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It took hundreds of millions of years to produce the life that now inhabits the earth. Given time—time not in years but in millennia—life adjusts, and a balance has been reached. But in the modern world there is no time.
今天，寄居在地球上的生命是经过上亿年进化而来的。生物适应所需的时间不是以年计算的，而是以千年来计算的。生命体不断适应，才能达到一种平衡状态。但是现代世界的变化太快已经来不及适应了。
The rapidity of change follows the impetuous pace of man rather than the deliberate pace of nature. Radiation is now the unnatural creation of man's tampering with the atom. The chemicals are the synthetic creations of man's inventive mind, having no counterparts in nature.
这种快速的变化追随着人类轻率的步伐而非大自然的从容步态。辐射是人们干预原子时违背自然的创造。化学物质是人们依靠聪明的头脑所创造的人工合成物，而这些东西在自然界是找不到对等物质的。
To adjust to these chemicals would require not merely the years of a man's life but the life of generations. And even this, were it by some miracle possible, would be futile, for the new chemicals come from our laboratories in an endless stream; almost five hundred annually find their way into actual use in the United States alone.
调整以适应这些化学物质不仅需要一代人很多年的努力，甚至需要几代人的努力。即便如此，如果没有奇迹发生，这些努力也是徒劳的，因为我们的实验室会源源不断地生产出新的化学物质，仅在美国，每年就有将近500种化学合成物投入使用。
Among them are many that are used in man's war against nature. Since the mid-1940s over 200 basic chemicals have been created for use in killing insects, weeds, and other organisms described as "pests"; and they are sold under several thousand different brand names.
这些化学品中，很多是被人类用于对抗自然的。自20世纪40年代中期以来，人类制造出了超过200种基本化学物质，用来杀虫、灭草和其他一些被称之为“害虫”的有机生命体；这些化学物质是以几千种不同的商品形式被出售的。
These chemicals are now applied almost universally to farms, gardens, forests, and homes, killing every insect, the "good" and the "bad," to still the song of birds and the leaping of fish, to coat the leaves with a deadly film, and to linger on in soil—all this though the intended target may be only a few weeds or insects.
这些化学物质现在被广泛用于农田、园子、森林和家庭生活之中，用来杀死那些不管是“好的”还是“有害的”昆虫，这致使鸟儿不再歌唱，鱼儿不再跳跃，树叶上蒙上一层致命的薄膜，化学物质将长期留存在土壌里——尽管使用它的最初目的是除掉少量的野草和昆虫。
