纪录片《大英博物馆世界简史》 006巴布亚新几内亚鸟形杵（5）

Looking at the food in the British Museum canteen, so much of it flown across the world, I'm struck by the fact that while we all travel more and more freely, we depend on food grown by people who cannot move, who must stay on the same piece of land.

在大英博物馆职工餐厅里，环顾四周，这么多的食物都是从世界其它地方空运过来的。让我十分感概的是在我们拥有越多自由四处旅行的今天，我们仍旧依赖于那些农作物，种植它们的人们相当于被固定在那片土地上，无法自由旅行。

We're all increasingly aware of how vulnerable this makes farmers across the world to any change in climate, and this dependence¹ on regular predictable weather led the farmers of ten thousand years ago to identify gods of food and climate, who needed constant placation² and prayer in order to ensure the cycle of nature and safe, good harvests. Nowadays, most people look to governments, and to campaigners like Sir Bob Geldof:

这让我们越来越意识到在各种气候变化面前，全世界的农民与农业是多么的脆弱。其实早在一万年前，农民已经学会了依赖于定期预测气候变化，也因此导致他们开始定义出掌管食物与气候的神灵，这些神灵需要人类不断的祭拜与祈祷，才会保佑人们风调雨顺、谷物丰收。如今，大多数人把希望寄托到各国政府上，或者像鲍勃·格洋多夫爵士一样的活动家：

'The whole psychology³ of food, where it places us, is I think more important than almost any other aspect of our lives. Essentially⁴, the necessity to work comes out of the necessity to eat. So, this central idea of food is the fundamental in all human existence.

“就心理角度而言，我觉得食物比我们生活中其他方方面面几乎都要更加重要。本质上讲，劳作的必要性来源于吃的必要性。所以食物的中心思想便是所有人类生存的根本。

It's clear that no animal can exist without being able to eat, but right now, at the beginning of the 21st century, it is clearly in the top three of priorities for the global powers to address. Upon their success or not will depend the future of huge sections of the world population. There simply isn't enough food for the world at the moment. There are several factors, but the predominant one is climate change.'

很显然，没有任何动物能不依靠吃而存生。在二十一世纪开端的今天，它无疑位居全球各力量必须最优先解决的三大问题之首。其成功与否将取决于未来世界人口的绝大部分。目前而言世界上根本没有足够的食物。其中因素有几个，但最主要的就是气候变化。

So a change in climate, like the one that brought us agriculture in the first place, is now threatening our global survival. Just after the Ice Age, the growing population that the new foods allowed was of course not a problem but a positive advantage. The first settled societies increased quickly in numbers and, as long as the weather allowed, they developed new, stable communities.

因此当初气候变化迎来了我们农业的诞生，而今这种气候变化却已经威胁到我们全球人类生存。当初冰河时代后，新兴粮食的到来引起的人口增长，并非是个问题，而是一种优势。最早的人类定居群体在人口数量上增长迅速，而且在气候允许的情况下，发展出更多新兴、稳定的人类群体。

Tomorrow I'll be focussing on the fertility not of the land, but of the people farming it. I'll be looking at a stone sculpture that's the first representation, anywhere, of a couple making love.

明天我的侧重点将不是土地的肥沃力，而是在土地上耕作的人类的生育能力。我将会介绍一件石头雕塑品，全世界史上最早的男女配偶间性爱活动的象征品。

1 dependence   

n.依靠，依赖；信任，信赖；隶属

参考例句：

• Doctors keep trying to break her dependence of the drug.医生们尽力使她戒除毒瘾。
• He was freed from financial dependence on his parents.他在经济上摆脱了对父母的依赖。

2 placation   

参考例句：

• The main means of Gai are placation are used simultaneously, sometimes one means over another. “改流”手段，主要是以抚见效，以剿收尾，剿抚两条路线，同时交织，彼此并行。 来自互联网

3 psychology   

n.心理，心理学，心理状态

参考例句：

• She has a background in child psychology.她受过儿童心理学的教育。
• He studied philosophy and psychology at Cambridge.他在剑桥大学学习哲学和心理学。

4 essentially   

adv.本质上，实质上，基本上

参考例句：

• Really great men are essentially modest.真正的伟人大都很谦虚。
• She is an essentially selfish person.她本质上是个自私自利的人。