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In June of 1969, the Cuyahoga River, a feeder to Lake Erie and Cleveland, Ohio’s main waterway, burst into flames. The August 1969 issue of Time magazine featured an article on the fire, and it wasn’t kind: “Some river! Chocolate-brown, oily, bubbling with subsurface gases, it oozes rather than flows.” Cleveland, my hometown, a great American city with world class museums, music and major league sports, would soon be known as “the mistake on the lake.”
今天的中国开始面对30年的工业化造成的大气、水和土壤污染，和上世纪60年代末的美国有一些相似之处。与当时的美国人一样，中国人开始思考，“工业发展”是否让环境付出了太大的代价？中国民众的态度正在发生变化。 When the PEW Research Center asked Chinese people in a 2008 survey to rate the seriousness of air pollution on a scale ranging from “not a problem at all” to a “very big problem,” 31 percent rated it a “very big problem.” In 2013, in a repeat of the PEW survey, 47 percent called it a “very big problem.” While these numbers tell us only so much, the trend is clear: environmental anxiety is spreading. 在2008年的一项调查中，皮尤研究中心(Pew Research Center)让中国人评判大气污染的严重程度，最低是“根本不是问题”，最高为“非常严重的问题”。31%的受访者认为这是一个“非常严重的问题”。到了2013年，在皮尤研究中心进行同样的调查时，47%的受访者认为这是一个“非常严重的问题”。尽管这些数字本身透露的信息有限，但趋势却很明显：对环境的担忧正在扩散。 This growing anxiety is reflected in the rising frequency of environmental protests. In the past year, people have taken to the streets in cities throughout the country to protest the building of coal-fired power plants, chemical plants, oil refineries, waste incinerators, and the like. According to Chen Jiping, a former leading member of the Communist Party’s political and legislative affairs committee, pollution is now the leading cause of social unrest in China. 这种日渐加剧的担忧，体现在环保抗议活动出现的频率越来越高。过去一年里，全国多座城市的民众走上街头，抗议修建火电厂、化工厂、炼油厂、垃圾焚烧厂等设施。中共中央政法委员会的前领导人陈冀平表示，污染问题已经成为中国最大的社会不稳定因素。 Why this budding environmental consciousness now? The answer is simple: 2013 was, by any accounting, one horrific year for the environment. 环境意识为何现在开始萌芽？答案很简单：不管从哪方面来看，2013年对中国环境来说都是可怕的一年。 The year started with the “airpocalypse.” In January 2013, Beijing was enveloped by a thick, soupy concoction so dirty, so polluted, that day in China’s capital turned to night. The quality of the air over Beijing was worse than a typical airport smoking lounge. The World Health Organization said it was 40 times higher than the level deemed safe to breathe. Since then, incidents of equally deadly air pollution have struck Shanghai, Tianjin, Hangzhou and other cities. 新年伊始，便出现了“空气末日”。2013年1月，北京被一团浓重的混合物笼罩着。这团东西颜色非常灰暗，污染程度严重，以致于中国首都的白天变成了黑夜。北京上空的大气质量比一般的机场吸烟室还差。世界卫生组织(World Health Organization)表示，空气中有害物质的水平达到了安全呼吸水平的40倍。自那时以来，严重程度相当的大气污染还席卷了上海、天津、杭州和其他一些城市。 In March, pig carcasses came bobbing up and down the Huangpu River, a major source of Shanghai’s drinking water. For two weeks, not just a few dead pigs or even a few hundred, but 16,000 pig carcasses floated past Shanghai. Farmers upstream were apparently disposing of dead and virus-stricken hogs by dumping them in local rivers. 3月，上海主要的饮用水源黄浦江上出现了漂浮的死猪。在两周时间里，漂经上海的死猪不是几只或几百只，而是1.6万头。在处置死亡或染上了病毒的猪时，黄浦江上游的养殖户似乎是把它们扔进当地的河里了事。 In 2013 the Beijing government acknowledged what environmentalists had long suspected: some villages in the countryside had become so-called cancer villages, communities where cancer cases “cluster” and far exceed the norm. These villages are usually just downstream from an industrial plant that discharges hazardous waste into rivers that villagers use to drink and to irrigate their crops. Chinese nongovernmental organizations and environmental experts put the current number of cancer villages at more than 450. 2013年，中央政府承认了环保人士长期以来的怀疑：农村地区的一些村子成了所谓的癌症村。在那里，涌现出“聚集性”癌症病例，发病率远远超出了一般水平。这些村落往往位于某座工厂的下游。工厂将有毒废弃物排放进河里，而村民却从河里取水饮用、灌溉庄稼。