中国生态文明建设（中英对照）连载之九
生态环境退化导致发展受阻
本书由北京语言大学出版社出版，2014（教学课件光盘版） 作者 蒋高明
2.1.4生态环境问题导致发展受阻
2.1.4 Environmental problems hinder development
很多人说，中国当前的紧要问题是发展问题；环境污染，生态破坏，是发展不可避免的代价，发达国家也曾走过这条道路。但是，当前中国面临的生态环境问题，已经严重阻碍了中国的发展，甚至社会的稳定。主要表现在以下几个方面：
Many people claim that, China’s critical issue at present is development; environmental pollution and ecological destruction are the inevitable price of development; and some developed countries have had similar experiences. However, ecological and environmental problems have seriously hampered China’s development and even social stability, mainly in the following ways.
（1）直接导致健康问题
（1）Immediate harm to people’s health
归根结底，发展要靠人的努力。然而，当前发展模式下，城乡严重的环境污染，已经导致人群健康状况严重下降。除了通过水、空气直接进入人体的污染物外，在受污染的环境下生产的食物，不但残留有污染物，还使本来健康的食物，增加了很多危害健康的成分。这些污染物和不健康成分，通过食物链的生物放大作用[1]，会在人体内高浓度集中，导致人群健康受损，严重者甚至直接引起死亡。当前，中国每6分钟就有一人被确诊为癌症，每天有8550人成为癌症患者，每7～8人中就有1人死于癌症[2]。中国每年新增先天残疾儿童80～120万人，其中山西新生儿出生缺陷发生率最高，神经管畸形发生率是全国平均水平的4倍[3]，这与山西这个能源大省的严重环境污染不无关系[4]。
Development, ultimately, depends on human efforts. However, under the impact of the current model of development, serious environmental pollution in urban and rural areas has led to a serious decline of people’s health. In addition to the pollutants ingested by the body through water and the air, foods produced in the contaminated environment contain not only residuals of pollutants but also components with great potential hazards to health. These pollutants and harmful components achieve high concentrations in the body through a process known as biomagnification of the food chain, causing damage to human health, and even directly leading to death. Currently, in China, one person is diagnosed as a cancer patient every 6 minutes, 8,550 persons become victims of cancer daily, and 1 out of every 7–8 persons die of cancer. The annual number of congenitally disabled children has increased from 800,000 to 1.2 million. Shanxi province has the highest rate of birth defects and its rate of neural tube defects is 4 times the national average. This phenomenon is related to the serious environmental pollution of Shanxi as a large energy producer.
生态环境问题最终破坏了人类的健康，甚至人类的下一代，这种后果恐怕是任何人都不愿意看到的。
Ecological and environmental problems will ultimately impair people’s health, and even the health of the next generation of humans. Such consequences are dreadful indeed!
（2）城市代谢受阻
（2）Hampered urban metabolism
过度重视大城市甚至超大城市的发展，造成城市饱和，交通拥堵，工商业等人类活动过于集中，导致城市污染严重；过度重视工商业高速发展，引导了奢侈消费；过度包装，造成大量垃圾将城市包围；固体废弃物污染严重，城市代谢受阻。目前，严重的空气污染、城市雾霾，在中国的城市大面积发生，严重威胁着城市居民的正常生产生活。城市这个“发展”的中心，由于生态环境污染和“垃圾围城”，丧失了活力，显得疲惫不堪。
In China, excessive emphasis has been put on the development of large cities and even mega-cities, causing urban saturation, traffic congestion, excessive human industrial and commercial and other human activities, as well as serious city pollution. Overstress on the rapid development of industry and commerce, in turn, has brought about luxury consumption. Excessive packaging has made cities surrounded by rubbish dumps, and severe pollution of solid waste has hampered urban metabolism. Currently, serious air pollution and hazy weather occur in many cities, threatening normal production activities and lives of urban residents. The city, as the center of development, has lost its vitality and become lifeless, because environmental pollution and the emergence of the “garbage heaps” can not be avoided.
（3）安全食物供应成为难题
（3）Tough job to make food supply safe
城市过度繁荣，导致农村过度衰败。由于城市集中了太多的资源，大量农民进城打工，“空心村”大量出现，全国几十万个自然村消失，农业生产靠老人、妇女支撑，食物供应危机四伏。由于农村劳动力严重不足，老人、妇女只好依靠大量使用化肥、农药、农膜、添加剂、除草剂甚至充满风险的转基因技术等所谓“科技力量”来完成农业生产。这种农业产出的食物，不但持续的高产量难以保证，安全性更是不能保障。食物安全供应问题，屡次引发社会风波，成为中国社会安定和可持续发展的“头疼大事”。近年来，儿童性早熟、肥胖症、糖尿病、高血压、不孕不育患者不断增多，与长期不健康饮食关系密切。这种发展模式污染了耕地，牺牲了健康，是不可持续的。
The over-exuberance of cities quickens the decline of the countryside. High concentration of resources in cities has driven a large number of farmers to work in urban areas. As a result，“hollow villages” have emerged in large numbers. Numerous villages have simply disappeared, and the elderly folks and women have been left to take up the agricultural production, thus putting the food supply chain in jeopardy. Due to the serious shortage of labor, the elderly people and women have to rely heavily on the so called “strength of science and technology”, such as chemical fertilizers, pesticides, agricultural film, additives, herbicides and even high-risk genetic modification technique, etc., for agricultural production. In these circumstances, not only the continued high output but also the safety of food cannot be guaranteed. Food security has triggered social turmoil repeatedly, and become a big hazard for China’s social stability and sustainable development. In recent years, the sexual precocity of children, obesity, diabetes, hypertension, and infertility have become issues of grave concern. All these abnormal physical conditions are undoubtedly associated with long-term unhealthy diets. This development mode that pollutes farmland and threatens human health cannot be sustainable.
[1] 生物放大作用（Biomagnification），指生物体从周围环境中吸收的某些元素或不易分解的化合物，通过食物链向上传递，随物种的营养级的升高，物质在生物体内的浓度升高并远远超过环境中的浓度。又叫生物富集作用，生物浓缩。
19 Biomagnification often refers to the process whereby certain substances such as elements or persistent compound move up the food chain. The substances become more concentrated in doing so until their concentration is higher in living organisms than in the environment of substances in vivo. It is also known as bioaccumulation or bioconcentration.
[2] 见李颖、杨洋、贺涵甫. 2013. 2012中国肿瘤登记年报：广东多肝癌，西北多胃癌. 广州日报, 1月11日。
20 See Li Ying, Yang Yang, He Hanfu. 2013. Chinese Cancer Registry Annual Report 2012: Liver Cancer Concentrated in Guangdong, and Stomach Cancer Concentrated in Northwest China. Guangzhou Daily, Jan, 11.
[3]山西省出生缺陷率和神经管畸形发生率分别高达万分之189.9和万分之102.2，远远高于出全国万分之99.6和万分之23.9的平均水平。
21 The occurrence rates of birth defects and neural tube defects in Shanxi Province are as high as 1.899% and 1.022% respectively, which are much higher than the national average of 0.996% and 0.239%.
[4] 见周人杰、王亚丹、徐胜. 2009. 山西吕梁晋中等疑环境污染，致新生儿缺陷率高发. 中央电视台（经济半小时）.7月12日播出。
[4] See Zhou Renjie, Wang Yadan, Xu Sheng. 2009. Birth defect rate is high in Lvliang and Jinzhong of Shanxi Province, environmental pollution is suspected cause. CCTV (Half-Hour Economy). July 12.
