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As Smog Thins inL.A., Dramatic Evidenceof Kids' Healthier Lungs 洛杉矶的雾霾减退，孩子们的肺部重拾健康
New study shows Los Angeles–area kids have fewer breathing problems now than they did in the 1990s 新的研究表明,与20世纪90年代相比，洛杉矶地区的孩子们现在出现呼吸问题的概率降低了 Left: A smoggy haze lingers over theL.A. skyline in the 1980s. 左图：20世纪80年代洛杉矶雾霾笼罩 Right:The city's air is clear after a winter storm in March, 2015. 右图：2015年3月，在一阵寒流过后，城市的空气清新了不少 PHOTOGRAPHSBY PHILIP JAMES CORWIN, CORBIS (LEFT) AND RINGO CHIU, ZUMAWIRE/CORBIS (RIGHT)左图摄影：菲利普·詹姆斯 右图作者：赵汉荣 By Craig Welch 克雷格·威尔士 《国家地理》杂志社 PUBLISHED MARCH 4, 2015 发表于2015年3月4日
It may be the biggest success story inenvironmental health in modern America. 这在现代美国的环境健康史上或许是最成功的事例了。
Children in the Los Angeles region have substantiallyhealthier lungs than they did just 20 years ago, thanks largely tomultibillion-dollar efforts to clean up southern California's infamous smog andsoot. 多亏了政府在清理加利福尼亚州南部地区恶贯满盈的雾霾和粉尘投入数百亿美元进行治理，洛杉矶地区孩子们的肺和20年前比起来要健康得多了。
In landmark research published Wednesday, Universityof Southern California scientists found that kidsin the region are breathing better than they did in 1994, and the percentage ofkids with abnormally poor lung function dropped by more than half. 在周三发布的陆标研究中，南加州大学的科学家们发现在该地区孩子们的呼吸状况比1994年要好，而肺部出现异常状况的孩子们所占百分比跌幅超过了 50%。
Thescientists reached a dramatic conclusion that they hope reverberates globally:Reducing air pollution improves people's health. 科学家们发现了一个令人吃惊的结论，而他们希望此结论能够在世界引起反响：减少空气污染能够提高人民健康水平。
"It's remarkable; this is one ofthe biggest turnarounds I've ever seen," says leadresearcher W. James Gauderman, with USC'sKeck School of Medicine. “这很惊人。它或许是我见过的最大的转变之一了。”南加州大学凯克医学院首席研究员W·詹姆斯·高德曼说道。
Frank Gilliland, with USC'sPrograms in Biomedical and Biological Sciences, saysthe new findings "show scientifically that targeting pollutants actuallymakes kids healthier. It's a very important message, especially for thedeveloping world: These problems are fixable, and you can see bigbenefits." 参与生物医学和生物科学计划的研究员弗兰科·吉利兰说，这个新发现“科学地证明了以污染物为标靶治理，实际上让孩子们更加健康”。这是一条很重要的信息，尤其是对发展中国家更是如此。这些问题是能够解决的，而我们也能够看到巨大的成效。”
In the study publishedin the NewEngland Journal of Medicine, researchers followed 2,000 kids from fivesouthern California cities with some of the worst air, including Long Beach,Riverside, San Dimas, Upland, and Mira Loma. Theyfocused on kids ages 11 to 15, whose lungs are growing the most. 在《新英格兰医学期刊》的研究中，调查者们从加州南部包括长滩、河滨市、高地市、米拉洛马市等五个空气质量最差的城市中，跟踪调查了2000名孩子。他们重点关注肺部成长最显著的年龄段的儿童，也就是11岁至15岁。
Whileother studies have compared kids from polluted neighborhoods to those livingwith cleaner air, the USC team tracked children from the same communities over20 years, and correlated their findings with pollution data from local airmonitors. That allowed them to more clearlyweed out other potential factors. 与其它将污染地区儿童与空气清洁地区儿童作为对比的研究不同，南加州大学的研究团队对于同一地区的儿童进行了20多年的跟踪调查，并且将他们的发现与当地空气监测机构的污染数据进行相关联系。这样可以使得他们能够排除其他可能对调查结果产生干扰的因素。
Regardlessof race, exposure to cigarette smoke, or factors like education and pets, kidstested between 2007 and 2011 had healthier lungs than kids the same ages testedbetween 1994 and 1998. 除去种族差异、暴露在吸烟环境中，或者关于教育与宠物等因素的影响，2007至2011年间出生的孩子们肺部普遍比1994至1998年同岁时期孩子们的肺部健康。
Average lung capacity for kids in allthe communities increased substantially, but the lungs of those with asthmaimproved roughly twice as much as the lungs of other children. 在所有社区中的孩子们的平均肺活量都有显著提高，然而得了哮喘病的孩子们的肺部功能几乎比其他孩子们提高了2倍。
The percentage of children in thestudy with abnormally poor lung function at age 15 dropped from nearly 8percent for the 1994-98 group to 3.6 percent for kids between 2007 and 2011,according to the USC researchers. 在此次研究中，根据南加州大学的调查，15岁组肺部功能异常的孩子们从1994-1998之间的8个百分点下降到2007-2011年的3.6个百分点。
And kids' lungs grew faster as airquality improved: Lung growth from age 11 to 15 was more than 10 percentgreater in the later group. 而随着空气质量的改善，孩子们的肺部成长速度也随之增长：11至15岁的肺部成长速度与滞后各组相比，生长速度要高出10%左右。
