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    中国成为世界烟囱
    [size=3]中国成为世界烟囱 作者:阮一峰 出自 http://www.green-web.org/infocenter/show.php?id=20060 去年12月21日,《纽约时报》刊登长篇报道《中国成为世界烟囱》(China Grabs West’s Smoke-Spewing Factories),揭露了西方国家转移污染的问题,并且对比了中国和德国的两个钢铁城市,说明中国正走在一条危险的发展道路上。 网上有前三部分的翻译,但是最后一部分的中译迟迟不贴出来。我实在等不下去了,自己动手翻译完了全文。 下面就是这篇发人深省的报道,结尾附有更多图片 (A coking plant at Hangang, the main steel mill complex in Handan, China. China's produced more steel each year than the United States, Germany and Japan combined. 图为邯钢的一个炼焦厂,这是邯钢的主要部分之一。中国每年生产的钢铁比美国、德国和日本的总和还要多。) ========================== China Grabs West’s Smoke-Spewing Factories 中国成了“世界烟囱” 原载2007年12月21日《纽约时报》 HANDAN, China — When residents of this northern Chinese city hang their clothes out to dry, the black fallout from nearby Handan Iron and Steel often sends them back to the wash. 邯郸,中国 —— 当生活在中国北方城市邯郸的居民把衣服放在外面晒干时,附近钢铁厂排出的黑烟经常把它们送回去重洗。 Half a world away, neighbors of ThyssenKrupp’s former steel mill in the Ruhr Valley of Germany once had a similar problem. The white shirts men wore to church on Sundays turned gray by the time they got home. 在地球的另一端,德国蒂森克虏伯老钢铁厂附近的居民,也曾遇到过类似的问题。男人每个礼拜日去教堂所穿的白衬衫,回到家时都变成了灰色。 These two steel towns have an unusual kinship, spanning 5,000 miles and a decade of economic upheaval. They have shared the same hulking blast furnace, dismantled and shipped piece by piece from Germany’s old industrial heartland to Hebei Province, China’s new Ruhr Valley. 这两个钢铁城镇,跨越五千英里的距离和十多年的经济动荡,有着一份不同寻常的亲情,它俩分享着同一座高大笨重的高炉。当年那座设在德国鲁尔山谷(Ruhr Valley)钢铁厂的高炉,在被拆除后又被一块一块地从德国老工业中心地带,搬到了河北省这个被称为中国新鲁尔山谷的邯郸市。 The transfer, one of dozens since the late 1990s, contributed to a burst in China’s steel production, which now exceeds that of Germany, Japan and the United States combined. It left Germany with lost jobs and a bad case of postindustrial angst. 德中钢铁厂的转让只是上个世纪九十年代末期,因中国欲提高钢铁生产能力而出现的数十个转让之一。现在,中国的钢铁生产能力超过了德国、日本和美国的总和。 But steel mills spewing particulates into the air and sucking electricity from China’s coal-fired power plants account for a big chunk of the country’s surging emissions of sulfur dioxide and carbon dioxide. Germany, in contrast, has cleaned its skies and is now leading the fight against global warming. 蒂森克虏伯钢铁厂(ThyssenKrupp)带着失业率上升和后工业社会的焦虑离开了德国,但却清洁了这个国家的天空,现在它已成为领导与全球变暖而战的主要国家。相反,中国的钢铁企业正向空气中排放着大量粒子,吞噬着这个国家来自燃煤电厂并造成空气严重污染的电力。 In its rush to re-create the industrial revolution that made the West rich, China has absorbed most of the major industries that once made the West dirty. Spurred by strong state support, Chinese companies have become the dominant makers of steel, coke, aluminum, cement, chemicals, leather, paper and other goods that faced high costs, including tougher environmental rules, in other parts of the world. China has become the world’s factory, but also its smokestack. 在这场急于重新建立曾使西方国家变成富国的工业化革命中,中国已经吸收了也曾使西方国家变得肮脏的绝大多数主要行业。伴随着国家的强大支持,中国公司已在钢材、焦炭、铝、水泥、化学品、皮革、纸张及其它物资生产中占有主导地位,而这种生产在世界其它国家已面对包括更严厉的环保规则等在内的高昂成本。中国已经变成世界工厂,但它也变成了世界的烟筒。 This mass shift of polluting industries has blighted China’s economic rise. Double-digit growth rates have done less to improve people’s lives when the damages to the air, land, water and human health are considered, some economists say. Outmoded production equipment will have to be replaced or retrofitted at high cost if the country intends to reduce pollution. 这次西方污染工业的大规模转移,已经损害了中国经济的崛起。一些经济学家指出,两位数字的经济增长率,在对空气、土地、水源和人类健康已被认为造成破坏之际,其实它并没有更多地改善人民的生活。如果这个国家打算减少染污,那么其陈旧的生产设备就需要以很高代价进行更换或翻新。 China’s worsening environment has also upended the geopolitics of global warming. It produces and exports so many goods once made in the West that many wealthy countries can boast of declining carbon emissions, even while the world’s overall emissions are rising quickly. 此外,中国不断恶化的环境也让全球变暖的地缘政治“本末倒置”。中国生产并出口了如此之多的曾经一度是西方世界生产的商品,可能让许多富裕的西方国家夸耀自己的碳排放量正在下降,即使是在世界的总排放量仍在迅速上升之际。 