经济学视角：谁有资格登上诺亚方舟| 经济学人财经

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2023-08-31 00:08

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May Li，男，我要去追逐心中的太阳，还要继续努力的亚古兽

第十七期翻译打卡营

中鸟票最后1天

3位一笔，3位二笔

21天录播课程

既有中译英，也有英译中。

从翻译的流程策略，英汉语言特点，

方法，类型，背景知识到细致的语言点，

我们都逐一讲解以及答疑，让同学们吃透翻译。

点击下图，即可了解课程详情！

精读|翻译|词组

Finance & economics | Free exchange

财经版块

英文部分选自经济学人20230826财经板块

Finance & economics | Free exchange

财经版块

Which animals should a modern-day Noah put in his ark?

当代诺亚应该带哪些动物进入方舟呢？

An economic interpretation of a biblical tale

一则圣经故事的经济学诠释

“Of fowls after their kind,” the Lord said to Noah, “and of cattle after their kind, of every creeping thing of the Earth after his kind, two of every sort shall come unto thee.” Co-operation from the animal kingdom helped make the biblical patriarch history’s greatest conservationist, saving every land-based animal, including humans, from a wave of divine extinction.

耶和华对诺亚说，“飞鸟各从其类，牲畜各从其类，地上的昆虫各从其类，每样两个，要到你那里，好保全生命。”与动物王国同舟共济人类族长诺亚成为了历史上最伟大的环保主义者——他从神的灭世洪水中保全包括人类在内的所有陆地生物。

注释：

1, kind: a category of things distinguished by some common characteristic or quality.

eg. What kinds of desserts are there?

同义词：sort/ form/ variety

2, cattle: domesticated bovine animals as a group regardless of sex or age指大牲畜，尤其指牛。

3, patriarch: A patriarch is the male head of a family or tribe族长

Unlike Noah, contemporary conservationists face constraints: they cannot save everything. The patriarch was able to fit a breeding pair of each of the 5.6m or so terrestrial species onto his 300 cubits-long ark. If he was forced instead to ration his space, facing the traditional economic problem of scarce resources and unlimited wants, which animals should Noah have prioritised and kept safe from the flood for future generations?

与诺亚不同，当代环保主义者能力有限，无法拯救所有生灵。诺亚从约560万中陆生生物中各挑出一对带上了300肘长（不足150米）的方舟。但如果他不得不做“少米之炊”，面对资源稀缺和欲望无限的传统经济学问题，为了子孙后代，诺亚应该优先拯救哪些动物于洪水之中呢？

注释：

1.cubit: 肘（cubit）也称为腕尺，是古老的长度单位，是以手臂由手肘到中指顶端的距离为准。在中世纪及近代世界许多地区都有定义「肘」这个单位，而长度不完全一样。长度约在45到55公分之间。

2.ration: vt. restrict the consumption of a relatively scarce commodity, as during war限量供应

This was the dilemma Martin Weitzman, an economist, posed in a paper published in 1998, and it is one that carries enduring lessons. Weitzman’s goal, beyond biblical interpretation, was to create an economic theory of conservation, calculating a strategy that a rational conservationist could follow to maximise both human welfare and natural biodiversity. He wanted to come up with a way of ranking conservation projects; how to weigh what the Lord called creeping things of the Earth against one another given the limited amount of funding to keep them all alive.

这是经济学家马丁·韦茨曼（Martin Weitzman）在1998年发表的一篇论文中提出的两难问题，它所带来的启示影响深远。韦茨曼的目标不仅仅是解释圣经，而是创建一种关于环保的经济理论——一个理性的环保主义者应该遵循什么样的策略，来最大限度地增加人类福祉、保护自然生物多样性？他想要设计出一种方法，将各种保护项目排序：鉴于维持所有物种存活的资金有限，如何在上帝口中的“万物生灵”之间权衡呢？

注释：

Martin Weitzman：Martin L. Weitzman was a Research Professor of Economics at Harvard University until his untimely passing on August 27, 2019. Previously he was on the faculties of MIT and Yale. He had been elected as a fellow of the Econometric Society and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He published widely in many leading economic journals and written three books. Weitzman's interests in economics were broad and he served as consultant for several well-known organizations. His research is focused on environmental economics, including climate change, the economics of catastrophes, cost-benefit analysis, long-run discounting, green accounting, biodiversity, and comparison of alternative instruments for controlling pollution. 马丁·韦茨曼，哈佛大学经济学教授。他的研究关注环境经济学，尤其是气候变化和灾难经济学。

