辛达雅思代报考位 ：直到2018年7月21日上午雅思官网释放部分考位，在此提醒广大考生抓紧时间报名，注意自己的考试时间，如对雅思报名有任何疑问，欢迎咨询在线客服。And I’m Neil. Today – is technology built to fail? And are we throwing away too much technology and harming the planet? Catherine, tell me - how old is your TV?
我是尼尔。今天的话题是，科技生来就是被淘汰的吗？我们是不是扔了太多的科技，伤害了我们的星球？凯瑟琳，告诉我，你家电视多大寿命了？
My TV has just had its fifth birthday.
我的电视已经买了五年了。
And your mobile phone?
那你的手机呢？
It’s about two and a half.
差不多两年半。
So you do like to have gizmos, but not necessarily the latest.
所以你喜欢小发明，但不一定非得最新的是吗？
Exactly.
没错。
Gizmo – nice word. A gizmo is a small piece of technology – otherwise called a gadget.
小发明，不错的词。小发明是指小技术，另外还叫gadget小装置。
And of course I’m not alone in buying gadgets from time to time.They actually keep on getting more advanced – so people keep buying new ones.
当然一次一次买小装置的不止我一个人。小发明一直在更新，所以人们不停地买新款。
Technology also gets cheaper and cheaper.In fact, many gadgets are more expensive to fix than replace.
科技也越来越便宜。事实上，很多小装置修起来比重新买一个替代品更贵。
And this means that we throw a lot of gadgets away – but how many?
这就意味着我们扔了很多小装置，但究竟是多少呢？
See if you can guess: how much electronic waste is thrown away every year globally? Is it…a) 420 tonnes, b) 4.2 million tonnes or c) 42 million tonnes?
看看你能不能猜到，每年全球有多少电子废弃品被扔掉？a) 420 吨, b) 420万吨，还是 c) 4200万吨？
And I do actually know the answer to this once, so I’m gonna keep quiet, just for once!
这一次我确实知道答案，但这次我要保持沉默。
Ah, first time for everything!So, to bring us back to our main point.Is technology no longer built to last?Let’s hear first from Professor Tim Cooper who is an expert in sustainable consumption and production at Nottingham Trent University in the UK.
凡是都有第一次。那么让我们回到今天的主题上。如今科技是不是不再长久了？我们听听英国诺丁汉特伦特大学可持续消费和生产的专家，蒂姆·库珀的看法。
Sustainable, by the way, means able to continue over a long period of time.We often use it to mean able to continue without causing harm – like environmental damage. What’s the problem with mobile phones?
顺便说一下，可持续的是指能够在很长的一段时间内持续。我们通常用这个词表示能够持续使用而不造成损害，例如对环境造成损害。那手机有什么问题呢？
The classic example of this is the mobile phone, where, for example, screens are glued into the product. Now they know that if there was a screw there, the consumer could easily, when that screen cracks, which is obviously a very common problem with mobile phones, unscrew it and put a new screen on.They don’t.They know perfectly well that that would be a way in which mobile phones would last longer. They don’t want that, they want you to replace your mobile phone every year or two.
典型的例子是，手机的显示屏是粘在手机上的。如今人们意识到，如果手机上有螺丝钉的话就好了，当手机屏幕坏了，这也是手机经常出现的问题，消费者就能轻易地旋开螺丝钉，换一个新的屏幕上去。然而现实并非如此。制造商当然知道这样的话手机能够更加长久的使用。但他们不想那样，他们就想要你每年或每两年换部手机。