【一起闲话英语】政治危机还是环境危机？-Politics or the environment?

Sarah / England

speaker I am probably more worried about political dangers rather than environmental, mainly because with environmental, you have the option to change what's going to happen to the environment. You can sort of try and change that as much as you can; whereas¹ with political issues, you can't really change how a person thinks. You can try and change the political party that's in charge, but you can't really change how one person thinks. So, I think that' more unpredictable.

 

Lindsay / United States

speaker I'm much more worried about environmental dangers. I feel like politically, we're going to be fine. I'm never going to go to these countries that are war-torn. I'm going to try and stay always in safe countries. But the environment, I feel like it's affecting everything, and the seasons are changing, and the icebergs² are melting, and in the next twenty years, we're going to have some major problems.

 

Phoebe / China

speaker Do I worry more about the environment or political problems? I think I worry about environmental more than the political problems because I don't really know the political problems, and I live in the city. I care about the environment more. I hope - I wish I can live more conformable and, you know, and in a better environment so that's more important for me.

 

Tim / United States 

speaker Although I don't worry too much about political or environmental problems, I would say I'm more concerned about political problems, because they have the tendency to be more unpredictable and they can escalate³ very quickly unexpectedly⁴; whereas with environmental problems, things usually happen more slowly and we can usually anticipate⁵ what's going to go wrong.

 

Antoinette / United States 

speaker I'm probably more worried about environmental dangers, because we, humans, are damaging the earth, and the damages that we do will affect generations and generations to come, so I probably think more about that. I'm not as politically in tuned⁶, so, yeah, I worry more about environmental dangers.

 

Tony / Mozambique

speaker I would say both. As you know, Africa- like the countries surrounding my country tend not to have stable political system, which means that maybe in the near future, a war can break out. And environmental dangers, because if we should deplete⁷ our natural resource, it could affect our future.

1 whereas   

conj.而，却，反之

参考例句：

• They want a house,whereas we would rather live in a flat.他们想要一座房子，而我们宁愿住在一套房间里。
• Some praise him,whereas others condemn him.有些人赞扬他，而有些人谴责他。

2 icebergs   

n.冰山，流冰( iceberg的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The drift of the icebergs in the sea endangers the ships. 海上冰山的漂流危及船只的安全。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The icebergs towered above them. 冰山高耸于他们上方。 来自辞典例句

3 escalate   

v.(使)逐步增长(或发展)，(使)逐步升级

参考例句：

• It would tempt Israel's neighbors to escalate their demands.它将诱使以色列的邻国不断把他们的要求升级。
• Defeat could cause one side or other to escalate the conflict.失败可能会导致其中一方将冲突升级。

4 unexpectedly   

adv.未料到地，意外地；竟；居然；骤然

参考例句：

• The volcano unexpectedly blew up early in the morning. 火山一早突然爆发了。
• I had just put the dinner on when Jim walked in unexpectedly. 我刚把晚饭摆上桌，吉姆突然走进来。

5 anticipate   

vt.预期(料)，期望；提前使用，先行动

参考例句：

• I anticipate his arrival at four o'clock.我期待他4点钟到达。
• He tried to anticipate all my needs.他设法将我需要的东西预先准备好。

6 tuned   

adj.调谐的，已调谐的v.调音( tune的过去式和过去分词 )；调整；（给收音机、电视等）调谐；使协调

参考例句：

• The resort is tuned in to the tastes of young and old alike. 这个度假胜地适合各种口味，老少皆宜。
• The instruments should be tuned up before each performance. 每次演出开始前都应将乐器调好音。 来自《简明英汉词典》

7 deplete   

v.弄空，排除，减轻，减少...体液，放去...的血

参考例句：

• Most native mammal species have been severely depleted.大多数本地哺乳动物的数量都已经大大减少了。
• Elastic collisions deplete very little of the electron's energy.弹性碰撞中电子减少的能量非常少。