第一部分 英译汉

 

As icebergs in the Kayak Harbor pop and hiss while melting away, this remote Arctic town and its culture are also disappearing in a changing climate.

 

Narsaq’s largest employer, a shrimp factory, closed a few years ago after the crustaceans fled north to cooler water. Where once there were eight commercial fishing vessels, there is now one.

 

As a result, the population here, one of southern Greenland’s major towns, has been halved to 1,500 in just a decade. Suicides are up.

 

“Fishing is the heart of this town,” said Hans Kaspersen, 63, a fisherman. “Lots of people have lost their livelihoods.”

 

But even as warming temperatures are upending traditional Greenlandic life, they are also offering up intriguing new opportunities for this state of 57,000 – perhaps nowhere more so than here in Narsaq.

 

Vast new deposits of minerals and gems are being discovered as Greenland’s massive ice cap recedes, forming the basis of a potentially lucrative mining industry.

 

One of the world’s largest deposits of rare earth metals – essential for manufacturing cellphones, wind turbines and electric cars – sits just outside Narsaq.

 

This could be momentous for Greenland, which has long relied on half a billion dollars a year in welfare payments from Denmark, its parent state. Mining profits could help Greenland become economically self-sufficient and render it the first sovereign nation created by global warming.

 

“One of our goals is to obtain independence,” said Vittus Qujaukitsoq, a prominent labor union leader.

 

But the rapid transition from a society of individual fishermen and hunters to an economy supported by corporate mining raises difficult questions. How would Greenland’s insular settlements tolerate an influx of thousands of Polish or Chinese construction workers, as has been proposed? Will mining despoil a natural environment essential to Greenland’s national identity – the whales and seals, the silent icy fjords, and mythic polar bears? Can fisherman reinvent themselves as miners?

 

“I think mining will be the future, but this is a difficult phase,” said Jens B. Frederiksen, Greenland’s housing and infrastructure minister and a deputy premier. “It’s a plan that not everyone wants. It’s about traditions, the freedom of a boat, family professions.”

 

The Arctic is warming even faster than other parts of the planet, and the rapidly melting ice is causing alarm among scientists about sea-level rise. In northeastern Greenland, average yearly temperature have risen 4.5 degrees in the past 15 years, and scientists predict the area could warm by 14 to 21 degrees by the end of the century.

 

Already, winter pack ice that covers the fjords is no longer stable enough for dog sledding and snowmobile traffic in many areas. Winter fishing, essential to feeding families, is becoming hazardous or impossible.

 

It has long been known that Greenland sat upon vast mineral lodes, and the Danish government has mapped them intermittently for decades. Niels Bohr, Denmark’s Nobel Prize-winning nuclear physicist and a member of the Manhattan Project, visited Narsaq in 1957 because of its uranium deposits.

 

But previous attempts at mining mostly failed, proving too expensive in the inclement conditions. Now, warming has altered the equation.

 

参考译文：

 

皮艇港不断融化的冰山在嘶嘶作响，这座偏远的北极小镇和它的文化也随着气候变化日渐消失。

 

几年前，气候变化导致虾蟹等渔业资源不断北迁至更寒冷的水域，纳萨克最大企业的虾厂倒闭了。这里曾一度有八艘商业捕鱼船，而今只剩下了一艘。

 

纳萨克是格陵兰岛的南部重镇，短短十年中这里的人口减半，降至目前的1500人。自杀率也不断上升。

 

“捕鱼是这个小镇的主要产业，”63岁的渔民汉斯·卡斯佩森说，“很多人失去了生计。”

 

尽管气候变暖正在颠覆格陵兰人传统的生活方式，但是也为这个只有5.7万人口的国家提供了新良机，这在纳萨克体现的最为明显。

 

随着格陵兰岛广袤的冰盖逐渐消融，人们发现了储量丰富的新矿产和宝石矿藏，这为发展利润巨大的采矿业奠定了基础。

 

全球最大的稀土金属矿藏就坐落在纳萨克城外不远处。稀土金属是生产手机、风力涡轮机和电动汽车必不可少的原料。

 

这对于格陵兰岛而言意义重大。很长时间以来，格陵兰岛作为丹麦的海外郡一直依赖丹麦每年拨付的5亿美元资金维持运行。采矿收益可能会帮助格陵兰岛实现经济上的自给自足，成为第一个因全球变暖而成立的主权国家。

 

知名工会领袖维图斯·奎奥基茨克说，“我们的一大目标就是取得独立。”

 

然而，把一个由个体渔民和猎人组成的社会，迅速转变为由企业采矿支撑的经济体，也引发了一些难题。比如，格陵兰岛上与世隔绝的定居点，如何承受计划招募的数千名波兰或中国建筑工人？采矿是否会破坏格陵兰岛维护国家形象（鲸、海豹、寂静的冰川海湾，以及神秘的北极熊）所不可或缺的自然环境？渔民们能够转行当矿工吗？

 

“我认为采矿就是我们的未来，但现在是一个艰难的阶段。”格陵兰住房与基础设施部长、副总理延斯·B.佛雷德利克森说，“不是每一个人都赞成该计划，因为它会影响当地的传统、驾船的自由以及代代相传的职业。”

 

北极变暖的速度比地球上其他任何地方都快，而迅速融化的冰川引起了科学家对海平面上升的警觉。过去15年中，格陵兰岛东北部的年均气温上升了4.5度。而科学家预测，到本世纪末，该地区气温会升高14至21度。

 

在很多地区，冬季覆盖在峡湾里的浮冰已经不够稳固，狗拉雪橇和摩托雪橇都无法通行了。冬季捕鱼是为很多家庭提供食物的重要手段，但现在却变得很危险，甚至不可能了。

 

格陵兰岛地下蕴藏着巨大的矿藏这一点久为人知。几十年来，丹麦政府已经断断续续地绘制了这些矿藏的分布图。参与过曼哈顿计划的丹麦核物理学家、诺贝尔奖得主尼尔斯·玻尔曾在1957年造访纳萨克，正是因为这里有铀矿藏。

 

然而，之前的开采尝试几乎都失败了，事实证明在严酷的环境下采矿，成本过于高昂。如今，气候变暖让这个等式发生了变化。

 

第二部分 汉译英  

 

（无真题及参考译文）