一直以来，人类不仅从环境中获取资源，还习惯于把环境当成垃圾场，向其中直接排放废气、废水、固体废弃物。从天空到陆地，从河流到海洋，哪有人类的足迹，那里就少不了污染。

然而，世界这么大，总有人类到不了的地方，那么我们是否还能心存一丝希望：在这个星球上尚有逃过人类破坏的一方净土？而答案，也许会让人失望。

Pollution, by definition, is something introduced into the environment that harmfully disrupts it. While nature sometimes produces its own damaging contaminants1)—wildfires send up billows of smoke and ash, volcanoes belch2) noxious gases—humans are responsible for the lion's share3) of the pollution plaguing the planet today.

污染，就其定义而言，是指某些物质进入环境并对其造成有害的破坏。大自然有时会自发生成破坏性污染物，比如野火会产生滚滚的浓烟和灰烬，火山会喷射出有毒的气体。然而，人类却应对当今全球蔓延的污染负最大责任。

Wherever we go, we seem to have a knack4) for leaving our rubbish and waste behind. Visit even the most remote outpost on the planet and you will witness this first hand5). Still, the world is a big place. Might there be some last holdouts free from the taint of our pollution? Answering that question works best if we break down the environment into6) four realms—the sky, land, fresh water and ocean.

无论走到哪里，我们似乎都习惯于留下垃圾和废弃物。即使前往地球上最偏远的边区村落，你都能亲眼看到垃圾。然而，地球是一个广袤之地，是否还存在没被人类污染的最后阵地呢？要想完满地回答这个问题，我们可以将环境划分为四个领域——天空、陆地、淡水和海洋。

Sky and land

天空和陆地

Air pollution comes in many forms. Smog is mostly composed of particulate matter7) and ozone. And its impact on human health and the environment can be severe. In India alone, ozone pollution causes crop losses equivalent to $1.2 billion per year. In terms of human health, outdoor air pollution costs an estimated one million lives per year, while air pollution produced in homes—usually a by-product of cooking fires—kills around two million people annually.

空气污染的形式多种多样。灰霾主要由颗粒物和臭氧组成，对人类健康和环境会产生严重的影响。仅在印度，臭氧污染每年给农作物造成的损失就相当于12亿美元。就人类健康而言，室外空气污染预计每年导致一百万人丧生，而主要由烹饪用火引起的室内空气污染每年会导致约两百万人丧生。

When carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide and other primary pollutants (those that are injected directly into the atmosphere) find their way high into the atmosphere, they often get transformed through chemical reactions into what scientists refer to as secondary pollutants. Some of these pollutants can linger for months. Others, like methane8), are less reactive and may circulate the globe for years until they are eventually broken down or find their way to the ground via snow or rain.

当一氧化碳、二氧化氮和其他原生污染物(指那些直接排放到大气中的污染物)进入高空大气的时候，它们通常会经过化学反应转化成科学家们所说的次生污染物。这类污染物中，有一些可以在空中停留几个月，而像甲烷等另一些不易发生反应的污染物则有可能会在地球上循环流通多年，直到最终被分解，或通过雪或雨的形式落到地面。

Pollution expelled into the air gets transported vast distances by winds and atmospheric currents. For instance, Indonesia has recently been clearing large tracts of forest with fire to create new palm oil plantations—and Singapore now contends with significant haze9) problems due to its neighbour's slash-and-burn tendencies. Smoke pollution can travel even further than that, however: fires used for farming in South America and southern Africa are a major source of air pollution for the entire southern hemisphere. On occasions, pollution emitted from one source region can find its way around the globe more than once.

排放到空气中的污染物可以被风和气流带到很远的地方。例如，印度尼西亚最近一直在火烧大片森林，以开辟新的棕榈油种植园，而新加坡目前全力应对的严重雾霾问题就源于与它相邻的印度尼西亚这种刀耕火种的态势。然而，烟尘污染传播的距离更远：南美洲和非洲南部为耕作而燃烧的大火就是整个南半球空气污染的主要来源。有时，某污染发源地排放的污染物会不止一次地扩散到全球。

So based on what we know about atmospheric currents and pollution distribution, it's safe to say that there are no places on the planet guaranteed to be fully free from air pollution. And therefore that goes for the land surface too.