The Ruhr Valley city of Dortmund, where ThyssenKrupp once made steel, still suffers from high unemployment because of the loss of jobs to lower-cost countries like China. But Germans can buy Chinese-made iPods, washing machines and cargo ships at prices that, because of lax pollution controls, do not reflect the toll on the environment. And the outsourcing of polluting industries has given them cleaner air and water. 在德国多特蒙德市的鲁尔山谷地区,曾经生产过钢材的蒂森克虏伯,由于钢铁生产已转向成本较低的国家如中国,现在那里仍然遭受着较高失业率的打击。但已经外包给发展中国家的有污染的工业,则给予这个国家更洁净的空气和水。 “It seems to me that China is making all the mistakes that we made in the 19th century,” said Wilhelm Grote, an environmental regulator in Dortmund, who recalls washing his father’s car as a child, only to see it immediately blanketed by soot. “They will find it is much more expensive to fix up later than to do it right from the start.” 多特蒙德市环保监督者格罗特(Wilhelm Grote)说,“在我看来,中国正在犯下我们曾在十九世纪所犯下的所有错误。”格罗特回忆说,他还记得自己是个孩子时帮父亲洗车的情景,刚洗过的车上就落满了烟尘。“中国人将会发现以后去修补它,要比一开始就做出正确的决定,要付出更昂贵的代价,”格罗特说。 Having ignored the environmental consequences of its industrial binge for years, the Communist Party leadership now says it is determined to develop a cleaner economic model. Beijing has tried to enforce ambitious — though so far unmet — targets to improve energy efficiency and reduce emissions. 在多年来一直忽视工业污染所造成的环境后果后,现在中共领导层已表示,有决心去发展一种更清洁的经济模式。北京已试图强制执行其雄心勃勃的目标,来提高其能源效率和减少排放量,尽管至今仍未取得多少的成果。 Officials say they are especially concerned about the environmental burden of producing more than $1 trillion of goods each year for sale overseas. Of China’s total carbon emissions, which by some estimates now exceed those of the United States, just over a third are incurred in the course of making products for foreign consumers, according to the International Energy Agency, an energy policy and research group in Paris. 中国官员表示,他们对每年生产的超过1万亿美元出售到海外的商品所造成的环境负担深感担忧。一些专家估计,中国的碳排放总量现在超过了美国,据总部设在巴黎的国际能源政策研究组织国际能源机构统计,只有略多于三分之一的碳排放量是发生在为外国消费者生产产品过程中。 The country’s central planning agency recently barred purchases of some used industrial equipment from abroad, requiring companies to install newer energy-efficient systems. It has canceled many incentives devised to promote exports, especially for companies that guzzle energy and pollute heavily. Officials have warned companies that breaking environmental laws will cost them their export licenses. 中共中央经济规划机构最近已下令禁止从海外购买部分二手工业设备,并要求企业安装较新的节能系统。中国还取消了许多旨在促进出口的奖励措施,尤其是对那些造成严重污染的企业。中国官方警告说,那些违反环保法规的企业,将会导致失去出口许可证。 “Some enterprises are abusing the environment to lower export prices,” Chen Guanglong, a Ministry of Commerce official, said in announcing a crackdown on polluters this fall. “They sell their products abroad, but the pollution is left at home.” 中国商务部高级官员陈广龙(音译)在今年秋季宣布对污染企业进行打击时指出,中国出口商品价格被人为压低是因为这些工厂并不承担与污染相关的成本。“一些企业为降低出口价格正在污染环境,它们把自己的产品销往国外,但却把污染留在了国内,”陈广龙说。 There are few signs, however, that Chinese officials have real regrets about becoming the world’s hub of heavy industry. Investment in new plants and equipment for steel, aluminum and cement has risen sharply even as central planners warn that the sector will get less state support. China’s steel exports to the European Union are expected to double this year from the record set in 2006. 陈广龙还强调,这些出口的商品价格并没有充分反映出真正的成本,这也是导致中国贸易顺差处于不合理高位的原因之一。中国对美国不断膨胀的贸易顺差成为了两国间激烈争论的焦点问题。 Three hundred miles south of Beijing, the city of Handan is both a beneficiary and a victim. Hangang, as the local steel mill is called, is a government favorite, having received permission to list its shares on the stock market and expand production. That is despite the fact that, like many of China’s largest steel companies, it is in a crowded city. 位于北京南部300英里处的邯郸市,在这场工业化和全球化东移过程中,既是一个受益者,也是一个受害者。被称为邯钢的邯郸钢铁集团,是一家政府最喜欢的企业,已经被允许上市和扩大生产能力。尽管事实则是,这家钢铁集团就坐落在一个拥挤的城市,就象许多中国大型钢铁公司一样。 Residents on the west side of Handan live in a miasma of dust and smoke that environmental authorities acknowledge contains numerous carcinogens. After public protests, the company agreed to pay an annual “pollution fee” to compensate some neighbors. 邯郸市西部地区的居民,每天都生活在乌烟瘴气的环境中,连当地环保部门都承认,许多污染物含有致癌物质。