| Even where there is concern, it can seem unfocussed. I went to a shop in Santa Fe in New Mexico -- a trendy shop for concerned people, where there was a lot of hessian, and earthenware products and posters with slogans about the earth. 即使在有些地方，人们表现出对气候变化的顾虑，那么这样的顾虑也不很严重。我来到新墨西哥州的圣达菲的一个专门为担心气候变暖的人们开设的商店里。那里有一些粗麻布，还有一些陶器和海报，上面印有关于保护地球的标语。 They also sold wooden pens there -- ballpoint pens in casing wood rather than plastic. I asked the woman behind the counter why on earth they sold wooden pens. She replied as though I was a bit stupid -- that wood was more natural -- "natural", as though that somehow meant it was kinder on the world's resources. 在那里，店主售卖木制笔——就是外面是木制包装的圆珠笔。我问了售货员为什么要卖木制的笔。她的回答让我感觉自己好像有点傻——“这样更自然嘛！”似乎某种程度上这意味着对大自然会更有好处一样。 And at some of the fancier supermarkets now in trendy areas, the checkout person asks what kind of bag you want: "Paper or plastic?" I usually ask which one is better for the environment, to which the reply is invariably: "I don't know". 在有些时尚地区的超市里面，买完东西结帐时，售货员会问，您要塑料袋还是纸袋。通常我会问他们，哪种袋子更环保一些？而我得到的回答总是：“不知道。” The environment sometimes seems like the fashionable issue of the moment, the right badge to wear, the current political designer label. 环境有时好像是一个时尚的话题，是我们要戴的正确的徽章，是当前政客们的标签而已。 Things are changing though. Some Christians argue that gas-guzzling cars are a waste of the bountiful creation of their and the President's god. 情况已经发生了很大的变化。有些基督教徒认为那些耗油量极大的汽车是对上帝的慷慨仁慈的一种浪费。 Neo-conservatives are worried that importing oil means relying on hostile regimes, which, moreover, might funnel some of the dollars to anti-American causes -- what the neo-cons call a "terrorism tax on the American people". 有些新保守主义者担心，进口石油就意味着依靠了那些敌对国家。同时，进口石油也使很多美元流失到了美国的敌对国。新保守主义者把这种情况叫做“恐怖主义者从美国人民身上征收的税款” 。 The former head of the CIA, James Woolsey, for example, drives a Honda Prius, powered partly by a battery rather than the notorious internal combustion engine which burns gasoline and emits the smoke that many scientists believe causes global warming. 例如，中央情报局的前局长詹姆士·乌尔什就开着一辆本田普锐斯。这部车的驱动力是电池，而不是臭名昭著的内燃机——烧汽油排废气，科学家们认为会造成气候变暖的内燃机。 Mr. Woolsey, no tree-hugging liberal he, drives this cleaner car for what he calls "national security reasons". 乌尔什先生不是一个自由主义者。他开着这部更加环保的车，目的是为了维护他所谓的“国家安全”。 And further from the chattering elites in Washington, concern about the environment usually translates as concern about the price of fuel. The last time I was in the Six Pack Diner in Detroit, the car-workers guzzling their cholesterol were not opining about the melting polar ice-caps. 从美国的一些评论员的评论当中，我们不难发现，目前人们的担心已经从环保转向了油价问题。上次我去底特律的时候，正在紧张生产汽车的工人们并没有意识到全球变暖导致的冰川融化问题。 They are worried, though, that their employers -- Ford and General Motors -- have failed to catch a new appetite for cars that consume less. More clean Japanese cars means fewer jobs in Detroit. 但是他们担心的是他们的雇主——福特和通用汽车公司——还没有意识到人们已经开始越来越喜欢耗油量低的汽车了。 So there is pressure on Mr. Bush over the environment but not as a grand cause. It's a concern rather about importing an expensive fuel from hostile places. And Mr Bush may respond with tax incentives for cleaner technology that the US market seems increasingly to want. 于是布什总统就有了压力，他必须重视环保这个并不算大事业的事业。这是一个事关从敌对国家进口石油的大问题。而布什总统则要对传统汽车征税，以此来推进美国市场需求量越来越大的环保科技。 Not so spectacular of course as grand declarations of global good intent, but maybe effective nonetheless. 环境保护当然不是一个很伟大的事业，但是的确是一个很有效的事业。 |
