剑桥雅思15Test4阅读passage3原文及翻译

每年年中左右，国内“雅思图”都要翘首期盼一件重要大事的来临:雅思真题的发布。无论是备考初期、后期,甚至已经考过雅思的学生，也无论是学生还是老师,都会密切关注新题的发布。今年6月初,《剑15》如约而至、作为国内雅思培训的领军机构，新航道也时间为考生们带来了这太《剑桥雅思真题全解15:学术类》(以下简称《剑15全解》)。

本次我们盛情邀请了新航道全国冬分校最的学科带头人来组织编写这本《剑15全解》。其中，对于以客观选择题为主的听力与阅读部分，仍然请各校团队进行解题思路方面的指导;对于以主观题为主的写作与口语部分，我们则邀请了官方认证考官撰写地道的高分范文，作为官方范文之外的补充。下文中详细整理了剑桥雅思15Test4阅读passage3原文及翻译，一起来看一下吧！

剑桥15电子版本，请扫描二维码，暗号“优化+剑桥15全解”，会有老师联系并发送资料。

1剑桥雅思15Test4阅读Passage3原文

Environmental practices of big businesses

The environmental practices of big businesses are shaped by a fundamental fact that for many of us offends our sense of justice. Depending on the circumstances, a business may maximize the amount of money it makes, at least in the short term, by damaging the environment and hurting people. That is still the case today for fishermen in an unmanaged fishery without quotas, and for international logging companies with short-term leases on tropical rainforest land in places with corrupt officials and unsophisticated landowners. When government regulation is effective, and when the public is environmentally aware, environmentally clean big businesses may out-compete dirty ones, but the reverse is likely to be true if government regulation is ineffective and if the public doesn't care.

It is easy for the rest of us to blame a business for helping itself by hurting other people. But blaming alone is unlikely to produce change. It ignores the fact that businesses are not charities but profit-making companies, and that publicly owned companies with shareholders are under obligation to those shareholders to maximize profits, provided that they do so by legal means. US laws make a company's directors legally liable for something termed 'breach of fiduciary responsibility' if they knowingly manage a company in a way that reduces profits. The car manufacturer Henry Ford was in fact successfully sued by shareholders in 1919 for raising the minimum wage of his workers to $5 per day: the courts declared that, while Ford's humanitarian sentiments about his employees were nice, his business existed to make profits for its stockholders.

Our blaming of businesses also ignores the ultimate responsibility of the public for creating the conditions that let a business profit through destructive environmental policies. In the long run, it is the public, either directly or through its politicians, that has the power to make such destructive policies unprofitable and illegal, and to make sustainable environmental policies profitable.

The public can do that by suing businesses for harming them, as happened after the Exxon Valdez disaster, in which over 40,000 m3 of oil were spilled off the coast of Alaska. The public may also make their opinion felt by preferring to buy sustainably harvested products; by making employees of companies with poor track records feel ashamed of their company and complain to their own management; by preferring their governments to award valuable contracts to businesses with a good environmental track record; and by pressing their governments to pass and enforce laws and regulations requiring good environmental practices.

In turn, big businesses can exert powerful pressure on any suppliers that might ignore public or government pressure. For instance, after the US public became concerned about the spread of a disease known as BSE, which was transmitted to humans through infected meat, the US government's Food and Drug Administration introduced rules demanding that the meat industry abandon practices associated with the risk of the disease spreading. But for five years the meat packers refused to follow these, claiming that they would be too expensive to obey. However, when a major fast-food company then made the same demands after customer purchases of its hamburgers plummeted, the meat industry complied within weeks. The public's task is therefore to identify which links in the supply chain are sensitive to public pressure: for instance, fast-food chains or jewelry stores, but not meat packers or gold miners.

Some readers may be disappointed or outraged that I place the ultimate responsibility for business practices harming the public on the public itself. I also believe that the public must accept the necessity for higher prices for products to cover the added costs, if any, of sound environmental practices. My views may seem to ignore the belief that businesses should act in accordance with moral principles even if this leads to a reduction in their profits. But I think we have to recognize that, throughout human history, in all politically complex human societies, government regulation has arisen precisely because it was found that not only did moral principles need to be made explicit, they also needed to be enforced.