在遭到公众的抗议后,邯钢已同意每年支付“污染费”,来对附近的邻居进行补偿。 The Ruhr gets a different kind of subsidy. Germany and the European Union have committed nearly $22 billion to transform the region into a center of education, technology and tourism. Bulldozers are remaking ThyssenKrupp’s old steel mill into a terraced hillside community, with shops, restaurants and single-family homes surrounding a man-made lake. 不过,多特蒙特市的鲁尔山谷地区,则得到了一种不同形式的补贴。德国和欧洲联盟已经承诺,提供220亿美元来把这个原来的钢铁基地改造成一个教育、科技和旅游中心。此时此刻,大型推土机正在把蒂森克虏伯老钢厂,重新改造成一个梯田山坡社区,一座人工湖的四周,点缀着商店、餐厅和单一家庭的住宅。 A Faltering Leap Forward 步履蹒跚的飞跃 Hangang was created by an act of Mao. In 1958, the Chinese leader spurred his people to sacrifice everything, including their pots and pans, in China’s first attempt to become a steel superpower. He called the campaign the Great Leap Forward. 邯钢是根据毛泽东的一道命令创建的。1958年,中国第一次试图成为一个钢铁大国,这位中国领导人鼓动他的人民为了这个目标放弃一切,比如家用铁锅。他把这场运动叫做“大跃进”。 Handan, an ancient but neglected city on the parched plains of southern Hebei Province, had two advantages: rich veins of coal and iron ore and easy access to a major north-south railway line. 这座古老而又被忽略了城市――邯郸,就坐落在河北省南部的平原上,它有两大优势:贮藏着丰富的煤炭和铁矿石,靠近一条重要的横跨南北的铁路线。 “The ancient city of Handan must be rejuvenated as a capital of steel,” Mao proclaimed. 毛泽东当时曾宣布,“古城邯郸将作为钢铁之都而复兴。” So next to the Handan railway station, just west of the city’s urban center, authorities erected a triumphal gate crowned with statues of heroic workers reaching for the sky. Inside, coking, sintering and smelting plants churned out crude iron and steel. 因此,政府当局便在位于城市西部中心的邯郸火车站前,筑起了一道凯旋门,树起直冲云天的英雄钢铁工人的雕像。在这道门里,焦化和冶炼工厂源源不断地产出生铁和钢材。 In economic terms, Hangang was not markedly more successful than the rest of the Great Leap Forward, which led to mass famine. It survived for decades on state subsidies, providing benefits for its 30,000 workers but making low-quality ferrous metals that earned poor returns. 从经济角度看,邯钢并没有获得比造成大规模饥荒的大跃进更为明显的成功。几十年来,它是靠着政府的补贴才生存下来的,3万多名工人也靠着政府提供的福利,它生产的钢铁质量不高,经济效益也不好。 In the 1990s, Hangang came under pressure to turn a profit. Its managers decided to start making sheet metal, for home appliances and cars, as well as their usual output of construction materials. That required a major upgrade. 到了20世纪90年代,邯钢面临着必须盈利的压力。邯钢领导层决定开始为一些生产家电和汽车的产业生产金属板,同时也继续生产通常的建筑用钢材。这就需要对企业进行一次重大升级。 Backed by state bank loans and a listing on the Shanghai stock market, Hangang embarked on an overhaul. But its ambitions far exceeded its budget. The company needed a cheap and radical solution to transform the mill. 在国有银行的支持下,以及在上海证券交易所发行股票之后,邯钢开始了一次大改造。然而它的野心却远远超过了预算。公司要想改造成大型钢铁厂,就需要一个廉价而激进的解决办法。 The answer came from Europe, especially from the Ruhr Valley. The Ruhr had been the engine room of German industry since the mid-19th century. It was rich in coal and Prussian zeal. 它的答案来自欧洲,尤其是来德国的鲁尔山谷。自19世纪中叶以来,鲁尔便是德国工业的发动机房。那里盛产着煤炭,也盛产着普鲁士的狂热。 The region’s big steel groups, Thyssen, Krupp and Mannesmann, forged the weapons for Germany’s armies and later the sheet metal for its automobiles. 鲁尔地区的大钢铁集团包括蒂森、克虏伯和曼内斯曼,曾为德国军队生产过武器,后来才开始为德国汽车业生产金属板材。 But by the 1960s, Germany’s industrial golden age had begun to wane. Miners had to dig deeper to extract coal, which became uneconomical. Taxes and labor costs rose, while reunification subjected West German companies to subsidized competition from the East. Steel mills also came under heavy government pressure to install the latest environmental and efficiency controls. 但20世纪60年代,德国工业黄金时代已开始有所减弱。为了提高产量,矿工不得不向更深处挖掘,这变得越来越不合算。在税收和劳动力成本上升的同时,西德企业还要与有政府补贴的东德企业进行竞争。钢铁企业还面临着来自政府的沉重压力,被要求安装最新环保和节能控制设施。 “In the 1980s, we still had a dream that it was just a temporary slump and we would grow strong again,” said Michael Schwarze-Rodrian, director of the Ruhr Business Development Agency. “But pressures were too great. Our time had passed.” 鲁尔地区经济发展局局长罗德里安(Michael Schwarze-Rodrian)介绍说,“在80年代,我们仍然梦想着这只是一个暂时的低迷,我们会重新强大起来。然而压力实在太大了。我们的时代已经过去了。” Thyssen and Krupp merged their steel operations in 1997 and consolidated production in Duisburg, on the Rhine. 