I am honored to be here, and I'm honored to talk about this topic, which I think is of grave importance. We've been talking a lot about the horrific impacts of plastic on the planet and on other species, but plastic hurts people, too -- especially poor people. And both in the production of plastic, the use of plastic and the disposal of plastic, the people who have the bull's-eye on their foreheads are poor people. People got very upset when the BP oil spill happened, for very good reason. People thought, "Oh, my God. This is terrible, this oil -- it's in the water. It's going to destroy the living systems there. People are going to be hurt. This is a terrible thing, this oil is going to hurt the people in the Gulf."
我很荣幸能来到这里 我也很荣幸谈到这个话题, 我认为这话题是极为重要的。 我们已经谈论了很多关于 塑料给这个星球和其他物种 带来得可怕的影响, 但是塑料也影响着人们, 尤其是穷人。 无论是塑料的生产, 使用,还是处理 最受塑料影响的 是穷人。 当得知英国石油公司的石油泄漏事件时 人们非常的生气 这是可以理解的。 人们心想,“哦,上帝。 这太可怕了,石油污染了水域。 它会毁了 那里的生态系统。 人们也会因此受害。 这真是一件可怕的事 石油会毁了在墨西哥湾边生活的人们。”
What people don't think about is: What if the oil had made it safely to shore? What if the oil actually got where it was trying to go? Not only would it have been burned in engines and added to global warming, but there's a place called "Cancer Alley," and the reason it's called "Cancer Alley" is because the petrochemical industry takes that oil and turns it into plastic and in the process, kills people. It shortens the lives of the people who live there in the Gulf. So oil and petrochemicals are not just a problem when there's a spill; they're a problem when there's not. And what we don't often appreciate is the price that poor people pay for us to have these disposable products.
可人们没有想想 如果那石油被安全地运输到岸上会怎样? 如果石油真的到了它“要去”的地方会怎样? 它不仅仅会被发动机燃烧 加强全球变暖的趋势, 而且会有一个地方被称为“癌症街区” 之所以被称为“癌症街区” 是因为石化工业 把石油加工生产成塑料 在这一过程中,它可以致人于死。 它缩短了生活在墨西哥湾的人们的寿命。 所以不只是在石油泄漏的时候,石油和石化产品才成为一个问题, 即使当它没泄漏的时候,它们也是个问题。 我们通常不关注 为了我们能够使用这些一次性产品 穷人所付出的代价
The other thing we often don't appreciate is, it's not just at the point of production that poor people suffer. Poor people also suffer at the point of use. Those of us who earn a certain income level, we have something called choice. The reason why you want to work hard and have a job and not be poor and broke is so you can have choices, economic choices. We actually get a chance to choose not to use products that have dangerous, poisonous plastic in them. Other people who are poor don't have those choices. So low-income people often are the ones who are buying the products that have those dangerous chemicals in them that their children are using. Those are the people who wind up ingesting a disproportionate amount of this poisonous plastic in using it. And people say, "Well, they should just buy a different product." Well, the problem with being poor is you don't have those choices. You often have to buy the cheapest products. The cheapest products are often the most dangerous.
另一件我们常常漠不关心的事是 穷人不只承受着塑料生产带来的危害 在使用时 也同样受到危害。 我们中有一定收入水平的人 我们有种东西,叫做选择 你想要工作努力,有一份工作 不想成为穷人,不想破产 是因为你可以有选择,经济上的选择。 我们的确可以选择 不去使用 那些危险,有毒的塑料产品。 而那些穷人则没有选择。 所以低收入的人们 常常会买 那些含有危险化学成分的产品,他们的孩子也会用这些产品。 这些人最终 接触了过多的 这种有毒塑料,并使用它们。 人们会说,“那么,他们应该买别的产品。” 但是,穷困就意味着你没有这些选择。 你常常得买最便宜的产品。 而最便宜的产品往往是最危险的。
And if that weren't bad enough -- if it wasn't just the production of plastic that's giving people cancer in places like Cancer Alley, and shortening lives and hurting poor kids at the point of use -- at the point of disposal, once again, it's poor people who bear the burden. Often, we think we're doing a good thing: You're in your office, drinking your bottled water or whatever it is, and you think to yourself, "I'm going to throw this away. No -- I'm going to be virtuous. I'm going to put it in the blue bin." You think, "I put mine in the blue bin." And then you look at your colleague and say, "Why, you cretin! You put yours in the white bin." And we use that as a moral tickle. We feel so good about ourselves. If we -- well, OK, I'm just ... me. Not you, but I feel this way often.