Animals have two sources of value in Weitzman’s model. The first is the utility they provide humanity: economists now call this “ecosystem services”. They vary from the delight that megafauna provide those visiting a safari park to the more prosaic: pollinators fertilising crops; earthworms keeping the soil healthy. A forthcoming paper by Eyal Frank of the University of Chicago and Anant Sudarshan of the University of Warwick looks at the economic benefits of “keystone species”. They find that the accidental poisoning of vultures in India led to a dramatic increase in human mortality, with more than 100,000 additional deaths in an average year, as the birds no longer devoured waterway-poisoning carrion. Despite their poor reputation, vultures might therefore earn a place on a resource-constrained ark.

在韦茨曼的模型中，动物有两种价值来源。首先是它们为人类提供的效用：经济学家现在称之为“生态系统服务”。这些功能多种多样，有巨型动物在野生动物园供人参观带来的乐趣，也有平淡无奇的功能，比如传播花粉的生物给农作物授粉，蚯蚓保持土壤健康等。芝加哥大学（University of Chicago）的埃亚尔·弗兰克 (Eyal Frank) 和华威大学（University of Warwick）的阿南特·苏达山 (Anant Sudarshan) 即将发表的一篇论文探讨了“关键物种”的经济效益。他们发现，在印度，秃鹫的意外中毒会导致人类死亡率急剧上升，平均每年新增死亡人数超过 100,000 人，因为不再有秃鹫去吞食污染水道的腐肉。尽管秃鹫名声不佳，但它们可能因此在资源有限的方舟上占有一席之地。

注释：

1. megafauna：the component of the fauna of a region or period that comprises the larger terrestrial animals 超动物群，巨型动物

2. prosaic：Something that is prosaic is dull and uninteresting. 枯燥乏味的

3. pollinator：A pollinator is something that pollinates plants, especially a type of insect. 传花粉者

4. earthworm：An earthworm is a kind of worm that lives in the ground. 蚯蚓

5. devourer：吞噬者；排出管

6. carrion：Carrion is the decaying flesh of dead animals. 动物腐肉

The second part of the calculation places a direct value on biodiversity. Imagine, now, that you are not Noah trying to save the natural world from a flood, but a scholar trying to save texts from the Library of Alexandria. All the scrolls might be valuable, but many have information on them that is in other libraries. The aim would be to save those with information not recorded elsewhere. Weitzman applies the same logic to animals: biodiversity has both an aesthetic value and an informational one, with content embedded in the genetics of animals. The selection for the ark should try to preserve as much of this information as possible, even if the animals themselves do not do much for human welfare.

再者，研究考虑了生物多样性本身的价值。假设你现在不是要拯救大自然、使其免遭洪灾的诺亚，而是要拯救亚历山大图书馆藏书的一名学者。所有书籍可能都非常珍贵，但许多书籍包含的信息在其他图书馆也能找到。所以，目标将是拯救所含信息在别处无法找到的书籍。同样地，韦茨曼将这一逻辑用于动物宝物：生物多样性既蕴含美学价值，也蕴含信息价值，关键在于与动物的遗传特征相关的信息。在做出选择时，应尽量将此类信息保留下来，即便相应动物本身对人类福祉并无多大用处。

注释：

1.save vt.

to help someone by making itunnecessary for them to do something that they do not want to do

Examples:

If you lent me £5, it would save me a trip to the bank.

如果你借我5英镑，我就不用跑银行了。

I’ll take the shopping home in the car to save you carrying it.

我会开车把买的东西带回家，这样你就不用提了。

I’ll get a taxi from the station to save you the trouble of coming to collect me.

我会在车站打个的，这样就不用麻烦你来接我了。

That led to what some conservationists might consider a repugnant conclusion: counterintuintively, the best way to preserve biodiversity is for the resource-constrained ark to pick a single species and squeeze in as many as possible. Preventing just one type of animal from going extinct preserves not only what is distinct about that animal, but everything it shares genetically with every other animal as well. Trying to keep two species alive, and failing, means losing everything. The real-world implication of this is that using conservation funds on highly endangered species risks throwing good money after bad. Pandas, for instance, are cute but require a lot of effort to keep alive. Noah might be best to fill the ark with resilient cockroaches instead, ensuring that at least one creature makes it through the flood.

