OG, page 608, passage 1

1 There is nothing wrong with attempting to make the often difficult and complex findings of science available to a wider audience, but environmental popularizers often present a one-sided picture and hide important scientific disagreements on issues relevant to environmental quality. The zeal to draw firm conclusions from the results of scientific research frequently prompts speculative matters to be left out or presented with greater authority than they deserve. The partisanship implicit in these failures is most often excused by the originality of the author's perspective on the subject or a passionate commitment to do good. How could one regret the "minor" confusions that might arise from such noble impulses?

试图把那些困难并且复杂的科学发现让更多的受众知道，这个做法本身没有错误。但是，环境问题推广家经常呈现给大众的是有关于环境质量问题的片面图像，而把真相隐藏起来。从科学发现里面得出确凿的结论的热情促使人们弃绝猜疑之能事或者使得猜疑之能更加具有权威感。潜伏在这些失败行为里面的偏见常常被一种观念原谅――作者对客观事物看法的初衷是怀有积极意义的。谁不能够谅解由这些高贵初衷而导致的“微不足道”的迷惑呢？

2 But using one-sided and incomplete accounts of the state of scientific knowledge has led to projections, predictions, and warnings that, not surprisingly, have been falsified by events. No one knows what the future holds. But reports that Lake Erie and the oceans would be dead by now were surely greatly exaggerated. The United States is wracked neither by food riots nor a great epidemic of pesticide-induced cancers. Birds continue to sing in the mornings, and they do not have to face the rigors of either an ice age caused by humans or a global warming caused by the heat of increased energy production and consumption. With what confidence should we look upon the projected horrors of global warming, rain forest destruction, or toxic waste, given the record of the past?

但是使用片面的科学知识可能会导致一种将来会被证伪（推翻）的预测或者预警。没有人能够知道未来会怎样。但是像伊利湖和海洋到今天会干涸的报道肯定是危言耸听。美国会毁于粮荒或者会亡于由过度使用农药而导致的癌症，都是言过其实。我们已然可以听到鸟鸣，他们没有遭到冰川融化的威胁，也没有遭到人为导致的全球变暖和过度消耗能源的威胁。当我们面对这些恐怖的预警时，比如全球变暖，热带雨林破坏，或者有毒垃圾，基于过往的历史，我们应该有几分信任？

3 This failure of prophecy may be an intellectual weakness, yet prophecy continues because it provides the popularizers with a profound rhetorical strength: it releases the power of fear. The central role of this sentiment in political rhetoric has long been understood. Arousing fear, though, is not always easy. Even as far back as Aristotle, it was observed that we fear things less the more distant they are. Hence when Churchill sought to rouse the British, he brought the Germans to the beaches, landing grounds, fields, streets, and hills of "our island." So, too, to arouse fears the popularizers have to present pictures of imminent calamities that could befall their relatively comfortable and well-off readers. Environmental disasters like endemic waterborne disease due to inadequate sewage treatment in faraway nations do not fit this category. The prospect of my getting skin cancer due to ozone depletion does. Without such immediacy, one could only arouse a sentiment like compassion, which is not as strong
as fear.

这些预言的失败可能源自于知识缺憾。但是预言还在继续，因为它给大众推广家提供了言辞力量：预言可以释放恐怖的力量。这种恐怖力量在政治领域里面的使用大家耳熟能详。激发恐怖，尽管不容易做到。即便是在亚里士多德时代，人们也是不见棺材不落泪的主。因此，当丘吉尔试图去激发英国人民的恐怖感时，他说道希特勒的军队会打到我们的家门口：沙滩，自留地，农田，街道，我们的每一寸领土。所以，如果要想激发恐怖感，大众推广家就必须向人们展示逼近的灾难，这些逼近的灾难会降临到我们这些生活安适幸福的大众身上。在遥远的他国，由于简陋的地下排水系统导致的一些比如水传播疾病的环境灾难不属于此类别。对于因为臭氧层空洞会导致皮肤癌这样的预言属于此类。如果缺乏这种紧迫感，迫近感，预言者不会激发其强大的恐怖情绪，充其量只是同情心。