在1997年,蒂森和克虏伯合并了,开始在莱茵河畔的杜伊斯堡统一生产。 The Dortmund steel mills, called Phoenix, which had been among Germany’s largest since before World War II, were slated for closure, and probably the scrap heap. 而二战以后德国最大的钢铁厂、被称为“凤凰”的多特蒙德钢铁厂,则被迫关闭,如果不是邯钢的出现,它可能已经变成了一堆废铁。 That is, until Hangang got word that it could buy a relatively sophisticated German blast furnace for a small fraction of what a new one would cost. 邯钢听说花很少的钱,就可以买到一个比较高级的德国高炉。这比新建一个全新的高炉便宜多了。 “The reshuffle of the world steel industry gave Hangang this opportunity,” Liu Hanzhang, chairman of Hangang, told local media after he bought the Phoenix furnace in 1998. “Some people think we are a low-tech steel mill. We will become first-class.” 邯钢集团董事长刘汉章在1998年购买多特蒙德钢厂的熔炉后对当地媒体说,“这次世界钢铁工业的重组,给了邯钢这个机会。有些人认为我们是一个低科技钢厂。我们将变成世界一流的钢厂。” Germans did not have to dismantle their own industrial patrimony. Hangang sent workers to Dortmund. They labeled every part of the seven-story furnace, then disassembled it and packed it in thousands of wooden crates for the long voyage to the port of Tianjin. 德国人并没有亲自折掉自己的工业遗产,而是邯钢派工人来到多特蒙德,把那座高达七层楼的熔炉一块块拆卸下来,然后给每个部分都标上记号,再把成千上万的组件装进木箱中,最后经过漫长的航程才抵达中国北部的天津港。 “They worked day and night,” said Erwin Schneider, a spokesman for ThyssenKrupp. “They could never have done it that fast if they were governed by German labor laws.” 蒂森克虏伯的发言人施耐德(Erwin Schneider)回忆说,中国拆卸工人来到多特蒙德后“夜以继日地工作,如果按照德国劳工法的规定,他们将决不会在那么短的时间内完成拆卸任务。” It was not the only such case. Hangang alone spent $800 million importing new and used equipment, according to company literature. It purchased a used ladle furnace and billet caster from Société Métallurgique de Normandie in France. It bought another secondhand blast furnace and a sinter machine from Arbed in Luxembourg. 但这并不是邯钢惟一的购买“便宜货”的记录。该集团文献显示,邯钢单单在引进各种全新的和二手的设备上,就花了8亿美元。它从法国诺曼底的一家公司手里购买了一套精炼炉和铸压机。它还从卢森堡的一家公司购买了一座二手高炉和一个烧结机。 Other Chinese companies flocked to the European fire sale, stripping Dortmund of its assets. 在邯钢的带动下,其它中国钢铁公司纷纷涌进欧洲,剥离多特蒙德钢铁厂的资产。 ThyssenKrupp sold the remaining parts of the Phoenix plant to Shagang Group, a privately run steel mill on the Yangtze River, in 2000. 蒂森克虏伯还在2000年把多特蒙德凤凰钢铁厂的其余部分,卖给了长江边上的一个名叫沙钢的私营企业。 And in 2003, 400 Chinese workers traveled to the Ruhr Valley and dismantled the Kaiserstuhl coking plant in Dortmund, which had been built only a few years earlier to meet exacting European environmental standards. 2003年,又有400多名中国工人前往鲁尔河谷地区,拆除位于多特蒙特的凯撒施图尔(Kaiserstuhl)炼焦厂,而这座工厂是在几年前建成的,以满足欧盟严格的环保标准。 It now belongs to Yankuang Group, a coking company in Shandong Province. 现在,这座炼焦炉已属于山东省以生产煤炭为主的兖矿集团。 A Loud and Dirty Business 一个高污染、高噪音的行业 Belching and thundering 24 hours a day, the coking, iron and steel works at Hangang cover four square miles and resemble a working museum of the industrial age. Its oldest coal-powered furnace, with its corroded, protruding shoots and shafts, might have belonged to Andrew Carnegie. The newest, part of a big expansion, uses waste heat to generate power, a technology that saves energy. 占地4平方英里、每天24小时运转的邯钢,就象一座工业时代的活博物馆。它的最老式的烧煤熔炉和其它设备,可能属于十九世纪的安德鲁.卡内基时代,而世界最新式熔炉已经有了很大扩展,利用余热发电是一项节约能源的新技术。 The European castoffs fell somewhere in between. It took Hangang several years to integrate this equipment into its patchwork of production lines. The Phoenix plant was christened No. 7 blast furnace. The Normandy and Luxembourg machines became part of the No. 3 steel works. 欧洲人的弃物也夹杂在其中。邯钢花了好几年时间来把它从欧洲进口的旧设备,整合到其东拼西凑的生产线。德国凤凰钢铁厂被其命名为第7号高炉,而诺曼底和卢森堡的机器已变成其第三钢厂的一部分。 Facing stiff competition in China’s overcrowded steel industry, Hangang still does not consistently make a profit. But the shopping spree did send production surging. In the decade after 1996, its output rose 350 percent. 面对中国拥挤不堪的钢铁业的激烈竞争,邯钢仍然没有获得连续的赢利。但疯狂的采购则让其产量大幅增产,仅在1996年以来的十年时间里,它的钢产量就增长350%。 Shimmering yellow and raging red, Hangang’s flare stacks burn off waste gases and inflame the night sky. A fleet of diesel locomotives hauling coal shakes the farmhouses and apartment buildings that hug the plant’s outer walls. For Handan’s 8.5 million residents, and especially the tens of thousands who live in the plant’s immediate shadow, the complex is a noisome, noxious, money-spinning, job-creating leviathan. 