To me, the conclusion that the public has the ultimate responsibility for the behavior of even the biggest businesses is empowering and hopeful, rather than disappointing. My conclusion is not a moralistic one about who is right or wrong, admirable or selfish, a good guy or a bad guy. In the past, businesses have changed when the public came to expect and require different behavior, to reward businesses for behavior that the public wanted, and to make things difficult for businesses practicing behaviors that the public didn't want. I predict that in the future, just as in the past, changes in public attitudes will be essential for changes in businesses' environmental practices.

2剑桥雅思15Test4阅读Passage3原文翻译

大企业的环保行为

大企业的环保行为受到了一个基本事实的影响，对我们很多人来说这个事实有违正义。一个企业可能会根据不同情况，通过破坏环境和伤害他人来使利润化，至少在短期内是这样做的。如今，对于处在没有配额制、管理混乱的渔业中的渔民，以及在官员腐败、土地所有考缺乏经验的地方短期租赁热带雨林土地的跨国采伐公司来说，情况依然如此。如果成将监营有效、公众有环保意识，环保型大企业可能会在竞争中打败污染企业;但如果政府监管无效，且公众对此漠不关心，情况可能恰恰相反。

我们其他人很容易指责某个企业为了自身利益而危害他人。但是单单指责是不可能发生改变的。它忽略了以下事实：企业不是慈善机构，而是营利性公司;有股东的上市公司有义务使用合法手段化股东的利益。美国法律规定，如果公司管理者故意以降低利润的方式管理公司，那么他们要对“违反信托责任”负法律责任。1919年，汽车制造商Henry Ford 因将工人的工资提高到每天5美元而被股东起诉。法院宣布，尽管Ford对员工的人道主义情怀很好，但其企业存在的目的是为股东创造利润。

我们对企业的指责也忽略了公众的根本责任，因为正是公众创造了条件使得企业通过破坏环境来获利。从长远来看，正是公众(通过自己或其政客)有能力让这种破坏性的做法无利可图，被定为违法行为，而让可持续的环境政策可以营利。

公众可以通过起诉损害他们利益的企业来实现这个目的，比如像Exxon Valdez油轮灾难后发生的那样，当时有超过4万立方米的石油在阿拉斯加海岸泄漏。公众也可以通过这些方式来表达自己的意见：选择购买通过可持续发展而收获的产品;让那些环保记录不佳的公司员工们为自己的公司感到羞耻，并向管理层投诉;支持其政府向具有良好环保记录的企业授予大额合同;敦促其政府通过并执行要求良好环保行为的法律法规。

反过来，大企业可以对任何罔顾公众或政府压力的供应商施加强大的压力。比如，疯牛病通过受感染的肉类传播给人类，在美国公众开始担心疯牛病的传播后，美国食品和药物管理局出台了规定，要求肉类行业放弃有疾病传播风险的做法。但五年来，肉类包装商拒绝遵守这些规定，他们声称遵守这些规定成本太高。然而，当一家大型快餐公司在其汉堡销量直线下降后提出了相同的要求时，肉类行业在几周内就遵守了规定。因此，公众的任务是弄清供应链中哪些环节对他们的压力敏感，比如快餐连锁店或珠宝店，而不是肉类包装商或者金矿开采商。

我把损害公众利益的商业行为产生的根本责任归咎于公众，一些读者可能会感到失望或愤怒。我还认为，为弥补企业良好的环保行为成本增加(如果有增加的话)而产生的高价，公众也必须接受。我的观点似乎忽略了这样一个观念，即企业应该按照道德准则行事，即使这会导致利润减少。但我认为我们必须意识到，在整个人类历史上，在所有政治复杂的人类社会，政府监管的兴起正是因为人们发现道德准则不仅需要明示，还需要强制执行。

对我来说，公众对大型企业的行为负有最终责任这一结论是给人力量和充满希望的，而不是令人失望的。我的结论不是关于谁对谁错、谁值得钦佩谁自私、谁是好人谁是坏人的说教。在过去， 当公众开始期望和要求不同的行为时，企业就会做出改变，对公众希望的行为进行奖励，对公众不希望的行为进行限制。我预测，在未来，正如在过去一样，公众态度的改变将是企业改变环保行为的关键。