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  3. Back in 1896, the Swedish scientist Svante Arrhenius realized that by burning coal we were adding carbon dioxide to the air, and

Back in 1896, the Swedish scientist Svante Arrhenius realized that by burning coal we were adding carbon dioxide to the air, and

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问题    Back in 1896, the Swedish scientist Svante Arrhenius realized that by burning coal we were adding carbon dioxide to the air, and that this would warm the Earth. But he mentioned the issue only in passing (顺便地) , for his calculations suggested it would not become a problem for thousands of years. Others thought that the oceans would soak up any extra CO2, so there was nothing much to worry about.
   That this latter argument has persisted to this day in some quarters highlights our species’ propensity (倾向) to underestimate the scale of our impact on the planet. Even the Earth’s vast oceans cannot suck up CO2 as quickly as we can produce it, and we now know the stored CO2 is acidifying the oceans, a problem in itself.
   Now a handful of researchers are warning that energy sources we normally think of as innocuous could affect the planet’s climate too. If we start to extract immense amounts of power from the wind, for instance, it will have an impact on how warmth and water move around the planet, and thus on temperatures and rainfall.
   Just to be clear, no one is suggesting we should stop building wind farms on the basis of this risk. Aside from the huge uncertainties about the climatic effects of extracting power from the wind, our present and near-term usage is far too tiny to make any difference. For the moment, any negative consequences on the climate are massively outweighed by the effects of pumping out even more CO2. That poses by far the greater environmental threat; weaning ourselves off fossil fuels should remain the priority.
   Even so, now it is the time to start thinking about the long-term effects of the alternative energy sources we are turning to. Those who have already started to look at these issues report weary, indifferent or even hostile reactions to their work.
   That’s understandable, but disappointing. These effects may be inconsequential, in which case all that will have been wasted is some research time that may well yield interesting insights anyway. Or they may turn out to be sharply negative, in which case the more notice we have, the better. It would be unfortunate to put it mildly, to spend countless trillions replacing fossil-fuel energy infrastructure (基础建设) only to discover that its successor (替代物) is also more damaging than it need be.
   These climatic effects may even be beneficial. The first, tentative models suggest that extracting large amounts of energy from high-altitude jet streams would cool the planet, counteracting the effects of rising greenhouse gases. It might even be possible to build an energy infrastructure that gives us a degree of control over the weather: turning off wind turbines here, capturing more of the sun’s energy there.
   We may also need to rethink our long-term research priorities. The sun is ultimately the only source of energy that doesn’t end up altering the planet’s energy balance. So the best bet might be invest heavily in improving solar technology and energy storage—rather than in efforts to harness, say, nuclear fusion.
   For the moment, all of this remains supposition (推测) . But our species has a tendency to myopia. We have nothing to lose, and everything to gain by taking the long view for a change.
The author’s illustration of wind-power extraction reflects______.
选项 A、the priority of protecting the environment
B、the same human propensity as mentioned previously
C、the best strategy of reducing the environmental threat
D、the definite huge uncertainties about the climatic effects
答案B
解析 B选项中的propensity指的是人类低估自身对地球影响的倾向，所以才会导致肆无忌惮用各种方式破坏环境，而大自然却无法同期抵消如此巨大的破坏力量。这也是全文的主旨，对风能分离的展示正是为了说明在寻找替代能源的尝试中，眼下没有风险的方式或许未来会有极为可怕的后果。
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