GRE阅读练习：菲律宾转基因作物被捣毁

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IN AUGUST environmentalists in the Philippines vandalised a field of Golden Rice, an experimental grain whose genes had been modified to carry beta-carotene, a chemical precursor of vitamin A.

8月，环保主义者在菲律宾蓄意破坏了一片金大米田地, 金大米是一种实验性的谷物，其基因被修改为维生素a的化学前体b胡萝卜素。

Golden Rice is not produced by a corporate behemoth but by the public sector.

金大米不是由企业巨头,而是公共部门种植的。

Its seeds will be handed out free to farmers.

它的种子将免费发放给农民。

The aim is to improve the health of children in poor countries by reducing vitamin A deficiency, which contributes to hundreds of thousands of premature deaths and cases of blindness each year.

用于改善贫困国家儿童的健康状况，缓解这些儿童的维生素A缺乏情况, 每年都会10%以上的人因缺乏维生素过早死亡和失明。

Environmentalists claim that these sorts of actions are justified because genetically modified crops pose health risks.

环保人士声称,此类捣毁行为是合理的, 因为转基因作物对健康构成风险。

Now the main ground for those claims has crumbled.

现在，此类声称的理由已被击破。

Last year a paper was published in a respected journal, Food and Chemical Toxicology.

去年，一篇论文在权 威杂志《食品与化学毒理学》上发表。

It found unusual rates of tumours and deaths in rats that had been fed upon a variety of maize resistant to a herbicide called Roundup, as a result of genetic modification by Monsanto, an American plant-science firm.

它发现在老鼠中出现不寻常的肿瘤和死亡状况，而这些老鼠被喂食过一种玉米，此种玉米是, 美国植物科学公司生产的转基因作物，对草甘膦农药具有抵抗力。

Other studies found no such effects, but this one enabled campaigners to make a health-and-safety argument against GM crops—one persuasive enough to influence governments.

其他研究并没有发现此种的影响。然而，此文章致使倡议人士以健康与安全问题为理由反对转基因作物，甚至对政府也产生了影响。

After the study appeared, Russia suspended imports of the grain in question. Kenya banned all GM crops.

这项研究发表之后, 俄罗斯暂停进口存在疑虑的粮食。肯尼亚禁止了所有的转基因作物。

And the French prime minister said that if the results were confirmed he would press for a Europe-wide ban on the GM maize.

法国总理表示, 如果结果得到证实, 他将敦促欧洲禁止转基因玉米。

But the methodology of the study, by Gilles-Eric Seralini of the University of Caen and colleagues, was widely criticised and, on November 28th, the journal retracted the paper.

但是卡昂大学的塞拉利尼和他的同事们这项研究的方法论,被广泛批评。 11月28日,《食品与化学毒理学》撤销该论文。

There is now no serious scientific evidence that GM crops do any harm to the health of human beings.。

现在没有足够的科学证据表明,转基因作物对人类的健康有任何危害。

There is plenty of evidence, though, that they benefit the health of the planet.

然而，却有大量的证据表明，转基因作物可以造福于人类的健康。

One of the biggest challenges facing mankind is to feed the 9 billion-10 billion people who will be alive and richer in 2050.

人类面临的最 大挑战之一是到2050年，人们有粮食可吃以及有充足的食物。

This will require doubling food production on roughly the same area of land, using less water and fewer chemicals.

这将需要在大致相同面积的土地上使用更少的水和更少的化学物质生产出高达两倍的粮食。

It will also mean making food crops more resistant to the droughts and floods that seem likely if climate change is a bad as scientists fear.

这也将意味着倘若气候变化如科学家们担心的那样糟糕，粮食作物要更耐旱和洪涝。

Organic farming—the kind beloved of greens—cannot meet this challenge. It uses far too much land.

有机作物-环保主义者钟爱的作物，不能承受这种挑战。它需要太多的土地。

If the Green revolution had never happened, and yields had stayed at 1960 levels, the world could not produce its current food output even if it ploughed up every last acre of cultivable land.

如果绿色革命从未发生过, 粮食产量一直停留在1960年的水平, 人类即使利用每一英亩的可耕种的土地，也不能产生出目前的粮食产量。

In contrast, GM crops boost yields, protecting wild habitat from the plough.

相比之下,转基因作物可以提高粮食产量,保护野生栖息地不遭受开垦。

They are more resistant to the vagaries of climate change, and to diseases and pests, reducing the need for agrochemicals.

他们更能承受变幻莫测的气候变化，疾病和害虫,减少对农药依赖性。

Genetic research holds out the possibility of breakthroughs that could vastly increase the productivity of farming, such as grains that fix their own nitrogen.

遗传研究给大大提高农业的生产力带来了突破的可能性, 例如谷物可以修复自己的氮。

Vandalising GM field trials is a bit like the campaign of some religious leaders to prevent smallpox inoculations: it causes misery, even death, in the name of obscurantism and unscientific belief.

捣毁转基因试验田和一些宗教运动的领袖防止天花接种有点像: 它以蒙昧主义和信仰不科学的名义会造成痛苦,甚至死亡。

Follow your principles

遵循你的原则

America takes little notice of this nonsense.

美国需要很少关注此类无稽之谈。

But green groups in Europe, with the support of influential figures such as Prince Charles, have succeeded in shaping policy.

但在欧洲，环保组织在查尔斯王子等具有影响力的人士的支持下,已经成功地塑造了政策。

Governments have hedged genetic research around with so many restrictions that much of the business has fled a continent that could be doing more than most to feed the world.

政府限制了遗传研究, 大部分业务已经逃离欧洲大陆。

Some developing countries—Kenya, India and others—have turned their backs on technologies that could literally save their peoples’ lives.

一些发展中国家肯尼亚、印度等国也对此项能够挽救人民的生命的技术嗤之以鼻。

And European governments spend taxpayers’ money financing groups encouraging them to do so.

欧洲政府花纳税人的钱资助团体鼓励他们这样做。

The group in the Philippines that trashed the rice trials, MASIPAG, gets money from the Swedish government.

菲律宾的组织,破坏了瑞典政府出资的MASIPAG水稻试验田。

On moral, economic and environmental grounds, this must stop.

无论是从道德、经济和环境上来说 ,此类举动都必须停止。

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