心靈美文_A Sometimes Lonely Trek for Global Warming Awarenss 為全球變暖問題奔走疾呼的孤獨行者

看盡繁華,才懂淡然;經(jīng)歷磨礪,才得從容;讀懂人心,才知隨緣。夜深人靜的時候，聆聽來自心靈的呼喚。走進心靈，體會初衷。以下是聽力課堂小編整理的心靈美文_A Sometimes Lonely Trek for Global Warming Awarenss 為全球變暖問題奔走疾呼的孤獨行者的資料，希望你會喜歡!

文字難度：★★★

　　On Route 11 north of 1)Tuscaloosa, 2)Ala., last April, a pickup truck pulled up next to Greta Browne, and a young man began lecturing her about global warming. He had seen Ms. Browne’s T-shirt announcing that she was “Walking for the Climate,” and he wanted to 3)set her straight. Humans, he told her, have nothing to do with heating up the planet. 
　　Ms. Browne, 65, a 4)Unitarian minister from 5)Bethlehem, 6)Pa., has encountered more than one global warming 7)naysayer since last March, when she began a trek up the Eastern seaboard to draw attention to climate change. “Sometimes, you just have to stand up,” she said. So far, Ms. Browne has 8)logged about 1,100 miles, walking from outside New Orleans to 9)Rouses Point, N.Y., near the Canadian border, where she will end her journey Saturday.  
　　When she began the trip, Ms. Browne had hoped to attract crowds of other people to walk with her (think Forrest Gump running cross country in the 1994 film). Instead, it has been a mostly solo journey, which she describes as “a meditation, a prayer,” for Earth. Still, her shirt and her 10)beckoning smile invite people to approach. Sometimes they pull their cars over and hand her 11)fistfuls of dollar bills—she is financing the trip with small donations, and her Social Security checks. Sometimes people run up alongside and 12)proffer water bottles to her.  
　　In choosing to promote her cause this way—as opposed to, say, pressing for legislative change—Ms. Browne joins a growing list of environmental activists who are hoping to draw public attention to the issue through stunts: Colin Beavan, for example, the writer who lived without toilet paper and electricity, or David Rothschild, a self-described “eco-adventurer” in San Francisco who has built a boat made of reused plastic water bottles and plans to sail to Sydney, Australia. 

　　去年四月,在阿拉巴馬州塔斯卡盧薩北部11號大道上,一輛小型敞篷貨車從格里塔·布朗身邊經(jīng)過并停下,一個年輕人走下車開始跟她講全球變暖問題。他看到布朗女士的T恤衫上宣稱她在“為氣候而步行”,他覺得要糾正她的觀念,于是告訴她,人類和地球變暖沒有任何關(guān)系。 
　　65歲的布朗女士是一名來自賓夕法尼亞州伯利恒的基督教一位論派牧師,去年三月她開始沿東部海岸徒步行走以引起人們對氣候變化的關(guān)注,至今她已經(jīng)遇到過好幾個堅稱不存在“全球變暖”現(xiàn)象的人。“有時候,你必須得站起來爭辯?！彼f。到目前為止,布朗女士已經(jīng)走了約1100英里(約1770公里),路線是從新奧爾良郊區(qū)到紐約州勞西斯角村,該村靠近加拿大邊境。周六她將在那里結(jié)束全部行程。 
　　在行程開始時,布朗女士曾希望能吸引其他人加入到她的行走之列(想想1994年的電影《阿甘正傳》中,阿甘跑步橫穿美國大陸時引來眾多追隨者的情景)。然而,事實上大多數(shù)時候這只是她一個人的旅程。她將此形容為是為地球作的“一次冥想、祈禱”。盡管如此,她的T恤和具感染力的微笑還是吸引著人們走近她。有時他們會停下車遞給她一大把鈔 票——她出行的資金來源依賴小額的捐款和自己的社會保險金。有時有人會跑到她身旁,提供瓶裝水給她。 

