds of food and more calories per person. But humans also need many essential micro- and macro-nutrients for good health. It's hard to make a compelling argument that the United States has a calorie deficit, given its high national rates of adult and child obesity. Moreover, not all plant parts are edible or desirable. Raising livestock is a way to add nutritional and economic value to plant agriculture.

将动物从美国农业中移除会在一定程度上降低国家温室气体排放，但也会使满足人们的营养需求变得更加困难。许多动物农业的批评者很快指出，如果农民只种植植物，他们可以生产更多磅的食物和更多的人均卡路里。但人类也需要许多必需的微量和宏观营养素以保持健康。鉴于美国成人和儿童肥胖率较高，很难令人信服地论证美国存在卡路里不足。此外，并非所有植物部分都是可食用或可取的。饲养牲畜是为植物农业增加营养和经济价值的一种方式。

M) As one example, the energy in plants that livestock consume is most often contained in cellulose (纤维素), which is indigestible for humans and many other mammals. But cows, sheep and other ruminant (反刍的) animals can break cellulose down and release the solar energy contained in this vast resource. According to the FAO, as much as 70 percent of all agricultural land globally is range land that can only be utilized as grazing land for ruminant livestock.

例如，牲畜消耗的植物中的能量通常存在于纤维素中，这对人类和许多其他哺乳动物来说是难以消化的。但牛、羊和其他反刍动物可以分解纤维素，并释放这一巨大资源中蕴含的太阳能。根据FAO的数据，全球高达70%的农业用地是只能用作反刍牲畜牧场的牧场。

N) The world population is currently projected to reach 9.8 billion by 2050. Feeding this many people will raise immense challenges. Meat is more calorie-dense per serving than vegetarian options, and ruminant animals largely thrive on feed that is not suitable for humans. Raising livestock also offers much-needed income for small-scale farmers in developing nations. Worldwide, livestock provides a livelihood for 1 billion people.

目前预计世界人口到2050年将达到98亿。养活这么多人将带来巨大挑战。每份肉类比素食选择热量更密集，而且反刍动物主要靠不适合人类的饲料茁壮成长。饲养牲畜还为发展中国家的小农户提供了急需的收入。全球范围内，牲畜为10亿人提供了生计。

O) Climate change demands urgent attention, and the livestock industry has a large overall environmental footprint that affects air, water and land. These, combined with a rapidly rising world population, give us plenty of compelling reasons to continue to work for greater efficiencies in animal agriculture. I believe the place to start is with science-based facts.

气候变化需要紧急关注，畜牧业具有巨大的整体环境足迹，影响空气、水和土地。这些因素，加上快速增长的世界人口，为我们提供了许多令人信服的理由，继续努力提高动物农业的效率。我认为应该从基于科学的事实开始。