如果这还不够糟糕, 如果生产塑料不只是 像在“癌症街区”一样给人们带来癌症,缩短了人们的寿命, 伤害可怜的儿童 在使用它们的时候,在处理它们的时候。 再次,是穷人 承受着负担。 我们经常觉得我们做了件好事 你在办公室里, 正喝着瓶装水,不管它是什么 然后你心想,“嘿,我要把它扔掉。 不行,我得道德点儿。 我要把它放到蓝色回收箱。” 你想到,“我把我的塑料瓶放到蓝色回收箱。” 然后你看着你的同事说, “你知道吗,你是个傻冒, 你把你的塑料瓶放到白色垃圾箱里了。” 我们把它当作一个道德戏法。 然后自我感觉良好。 或许我会原谅我自己。 可能你不这样想,但我是这样觉得。
(Laughter)
And so we kind of have this moral feel-good moment. But if we were to be able to follow that little bottle on its journey, we would be shocked to discover that, all too often, that bottle is going to be put on a boat, it's going to go all the way across the ocean at some expense, and it's going to wind up in a developing country, often China. I think in our minds, we imagine somebody's going to take the little bottle and say, "Oh, little bottle! We're so happy to see you, little bottle."
因此我们貌似有了这么一个道德自我感觉良好的时刻 但是如果我们能够追踪小塑料瓶 的行程, 我们会惊讶地发现,通常 塑料瓶会通过船运走。 我们会花上一些钱 让塑料瓶一路飘洋过海 塑料瓶最终去了发展中国家--往往是中国。 我认为,在我们脑海中,我们会设想有些人会拿着小塑料瓶, 说,“哦,小塑料瓶。 我们很高兴看到你,小塑料瓶。”
(Laughter)
(笑声)
"You've served so well."
“你真是服务到家。”
(Laughter)
他会给小塑料瓶做按摩,
He's given a little bottle massage, a little bottle medal. And they say, "What would you like to do next?" The little bottle says, "I just don't know ..."
给小塑料瓶一个奖牌。 并说,“接下来你想做什么啊,小塑料瓶?” 小塑料瓶说,“我不知道啊。”
(Laughter)
但是事实并不是这样。
But that's not actually what happens. You know? That bottle winds up getting burned. The recycling of plastic in many developing countries means the incineration of the plastic, the burning of the plastic, which releases incredible toxic chemicals and, once again, kills people. And so, poor people who are making these products in petrochemical centers like Cancer Alley, poor people who are consuming these products disproportionately, and then poor people who, even at the tail end of the recycling, are having their lives shortened. They're all being harmed -- greatly -- by this addiction that we have to disposability.
那塑料瓶 最终被焚烧。 在很多发展中国家的塑料回收 是指塑料的焚烧, 塑料的燃烧, 它会释放大量的有毒化学物质 也会致人于死。 所以那些 制造塑料产品的穷人 像在“癌症街区”这样的石化中心里; 穷人大量地使用这些有毒产品; 然后穷人 即使是在塑料回收链的下游, 他们的寿命也免不了被缩短, 所有穷人都极大地受到伤害 而这归结于我们习惯使用
Now, you think to yourself -- I know how you are --
一次性塑料。
you say, "That sure is terrible for those poor people. It's just awful. Those poor people. I hope someone does something to help them." But what we don't understand is -- here we are in Los Angeles. We worked very hard to get the smog reduction happening here in Los Angeles. But guess what? Because they're doing so much dirty production in Asia now, because the environmental laws don't protect the people in Asia now, almost all of the clean air gains and the toxic air gains that we've achieved here in California have been wiped out by dirty air coming over from Asia. So we all are being hit. We all are being impacted. It's just that the poor people get it first and worst. But the dirty production, the burning of toxins, the lack of environmental standards in Asia, is actually creating so much dirty air pollution, it's coming across the ocean, and has erased our gains here in California. We're back where we were in the 1970s. And so we're on one planet, and we have to be able to get to the root of these problems.