燃烧的废气所迸发出的火花,每到晚上就映红邯钢的夜空。运煤的内燃机车拉着长长车箱摇晃着附近的农宅和商业住宅。对于邯郸850万居民,尤其是居住在邯钢附近的数以万计的居民来说,这个庞大的钢铁企业就是一个嘈杂而赚钱,有毒但能提供就业机会的巨大怪兽。 Tian Lanxiu climbs to the roof of a neighbor’s home in Mengwu Village to survey the expanse of Hangang beyond. In the gray horizon she points out the No. 7 blast furnace — “the one the West Germans come to fix.” Nearby is a cooling plant that hisses white steam, and a coking facility that oozes yellow exhaust. 在邯钢附近的孟吴村(音译),田兰秀(音译)爬上一个邻居家的屋顶,观察着远处的邯钢。在灰色的视野中,她指着第7号高炉说,“那是西德人来修理的一个”。它的附近就是一个冷却厂,正嘶嘶地往外冒着白色蒸汽,还有一座炼焦设施正向空中排放着黄色废气。 Ms. Tian said she and other villagers learned to cope with Hangang’s emissions. People do not eat outdoors, she said, to avoid having black briquettes flake their rice. If her children cannot fall asleep at night, she stuffs their ears with cotton. 田莲旭女士说,她和其它村民都知道应该如何应对邯钢的污染,为了避免黑色的煤球粉未落在大米饭上,村民们都不在外面吃饭。如果孩子们晚上无法入睡,她就用棉花球把他们的耳朵塞上。 Some people in Mengwu have died young, she said, often of heart disease or cancer. She has no evidence to connect their deaths to the steel mill, but says she has few doubts herself. “Hangang knocks 10 years off people’s lives,” she said. “We all want to live longer. We’re growing more aware.” 田莲旭说,孟吴村的一些人患有心脏病或癌症,通常在很年轻时就死了。她没有证据来把这些死亡与钢厂联系在一起,但她对此并不怀疑。“邯钢让这里的人少活10年,”她说,“我们都想活得长一些,我们越来越意识到这一点。” Hangang officials declined several requests to discuss production and environmental controls. But the company has said in domestic news media interviews that, along with the upgrading of its production facilities, it has installed pollution-control equipment and improved the area’s environment. 邯钢官员拒绝了该报记者多次提出的对生产和环境控制进行讨论的要求。不过,该公司官员在接受中国国内新闻媒体采访时表示,随着生产设施的升级,钢厂已经安装了污染控制设备,改善了该地区的环境。 Government officials in Handan also declined to discuss the plant. But a 2006 study by the city and Tianjin University found abnormally high levels of chemicals of the benzene family attached to coal dust particulates around Handan. 邯郸市政府官员也拒绝讨论邯钢的问题。不过,邯郸市和天津大学2006年共同进行的一项研究发现,邯郸市附近空气中的化学苯并芘浓度非常高。 Airborne concentrations of benzopyrene, a byproduct of coking that some studies have linked to lung cancer, were just below the level measured in two of the country’s most polluted industrial areas, Lanzhou and Taiyuan, and 100 times the levels measured in London, the study said. 一些研究发现,苯并芘是炼焦的副产品,可以导致肺癌。邯郸市的苯并芘水平,只低于中国另外两个最严重的工业污染城市兰州和太原。比伦敦的浓度高出100倍。 Hangang officials once considered moving their older, more heavily polluting production lines farther west of the city. Local environmental officials told state news media in 2005 that if the steel mill did move part of its operations, sulfur dioxide levels in Handan would drop 65 percent. Hangang ultimately elected not to move its older facilities, several people who work at the mill said, because the cost was prohibitive. Instead, Hangang and Shanghai-based Baoshan Iron and Steel teamed up to build another steel mill at the new site. Hangang’s old plant remains in operation. 邯钢官员曾考虑过将其陈旧污染严重的生产线,搬到更远的西部城市。当地环保部门官员也曾在2005年对国有媒体表示,如果真的搬走了,那么邯郸的二氧化硫的含量将会下降65%。邯钢工作人员透露说,但最终公司选择了不撤走那些陈旧的设施,原因是成本过于昂贵。取而代之的是,邯钢与总部设在上海的宝山钢铁公司联手,在一处新地点建造了另一座钢厂。但邯钢的老钢厂仍在运作。 People who live near the plant have staged scattered protests about its pollution for years. The police have intervened and arrested some protesters. But the company has also sought to defuse unrest by giving jobs and other benefits to area residents. 近几年来,邯钢附近的居民已经举行了零星的抗议示威。警方已经干预并逮捕了几名抗议者。与此同时,邯钢也在以提供就业机会和其它好处等措施,设法化解这些引发社会不安的矛盾。 Two years ago, Ms. Tian and a group of mostly older women sat on railroad tracks leading into Hangang and unfurled a banner that said, “Don’t darken our skies.” Their sit-in blocked a train. They demanded that Hangang arrange for them to move far from the plant, Ms. Tian said. 两年前,田莲旭和一大多为老年妇女的村民,坐在通往邯钢的铁路线上示威,她们打着一块写有“不要污染我们的天空”的标语,阻止火车进入邯钢。