那么，基于我们对气流和污染传播的了解，我们可以有把握地说，这个星球上没有任何地方可以保证完全没有空气污染。由此说来，陆地表面的情况也是如此。

That said, however, there are places where the air is cleaner. In general, the Southern Hemisphere's air is better than the Northern Hemisphere's, just by virtue of10) the fact that fewer people live there. While pollution does move around the world, there is less mixing between the hemispheres due to barrier-like wind patterns. The South Pole, therefore, probably contains the cleanest air on Earth given its remoteness. But as Helen ApSimon, a professor of air pollution studies points out, there's still a massive pollution-caused hole in the ozone layer hovering over Antarctica, and deposits of black carbon can be readily spotted on that continent's snow.

不过，就算这样，还是有些地方的空气更洁净些。大体来说，南半球的空气质量要优于北半球，原因就在于那里的人口更少。虽然污染会在全球流动，但由于像屏障似的风带的存在，南北半球之间很少交互污染。因此，鉴于南极远离人烟，那里很可能拥有地球上最洁净的空气。但是，正如从事空气污染研究的海伦·艾普西蒙教授指出的那样，悬浮在南极洲上空的臭氧层中仍有大量由污染造成的臭氧空洞，在那片陆地的积雪上很容易看到黑碳沉积物。

Water淡水

Air pollution, unfortunately, also affects water, and therefore cancels out hope that perfectly clean freshwater bodies exist. But while pollution from the air does settle in water, it's actually pollution from land that acts as the primary contaminant for freshwater resources. Chemicals, fertilisers11) and waste seep into groundwater and wash into lakes, streams and rivers, often winding up12) in the ocean.

很不幸，空气污染也会波及淡水，所以别报希望了，没有有绝对干净的淡水水体存在。不过，就算空气中的污染物的确会渗入到淡水中，但淡水资源的首要污染源实际上是陆地污染。化学物质、肥料和废水会渗入地下水，会被冲入湖泊、溪流和河流中，最终通常会以汇入海洋而告终。

The result is dead zones—swathes13) of fresh or salt water devoid of life. Dead zones occur when nutrient loads from land cause massive microbial14) blooms, which in turn deplete the water of oxygen. These tubs of death are found all over the world, but the Gulf of Mexico's Mississippi River Delta is perhaps the most infamous example.

污染的结果就是出现死亡区域——无生命存在的淡水或咸水区域。死亡区域之所以会出现，是因为大量来自陆地的营养性污染物引起微生物的大量繁殖，从而耗尽了水域中的氧气。这种死亡的盆状区域（这些死亡区域？）遍布全球，但墨西哥湾的密西西比河三角洲或许是最为臭名昭著的例子。

Raw sewage15) and industrial waste are primary culprits wreaking havoc16) on freshwater. In many countries, "sanitation" refers only to removing waste from homes—not treating it before returning it to the environment. By some estimates, 80% of wastewater generated in developing countries is discharged directly into local waterways. That figure can be worse on a case-to-case basis: New Delhi dumps 99% of its wastewater into the Yamuna River, for example, while Mexico City pumps all of its liquid refuse17) into the Mezquital Valley. That is the main source of pollution all over the world. As a result, the rivers become polluted.

未经处理的污水和工业废水是造成淡水严重污染的罪魁祸首。在许多国家，“环境卫生”仅指将垃圾从家里清除出去——不做任何处理就让其返回到环境中。据估计，发展中国家产生的80%的污水都被直接排放到了当地水道中。就个案来说，数据可能更糟糕。例如，新德里将99%的废水排入了亚穆纳河，而墨西哥城将其所有液态垃圾倒进了梅兹奎塔尔河谷。这就是全球的主要污染源。其结果为，河流受到污染。

According to Asit Biswas18)'s research, none of South Asia’s 1.65 billion people have access to clean, safe tap water; more than half of China’s rivers and lakes are too polluted to drink; and 72% of samples collected from Pakistan's water supply system were found to be unfit for human consumption.

根据阿西特-比斯瓦斯的研究，南亚的16.5亿人中无人能喝到干净、安全的自来水；中国半数以上的河流和湖泊因污染严重而无法饮用；巴基斯坦供水系统的采样中有72%经测试发现不适合人类饮用。

As with the air, freshwater bodies furthest from humans are probably also the cleanest. Canada's far northern lakes and rivers, along with the Arctic and Antarctic's freshwater are likely candidates for least-polluted bodies of water. Glacial layers that formed prior to the Industrial Revolution as well as sub-glacier lakes trapped far below the surface could in fact be pristine.

