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And so it is everywhere one looks.
這一現象在世界各地都在發生。
The human juggernaut is permanently eroding Earth's ancient biosphere by a combination of forces that can be summarized by the acronym HIPPO, the animal hippo.
人類正在以不可抗拒的力量，持續破壞著那些億萬年演化而成的生物系統,這些力量可以總結為HIPPO，原意是河馬。
H is for habitat destruction, including climate change forced by greenhouse gases.
H是代表棲息地破壞, 這包括因為大量排放溫室氣體而產生的氣候變化。
I is for the invasive species like the fire ants, the zebra mussels, broom grasses,and pathogenic bacteria and viruses that are flooding every country, and at an exponential rate that's the I.
I是代表入侵物種，包括紅火蟻、 斑馬貽貝等，以及那些正在以驚人速度在各個國家蔓延的病毒和致病菌。
The P, the first one in HIPPO, is for pollution.
P，第一個P是代表污染。
The second is for continued population, human population expansion.
第二個是指持續的人口增長。
And the final letter is O, for over-harvesting driving species into extinction by excessive hunting and fishing.
而O則代表過度捕獲，過度的狩獵和捕撈正使許多物種走向消亡
The HIPPO juggernaut we have created, if unabated, is destined according to the best estimates of ongoing biodiversity research,to reduce half of Earth's still surviving animal and plant species to extinction or critical endangerment by the end of the century.
人類如果不減弱這些力量（HIPPO）,根據一直在進行的生物多樣性研究的最樂觀估計，也將使得地球現存的動植物種類中有一半，走向滅絕或走到瀕危的境地，也許就發生在本世紀末。
Human-forced climate change alone again, if unabated could eliminate a quarter of surviving species during the next five decades.
單單是人為引起的氣候變化，假如不加以遏制就將會在未來的半個世紀使得現存物種數目減少四分之一。
What will we and all future generations lose if much of the living environment is thus degraded?
假如地球環境真的這樣惡化下去，那么我們以及我們的后代將經受怎樣的后果？
Huge potential sources of scientific information yet to be gathered,much of our environmental stability and new kinds of pharmaceuticals and new products of unimaginable strength and value all thrown away.
有大量的科學數據就藏在大自然當中等待我們去發掘，環境穩定性，還有許多價值非凡的新藥物新產品都會因此而被遺棄。
The loss will inflict a heavy price in wealth, security and yes, spirituality for all time to come,because previous cataclysms of this kind the last one, that ended the age of dinosaurs took, normally, five to 10 million years to repair.
這樣的損失也將給我們的財富、安全以及精神生活帶來巨大的沖擊，我們知道，歷史上曾出現過的類似這類災難性事件，對上一次是數百萬年前，使得恐龍走向滅絕必須經過一千萬年才能得到恢復。
Sadly, our knowledge of biodiversity is so incomplete that we are at risk of losing a great deal of it before it is even discovered.
可悲的是，我們關于生物多樣性的了解是如此之少，也許有許多知識未待我們發現就已經不復存在。
For example, even in the United States, the 200,000 species known currently actually has been found to be only partial in coverage;it is mostly unknown to us in basic biology.
比方說，在美國，我們知道有20萬個物種，但我們發現這其實只是很小的一個部分；而我們學基礎生物學的時候是沒有學這個的。
Only about 15 percent of the known species have been studied well enough to evaluate their status.
只有15%的已知物種是有過深入研究，使得我們可以評估它們的境況。
Of the 15 percent evaluated, 20 percent are classified as in peril,that is, in danger of extinction.
在這15%的物種里，有20%是被列為處于危險狀態，換言之，它們就在滅絕的邊緣。
That's in the United States.
這只是美國的故事。
We are, in short, flying blind into our environmental future.
概而言之，我們就像盲人一樣去迎接這樣的未來環境。
We urgently need to change this.
我們必須盡快改變這一現狀。
We need to have the biosphere properly explored so that we can understand and competently manage it.
我們需要對生物圈正確地進行探測，唯有如此，我們才能把握其秘密，并更好的加以保護。
We need to settle down before we wreck the planet.
我們要知道我們的處境，而后才能對未來采取應對措施。
And we need that knowledge.
我們需要這樣的知識。
This should be a big science project equivalent to the Human Genome Project.
這將會是一個相當龐大的科學項目，堪與人類基因組計劃相比。
It should be thought of as a biological moonshot with a timetable.
或者說是一次時間概念更強烈的生物學阿波羅項目。
So this brings me to my wish for TEDsters,and to anyone else around the world who hears this talk.
我接下來就 要宣布我的TED愿望，世界各地熱愛科學的朋友也歡迎你們的聆聽。
I wish we will work together to help create the key tools that we need to inspire preservation of Earth's biodiversity.
我希望我們可以攜手合作，創建一些工具來鼓勵保護地球生物多樣性。
