David Attenborough: A Life on Our Planet · 2020 — 第 12 / 17 章 · 3'57" · C1

David Warns of One-Way Doors, Explained:one-way doors

It opens as a witness statement, then a lifetime of global decline, and the forecast does not stop. Stay on this course and the next life is worse: dry Amazon, ice-free Arctic summers, dead reefs, failing food, a sixth extinction underway. "This is a series of one-way doors" is the claim: irreversible change, and Eden lost.

あらすじ

Someone opens with a witness statement, then names a lifetime of global decline, and says it does not end there. On the current course, the next lifetime's damage eclipses this one. Born today, that person would see a dried Amazon, an ice-free Arctic, dead reefs, a food crisis, and a sixth extinction. These are one-way doors. Within the next lifetime our Garden of Eden will be lost.

MonologuesSpeechesWarningExplainingC1slowbritishClean
IMDb ↗

注目の表現

witness statementdoesn't end thereon our current courseice-free

00:00 / 03:57
Space 再生 · ← → セリフ移動 · R リピート
いま
  1. ❝ 独白Testimony of one-way doors33 行練習ページ ↗
セリフをタップするとそこから再生

このシーンの表現

one-way doors

doors you cannot return through

one-way doors stop the list and picture every loss as an entrance that will not let you back.

Those late edits are one-way doors, so export a copy first.

このシーンの他の表現

  • witness statement

    a formal account offered as evidence

  • doesn't end there

    the account continues past this point

  • on our current course

    continuing along the present path

  • ice-free

    with no ice left

  • reflected back

    bounced back instead of kept

このシーンのメモ一覧

33 行のセリフに 28 件のメモ

表現 · C1a witness statement

a formal account offered as evidence

The section opens on a witness statement, and the next line names a lifetime of global decline. The short line sets what follows as testimony.

That is my witness statement.
発音witness statement

Give the weight to witness and statement, and ease off is my.

That is my witness statement.
表現 · B1it doesn't end there

the account continues past this point

Right after a lifetime is called global decline, doesn't end there points back at that decline, not a place. The damage of this life will be eclipsed in the next.

But it doesn't end there.
発音doesn't end

Let the t slide into end instead of stopping for a burst.

But it doesn't end there.
表現 · B2on one's current course

continuing along the present path

on our current course makes every later loss conditional on not changing direction.

If we continue on our current course,
表現 · C1the defining feature of something

the trait that most marks a period

the damage that has been the defining feature of my lifetime
文法 · B2that has been the defining feature

relative clause: The that-clause identifies which damage defines that lifetime.

the damage that has been the defining feature of my lifetime
表現 · C1be eclipsed by something

thrown into the shade by something else not a sky eclipse; later damage overshadows the earlier

will be eclipsed by the damage coming in the next.
表現 · C1be witness to something

see something happen with one's own eyes

Science predicts that were I born today, I would be witness to the following.
文法 · C1were I born today

inverted subjunctive: were before I means if I were, a hypothetical birth today.

Science predicts that were I born today, I would be witness to the following.
表現 · A2no longer do something

not able to do it anymore

The Amazon Rainforest, cut down until it can no longer produce enough moisture,
表現 · C1degrade into something

worsen until it becomes something else

degrades into a dry savannah, bringing catastrophic species loss...
表現 · A2at the same time

happening in the same period

At the same time, the Arctic becomes ice-free in the summer.
表現 · B1be reflected back

bounced back instead of kept

After an ice-free summer is stated, reflected back tracks the sunlight: without the white cap, less energy returns to space, and warming speeds up.

Without the white ice cap, less of the sun's energy is reflected back out to space.
表現 · B2many times more X than Y

far stronger than the thing compared

releasing methane, a greenhouse gas many times more potent than carbon dioxide,
文法 · B2a greenhouse gas many times more potent than carbon dioxide

noun appositive: The noun phrase renames methane and ranks it against carbon dioxide.

releasing methane, a greenhouse gas many times more potent than carbon dioxide,
表現 · B1continue to do something

keeps getting hotter

As the ocean continues to heat and becomes more acidic, coral reefs around the world die.
表現 · B2populations crash

numbers falling suddenly and steeply

populations crash delivers the next blow in a very short line, cold and final.