现在你自己思考一下--因为我知道你的感受 你会说,“太可怕了 对那些穷人来讲。 简直太糟糕了, 对他们来说。 我希望有人做点事来帮助他们。” 但我们所不了解的是 我们现在在洛杉矶。 我们非常努力的工作 来减少洛杉矶的烟雾 但你猜怎么着? 因为目前他们在亚洲进行很多污染型地生产, 因为目前环境法 并不保护亚洲人民, 几乎所有的清新空气收益 和有毒空气收益 我们在加州所获得的, 都被来自亚洲的污染的空气严重抵消。 所以我们都受到了伤害,我们都受到了影响。 只是穷人最先受到伤害,而且最严重。 但是亚洲污染型的生产,有毒塑料的燃烧, 环境标准的缺失 造成了大量的空气污染 污染的空气还飘洋过海,抵消了我们在加利福尼亚州获得的收益。 我们又回到了1970年代。 因为我们在同一个地球家园, 我们必须找到这些问题的根本所在。 那么,依我看,这问题的根本
The root of this problem, in my view, is the idea of disposability itself. You see, if you understand the link between what we're doing to poison and pollute the planet and what we're doing to poor people, you arrive at a very troubling but also very helpful insight: In order to trash the planet, you have to trash people. But if you create a world where you don't trash people, you can't trash the planet. So now we are at a moment where the coming together of social justice as an idea and ecology as an idea, we finally can now see that they are really, at the end of the day, one idea. And it's the idea that we don't have disposable anything. We don't have disposable resources. We don't have disposable species. And we don't have disposable people, either. We don't have a throwaway planet, and we don't have throwaway children -- it's all precious.
是一次性塑料这个点子本身。 你看,如果你了解 我们对毒害污染地球 所做的事 和我们对穷人们所做的事之间的关系, 你得到一个非常大的麻烦, 但它也是非常有益的见解: 要污染地球家园, 就得污染到人们自身。 但是如果你创建一个不污染人类的世界, 你就不可能污染地球家园。 所以现在我们正处在一个时刻 社会公正理念和生态学理念 融合在了一起 现在我们终于能看到 这一天到来了,它们合为了一个理念。 这理念就是我们不再使用有关一次性的任何东西。 我们不再使用一次性资源。 我们不再用一次性物种。 我们也不会有可抛弃的人。 我们不会让地球家园荒废, 我们不会有弃儿--它们都是极其珍贵的。
And as we all begin to come back to that basic understanding, new opportunities for action begin to emerge. Biomimicry, which is an emerging science, winds up being a very important social justice idea. People who are just learning about this stuff: biomimicry means respecting the wisdom of all species. Democracy, by the way, means respecting the wisdom of all people -- we'll get to that. But biomimicry means respecting the wisdom of all species. It turns out we're a pretty clever species. We have this big cortex, we're pretty proud of ourselves. But if we want to make something hard, we say, "I know! I'm going to make a hard substance. I know! I'm going to get vacuums and furnaces and drag stuff out of the ground and get things hot and poison and pollute ... But I got this hard thing!"
当我们都回到这基本共识上, 行动的新时机开始形成。 生物仿生, 它是一种 新兴科学, 最终变成一种非常重要的社会公正理念。 人们刚刚学习这理念, 生物仿生指 要尊重所有物种的智慧。 顺便提一下,民主 指尊重所有人民的智慧--我们会努力做到。 但生物仿生指尊重所有物种的智慧。 我们人类是聪明的物种, 我们有这种大脑皮层,不管怎么说,我们对自己感到自豪 但是我们想做个硬的东西, 我们提出,“我知道,我要做一件硬东西。 我要使用真空吸尘器和炉子 把东西从地上弄起来 使得它们变热,排出有毒物质,并污染大气, 但我做了这件很难的事。
(Laughter)
我是如此聪明。”
"I'm so clever!" And you look behind you, and there's destruction all around you. But guess what? You're so clever, but you're not as clever as a clam.
