One of the world’s largest deposits of rare earth metals — essential for manufacturing cellphones, wind turbines and electric cars — sits just outside Narsaq.
全球最大的稀土金属矿藏就坐落在纳萨克城外不远处，稀土金属在生产手机、风力涡轮机和电动汽车时必不可少。
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.
对格陵兰岛而言，这可能具有重大意义。很长时间以来，格陵兰岛一直依赖其母国丹麦每年拨付的5亿美元资金支持维持运行。采矿利润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。
“One of our goals is to obtain independence,” said Vittus Qujaukitsoq, a prominent labor union leader.
知名工会领袖维图斯.奎奥基茨克(Vittus Qujaukitsoq)说，“我们的目标之一是取得独立。”
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?
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，如何承受计划招徕的数千名波兰或中国建筑工人.采矿是否会破坏格陵兰岛的国家形象(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,渔民们能够把自身重塑成矿工吗?
“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.”
“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(Jens B. Frederiksen)说，“这并不是一个所有人都赞成的计划，它会涉及传统、驾船的自由，以及代代相传的职业。”
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.
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。
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