和空气一样，距离人类最远的淡水水体很可能也是最干净的。加拿大最北端的湖泊和河流以及北极和南极的淡水很可能就属于污染最少的淡水水体之列。确切地说，工业革命之前形成的冰层和深埋于冰面以下的冰下湖都是纯净的。

Antarctica's Lake Vostok, for instance, is buried under ice that is 400,000 years old. But these water bodies are clean because humans cannot physically get to them—other than by using drills.

例如，南极洲的福斯多克湖被埋在冰层下长达40万年。但是，这些水体纯净的原因是人类无法真正接触到它们——除非使用钻孔机。

Ocean

海洋

Even the oceans, which remain largely unexplored and occupy a whopping19) 70% of the Earth's surface, has not escaped our pollution's reaches. Today, an estimated 60~80% of marine pollution originates from land, reaching the water through harbours, dirty beaches and polluted waterways that drain into the sea. Of that pollution, plastic is the most pervasive20). That's because most plastic takes centuries—perhaps even longer—to completely disappear.

海洋覆盖了地球表面的70%之多，其绝大部分区域尚未被人类勘探，即便如此，它也未能逃过人类的污染。目前，预计有60%~80%的海洋污染源于陆地，污染物通过港口、肮脏的海滩以及与海洋相通的水道进入海域。塑料制品在海洋污染中最为普遍，因为绝大多数塑料制品需要几百年——甚至可能需要更长的时间——才能完全消失。

Surprisingly, some of the remotest places in the ocean are also some of the most polluted, thanks to the patterns of the currents. Midway Atoll, a speck21) of land in the middle of the North Pacific, for example, is uninhabited save22) for scientists who visit for a few weeks at a time. But it's covered in washed up debris, which often fatally finds its way into the digestive system of seabirds living there.

不可思议的是，因为洋流模式的影响，海洋中某些最为偏远的地方也是污染最严重的一些地方。例如，中途岛是北太平洋中部的一个小岛，那里没有居民居住，只有科学家会前往调研，每次调研持续几周。但是岛上覆盖着被冲上岸的垃圾。这些垃圾通常会进入当地海鸟的消化系统中，具有致命的作用。

Likewise, the deep sea was once thought to be largely cut off from the human world, but the more we explore, the more we are coming to terms with the fact that that is not the case. "I've done a lot of work on the bottom of the ocean with submarines and ROVs [remote operated vehicles], and there's human debris everywhere," says Lisa Levin, a biological oceanographer at Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego, California. "It brings home23) the fact that human beings are an integral part of marine ecosystems now."

同样，人们曾认为深海的大部分区域都与人类世界隔绝，但是我们探测得越深入，我们就越是不得不接受一个现实：事实并非如此。“我曾利用潜水艇和水下机器人(无人遥控潜水器)对海底做了大量的研究，发现那里到处都是人类的垃圾，”加州圣迭哥市斯克利普斯海洋研究所的海洋生物学家丽莎·莱文说道，“这清楚地表明，人类目前已经是海洋生态系统的一个组成部分了。”

On the deep-sea floor, the most readily identifiable pollution tends to be cans and bottles, though discarded fishing gear, ropes, metal objects, military ammunition24) and even old shoes regularly turn up, too. The diversity of garbage represents the fact that, historically, "people used the ocean as a dumping ground," Levin says. In addition to the things we can see, much more is likely buried under the sediment25), she adds, while other forms of pollution cannot be spotted by the human eye, such as microplastic—former bottles and bags that have broken down into ever smaller particles. Those tiny plastic pieces fill the ocean and “are probably impossible to ever clean up”, says Jenni Brandon, a graduate student in biological oceanography at the Scripps Institution.

在深海的海床上，最容易识别的污染物往往是金属罐和瓶子，不过废弃渔具、绳子、金属物体、军事装备甚至旧鞋子也会不时地出现。莱文说，垃圾的多样性表明从历史上看，“人们都把海洋当作了倾倒垃圾的场所”。除了我们看到的这些东西，可能还有更多污染物被埋在沉积物的下方，她补充说道，而另有一些形式的污染是无法被人类的肉眼看到的，比如微塑料，它是由被丢弃的瓶子和袋子分解成的更小的颗粒。那些微小的塑料碎片遍布海洋，并且“可能永远无法清除干净”，斯克利普斯研究所海洋生物学专业研究生詹尼·布兰登说。

Plastic pollution is not the only man-made waste contaminating the ocean, however. Oil spills regularly occur all over the world, even if the majority of them escape the notice of Western media. Persistent chemicals such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) also leach into the water from land, and then travel up the marine food chain.