中国的非政府组织和环保专家认为，癌症村的数量目前超过了450个。 In May of 2013, officials in Guangzhou, one of China’s largest and most prosperous cities, informed the public that 44 percent of rice samples sold throughout the city contained dangerous levels of the metal cadmium. Cadmium in rice comes from the contaminated soil in which it is grown and is known to harm the liver, kidneys, lungs, and the respiratory tract — and lead to cancer. 2013年5月，中国人口最多、最繁荣的城市之一广州的官员告诉民众，全市销售的大米中，44%的样品金属镉含量达到了危险水平。大米中的镉来自被污染的种植土壤，已知会损害肝脏、肾脏、肺和呼吸道，并可导致癌症。 The bad news didn’t end there. People living in northern China were informed by a team of American, Chinese and Israeli researchers that they should expect to live much shorter lives — a full 5.5 years shorter — than their countrymen to the south. The reason: Heavier coal dependency in the north makes the air they breathe that much more toxic than the air in the south. Around the same time, several partner universities and institutions, including the World Health Organization, issued a report finding that 1.2 million Chinese died prematurely in 2010 alone owing to the country’s polluted air. 坏消息并未就此结束。中国的北方人被一群来自美国、中国和以色列的研究人员告知，他们的寿命预计会比南方人短整整五年半。原因是：北方对煤的依赖性更高，导致人们呼吸的空气中的有毒物质远多于南方。大约在同一时间，几家合作的大学以及包括世界卫生组织在内的机构发布了一份报告，发现2010年，仅大气污染便导致120万中国人早逝。 China’s environment is a disaster. But by casting a bright light on the country’s severe pollution problems, the crises of the past year have stirred a greater environmental consciousness in the people. At the same time, they have spurred the country’s leaders to take more aggressive environmental action. 中国的环境非常糟糕。但通过暴露中国严重的污染问题，过去一年的危机激起了民众更强烈的环境意识。与此同时，它们促使中国领导人采取更大胆的环境行动。 In March of this year, top officials in Beijing declared a “war on pollution.” A month later they reformed the country’s Environmental Protection Law for the first time since 1989, strengthening the system for fining polluters, permitting some nongovernmental organizations to bring public-interest lawsuits against those who violate the law, and holding local officials accountable for the environmental quality of their regions. 今年3月，北京的高层官员“向污染宣战”。一个月后，他们修订了中国的《环境保护法》，加强了对污染方处以罚款、允许一些非政府组织对违法者提起公益诉讼、让地方官员对各自所在地区的环境质量负责的制度。这是中国自1989年以来首次修订该法。 The leadership has banned the building of new coal-fired power plants in key economic areas and all coal use in Beijing by 2020. Trial carbon-trading programs have been introduced in Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen and Guangzhou. Caps have been placed on coal consumption in some highly polluted regions. The government has committed $277 billion to an air pollution “action plan” and $333 billion to a water pollution “action plan.” China now invests more than any other country in renewable energy. 中国领导人禁止在关键的经济区新建火电厂，并计划在2020年前实现北京部分地区彻底禁煤。北京、上海、深圳和广州引入了试点碳交易方案。一些污染严重的地区对煤炭消耗量设定了上限。政府已承诺将分别投入1.7万亿和2万亿人民币，用于大气污染防治“行动计划”和水污染防治“行动计划”。眼下，中国在可再生能源领域的投资比其他任何国家都多。 Finally, the authorities have restricted the number of cars on the road, set higher vehicle-emission standards and are offering huge rebates on the purchase of electric and hybrid vehicles. 最后，中国当局已开始限制道路上的汽车数量，并制定了更高的车辆排放标准。同时，中国目前为购买电动车和混合动力车辆提供高额补贴。 We can’t yet know how effective these measures will be. But we shouldn’t be blind to the enormous effort China is making. Looking back years from now, my guess is that we will regard 2013 as a tipping point — China’s Cuyahoga moment. It was the year China as a nation became environmentally engaged. That engagement isn’t good just for China; it’s good for the entire world. 这些措施效果如何，我们尚不得而知。但我们不应无视中国正在付出的巨大努力。多年后回顾历史时，我猜我们会把2013年当做一个转折点——中国的凯霍加河节点。在这一年，中国作为一个国家开始应对环境问题。这种应对不仅有利于中国，而且有利于全世界。 丹尼尔·加德纳在史密斯学院教授中国历史和环境。他正在写作一本关于中国环境污染的新书。 翻译：陈亦亭 |
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