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This week and next, governments, international agencies and nongovernmental organizations are gathering in Mexico City at the World Water Forum to discuss the legacy of global Mulhollandism in water - and to chart a new course.
They could hardly have chosen a better location. Water is being pumped out of the aquifer on which Mexico City stands at twice the rate of replenishment. The result: the city is subsiding at the rate of about half a meter every decade. You can see the consequences in the cracked cathedrals, the tilting Palace of Arts and the broken water and sewerage pipes.
Every region of the world has its own variant of the water crisis story. The mining of groundwaters for irrigation has lowered the water table in parts of India and Pakistan by 30 meters in the past three decades. As water goes down, the cost of pumping goes up, undermining the livelihoods of poor farmers.
What is driving the global water crisis? Physical availability is part of the problem. Unlike oil or coal, water is an infinitely renewable resource, but it is available in a finite quantity. With water use increasing at twice the rate of population growth, the amount available per person is shrinking - especially in some of the poorest countries.
Challenging as physical scarcity may be in some countries, the real problems in water go deeper. The 20th-century model for water management was based on a simple idea: that water is an infinitely available free resource to be exploited, dammed or diverted without reference to scarcity or sustainability.
Across the world, water-based ecological systems - rivers, lakes and watersheds - have been taken beyond the frontiers of ecological sustainability by policy makers who have turned a blind eye to the consequences of over- exploitation.
We need a new model of water management for the 21st century. What does that mean? For starters, we have to stop using water like there\no tomorrow - and that means using it more efficiently at levels that do not destroy our environment. The buzz- phrase at the Mexico Water forum is \What it means is that governments need to manage the private demand of different users and manage this precious resource in the public interest.
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从本周直到下周，各国政府、国际机构和非政府组织齐聚墨西哥城，参与世界水论坛的召开，讨论全球形式化治水的遗留问题，并为此制定新的解决方案。
这里作为论坛的举办地点再合适不过了。从墨西哥城基下的土层中，地下水正被源源不断地抽取出来，而补给同等水量需要花两倍的时间。这导致墨西哥城的不断下沉，速度约为每年0.05米。城市设施由此而受到破坏，随处可见布满裂纹的教堂，摇摇欲坠的美术馆和破裂的供排水管道。
世界各地水危机的形式各不相同。为了灌溉而对地下水进行开采，让印度和巴基斯坦部分地区的地下水位30年来下降了30米。随着水位的下降，抽水的成本也在上升，贫困农民的生计更加艰难。
是什么促使了全球水危机的发生?水的便于取用是一个方面。不同于石油和煤炭，水可以被无限循环再生，但是可供取用的水资源是有限的。全球用水量正以两倍于人口增长率的速度持续增长，人均水资源占有量也在缩减。在那些特别贫困的国家，这一问题尤其突出。 水资源的短缺可能让某些国家难于对付，真正的治水难题却有着更深刻的背景。20世纪的水资源管理模型源于一种简单观念：水是一种取之不竭的资源。人们可以对它随意取用、截流改道而不必付出成本，也无需考虑水源短缺或是可持续性利用的问题。
世界各地的许多政府决策者忽视了过度开发水资源带来的后果，把依赖水体而存在的生态系统 - 河流，湖泊和分水岭划到了生态环境可持续发展的体系之外。
21世纪需要新的水资源管理模型。这意味着什么呢?首先必须停止对水源肆无忌惮的浪费。就是说，我们要更加有效和适度地利用水资源，不对环境造成破坏。“水资源综合管理”是本届水论坛提出的新名词，其涵义是政府需要控制不同个体的用水需求量，并从公共利益出发来管理这种宝贵资源。
John Kenneth Galbraith, the iconoclastic economist, teacher and diplomat, died Saturday at a hospital in Cambridge, Massachusetts。He was 97.
Mr. Galbraith was one of the most widely read authors in the history of economics; among his 33 books was \forces a nation to re-examine its values. He wrote fluidly, even on complex topics, and many of his compelling phrases — among them \\— became part of the language. An imposing presence, lanky and angular at 6 feet 8 inches tall, Mr. Galbraith was consulted frequently by national leaders, and he gave advice freely, though it may have been ignored as often as it was taken. Mr. Galbraith clearly preferred taking issue with the conventional wisdom he distrusted.
Mr. Galbraith, a revered lecturer for generations of Harvard students, nonetheless always commanded attention.
From the 1930\national political debate, influencing both the direction of the Democratic Party and the thinking of its leaders.
He tutored Adlai E. Stevenson, the Democratic nominee for president in 1952 and 1956, on Keynesian economics. He advised President John F. Kennedy (often over lobster stew at the Locke-Ober restaurant in their beloved Boston) and served as his ambassador to India.
