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."
我很榮幸能在這裡 也很榮幸能談論這個問題 我認爲這是個很嚴重的問題。 我們已經討論過很多 關於塑膠對地球和其他物種 帶來的可怕的影響, 但是塑膠也會危害人類 特別是貧窮的人。 在塑膠的生産過程 或是使用及丟棄的過程中 直接受害的最嚴重的 都是貧窮的人。 大家對於英國石油油井的原油外泄 感到很憤怒 這是可以體會的。 大家會想,“天哪, 這外泄的油太可怕了, 流進水裏,裏面的生態 將會被破壞殆盡。 人們也會蒙受其害。 進而影響墨西哥灣周圍人們的生計 這是很可怕的一件事。”
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.
人們沒想過的是 如果原油安全地被運輸上岸 順利地到達目的地(煉油厰)會怎樣呢? 石油不只會被送進引擎燃燒 變成廢氣造成全球暖化 還有個地方叫“癌症帶” 爲什麽叫“癌症帶”呢? 那是因爲石化業 用原油製造塑膠 在生産的過程毒害了當地的居民。 住在墨西哥灣區的人們壽命因此而縮短。 所以石油化工業即使在油井不漏油的時候 也是個問題製造者。 我們通常不知道的是 貧窮的人們為我們丟棄的塑膠 所付出的代價。
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.
還有一件我們通常也不知道的事 人們不止在生産的過程中受害 在使用的過程 人們也會受害。 收入所得超過一定水準的人 有選擇的能力。 我們之所以會想要努力工作 不想陷入貧窮或破產 是因爲我們在經濟上想要保有選擇的能力。 我們有能力去選擇 不去使用某些產品 那些包含危險的有毒的塑膠的產品。 但是窮人們是沒有選擇的 所以低收入的人們經常也是 去買那些内含有毒化學成分的產品 來給他們小孩用的人。 到頭來這些人 吸收了或是使用了 比一般人更多的有毒塑膠。 可能有人會說,“他們應該買其它較安全的產品。” 但是問題是身為窮人,你是沒有其他的選擇的。 你通常只能買最便宜的產品 而最便宜的產品通常也是最危險的。
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.
如果這還不夠糟糕,還有更慘的: 不止在塑膠的生産過程裏 會帶給人們癌症,形成“癌症帶”,縮短性命 窮苦人家的小孩在使用的過程也會受害 甚至在丟棄的時候 再一次地,又是窮苦人家 首當其害。 我們常常以爲我們在做正確的事 你在你的辦公室 你在喝一瓶水還是什麽的 你在想,“我要把這瓶子丟掉。 不,我要做做功德 把這個瓶子放進藍色的資源回收桶。” 你想,“我把我的瓶子放進藍桶子裏。” 接下來你看著你的同事說 “爲什麽你這個低能兒 把你的塑膠瓶放在白色的桶子裏?” 我們把這個動作當作一個道德標簽 我們也因此自我感覺超好。 還可能原諒自己 可能你不會,但是我是這麽覺得的。
(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."
我們都因此有道德上感覺良好的時候。 但是要是我們跟著這個小塑膠瓶 看看它接下來的旅程 常常,我們會很吃驚地發現 塑膠瓶會被裝上船 花費一些運費 飄洋過海 最後到達一個開發中國家--通常是中國 在我們的心裏我們想象 有個人會拿起瓶子說,“噢,小小瓶子, 我們真高興見到你這個小瓶子。”
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
"You've served so well."
“你的任務是如此完美地達成了”
(Laughter)
小瓶子得到了獎勵
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 ..."
還有小瓶子獎章。 那個人又說,“接下來你想做什麽?” 小瓶子說,“我還不知道。”
(Laughter)
但事實並不是如此。
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.
這個瓶子 最後是被燒掉。 在很多開發中國家,塑膠資源的回收 就意味著把塑膠燒掉 而在燒塑膠的過程中 會散發無可計量的有毒化學物質 再一次, 是貧窮的人 在“癌症帶“這樣的石化中心 生産這一類塑膠產品; 是貧窮的人高度地消費這一類的產品; 最後還是貧窮的人 在資源回收的末端 看著他們的性命被縮短 嚴重地被侵害 就只因爲我們太習慣於
Now, you think to yourself -- I know how you are --
用過即丟的生活方式。
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.
現在你會想--因爲我很了解大家-- “對這些人來説 這真是太可怕了。 太慘了, 這些窮人們。 我希望有人能幫幫他們。” 我們不了解的是 在洛杉磯的我們 很努力地要降低 在本地煙霧的排放 但是你猜怎麽樣? 因爲現在在亞洲有這麽多的骯髒的工廠 因爲環境保護法案 現在還無法保護在亞洲的人們 我們在加州 辛辛苦苦維護的清潔空氣 和消除的髒空氣 全被亞洲飄過來的髒空氣一筆勾銷。 最終我們還是受到影響 但是首當其衝的還是貧窮的人們。 因爲不乾淨的生産過程,燃燒所釋放的有毒物質 和亞洲的缺乏環保 產生了許多空氣污染 飄洋過海而來完全抵消了我們在加州的努力。 我們反而退回到70年代的標準。 我們在同一個地球上 所以我們必須找到問題的根源。 在我看來,問題的根源
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.