田莲旭说,她们的要求是,请邯钢帮助她们搬到远离钢厂的地方。 Hangang declined to do so. But it later agreed to pay them a subsidy in lieu of moving, which the villagers call a “pollution fee.” 这些要求先是遭到邯钢的拒绝,随后厂方又表示将会对搬迁提供补助,村民们称之为“污染费”。 On a wall along the village street, officials have pasted strips of baby-blue rice paper listing the names of the heads of each household and its pollution payment. Ms. Tian said she recently collected her third annual installment, totaling $140. 在村子的街墙上,贴着官方张贴的污染补助名单。田莲旭说,最近她已领取了年度第三次分期补助款,共计140美元。 The Dream and Curse of Steel 钢铁的梦想和诅咒 China surpassed the United States to become the world’s largest steel producer 10 years ago. Since then, steel production in both the United States and Germany has barely budged, while China has left them in the dust. Its mills have increased their output fivefold over the decade, to about 38 percent of the world’s total. 10年前,中国首次超过美国成为世界最大钢铁生产国。自那时起,美国和德国几乎没有了钢产量,而中国则一马当先。过去10年,中国的钢产量翻了五番,约占世界总产量的38%。 That is a realization of Mao’s dream. But steel has also proved a curse. China has 77 large steel mills like Hangang, and hundreds of smaller rivals. They have so much excess capacity that production of some basic steel products has become unprofitable at home and abroad. Worse, steel pollutes more than any other industry in China, perhaps in the world. 毛泽东的梦想实现了,但钢铁也证实了一个诅咒。中国拥有77个象邯钢这样的大型钢厂,以及数以百计的规模较小的竞争对手。它们生产了那么多过剩的产量,有些产品无论是在国内还是国外都是无利可图的。更糟糕的是,在中国,也许在世界,钢铁工业所造成的污染要比中国——也许是全世界——其它任何行业都更加严重。 Despite a government-mandated efficiency drive, steel will use 11 percent more power this year than last, fully one-tenth of the country’s total energy supply, according to the China Iron and Steel Association. 尽管政府要求提高效益,但据中国钢铁工业协会预计,今年中国钢铁行业的耗电量要比2006年增加了11%以上,约占全国能源供应总量的十分之一。 Along with aluminum and cement, steel is the biggest reason China added 90 gigawatts of generation capacity this year, the third year in a row in which it will increase its power output by more than the total capacity of Britain. About 85 percent of those new power plants burn coal. 铝、水泥和钢材的生产,是中国今年以来增加了900亿瓦发电容量的主要原因。中国连续三年,每年新增的发电量,比英国全国一年的总用电量都多。而中国85%的发新发电厂都是使用煤炭的火力发电厂。 The International Energy Agency, which had predicted as recently as a few years ago that China’s carbon emissions would not reach those of the United States until 2020, now thinks China took the lead this year. 几年前还预测中国的二氧化硫排放量不会在2020年超过美国的国际能源机构,现在已改变了自己的预测,认为中国今年的二氧化硫排放量就会超过美国。 Chen Kexin, an economist with China’s Ministry of Commerce, said weak environmental laws and still inexpensive power, even more than low labor costs, had enabled Chinese steel makers to undercut prices elsewhere. “The shortfall of environmental protection is one of the main reasons why our exports are cheaper,” Mr. Chen said. “This is hardly an ‘edge’ that we should be proud of.” 中国商务部经济学家陈可新(音译)表示,薄弱的环境法还有要比低成本的劳动力还低廉的电力价格,使得中国钢铁生产商有能力削减价格。“缺少环境保护是我们的出口更加便宜的一个主要原因,”陈可新说,“这可不是一个值得我们骄傲的‘优势’。” In fact, Beijing has begun to discourage steel exports. It not only eliminated export tax rebates on many steel products in April, but also slapped an export surcharge on some. Officials expect export growth to slow. 事实上,北京已经开始减少钢铁出口。4月,许多钢铁产品的出口退税取消了,而且对一些品种征收出口附加费。官员们预计钢铁出口增长将放慢。 But Mr. Chen said China now so dominated the international steel trade that any drop in its exports would raise prices abroad, keeping local steel competitive. “It could take years to restore a more normal trade balance,” he said. 但是,陈可新说,中国在国际钢铁贸易中的地位现在举足轻重,哪怕中国的出口只减少一小部分,国际市场的价格也会上升,这使得中国的小钢铁厂有生存空间。“恢复正常的贸易平衡,需要许多年,”他说。 The transfer of pollution to China also complicates international efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions and agree on a plan to succeed the Kyoto Protocol, an issue that will be under discussion for the next two years. 西方国家的污染转移到中国,也使得削减温室气体排放的国际努力变得更复杂,未来二年中,《京都议定书》后续协议的签订也将变得更困难。 One apparent benefit of China’s industrial rise is that developed countries have slowed or cut their carbon emissions, a political and environmental boon as pressure to combat climate change has increased. Even the United States, which has declined to set limits on carbon emissions, has recently shown slight declines. But the gains are illusory. 