Parents Notice Cleaner Air 家长们注意到空气变得更清洁了
"It's pretty amazing," saysLong Beach resident Maria Gugerty, whose 17-year-old son, Will, isrepresentative of millennials in the study who grew up with the more pollutedair. "It demonstrates that even in a huge city in a huge state with bigpollution problems, if people put their mind to it, you can make significantchanges." “这挺让人吃惊的。”长滩居民玛利亚·古戈蒂说道。她17岁的儿子威尔在此次研究中作为在被污染空气中成长的千禧一代代表，也参与了调查。“这表明就算是在污染严重的大都市中，如果人们注意这个问题，就能发生巨大改变。”
Gugerty,who has lived in Long Beach since the early 1990s, recalls regularly spottingsoot on her windows and seeing a smog-blanketed horizon while driving. When her son was in elementary school, he struggled with asthmaand complained frequently about his breathing. But she hasn't heard himcomplain in years. 从20世纪90年代早期起，古戈蒂就定居在长滩。她还记得那时透过窗户，通常都会看到漫天的烟尘；在驾车途中，也会看到被雾霾覆盖的天空。她的儿子威尔还在上小学时，就开始与哮喘病作斗争，并且时常抱怨他的呼吸问题。不过近些年来，她再也没有听到他的抱怨了。
"Oftenyou could see this thick layer of gunk in the air, but I don't see that muchanymore," Gugerty says. “以前你经常能够看到这种厚厚的一层烟尘颗粒，但现在我没再见过这个。”古戈蒂说道。
ClaudiaCopley, who was a high school athlete in the smoggy city of West Covina in the1980s, remembers sports practices being canceled because air quality was sohazardous. Copley says she's grateful that hertwo children, Ian, 18, and Piper, 11, haven't had to experience that. The airis even cleaner now than it was when they were born; smog alerts now areextremely rare. 上个世纪80年代时，克劳迪娅·科波里还是一个被烟雾笼罩的西柯维纳市的一名高中生运动员，她回忆道那时体育训练经常由于空气质量太差而被取消。科波里说她很感激，因为她的两个孩子，18岁的伊恩和11岁的皮蓬，不用经历这些。他们现在呼吸的空气甚至比他们出生时还要好，而烟雾警报现在也难得一见了。
"I'm so glad somebody didsomething about it," Copley says. "Because that's the whole goal,right?To make things better for our kids." “我很高兴有人为此有所行动。” 科波里说道。“让孩子们更好地成长，是我们共同的目标，不是吗？
California'sGroundbreaking Pollution Standards 加州开创性地设立污染标准 Over the past several decades, California officials setgroundbreaking standards that phased out many inefficient car and truck enginesand some of the dirtiest fuels for everything from jet skis and lawnmowers toschool buses and heavy-duty trucks. Local smog-fighters in the Los Angelesbasin forced cleanup of oil refineries, manufacturing plants, and consumerproducts such as paints and solvents. Other local and state programs offeredincentives for replacing old trucks and buses. 在过去几十年中，加州政府制定了一些开创性的标准：他们逐渐淘汰了效率低下的汽车和卡车发动机，以及一些使用污染性大的燃油的所有工具：从喷气滑雪橇、割草机到校车以及重工卡车等。洛杉矶当地的抗霾斗士们通过努力，将一些炼油厂、制造工厂、生产类似涂料和溶剂的消费品工厂迁出城外。一些地方和州立项目还会为替换旧式卡车和巴士的行为提供奖励。
The result: Some of the mostproblematic pollutants-smog-forming nitrogen dioxide and fine particles createdby diesel-engine exhaust and other fossil fuels-declined in the worstneighborhoods by up to 50 percent in 20 years. Maritime pollution, particularly in neighborhoods near themassive ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, also hasdroppedsubstantially. 这样做的结果是：近20年中，一些由于化石燃料燃烧产生的二氧化氮和颗粒污染物形成的、最难以解决的雾霾，在一些污染最为严重的地区下降了50% 。在洛杉矶和长滩附近，海洋污染也得到明显减轻。
The cleaner air came as virtually every type of pollutionsource in the region grew—numbers of people, cars, trucks, ships, aircraft, andvehicle miles traveled. 人口、汽车、卡车、船舶、飞机，以及其他交通工具的行驶里程，都是空气污染的源头。尽管这些数据都在增长，但空气却变得更为清新。
Nevertheless, the four-county Los Angeles basin still hassome of the nation's worst levels of ozone, a key ingredient of smog, and fineparticles, which have been linked to asthma attacks and heart problems. Theregion still violates federal health standards for ozone and particles. 尽管如此，地跨四区的洛杉矶盆地臭氧状况之差和颗粒污染物浓度之高在美国仍位居前列，而这些成分都是雾霾形成的主要成分和引起哮喘与心脏病的罪魁祸首。该地区在臭氧和颗粒污染物方面，仍然没能达到联邦标准。
"In this day and agethat's important to communicate: Reducing pollution has been a major boon tochildren growing up in southern California," Gilliland says. "But there's still too much of it. More reductionsare needed." “在现在这个时代，信息交流十分重要：减少污染对南加州孩子们的成长有很大好处，” 吉利兰说，“但污染还十分严重，我们任重而道远。” 翻译仅供学习交流，严禁用于商业用途 PDF文档下载：
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发表于 2015-9-2 17:27:32
