[E335]High-altitude thirst|经济学人
本文音频及原文摘自杂志The Economist《经济学人》2016年第5期，China版块。
Mineral water
Bottling Himalayan water could be bad for the region’s environment
Jan 30th 2016 | BEIJING
CHINA is so vast, it quickly becomes the largest market for almost anything it consumes. Such is the case with bottled water[瓶装水]. Chinese drink 40 billion litres[公升] (70 billion pints[品脱]) of the stuff each year, up over 13-fold[13倍] since 1998. That growth has a long way to go if China ever consumes as much per person as Mexico. But finding clean supplies is difficult; rivers, lakes and even groundwater[地下水] in China are often foul. Hence the huge demand for a seemingly inexhaustible[ɪnɪg'zɔːstɪb(ə)l; ɪneg-][取之不尽的] source of pristine water[干净水;纯净水] that is cheap to extract, sells at a premium[溢价;非常珍贵;在票面价值以上] and can now, thanks to massive investment in infrastructure, be taken to coastal cities[沿海城市]: Tibetan glaciers[西藏冰川(矿泉水)].
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▷ foul [faʊl]
【释义】Foul is most commonly used as an adjective to describe a bad smell. As a verb, foul usually means “make dirty or messy.” You might foul your room to the point where it smells a bit foul.
adj. 犯规的;邪恶的;含有污物(或有害物质)的;淤塞的
(管道、道路等)淤塞的,堵塞的;船底被海藻、贝壳等附着的
Factory chimneys foul(v.) the air with smoke.
工厂烟囱的烟尘污染了空气。
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【相关参考】
5100西藏冰川矿泉水来自西藏念青唐古拉山脉海拔5,100米的原始冰川水源地，含有锂、锶、偏硅酸等丰富的矿物质和微量元素，其含量达到天然矿泉水的中国新国标和欧盟标准，纯净清澈，口味纯正，是优质复合型矿泉水。——百度百科
Tibet already sells Qomolangma Glacier[珠峰冰川] water, named after the Tibetan word for Mount Everest[珠穆朗玛峰(埃佛勒斯峰)]. Last year Sinopec[中国石化], a state-owned energy group, put another brand on sale at its petrol stations: Tibet 5100. It is bottled 5,100 metres (16,700 feet) up in the Nyenchen Tanglha range[念青唐古拉山脉]. The Tibetan government has licensed[批准;许可] 28 more companies to increase the province’s bottling capacity 50-fold by 2020.
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Assuming companies do not mine[开采,采掘;在…布雷] the glacier ice itself, they will bottle only the meltwater that flows out of glaciers in summer. It is true that Himalayan glaciers on the Tibet-Qinghai plateau['plætəʊ][高原] have retreated over the past 30 years by about 15%. But this is because of climate change. Bottling will not cause them to lose mass any quicker.
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Nor will the bottled-water industry have much impact on the volume of water that flows from Tibet—a crucial source[重要来源] for neighbouring countries as well as China itself. About 1 billion people depend on the giant rivers—the Yellow river[黄河], the Brahmaputra[雅鲁藏布江], the Indus[印度河], the Ganges[恒河], the Yangzi[长江], the Mekong[湄公河] and the Salween[怒江(萨尔温江)]—that rise in the Himalayas[喜马拉雅山脉], a region with the largest reserves of fresh water after the north and south poles. The manufacturing of bottled water consumes three times more water thanends up being sold[生产制造瓶装水所消耗的水量比最终卖出的水量多三倍]. Yet even the projected expansion[预计/计划扩大/扩张] of Tibet’s bottled-water output would amount to[相当于;总计为] only a tiny fraction of[极小的一部分] the region’s runoff.
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More worrying is[更令人担忧的是] the possible threat that the industry will pose to the Tibetan environment[更令人担忧的是这一产业可能会对西藏环境造成的潜在威胁]. China has an atrocious record of looking after its pristine areas[原始地区(未受开发的)]. Liu Hongqiao of China Water Risk[中国水危机], an NGO[民间组织;非政府组织(Non-Governmental Organization)], says no water company has published any environmental-impact study[发布任何关于对环境影响的研究] in Tibet. The bottling industry may spawn other, heavy-polluting ones, on the plateau['plætəʊ][高原], for the production of bottles and the plastic they use.
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▷ atrocious [ə'trəʊʃəs]
【释义】Atrocious is a great word, but there's nothing good about its meaning or its synonyms: horrible, ugly, abominable, dreadful, unspeakable, and monstrous, to name just a few.
adj. 凶恶的,残暴的;骇人听闻的;令人震惊的
An atrocious accident happened this morning.
今天上午发生了一起使人震惊的事故。
▷ spawn [spɔːn]
【释义】Technically, the mass of small eggs laid by animals like fish, frogs, mollusks is called spawn. But the word has been borrowed to mean offspring, or the act of making them in general.
vt. 产卵；酿成,造成;大量生产
vi. 产卵；大量生产
His errors spawned a great number of economic loss.
他的错误造成了极大的经济损失。
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Tibet’s government is bribing bottlers with tax cuts[减税], tax holidays[免税期;赋税优惠期] and cheap loans[廉价贷款]. It charges companies only 3 yuan (50 cents) to extract a cubic metre[1立方米]of water, compared with up to 50 yuan elsewhere. But the government in Beijing may have other plans. Alarmed by water scarcity[水短缺;水荒], it wants to reduce groundwater extraction[减少地下水开采]. It has plans for a nationwide cap[全国范围内覆盖] in 2020 and wants all provinces—even water-rich ones like Tibet—to set quotas for water use[用水配额/限额]. This may make Tibet’s policies unsustainable (which may be no bad thing). In Jilin province in the north-east, the local government had even more ambitious plans[宏伟蓝图;雄心勃勃的计划;长远计划] than Tibet’s for ramping up[产能提升;增加;提高] mineral-water production. But it was forced to cut them by half because of mandated quotas[强制配额]. Bubbles, it seems, are an integral part[主要的部分;组成部分] of China’s bottled-water business.
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▷ bribe [braɪb]
【释义】You pay a bribe to get someone to do something they wouldn't do otherwise. It's usually dishonest and often criminal.
vt. 贿赂，收买
vi. 行贿
They bribed the witness to forget about what he had seen.
他们收买证人让他忘掉他所看到的事情。
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以上言论不代表本人立场，摘自《经济学人》杂志，仅外语学习之用。查看来源请点击“阅读原文”。