中国工业化的一个明显好处是,发达国家减少或者放慢了自身的二氧化碳排放,这在政治上和环境上对它们都是有利的,因为国内要求阻止气候变化的压力正在增加。就连美国,这个拒绝限制自身二氧化碳排放的国家,最近都出现了轻微的下降。但是,这种变化是虚幻的。 A study by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University found that if all the goods that the United States imported between 1997 and 2004 had been produced domestically, America’s carbon emissions would have been 30 percent higher. 卡内基·梅隆大学的一项研究发现,如果将1997—2004年间美国进口的所有商品,都放到国内生产,美国的二氧化碳排放量将比现在高出30%。 A separate study for the European Parliament examined the transfer of steel production to China from Germany. It found that China’s less efficient steel mills, and its greater reliance on coal, meant that it emitted three times as much carbon dioxide per ton of steel as German steel producers. 另一项欧洲议会的独立研究,考察了从德国转移到中国的钢产量。它发现,中国的钢铁厂效率较低,而且更多地使用煤炭,这意味着每生产一吨钢铁,中国的二氧化碳排放量是德国的三倍。 From Beijing’s perspective, its exports of steel and other “carbon-intensive” products provide one more reason — along with its still moderate per capita emissions and its low standard of living — for rejecting mandatory caps on carbon emissions. Rich countries, it says, should cut their own emissions sharply and transfer technology so that China will not pollute as much as those countries did when they had their industrial booms. 北京的观点是,中国现在的人均二氧化碳排放量不算高,人民的生活水平较低,而且它的出口中有很多类似钢铁的“二氧化碳密集型产品”,因此拒绝接受强制性的二氧化碳排放限制。它说,富裕国家应该大量削减自身的气体排放,并且同意转移技术,这样一来,中国产生的污染就不会同西方国家工业化时期相同了。 Some leading environmental economists agree. “The footprint of the rich countries is very large because they lay claim to resources in other countries,” said R. Andreas Kraemer, director of the Ecologic Institute for International and European Environmental Policy in Berlin. 一些著名的环境经济学家表示同意。“富裕国家的活动范围太大了,他们使用了很多其他国家的资源,”R. Andreas Kraemer说,他是位于柏林的“国际和欧洲环境政策生态学研究所”的所长。 He and other experts say wealthy countries may have to reduce their consumption as well as their production of carbon in the future. That would oblige them to count what they import from China and elsewhere. 他和其他专家说,富裕国家在未来可能不得不减少它们的消费和二氧化碳排放量。这将迫使它们去注意到底从中国和其他地方,进口了一些什么东西。 But that idea is notional, while heavy industry’s shift to China is inexorable. 但是这种想法只是一种假设,而重工业向中国的迁移则是无情的现实。 Germany is China’s mirror image. Polluting factories have migrated abroad. Coal mining has withered. Since 1990, Germany has reduced its annual carbon emissions by 19 percent. 德国同中国正好相反。污染工厂移到了国外,煤矿关闭了。从1990年起,德国已经将自身的年度二氧化碳排放量减少了19%。 The Greening of Germany 绿色德国 Its transformation dates to the 1970s, with the first attempts to limit lead in gasoline. But it gained momentum in 1980 with the founding of the Green Party, the first environmental party to gain national prominence in Europe. In 1986, prodded partly by the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, West Germany established a ministry dedicated to protecting the environment. It had plenty to do. Germany’s forests had been badly damaged by acid rain from factories in the Ruhr. The Rhine River, which flows past the western edge of the Ruhr Valley, was devoid of marine life. 德国的转型可以回溯到上个世纪70年代,那时第一次限制含铅汽油。但是更大的动力来自于80年代成立的绿党,这是欧洲国家中第一个成为一国主要政党的环境党派。1986年,部分由于切尔诺贝利核事故的触动,西德成立了一个专门保护环境的部。这个部的任务多得做不完。鲁尔工业区里的工厂产生的酸雨,严重破坏了德国的森林。莱茵河流过鲁尔山谷的西部边界,水生生物无法在里面生长。 German reunification in 1990 saddled the country with East Germany’s low-grade brown coal plants, the dirtiest in Europe. Germany cleaned up the East, shutting down many low-efficiency factories, and achieved sharp reductions in carbon emissions. 1990年德国统一,东德很多使用粗煤的低级工厂并入了西德,这是全欧洲最脏的工厂。德国人将东部清洁化,关闭了很多低效率的工厂,二氧化碳排放出现了急剧下降。 Reunification also produced a new generation of green political leaders. Chancellor Angela Merkel, an eastern German physicist, entered national politics in 1994, when Helmut Kohl, then the chancellor, named her environment minister. Mrs. Merkel, who earned the nickname the “climate chancellor,” has pushed multilateral agreements to reduce carbon emissions despite stern resistance from the United States to mandatory cuts. 