然而，塑料污染并不是污染海洋的唯一人造垃圾。石油泄漏事故在世界各地经常发生，尽管其中大部分事故都逃过了西方媒体的关注。多氯联苯等持久性有毒化学物质也会从陆地流入海洋，随后进入到海洋食物链（顺着海洋食物链向上游走）。

And not all marine pollution is physical. Noise pollution caused by things like ship engine noise and sonar26) is becoming an increasing problem that has been implicated in whale, dolphin and squid deaths. "There are some places that don't have physical debris—or at least where we haven't found physical debris," Brandon says. "But it would be hard to find anywhere that hasn't had any human impacts."

海洋污染并不都是有形的。由轮船发动机和声纳造成的噪音污染已成为一个日益严重的问题，与鲸鱼、海豚和鱿鱼的死亡可能都与此有关。“有些地方确实没有有形的垃圾——或者至少是我们没在那里发现有形垃圾，”布兰登说，“但是我们很难找到一个未受人类影响的地方。”

Some human impacts on the marine realm can also be completely unexpected. In 2007, for example, several amphipod crustaceans scooped up from water 11km below the surface of the Pacific Ocean turned out to have cow DNA within their guts. "How do you get cow to the bottom of the Kermadec Trench?" Levin says. "I'm sure it was just a ship dumping its leftovers."

人类对海洋领域的某些影响也可能完全出人意料。例如，在2007年，人们在太平洋水下11公里处捞出很多端足目甲壳动物，结果发现它们的内脏中竟含有奶牛的DNA。“人类是如何把奶牛带到克马德克海沟的底部呢？”莱文说，“我敢肯定这是轮船倾倒残羹剩菜引起的。

While a burger for lunch may or may not harm those trench-dwelling creatures, it does demonstrate just how deeply our influence on the planet reaches. Whether our contaminants take the form of a discarded lunch, human excrement27) or billions of metric tonnes of airborne pollutants, we're left with an unfortunate but clear answer: there probably is no place on Earth without pollution. In other words, as Biswas says, "We human beings have done a wonderful job of contaminating the environment around us."

午餐吃的汉堡也许不一定会伤害到那些生存在海沟里的生物，但这的确表明了我们对地球的影响有多深。无论我们的污染物是以丢弃的午餐、人类排泄物还是以数十亿吨的空气污染物的形式存在，我们都面临一个遗憾而清晰的回答：地球上可能已经没有未被污染的地方了。换言之，如比斯瓦斯所说：“在污染周遭环境方面，我们人类真是成绩卓著。”

1. contaminant [kənˈtæmɪnənt] n. 致污物，污染物

2. belch [beltʃ] vt. 喷出，喷射

3. the lion’s share：(某物)最大的一份

4. knack [næk] n. (行动、言语等的)习惯，癖

5. first hand：直接地，亲自

6. break down sth. into：将某事物分为若干部分(以方便解释或理解)

7. particulate matter：颗粒物质

8. methane [ˈmiːθeɪn] n. 甲烷，沼气

9. haze [heɪz] n. 霾，烟雾

10. by virtue of：依靠，由于

11. fertiliser [ˈfɜː(r)təˌlaɪzə(r)] n. 肥料(尤指化学肥料)

12. wind up：(以……)告终

13. swathe [sweɪð] n. 大片区域

14. microbial [maɪˈkrəʊbiəl] adj. 微生物(或细菌)的

15. raw sewage：未尽处理的污水

16. havoc [ˈhævək] n. (天灾、战争等带来的)大破坏，大毁坏

17. refuse [rɪˈfjuːz] n. 废料，废物；垃圾

18. Asit Biswas：阿西特-比斯瓦斯，印度环境学家，因专注于水资源管理研究而闻名，是第三世界水管理中心的创始人。

19. whopping [ˈwɒpɪŋ] adj. 巨大的，庞大的

20. pervasive [pə(r)ˈveɪsɪv] adj. 遍布的；流行的，普通的

21. speck [spek] n. 一点点

22. save [seɪv] prep. 除……之外

23. bring home：以强调的形式清楚地显示(或证实)

24. ammunition [ˌæmjʊˈnɪʃ(ə)n] n. 军事装备

25. sediment [ˈsedɪmənt] n. 沉积物

26. sonar [ˈsəʊnɑː(r)] n. 声纳

27. excrement [ˈekskrɪmənt] n. 排泄；粪便

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发布于：北京