翻译题 Cowboy or spaceman? A dilemma for a children's party, perhaps. But also a question for economists, argued Kenneth Boulding, a British economist, in an essay published in 1966. 【F1】We have run our economies, he warned, like cowboys on the open grassland: taking and using the world's resources, confident that more lies over the horizon. But the Earth is less a grassland than a spaceship—a closed system, alone in space, carrying finite supplies. We need, said Boulding, an economics that takes seriously the idea of environmental limits. In the half century since his essay, a new movement has responded to his challenge. 【F2】"Ecological economists", as they call themselves, do not want to revolutionise at the margins of economics, but to revolutionise its aims and assumptions. What do they say—and will their ideas achieve lift-off?
To its practitioners, their starting point is to recognise that the human economy is part of the natural world. Our environment, they note, is both a source of resources and a sink for wastes. 【F3】But it is ignored in conventional textbooks, where neat diagrams trace the flows between firms, households and the government as though nature did not exist. That is a mistake, say ecological economists.
They are suspicious of GDP, a crude measure which does not take account of resource depletion, unpaid work, and countless other factors. 【F4】In its place they advocate more holistic approaches (整体分析法 ), such as the Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI)(真是发展指数), a composite index that includes things like the cost of pollution, deforestation and car accidents. While GDP has kept growing, global GPI per person peaked in 1978: by destroying our environment we are making ourselves poorer, not richer.
Mainstream economists are unimpressed. The GPI, they point out, is a subjective measure. And talk of limits to growth has had a bad press since the days of Thomas Malthus, a gloomy 18th century cleric who predicted, wrongly, that overpopulation would lead to famine. Human ingenuity finds solutions to some of the most annoying problems. But ecological economists warn against self-satisfaction. In 2009 a paper in Nature, a scientific journal, argued that human activity is already overstepping safe planetary boundaries on issues such as biodiversity and climate change. 【F5】That suggests that ecological economists are at least asking some important questions, even if their answers turn out to be wrong. It may be no bad thing if economics became a little more Neil Armstrong, and a little less Jesse James.
问答题 11.【F1】
【正确答案】他警示人们,我们一直以来就像牧场中的牛仔一样地运行经济:获取并利用着世界上的资源,自以为在视野之外仍有无尽的资源。
【答案解析】①本句为复合句,主句为主谓宾结构。主句主干后的he warned为插入语,说明本句内容是谁的观点。②插入语后的like引导方式状语,将人类运行经济的方式与牛仔管理牧场的方式作类比。③冒号之后的非谓语成分是对run our economies like cowboys进行解释说明,其中包含一个that引导的宾语从句,confident前省略了be动词。
问答题 12.【F2】
【正确答案】这项运动的发起者们自称为“生态经济学家”,他们不是想要提出一些仅能成为经济学边缘理论的变革主张,而是要彻底变革经济学的目标和众多猜想。
【答案解析】①本句为简单句。主干为主谓宾结构。主干主语和谓语之间的as they call themselves结构是插入语成分,说明“Ecological economists”这一称谓的来源。②not…but…结构连接两个并列的不定式结构,作want的宾语。
问答题 13.【F3】
【正确答案】但这一点在传统的课本中被忽略了。书中那些整齐的图表显示,废弃物的流动路径是在公司、家庭和政府之间的,仿佛大自然是不存在的。
【答案解析】①本句为复合句,包含一个定语从句,该定语从句中又包含一个方式状语从句。主句为被动句,it指代前文出现的概念Our environment,they note,is both a source of resources and a sink for wastes。②定语从句为主谓宾结构,先行词是逗号前的textbooks,说明传统课本里如何表现废弃物的流动路径。③定语从句还嵌套着一个方式状语从句,as though引导词意为“好像,似乎”,说明传统课本是以基本忽略自然存在的方式去表现废弃物的流动路径。
问答题 14.【F4】
【正确答案】他们提倡采用更多的整体分析方法取而代之,例如采用真实发展指数(GPI),这是一项包含了诸如污染成本、森林采伐以及交通事故等因素的综合经济发展指数。
【答案解析】①本句为复合句,包含一个定语从句。主句为主谓宾结构,such as the Genuine Progress Indicator(GPI)为插入语,对宾语more holistic approaches作举例说明。其后的a composite index为the Genuine Progress Indicator(GPI)的同位语。②a composite index后接一个that引导的定语从句对其进行修饰,说明GPI是包含什么因素的指数。该定语从句为主谓宾结构,that既是引导词又是主语。index表示“指标,指数”,常在经济类文章中出现。
问答题 15.【F5】
【正确答案】这意味着生态经济学家们至少提出了一些重要的问题,即使他们的回答被证实是错误的。
【答案解析】①本句为复合句,包含一个宾语从句,宾语从句中又包含一个让步状语从句。②主句为主谓宾结构,宾语由从句充当。句首的that为代词,指代上文In 2009 a paper…argued that human activity is already overstepping safe planetary boundaries…的内容,作主语。第二个that为宾语从句的引导词;宾语从句亦为主谓宾结构。③宾语从句中,even if引导让步状语从句,该状语从句为主系表结构,their指ecological economists’。