统一也使得新一代的绿色领导人诞生。默克尔总理就是一位东德的物理学家,她在1994年开始从政,当时的科尔总理任命她为环境部长。在美国坚决拒绝强制性的二氧化碳减排指标的情况下,她还是成功推动了好几个多国协议的签订,这使得她有了“气候总理”的绰号。 On Dec. 5, her government passed legislation to reduce Germany’s emissions by an additional 40 percent by 2020. “Germany wants to set an example,” she said. 12月5日,她的政府通过新的法律,规定在2020前将德国的二氧化碳排放量再削减40%。“德国要成为世界的榜样,”她说。 Dortmund and other Ruhr cities never fully recovered jobs lost to China’s new titans of steel. The unemployment rate in the city still hovers around 15 percent, 50 percent higher than the national average. 多特蒙德和其他鲁尔地区的城市,一直没有办法完全弥补输出到中国钢铁厂的就业机会。失业率现在还保持在15%左右,比全国的平均数高出50%。 Walter Schwalen, a 68-year-old former steelworker, points out the window of his second-floor walk-up to a yawning black pit where the Phoenix blast furnaces once roared. 68岁的退休钢铁工人Walter Schwalen,指着二楼公寓的窗外,远处的地面上有一个黑色的大坑,那里曾经竖立着凤凰钢铁厂的高炉。 He said he watched from his window as a team of Chinese workers dismantled and packed up his old workplace in 1998. “I thought, ‘Our poor Germany,’” he said. “One company after another is closing. Germany is finished.” 他说,1998年时,他就从窗口看到一队中国工人,将他以前工作过的地方拆除,然后打包。“我想,德国真是可怜啊,”他说,“一个接一个的公司正在关门。德国完了。” Yet, the Ruhr region is also a laboratory for how an industrial economy can make the transition to a post-industrial era. Once a byword for grit and grime, where drivers turned on their car headlights midmorning to see through the haze of coal smoke, it has been designated a European capital of culture for 2010. 但是,与此同时,鲁尔地区成了一个实验室,尝试从工业时代转变进入后工业化时代。这个地方曾经被称为煤坑,灰尘漫天,上午开车都要打开车灯,现在它指定为2010年的欧洲文化之都。 In Essen, a depleted coal mine has been converted into a museum and performing-arts center. In Bochum, a 105-year-old gas-fired power plant is now used as a concert hall, its vaulted roof providing professional-quality acoustics. 在埃森市,一个废弃的煤矿被改建为博物馆和艺术表演中心。在波鸿市,一个有着105年历史的火力发电厂,现在成为了音乐厅,它的拱形屋顶有着专业级的声学效果。 The Ruhr is coming to grips with another legacy of its polluted past: the Emscher, a 52-mile long river that suffered the indignity of being turned into an industrial waste canal at the end of the 19th century. Germany now plans to spend $7 billion to bring it back to life. Subterranean pipes will ferry wastewater to treatment plants, returning the river to a natural state. It will be flanked by parkland, the spine of a 248-mile Industrial Heritage Trail for tourists. 鲁尔地区正在研究,如何处理另一项污染时代留下的遗产:Emscher河。这条河长52英里,在19世纪末成为工业废物的倾倒场。德国现在计划投资70亿美元,让它重新恢复生机。地下管道将把废水转移到污水处理厂,使这条河恢复自然的状态。它的周围将是公共草地,和一条248英里长的工业化遗址旅游观光带。 Dortmund, which in 1960 had 40,000 people working in steel mills, now has barely 3,000. But there are 12,000 new jobs in information technology and 2,300 in nanotechnology, which took root here in the last five years. The region, which once had no universities, now has six, as well as eight colleges, with a total enrollment of 160,000 students. 1960年,多特蒙德有4万人在钢铁厂里工作,现在只剩下3000人。但是,信息产业提供了1.2万个新工作岗位,纳米技术提供了2300个工作岗位。这些新产业都是在最近5年里才在这个地区落户的。这里过去没有大学,现在有6所,还有其他8所高校,注册学生总数达到16万。 Even the Phoenix site is rising again. The city has left two old blast furnaces there as the corroded centerpiece of what they hope will be an outdoor performing-arts complex. The government is spending $500 million to dig up soil and remove chemical residues from a half-century of steel making, clearing the way for a lake, a housing development and an office park for start-up companies. 甚至连凤凰钢铁厂所在地都在崛起。那个地方还留着两座斑驳的老高炉,成为了一个室外表演艺术场所的中心景观。政府花了5亿美元,将半个世纪炼钢遗留下来的泥土和化学废渣都挖了出来,规划中,整个地区将有一个湖,一片住宅区和一块高科技公司的创业区。 “It took three generations to do this to the environment,” said Mr. Schwarze-Rodrian of the Ruhr Business Development Agency. “I think it’s reasonable that it will take a generation to fix.” “过去的三代人都在破坏环境,”鲁尔商业发展署的Schwarze-Rodrian先生说。“因此还必须花上一代人的时间来治理环境。” 【绿网】本文网址:http://www.green-web.org/infocenter/show.php?id=20060[/size]
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