然后你回头一看,周围都被破坏了。 但猜怎么着?你是相当聪明, 但你可没有蚌那么聪明。
A clamshell is hard. There's no vacuums. There's no big furnaces. There's no poison. There's no pollution. It turns out that other species figured out a long time ago how to create many of the things we need using biological processes that nature knows how to use well. That insight of biomimicry, of our scientists finally realizing that we have as much to learn from other species -- I don't mean taking a mouse and sticking it with stuff. I don't mean looking at it from that way, abusing the little species. I mean actually respecting them, respecting what they've achieved. That's called biomimicry, and that opens the door to zero waste production; zero pollution production; that we could actually enjoy a high quality of life, a high standard of living, without trashing the planet.
蚌的贝壳是硬的。 不用真空吸尘器,不用炉子, 不用释放有毒物质,没有污染。 其实其它物种 很久以前就证明了 怎样用生物的方式来创造 我们所需要的很多东西。大自然用得非常好。 那么对生物仿生的洞察, 我们科学家最终意识到 我们还有很多东西要从其他物种那儿学。 我不是指拿一个老鼠 然后塞给它东西。 我不是指那个:虐待小动物。 我真正指得是尊重它们,尊重它们在自然生态链中的属性。 这才是生物仿生, 这样才会打开通向 零废物生产, 零污染生产的大门。 这样我们才可以享受 一种高质量的生活,一种高标准的生活 还不必毁灭我们的地球家园。
Well, that idea of biomimicry, respecting the wisdom of all species, combined with the idea of democracy and social justice, respecting the wisdom and the worth of all people, would give us a different society. We would have a different economy. We would have a green society that Dr. King would be proud of. That should be the goal. And the way that we get there is to first of all recognize that the idea of disposability not only hurts the species we've talked about, but it even corrupts our own society.
那么生物仿生的理念, 尊重所有物种的智慧, 与民主和社会公正 的理念相结合, 尊重全体人民的智慧和价值, 会给我们一个不同的社会。 我们会有一个不一样的经济。 我们会有一个绿色环保社会, 它会使马丁·路德·金感到骄傲的。 这才是我们的目标。 我们要实现此目标得首先要了解 一次性物品的理念 不仅伤害了 我们所谈到的物种, 它甚至还腐蚀着我们的社会。
We're so proud to live here in California. We just had this vote, and everybody's like, "Well -- not in our state!"
我们很自豪生活在加利福尼亚州。 我们刚投过这次票,每个人都喜欢, “那么,这投票不在我们州。
(Laughter)
我不知道那些其他州在做什么?”
I don't know what those other states were doing, but ..."
(笑声)
(Laughter)
只是很自豪。
Just so proud. And, yeah, I'm proud, too. But ... California, though we lead the world in some of the green stuff, we also, unfortunately, lead the world in some of the gulag stuff. California has one of the highest incarceration rates of all the 50 states. We have a moral challenge in this movement. We are passionate about rescuing some dead materials from the landfill, but sometimes not as passionate about rescuing living beings, living people. And I would say that we live in a country -- five percent of the world's population, 25 percent of the greenhouse gases, but also 25 percent of the world's prisoners. One of every four people locked up anywhere in the world is locked up right here in the United States. So that is consistent with this idea that disposability is something we believe in.