在於用過即丟這個觀念上。 看,你如果了解 我們對地球 所造成的污染 和我們對窮人帶來的影響之間是有關聯的 你就會得到這個 令人不安但很有幫助的看法: 要把地球作廢 你得先把人類作廢。 但是如果你能創造一個珍惜人類的世界 你也就做到了珍惜地球。 我們社會進步到了 一方面重視社會正義 一方面也要環境保護 但我們也終於看出來 這其實是一體的兩個面。 這兩個面指的事就是,拒絕用過就丟。 我們的資源不該是用過即丟的 其他的生物也不是用過即丟的。 人類更不是用過即丟的。 我們的地球不是用過即丟的 就像我們的下一代一樣,都是很珍貴的。
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!"
一旦我們有了這樣的基礎認識 新的行動機會也跟著出現了。 那就是“仿生學” 這是一樣新概念 剛出現的新科學 也是一個很重要的社會正義的概念 人們也才剛開始了解。 仿生學是指 尊重所有物種的智慧。 順便一提,民主, 是指尊重所有人民的智慧。 仿生學是指尊重所有物種的智慧。 我們人類被認定是很聰明的物種 腦很大之類的,我們相當自豪。 我們要是要做一樣硬的東西 我們會想,”我要拿一樣硬的原料 我知道,我還需要鼓風機和熔爐 把硬的原料從地底挖出來 把一切搞得熱乎乎、又有毒、又重污染 但我最後還是得到我要的。
(Laughter)
我太聰明了。“
"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.
你看看你後面,一路造成的破壞 你還說你很聰明嗎? 你還比不上一顆蛤蚌呢
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.
蛤蚌的殼很硬 不需要鼓風機,不需要大的熔爐 不產生有毒物質,也沒有污染。 看起來別的物種 很早以前就知道 用自然界的生物功法 來製造我們需要的東西。 我們的科學家終於了解 仿生學的内涵 我們可以從其它物種那裏學很多東西, 我不是說抓一隻老鼠 給牠貼上東西 我不是說要虐待小動物 我是說要去尊重,尊重牠們的成就。 這就是仿生學 這也是做到 完全利用, 零污染的關鍵 這樣我們才可以 享受高品質的生活 而不會使地球毀滅。
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.
這個仿生學的 尊重所有物種的智慧的概念 去結合 民主和社會正義的 尊重所有人類的智慧和價值的觀念, 會產生一個不同以往的社會。 我們也會有一個不同的經濟 我們會有金博士都引以爲傲的 環保綠色社會。 這應該是我們的目標。 而要達到這個目標 大家要先認知這個用過即丟的概念 不止傷害了 我們談到的物種 還會腐化我們的社會。
We're so proud to live here in California. We just had this vote, and everybody's like, "Well -- not in our state!"
我們是如此地以住在加州為傲 我們才剛投過票,大家才透過選票說 “這種事不該在這裡發生。
(Laughter)
別的州在搞什麽我不懂。”
I don't know what those other states were doing, but ..."
(笑聲)
(Laughter)
是如此地自豪。
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.
對啊,我也覺得很驕傲。 但是加州 雖然我們在一些環保建設是領先的 但是,不幸地,在監禁人口這件事上 我們也是領先全球的。 加州有全國50州 最高的囚禁率。 我們現在有個道德上的挑戰 我們花很多心思 來拯救瀕危的生態 但我們對拯救活生生的人 卻不一直是那麽有興趣。 我可以說我們住的美國 有全世界百分之五的人口 排放全球百分之25的溫室氣體 還有關了全球百分之25的囚犯。 全世界的囚犯每四個人 就有一個人是関在美國。 所以這又跟我們這種 只用一次、用過即丟的壞習慣相呼應。
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.
然而 要成爲一個活動 就要拓廣活動的延續性 就要使這個活動能成長 要使這個活動能超越其傳統範圍 要把消除塑膠或幫助塑膠經濟轉型 這個活動能否成功,我們常遇到的挑戰為 人們常常對我們抱持著懷疑的態度。 人們常常問一個問題: 這些人怎麽會這麽有熱情這麽執著? 一個窮人、低收入戶、住在癌症帶的人 住在瓦茨區(洛杉磯的窮人區) 住在哈林區(紐約的窮人區),住在印第安保留區的人 他們會這麽說,倒也沒錯 “這些人怎麽會這麽執著地 要確認 一個塑膠瓶 還可以回收再利用, 或是一個鋁罐可以再有第二個生命, 然而,我的小孩惹了麻煩 被送進了監獄 卻沒有第二次的機會?“ 我們怎麽可以如此熱情地倡導 資源物質的再回收利用 然而任由 人命的廢置或癌症帶的存在? 所以我們現在有個機會 能讓我們真正為這個活動感到驕傲 如果我們選擇這個為我們奮鬥的議題 這給我們額外的動機 來向其他的活動伸展 也使得我們變得更有包含性、也更能成長。 而我們也終於能夠跳出以前那個無法兩全的局面。
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.
你們大部分的人是好的,心很軟的 當你們年輕時,你們關心全世界 甚至於在某個階段 有人說,你必須選擇一個議題來關心、奮鬥 一個可以把你的愛加諸其上的議題。 你不可能愛全世界 所以你選擇植樹、 選擇移民政策 你必須做篩選,只選一個議題來關心。 基本上他們的意思是 “你是要去擁抱一棵樹 還是一個小孩?選吧。 你是要去擁抱一棵樹 還是一個小孩?選吧。” 但是你要是選擇塑膠為你的議題 你將了解很多事是環環相扣的 很幸運地,我們都有兩條手臂 我們小孩和樹都可以擁抱。
Thank you very much.
謝謝大家。
(Applause)
(掌聲)