【英語島封面故事】Reading Lab -- 帶CEO們去一趟海洋「塑膠垃圾場」之旅

An Ocean Plastics Field Trip for Corporate Executives

你能想像製塑膠的工業大亨跟綠色和平組織的代表人尷尬地擠在一個狹小的船艙中嗎？新創SoulBuffalo專門做這種事。創辦人Ford相信，帶那些辦公室裡的CEO們出海一趟，對「減塑」將帶來極大幫助。

Ford's company, SoulBuffalo, takes corporate executives on epic excursions (Antarctica, Kamchatka, Zimbabwe), smacks a little kumbaya into them, then sends them home fired up about corporate responsibility.
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SoulBuffalo's previous expeditions have all been for small groups from single companies, but as the scope of the plastics crisis has unfolded (spoiler alert: it's worse than you can possibly imagine), Ford began to wonder if a big, boundary-crossing, experiential intervention could turn the tide. "I've always believed that travel can capture magic in a bottle," he says. "You know how when you travel with people, your relationship can advance years in a matter of days? That's what needs to happen out here."
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Quarters are tight. Unless you're willing to pay $25,000 for a private stateroom (which a few of the bigwigs are), everyone has to share cabins, and one of the assignments is dropping jaws: the reps from Greenpeace and Nestlé Waters—which have been at war for the past month, after Greenpeace launched a campaign against the bottled-water giant—are bunking in a cramped stateroom with beds three feet apart, at Nestlé Waters' request. ("Haha," Ford initially wrote back. "Very funny.")

原文出處：Outside
閱讀時間：4min

關鍵單字

Kumbaya 《歡聚一堂》(歌名)

Kumbaya一詞是英語"Come by here"的諧音。Kumbaya 來自1920年代的美國黑人基督教歌曲。到了50年代成為美國人露營的愛唱歌單，表達出朋友們一同歡唱的和氣和歡樂氣氛。輾轉到現代，這個詞的定義已經轉變，Kumbaya在美國政治話術中指的是「嘲諷」，常被政客用來表達對特定和氣場面的鄙夷不屑。

turn the tide 翻轉情勢

tide 指的是「潮汐、潮水」，這裡衍生為「趨勢、情勢」的意思，因此 turn the tide 在說「翻轉情勢」，後面常會接 against 加上對抗的對象或扭轉的事件。

例句：The president claimed that the government was turning the tide in the war against drugs.
總統宣稱政府扭轉了掃毒戰的情勢。

capture magic in a bottle 完成困難的事情、達成某項壯舉

本文中版本經過說話者的變動，片語原來應為 "capture lightening in a battle"，為美式片語，字面的意思是將光捕捉到瓶子中，衍生的意思則是指「去完成艱難或很難成功的事情」。

*本文收錄於英語島English Island 2019年9月號