A Country on Wheels【车轮上的国家】

A Country on Wheels

As cultural symbols go, the American car is quite young.

作为文化象征的美国汽车还相当年轻。

The Model T Ford was built at the Piquette Plant in Michigan a century ago, with the first

rolling off the assembly line on September 27, 1908.

福特T型汽车一个世纪前才在密歇根的皮科特工业园区生产出来，1908年9月2日，第一辆福特T

型车从流水线上下线。

Only eleven cars were produced the next month. But eventually Henry Ford would build

fifteen million of them.

第二个月也仅生产了11辆。但是亨利·福特最终建造了1500万辆。

Modern America was born on the road, behind a wheel.

现代美国诞生于公路上，诞生于车轮下。

The car shaped some of the most lasting aspects of American cluture: the roadside diner,

the billboard, the motel, even the hamburger.

汽车塑造了美国文化中最永恒的几个方面：路边小餐馆、广告牌、汽车旅馆，甚至汉堡。

For most of the last century, the car represented what it meant to be American-going

forward at high speed to find new worlds.

上世纪的大部分时间里，汽车代表了成为美国人的意义--高速前进，寻找新的生活。

The road novel, the road movie, these are the most typical American ideas, born of abundant

petrol, cheap cars and a never-ending interstate highway system, the largest public works

project in history.

公路小说、公路电影，这些都是最典型的的美国观念，诞生于丰富的汽油，廉价的汽车和永无止境

的州际高速公路系统，而公路系统则是历史上最大型的公共工程项目。

In 1928, Herbert Hoover imagined an America with "a chicken in every pot and a car in every garage."

1928年，赫伯特·胡佛设想的美国是“每个锅里都有鸡，每个车库都有车”。

Since then, this society has moved onward, never looking back, as the car transformed America

from a farm-based society into an industrial power.

从那时起，美国社会一直在向前发展，从不回头，因为汽车将美国从一个以农业为基础的社会转变成了工业强国。

The cars that drove the American Dream have helped to create a global ecological disaster. In America

the demand for oil has grown by 22 percent since 1990.

驱动美国梦的汽车也“帮助”制造了一场全球生态灾难。自从1990年，美国对石油的需求增长了22%。

The problems of excessive energy consumption, climate change and population growth have been

described in a book by the American writer Thomas L. Friedman. He fears the worst, but hopes for the best.

美国作家托马斯·L·费里德曼在一本书中描述了能源过度消耗、气候变化和人口增长等问题。

他对此做最坏的打算，却抱最大的希望。

Friedman points out that the green economy is a chance to keep American strength.

费里德曼之处绿色经济是保持美国实力的机会。

"The ability to design, build and export green technologies for producing clean water, clean

air and healthy and abundant food is going to be the currency of power in the new century."

“在新世纪，设计、建造和出口绿色技术以生产干净的水、空气以及健康、丰富的食物的能力将

成为国家实力。”

2018年浙江卷C