由此可以得出一条既让某些自然资源保护者不悦，又有悖常理的结论：保护生物多样性的最佳办法是，仅挑选一个物种，并让这一物种尽可能多地挤入空间有限的方舟。保护一种动物免于灭绝，其实既是保护这种动物本身的独特之处，也是保护这种动物与其他动物共享的一切基因信息。如果硬要保护两种动物且最终失败，那就意味着满盘皆输。这一点对现实世界的启发是，将保护基金用于保护高度濒危的物种可能就是花冤枉钱。比如说熊猫，它们虽然可爱，但需要花费大量心血才能使其存活。所以，诺亚可能最好还是带生命力强大的蟑螂进方舟，确保至少有一种生物能够幸免于洪灾。

注释：

1.repugnant adj. 令人反感、令人生厌

If you think that something is horrible and disgusting, you can say that it is repugnant

2.implication n. 可能的影响（或作用、结果）；含意，暗指；牵连，涉及

a meaning that is not expressly stated but can be inferred

3.throwing good money after bad: 花冤枉钱

If you say that someone is throwing good money after bad,you are critical of them for trying to improve a bad situation by spending more money on it, instead of doing more thoughtful or practical things to improve it

To reach that counterintuitive conclusion, Weitzman assumed that people ought to value biodiversity for its own sake. Some boatbuilders might instead want to focus only on the benefits animals provide to humans. Perhaps a few creatures provide a sufficiently low or even negative value as to be excluded altogether. Stinging wasps are one candidate, but the picnic irritants play a vital role, eating other pests and pollinating flowers. Mosquitoes, humans’ greatest natural killer, responsible for more than half a million deaths a year, are another. Some scientists have suggested releasing genetically modified, sterilised versions of the insects that would get rid of the species altogether; others warn that doing so could have unforeseen consequences by eradicating both a pollinator and a food source for other animals.

得出这一反直觉的结论后，韦茨曼提出人们应该珍视生物多样性本身的价值。有些造船者或许只想关注动物对于人类的价值。也许有几样对人类价值太低甚至为负的生物会被一齐排除。候选之一是野餐“杀手”蜇人蜂，但它们在自然界扮演着重要的角色——吃掉其他害虫、为花朵授粉。另一个大热是蚊子，人类最大的天敌，每年造成超过50万人死亡。一些科学家建议释放经过基因改造的绝育蚊子，从而抹除整个物种；另一些科学家警告称，此举同时也意味着消灭一种授粉昆虫和其他动物的食物来源，后果难以预估。

注释：

1.Irritant: 令人烦恼的事物

2.get rid of: 清除；除去；丢弃

Deliberate eradications are occasionally successful. Every week the us Department of Agriculture (usda) and Panamanian government drop sterilised screwworms, a parasitic flesh-eating fly larva that feeds on livestock, out of a plane on the Panama-Colombia border in order to stop the creatures from breeding. This helps maintain a biological barrier that prevents the creature from moving northward, and thus safeguards a programme spanning decades and countries that has got rid of the fly from North America. The usda estimates that the project produces economic benefits worth around $3.1bn a year.

刻意的根除一些物种偶尔会成功。美国农业部（USDA）和巴拿马政府每周用飞机将绝育的螺旋虫，一种肉食的、寄生在牲畜上的螺旋蝇幼虫，投放在巴拿马和哥伦比亚交界处上空，从而阻止其繁衍。这样做能够保持生物壁垒，阻止螺旋蝇向北迁徙，捍卫北美国家几十年来消灭螺旋蝇的成果。美国农业部估计这项工程每年产生约31亿美元的效益。

注释:

1.eradication：根除；消除；灭绝

2.screwworm fly螺旋锥蝇，也叫食人蝇，不食腐，食新鲜血肉，1966年在美国被消灭。

Be fruitful and multiply

生生不息，繁荣昌盛

There is reason to be careful, though. Even when valuing animals solely on their benefits to humanity, biodiversity still has something to offer: insurance. Genetic range reduces the vulnerability of any individual part of an ecosystem to pests and diseases, helping avoid catastrophe if a species vital for human survival goes extinct. Were Noah to have filled his ark with cockroaches—or pandas, for that matter—a single virus could have wiped out the lot.