Though he eventually broke with President Lyndon B. Johnson over the war in Vietnam, he helped conceive of Mr. Johnson\Great Society program and wrote a major presidential address that outlined its purposes. In 1968, pursuing his opposition to the war, he helped Senator Eugene J. McCarthy seek the Democratic nomination for president.
In the course of his long career, he undertook a number of government assignments, including the organization of price controls in World War II and speechwriting for Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt, Kennedy and Johnson.
He drew on his experiences in government to write three satirical novels. He took on the Harvard economics department with \among others, a certain outspoken character who bore no small resemblance to himself.
At his death, Mr. Galbraith was the emeritus professor of economics at Harvard, where he had taught for most of his career. A popular lecturer, he treated economics as an aspect of society and culture rather than as an arcane discipline of numbers. 【试题1参考译文】
反传统的经济学家、教育家以及外交家约翰肯. 格贝斯先生于周六在马萨诸塞州剑桥医院去世，享年97岁。
在经济学历史上，格贝斯先生的著作有着广泛的读者。在他的33部著作当中， 1958年出版的《富裕社会》就是一本为数不多的能促使一个国家重新监视其价值的著作。 即便是一些复杂的议题，他也能够文思泉涌。其中他的很多有说服力的的句子早已成为语言的一部分，例如“富裕社会”、“传统智慧”“抵消力量”。
身材瘦长高6英尺8英寸的格贝斯先生的出现总是让人难以忘怀。 许多国家领导人经常就一些问题咨询格贝斯先生，虽然他给出的建议有近一半被忽略，但他还是非常乐意给出建议。格贝斯先生喜欢用连他自己都不信任的传统智慧来思考问题。 格贝斯先生是受多届哈佛学生尊敬的讲师，值得我们经常地关注。
从20世纪30年代到90年代，格贝斯先生重新界定了国家政治辩论的条件，这一界定同时影响了民主党及其领导者的思路。
他曾经就凯恩斯经济学辅导曾两度被提名为民主党总统候选人的埃尔 E. 斯蒂温逊。他曾经是约翰F.肯尼迪总统的顾问(通常是在他们深爱的波士顿Locke-Ober餐馆，一边吃着焖龙虾)并且出任肯尼迪政府的驻印度大使。
尽管最终因为对越南战争分歧，格贝斯与林顿B.约翰逊总统关系破裂，但是他还帮助构思了约翰逊先生的伟大社会项目并且撰写了总统施政纲领及其主要内容。在反战思想的推动下，1968年他积极帮助参议员Eugene J. McCarthy争取民主党总统候选人的提名。 在他漫长的职业生涯中，格贝斯曾多次接受政府的任命，其中包括在二战期间的价格控制组织，为弗兰克林D.罗斯福、肯尼迪和约翰逊三位总统撰写演讲稿。并且他还以自己在中政府工作的经验出版了小说“终身教授”，与其其他作品相比，该小说充满了讽刺意味，描写了一位与他完全没有相似之处的一个坦率的人物形象。
LAST week, Indonesia announced its 43rd human death from bird flu. It has now recorded more fatalities than any other nation, and in stark contrast to all other countries its death toll is climbing regularly. It looks as though things will get worse before they get better.
The Indonesian government claims to be committed to fighting the disease, caused by the H5N1 virus, but it does not seem to want to spend much of its own money doing so. After the international community pledged $900m in grants and slightly more in very soft loans to combat the spread of bird flu globally and to help nations prepare for a possible human flu pandemic[2], Indonesia put in a request for the full $900m—all of it in grants.
A national bird-flu commission was created in March to co-ordinate the country’s response but it has yet to be given a budget. Its chief, meanwhile, has just been given a second full-time job—heading efforts to rebuild the part of Java devastated by an earthquake in May.
Observers say that the available money is being mis-spent, with the focus on humans rather than on animals. The agriculture ministry, for example, is asking for less money for next year than it got this year. This is despite hundreds of thousands of hens dying every month, to say nothing of infected cats, quails, pigs and ducks. Farmers are being compensate at only 2,000 rupiah (21 cents) per bird, well below market price, thereby discouraging them from reporting outbreaks. The country’s veterinary surveillance services are inadequate. Pledges to vaccinate hundreds of millions of birds have not been met.
The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation is starting to establish local disease-control centres to cope with the effects of a virulent mutation, should one occur, but reckons that only one-third of the country will be covered by year’s end. A bunch of international do-gooders[4] that is trying to plug some of the gaps is finding it hard to raise money. 【参考译文】
印尼上周宣布本国第43人死于禽流感。它的死亡纪录现已超过其它任何一个国家，并且与其它各国形成鲜明对比的是它的死亡人数还在不断攀升。现在看来，情况似乎不但未见好转，反而要愈发地糟糕。