我也很自豪。 但是加利福尼亚州, 尽管在一些绿色科技上我们在世界上领先着, 不幸的是,我们也在世界上领先着 监狱系统的一些事。 在全美50州中,加利福尼亚州 有着最高的监禁率。 在这一刻,我们面临着道德挑战。 我们对从垃圾填埋场拯救 一些无生命的材料很有激情, 但有时我们 对拯救众生,活着的人们却没有激情。 我想说我们生活在美国, 占全世界总人口的5%, 温室气体占25%, 但也占全世界总囚犯人数的25%。 全球每四个囚犯中就有一个囚犯 被关押在美国。 因此这也与 我们相信的一次性的理念相符合。(没有可抛弃的人或者弃儿。)
And yet, as a movement that has to broaden its constituency, that has to grow, that has to reach out beyond our natural comfort zone, one of the challenges to the success of this movement, of getting rid of things like plastic and helping the economy shift, is people look at our movement with some suspicion. And they ask a question, and the question is: How can these people be so passionate? A poor person, a low-income person, somebody in Cancer Alley, somebody in Watts, somebody in Harlem, somebody on an Indian reservation, might say to themselves -- and rightfully so -- "How can these people be so passionate about making sure that a plastic bottle has a second chance in life, or an aluminum can has a second chance, and yet, when my child gets in trouble and goes to prison, he doesn't get a second chance?" "How can this movement be so passionate about saying we don't have throwaway stuff, no throwaway dead materials, and yet accept throwaway lives and throwaway communities like Cancer Alley?" And so, we now get a chance to be truly proud of this movement. When we take on topics like this, it gives us that extra call to reach out to other movements and to become more inclusive and to grow, and we can finally get out of this crazy dilemma that we've been in.
还有, 作为一种运动 它得扩大它的领域, 它要不断地壮大, 它得延伸出我们自然舒适区, 这项不使用塑料,帮助经济转型的运动 要成功,所面临的挑战之一 就是人们对待我们的运动有些怀疑。 他们会问一个问题,问题是: 这些人怎么会这么有激情呢? 一个穷人,一个低收入的人,一些来自“癌症街区”的人, 一些来自沃茨Watts的人(美国加利福尼亚州洛杉矶市一区。1965年是严重种族紧张和暴力地区) 一些来自哈莱姆区的人,一些来自印第安人保留区的人, 他们可能会理所当然地问自己: “这些人怎么会如此有激情地 确信 一个塑料瓶 有第二次生命, 或者一个铝罐会被第二次使用, 还有,当我的孩子陷入麻烦 进了监狱, 它是否还会得到第二次机会?” 这次运动何以会如此有激情地 说我们不会有要丢弃的东西,不会有要丢弃的无生命的材料, 还有接受 被弃之不顾的生命和被漠不关心的社区,像“癌症街区”那样的社区? 因此我们现在有机会 为这运动真心感到骄傲。 当我们谈到这话题, 它会带给我们特别的召唤 去延伸到其他的运动, 变得更具包容性和不断壮大。 最终我们可以从我们所处的这种疯狂的困境中摆脱出来。
Most of you are good, softhearted people. When you were younger, you cared about the whole world, and at some point, somebody said you had to pick an issue, you had to boil your love down to an issue. "Can't love the whole world -- you've got to work on trees or you've got to work on immigration. You've got to shrink it down and be about one issue." And really, they fundamentally told you, "Are you going to hug a tree? Or are you going to hug a child? Pick. Are you going to hug a tree? Or are you going to hug a child? Pick." Well, when you start working on issues like plastic, you realize the whole thing is connected. And luckily, most of us are blessed to have two arms -- we can hug both.
你们中的多数人是好人,软心肠的人。 当你比较年轻时,你关心整个世界, 在某一时刻 有人对你说你得选一件事去做, 你得为某件事付出你的真心。 你无法热爱真个世界 你要么参与到植树的工作中, 要么参与到移民的工作中。 你得二选一,关注一件事。 真的,他们基本上会告诉你, “你要一棵树, 还是要拥抱一个孩子?请做选择。 你要一棵树, 还是要拥抱一个孩子?请做选择。” 那么,当你开始在塑料问题上工作时, 你意识到所有的事都是连成一体的, 幸运得是,我们大多数人都幸运地有2只胳膊。 我们可以兼而有之地做选择。
Thank you very much.
非常感谢。
(Applause)
(掌声)