口译与听力-00602-1802.docVIP

1802 Lesson Two p228 p180 As we enter the 21st century, a new global economy draws nations ever closer. But our growing interdependence hinges much more than technology and trade. For we are linked intrinsically by the physical and biological webs that sustain life on our planet. Indeed, unless we reach across borders and face this threat together, the next century may dawn on an Earth in ecological crisis, with half of all species gone, and our grandchildren enduring deadly floods, drought and disease brought on by global warming. When millions across America celebrated the first Earth Day 30 years ago, our focus understandably was on own backyard. Our rivals were catching on fire, and our skylines were disappearing behind a veil of smog. America’s remarkable environmental progress in the years since is powerful testament to our national will, our technological prowess and our faith in a better future. Protecting the environment is today a bedrock American value, as important to us as safe neighborhoods and good schools. What’s more, three decades of experience have proved the naysayers wrong. Tending to the environment has not weakened our economy. In fact, our air and water are the cleanest they have been in a generation, even has we enjoy the longest economic expansion in our nation’s history. American’s responsibility now, as we mark the first Earth Day of a new millennium, is to bring these lessons to bear against new, more profound environmental challenges. We must look well beyond our own cities and countryside, make environment a core foreign policy objective and provide the leadership needed to put all nations on a cleaner, more sustainable path to prosperity. And without question, we must do more to counter a threat that shows more clearly than any other how closely our nations’ fates are linked: The threat of global warming, As the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases, the US has a special responsibility to lead this effort. We must see 梐nd se