不过，仍有理由保持谨慎。即使仅仅根据动物对人类的益处来评估动物的价值，生物多样性仍有其价值所在：“保险”。丰富的基因库能帮助生态系统中每一种抵抗害虫和疾病的侵害。倘若某种攸关人类存亡的物种灭绝，庞大的基因库也能避免灾难的发生。如果当时诺亚方舟里承载的全是蟑螂或熊猫，那么一种病毒就足以让方舟变死船。

注释：

1.the lot 或 the whole lot，(chiefly Brit.)the whole number or quantity that is involved or implied. (主英)所有，一切

you might as well take the whole lot. 你可以带走一切。

Weitzmann himself applied such an approach to climate change, formulating his “dismal theorem”, which states that, in the presence of sufficiently big risks with a small chance of great harm, regular cost-benefit analysis is of little use. The same may be true of biodiversity. Deliberate extinctions are irreversible and reduce humanity’s options, so should be used sparingly. Playing at being Noah is one thing, playing at being God quite another.

魏茨曼本人也将这种方法应用于气候变化，并提出了“悲观定理”。该定理指出，在风险足够大、造成巨大伤害可能性很小的情况下，常规的成本效益分析几乎没有用处。生物多样性可能也是如此。故意灭绝不可逆转，人类的选择也因此减少，此举应谨慎使用。扮演诺亚是一回事，扮演上帝又是另一回事。

注释：

play at:if children play at doctors, soldiers etc, they pretend to be doctors, soldiers etc〔小孩〕假扮…玩: play at being sth

a fourteen-year-old playing at being a grown woman 假扮成年女性的十四岁少女

翻译组：

Zorina，Dream big and be daring

Summerr，Stay hungry, stay foolish

Vivifang，女，外币债券交易员，满眼都是鲍威尔。

Summer，女，QE在职，梦想能仗走天涯翻译/音乐/健康

Vic，男，曾在52街和第6大道的投行人，目前的券商兵；市场和历史的学生

校对组：

骡拉，很帅但是吃冰棒舔手

Ithil，男，胡辣汤爱好者，世界杯冠军、三星阿根廷球迷

观点|评论|思考

本周感想

Cleo，男，学习不停，思考不止，努力成为审慎却乐观的深入思考者

本文指出了两种“生物多样性”的价值：1.生物对人类的价值；2.生物多样性本身的价值。在我看到这个分类时，我认为我们可以更加简单的理解这两个概念。此文章的前提是站在经济学的视角，那我们必须先明确“我们是自私的”，所谓自私，也就是我们只站在人类的角度来思考这个问题。那么某种生物的“价值”则可以被拆解成：1.如果多培育此种生物，可以为我们创造出来更多的好处（收入），2.如果这种生物消失，我们需要支付多少成本来维持原状（成本）。

先来看增加收入，这个很好理解，例如说我们培养出一只寄生蜂，可以为我们消灭多少以庄稼为食的动物，那么此寄生蜂的价值很好体现。按照这个思路我们可以推算出寄生蜂种群的价值，此外，我们可以将所有有记载的动物利用这个模型逐一估值，并且从大到小排序。根据经典的绩效管理办法就可以决定如果把方舟内有限的空间分配给最可以令人类收益的生物。那我们再来看成本端，我记得我在上高中的生物课就提到：我们不杀灭蚊蝇是因为蚊蝇有着“潜在生物价值”，也就是说我们不知道没有蚊子这个世界会发生什么？的确，这就是最好解释第二点的方法。如果没有了蚊子，我们将要花费多少的成本去适应这个没有蚊子的世界？

在我们进化的这几个纪元，我们的智慧帮助我了解了维持人类生命的各种物质，甚至也知道如何利用化学和生物学来合成这些物质。但我们的智慧不足以让我们全然洞悉这个世界上生物之间的种种关联，以及各个物种对我们维持生命有什么影响，所以我们在不断求索，也在不断进步。但是无论成果如何我们必须时刻保持谦逊，因为我们不是造物主，如果真到了《创世纪》中洪水来临的那一天，人类并不是诺亚方舟的售票员，也掌控不了自己的命运。

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01 第十七期翻译打卡营

4位一笔，3位二笔

21天录播课程

既有中译英，也有英译中。

从翻译的流程策略，英汉语言特点，

方法，类型，背景知识到细致的语言点，

我们都逐一讲解以及答疑，让同学们吃透翻译。

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