小词细琢第二弹

五、For want of a drink

1. To carry on with present practices would indeed be to invite disaster. invite在这里指招致cause
2. One reason is that the supply of water is finite. (limited)
3. As it nears the sea, though, the opportunities diminish to the point where it has no uses except to sustain deltas, wetlands and the estuarial ecology, and to carry silt out to sea.
   …near the sea, the river water becomes less and less useful except…
4. Part of the beauty of(优点) the borehole is that it requires no elaborate apparatus.
5. The world will have no more of it in 2025, or 2050 than it has today, or when it lapped围绕 at the sides of Noah's ark.
   无论是到2025年还是2050年，地球上的水不会比当年轻拍诺亚方舟船舷的水要多。
   no more ...than不会更多，一样的
   六、The telephone
6. In the evenings, the laughter and noise of the men trailed off and finally stopped. （to become gradually quieter and then stop）
7. In the year of the drought, that little clearing was always packed full of noisy kids with big brown eyes and sticky hands, and their mothers-sinewy, overworked young women with cracked, brown heels. sinewy精瘦强健的
   七、Economic growth is a path to perdition, not prosperity
8. But 150 years ago, Darwin was sailing into choppy waters.
   sail into choppy waters means enter a dangerous field where he may easily get into serious trouble
9. The equation has been drummed into us for so long that it’s received wisdom.
   drum into灌输
10. 教一些形容经济现象的词汇用法Thus the resurgence of Keynesian economics. Prime the pump with billions in government funds. Pray that tax breaks减税 and fiscal stimulus 货币刺激will boost investment, production, and jobs.
11. The upshot is that the natural environment, on which human life and the human economy depend, is sidelined.靠边站
    upshot结果
12. It deals in averages so the rich/poor divide is blurred.
    blurred： not very clear
13. Ecologists call this phenomenon “overshoot.” It’s a temporary state that becomes increasingly untenable站不住脚的 as stocks 库存of resources are depleted耗尽
14. He spent nearly 20 years honing his analysis and polishing his prose散文 before publishing his groundbreaking work, On the Origin of Species, in November 1859.
    他于1859年11月发表了他开创性的著作：物种起源。而在这之前，他花了近20年的时间对他的分析进行推敲加工，并对文字进行反复润色。
15. Financial markets crash, property values plummet, bankruptcies pile up, unemployment soars, and social pathologies multiply.
    金融市场崩溃，房地产价格猛跌，企业破产层出不穷，失业率迅速上升，各种社会弊病四处涌现。
16. Growth keeps people employed, investment profitable, and the endless cycle of production and consumption spinning.
    经济增长使人们就业得到保障，投资获得盈利，生产和消费的循环得以永远保持下去。
17. So the richest 20% of the world’s population consumes the lion’s share of resources, while the poorest 80% have to get by on the crumbs.
    get by： live
    crumbs： 碎屑
18. We go on churning out mountains of consumers good.
    churn out: 大量生产-粗制滥造