　　As she has 13)plodded along, Ms. Browne said, she has come to understand her journey as a one-woman survey of the American mindset on global warming. “Mostly people think it is a problem,” she said, “but mostly they think it will not impact them anytime soon.” 
　　A longtime member of 14)the Green Party, she has been concerned for years about global warming. But after she retired last year, she joined an environmental group and read 15)Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet by Mark Lynas. The book, which 16)argues that most of humanity could be 17)wiped out by the end of the century if Earth’s temperatures continue to warm, 18)galvanized her. 
　　As the child of 19)Presbyterian 20)missionaries, Ms. Browne lived in Brazil, China and Niger, and was used to a 21)peripatetic lifestyle, so she decided to take to the road. Her role model was 22)Doris Haddock, better known as Granny D, who in 1999, at age 90, walked across the country for campaign finance reform, generating both crowds and headlines. 
　　Ms. Browne’s trek has not quite turned out that way, and, she says, her adventure has other shortcomings. To make the walk 23)logistically possible, she has lived out of a 1982 van—complete with gold-colored 24)shag carpeting and 25)rust 26)velour sofas—that is, by her own admission, “a disgusting gas 27)guzzler.” 
　　By living 28)abstemiously on other 29)fronts, she said she had managed to keep her 30)carbon footprint to half that of the average American. She never eats out and, except for her T-shirts, all her clothes are second-hand. Even her white 31)Clarks sneakers were bought from a 32)thrift store. 
　　On Sundays, she goes to 33)Unitarian Universalist churches along the way. She has handed out 34)fliers listing small actions people can take to fight global warming, like using 35)compact 36)fluorescent light bulbs and lobbying for schools to teach the subject. 
　　Crowds or no, Ms. Browne says, she is convinced that she has 37)reached people and “raised awareness.” She estimates that 500 to 1,000 cars pass her on the road every day and about 1 percent, she says, honk or give her a thumbs-up. 
　　In the end, Ms. Browne said, she thinks that most people are 38)sympathetic and want to do something—just not too much. “People just don’t see enough urgency to change their life,” she said. 

　　 
　　相比去爭取立法改變現(xiàn)狀,她選擇用這樣的方式來推廣她的“事業(yè)”。布朗女士加入到愈加龐大的一群環(huán)保人士隊伍里,他們希望通過自己的一些驚人之舉來引起公眾關(guān)注環(huán)保問題:比如作家柯林·比萬,生活中他不用衛(wèi)生紙也不用電;或者來自舊金山自稱為“環(huán)保冒險家”的大衛(wèi)·羅斯切爾德,他利用可循環(huán)再用的塑料水瓶造了一艘小船,并打算要乘著這艘小船前往澳大利亞的悉尼。 
　　布朗女士說,隨著她一路艱難地跋涉,她已經(jīng)漸漸把自己的這次行程看作是一名女性就美國人對全球變暖問題的認識而進行的一次調(diào)查?！按蟛糠秩艘呀?jīng)認識到全球變暖這個問題,”她說,“但通常他們認為這個不會在短時間內(nèi)影響到他們?！?nbsp;
　　作為綠黨的一名老成員,布朗女士多年來一直關(guān)注著全球變暖問題。不過,去年退休后,她加入了一個環(huán)保組織,并閱讀了馬克·萊納斯的書——《六度的變化:一個越來越熱星球的未來》。這本書指出,如果地球的溫度繼續(xù)上升,人類將在本世紀末面臨滅絕的危險。這一說法促使她奔走疾呼。 
　　作為長老會傳教士的后代,布朗女士曾在巴西、中國和尼日爾居住過,而且習慣了游走四方的生活方式,因而她決定徒步奔走。她的榜樣是多麗絲·哈達克,也就是眾所周知的“D奶奶”。1999年,90歲高齡的多麗絲徒步橫穿美國,發(fā)起呼吁改革聯(lián)邦競選籌款方式的活動,引起了民眾和媒體的多方關(guān)注。 
　　布朗女士艱苦跋涉的結(jié)果與上述情況有所不同,而且她說,她的冒險之旅有其他不足之處。為方便徒步時后勤方面的實際需要,布朗女士一直住在外面,一輛1982年造的有蓬貨車里——車上配備了金色的粗線毛毯和深褐色天鵝絨沙發(fā)——那輛貨車,用她的話說,是“一臺討厭的耗油鬼?！?nbsp;
　　布朗女士說,通過在其他方面過著有節(jié)制的生活,她已經(jīng)成功地使自己的“碳足跡”維持在美國人平均“碳足跡”的一半。她從不在外面吃飯,而且,除了T恤衫,她所有的衣服都是二手的。甚至連她腳上穿的其樂牌白色運動鞋也是從一間舊貨店里淘來的。 
　　每逢星期天,她會去沿途的基督教一位論派的教堂。在那里,她把一些傳單分發(fā)給大家,上面列出了人們可以通過哪些小舉措來緩解全球變暖的狀況,比如使用節(jié)能的熒光燈泡,游說學校開設(shè)有關(guān)環(huán)保的科目。 
　　布朗女士說,無論有沒有得到眾人的支持,她深信自己的行為已經(jīng)影響了眾人,并“提高了人們對全球變暖問題的認識”。她說,每天在路上估計有500到1000輛車從她身邊經(jīng)過,大概有1%的司機朝她摁喇叭打招呼,或者豎起大拇指對她表示贊許。 
　　最后,布朗女士說,她認為大多數(shù)人都認識到了全球變暖問題,也想要為此做點事情——只要不是太麻煩?！叭藗冎皇菦]意識到去改變他們的生活是件多么緊迫的事?！彼f。