Fish populations crash.
表現 · B2enter a crisis

to move into a crisis

Global food production enters a crisis as soils become exhausted by overuse.
表現 · B2exhausted by something

drained because it was used too hard

Global food production enters a crisis as soils become exhausted by overuse.
文法 · B2as soils become exhausted by overuse

causal as-clause: as gives the cause: exhausted soils drive the food crisis.

Global food production enters a crisis as soils become exhausted by overuse.
表現 · A2more and more + adjective

increasing, step after step

And the weather is more and more unpredictable.
発音more and more

Keep and as a light sound so the two mores stay clear.

And the weather is more and more unpredictable.
表現 · C1rendered homeless

left without a home, in formal style

Millions of people rendered homeless.
文法 · B2rendered homeless

reduced passive: The participle skips are: people are left without homes.

Millions of people rendered homeless.
表現 · B2be well underway

already started and solidly in progress

is well underway.
表現 · C1a series of one-way doors

doors you cannot return through

one-way doors stop the list and picture every loss as an entrance that will not let you back.

This is a series of one-way doors...
表現 · C1irreversible change

change that cannot be undone

bringing irreversible change.

「David Warns of One-Way Doors」を読み解く

What's really going on

"That is my witness statement" frames the whole account as evidence, not opinion, and the next line names what the evidence shows: "A story of global decline during a single lifetime." "But it doesn't end there" refuses to let that lifetime be the ending. The condition is explicit — "If we continue on our current course" — and the damage that defined this lifetime "will be eclipsed by the damage coming in the next." What follows is a forecast credited to science: a dried Amazon, an ice-free Arctic summer, thawing soils releasing methane, dead reefs, crashing fish, a food crisis, four degrees warmer. "Large parts of the earth are uninhabitable." "This is a series of one-way doors" is the frame that turns a list of losses into a sequence nobody can walk back, and it ends with "our Garden of Eden" — the Holocene's security and stability — "will be lost."

Theme

GenerationsDamage that defined this lifetime will be eclipsed by what the next lifetime inherits if the current course holds.
SurvivalThe forecast includes uninhabitable land, millions homeless, and a sixth extinction already well underway.

発音のポイント

  • witness statement — Give the weight to witness and statement, and ease off is my.
  • doesn't end — Let the t slide into end instead of stopping for a burst.
  • more and more — Keep and as a light sound so the two mores stay clear.
Science predicts that were I born today, I would be witness to the following.

The line dates the forecast to a life starting now: what science says a person born today would watch.

At the same time, the Arctic becomes ice-free in the summer.

Set beside the drying Amazon, this line puts an ice-free Arctic summer in the same forecast.

As the ocean continues to heat and becomes more acidic, coral reefs around the world die.

Heating and acidifying seas are given as the condition under which coral reefs die, just before fish populations crash.

Global food production enters a crisis as soils become exhausted by overuse.

Food production is said to enter a crisis because soils are exhausted by overuse, in the same run of losses as vanished pollinators and unpredictable weather.

Large parts of the earth are uninhabitable.

Right after the planet is said to warm by four degrees, this line states that large parts of the earth can no longer be lived in.

This is a series of one-way doors...

The disasters just listed are framed as doors that swing only one way, and the following line adds that the change is irreversible.

このシーンについての質問

Why does the account say it doesn't end there?

After "That is my witness statement" comes "A story of global decline during a single lifetime," and then "But it doesn't end there." The testimony does not close on that one lifetime. On the current course, damage that defined this lifetime "will be eclipsed by the damage coming in the next."

Which losses are gathered into the one-way doors?

Before "This is a series of one-way doors," the forecast names a dried Amazon, an ice-free Arctic summer, methane from thawing soils, dead coral reefs, crashing fish, a food crisis as soils are exhausted, vanished pollinators, unpredictable weather, a planet four degrees warmer, large parts uninhabitable, millions homeless, and a sixth mass extinction "well underway."

After less of the sun's energy is reflected back, what does the next line say?

"Without the white ice cap, less of the sun's energy is reflected back out to space." The next line is "And the speed of global warming increases." Less energy sent back to space is tied to warming speeding up.

Is the sixth mass extinction described as already underway?

The lines say "A sixth mass extinction event is well underway." That sits inside the "were I born today" forecast, after millions rendered homeless, and it is stated as already in progress, not as a distant possibility.

デヴィッド・アッテンボロー: 地球に暮らす生命 · 全 17 章

すべて見る →
第 12 / 17 章 · 残り約 14 分