The history of life on earth has been a history of interaction between living things and their surroundings. To a large extent, the physical form and the habits of the earth's vegetation and its animal life have been molded by the environment. Considering the whole span of earthly time, the opposite effect, in which life actually modifies its surroundings,has been relatively slight. Only in the present century has one species--man acquired significant power to alter the nature of his world.
During the past quarter century this power has not only become increasingly great but it has changed in character.The most alarming of all man's assaults upon the environment is the contaminatien of air, earth, rivers, and sea with dangerous and even lethal materials. This pollution is for the most part irrecoverable. In this now universal contamination of the environment, chemicals are the sinister partners of radiation in changing the very nature of the world, the very nature of its life.
It took hundreds of millions of years to produce the life that now inhabits the earth. Given time not in years but in millennia life adjusts, and a balance has been reached. But in the modern world there is no time.
It is not my contention that chemical insecticides must never be used. I do contend that we have put poisonous and biologically potent chemicals indiscriminately into the hands of persons largely
or wholly ignorant of their potentials for harm. We have subjected enormous numbers of people to contact with these poisons, without their consent and often without their knowledge. I contend,furthermore, that we have allowed these chemicals to be used with little or no advance investigation of their effect on soil, water, wildlife, and man himself. Future generations are unlikely to forgive our lack of concern for the integrity of the natural world that supports all life.
生存和毀滅
地球上生命的曆史一直就是一部生物與其環境相互作用的曆史。在很大程度上，地球上動植物的形態以及習性都是由外部環境所塑造的。考慮到地球上生命存在的整個時間，相反作用——即生命對其周圍環境的實際改變作用一卻相對很小。只有在當前這個世紀才有一個物種——人類，獲得了強大的力量，改變了其所生存的世界的自然狀態。
在過去的l／4世紀中，這種力量不僅日趨強大，而且其性質也發生了變化。在人類破壞環境的種種行為中，最令人擔憂的是人類向大氣、土壤、河流以及海洋中排放危險甚至致命物質，而當今這種汙染在很大程度上是無法挽救的。在當今這種對環境的普遍汙染中，化學制品與輻射狼狽為奸，改變著地球的自然狀態，也就是改變著地球上生命自然狀態。
地球曆經了許多億年才創造了棲息其上的生命。經過了一定時間——不是以若幹年計算而是以上千年計算的時間——生命開始適應環境，並形成了一種與環境的平衡。但是在當今世界，時間這一因素已經沒有了。
我不是說人類決不能使用化學殺蟲劑。我要說的是，我們不分青紅皂白地將這些有毒的、具有強大生物功能的化學制品，交給了那些對這些制品的潛在危害基本上或者完全無知的人去使用。我們使眾多的人接觸這些有毒物質，卻沒有征得他們的同意，並常常將他們蒙在鼓中、我還要說的一點是，我們允許使用這些化學制品，卻事先很少或者根本沒有調查它們對土壤、水、野生生物以及人類自身造成的影響。我們缺乏對萬物賴以生存的自然界生態統一的關心，對此，我們的後代是不可能原諒的。
- Keywords : their, world, earth, 改變, 化學制品, nature, environment, chemicals, 自然狀態, 生命, 環境, 大程度上, 土壤, years, without, these, surroundings, power, history, effect