英语听力：自然百科 走进西藏 tibet—17
时间：2014-05-21 07:34:43
搜索关注在线英语听力室公众号：tingroom，领取免费英语资料大礼包。
（单词翻译）
The word for "burial" in Tibetan means "giving offerings to the birds", an act of generosity1, in line with the concept of compassion2 for all beings. By doing good deeds, Buddhists3 believe that they can contribute to the process of enlightenment. So a sky burial at Kailash contributes to a brighter future.
There may be legends of
mythical4 mountains and rivers that form the
axis5 of the world. But the Tibetan plateau itself, with its mountains,
glaciers6 and rivers, and as the engine that drives the
monsoon7, lays fair claim to being the real axis of the world.
Apart from feeding the rivers in India and Pakistan, Tibet's glaciers are the source of even more great rivers. Vietnam's Mekong, Burma's Salween and the Yangtze and the Yellow, both of which flow into China. Each year, enough water flows from the Tibetan plateau to fill the entire Yellow River, the mother river of Chinese civilization. Today, in China alone, 300 million people depend on water from the Tibetan plateau.
With its profound effect on Asia's weather and water systems, the Tibetan plateau helps to sustain almost half the world's population, for the moment at least. Close to the summit of Mount Everest, a forest of ice once covered much of the area. But now, thanks to climate change, much of it has gone. Within the next 30 years, it's predicted that 80% of the Tibetan glaciers could disappear. In many ways, Tibet's fragile environment is the
barometer8 of our world. What happens to it today, in time will affect us all.
分享到：
收听单词发音 
