首页
外语
计算机
考研
公务员
职业资格
财经
工程
司法
医学
专升本
自考
实用职业技能
登录
外语
How does Ausubel feel about the scientific progress made every day?
How does Ausubel feel about the scientific progress made every day?
admin
2022-03-28
35
问题
How does Ausubel feel about the scientific progress made every day?
W: What makes you such an optimist?
M: Working in The Rockerfeller University here in New York, I am overwhelmed every week by what people are learning. Genetics offers the most dramatic example, but in materials science and so many fields it’s almost as astonishing. Modern science is very young. Even if you go back to Galileo, it’s only 400 years old. Large-scale organized research is less than 100 years old. The chance to do things much better is enormous. Take energy. It’s a big cause for environmental concern. If you look at the whole system from mining fuel to powering my desk lamp, right now it is about 5 percent efficient. The other 95 percent of the energy in the fuel gets wasted along the way. We can’t jump quickly to 50 percent. But we have centuries of opportunity ahead of us. Whether you look at transport or energy or food systems, they all look juvenile to me. I mean that in a positive sense; they have great potential.
W: You began your career as an environmental scientist. Do you think environmentalists are part of the problem or part of the solution now?
M: The Greens themselves are part of a dynamic ecology, raising the alarms. Functionally, they are earth-sensing instruments. They are absolutely necessary. I started my career in the mid-1970s in marine pollution, and then in 1977 I became one of the first people to work full-time on global warming. I felt my main job was raising the alarm. That’s important. But after seven or eight years, I thought if I’m going to have a long career in the environment, I’d like to provide solutions too. So I spent five years as director of programmes at National Academy of Engineering. Engineers have a different way of thinking from Greens. They like machines that work, and they do enormously important environmental work. A problem is that the two groups don’t talk to each other much. Greens are not very good at taking a long view. They see that forests are disappearing or emissions are rising, and they see disaster looming. But I have an enthusiasm for history, especially the history of technology. My father was a historian of the 19th century industrial revolution in Britain. History is very powerful at showing that things fall as well as rise, including technologies. In fact, the history of technology is largely the history of substitution.
W: For example?
M: Here in New York, the density of horses a century ago was environmentally disastrous. Their replacement by automobiles had a huge environmental benefit. But of course every system has fallout. Cars were dangerous. If they had stayed as dangerous as they were in the 1930s, the automotive system could not have grown. They needed headlights and windshield wipers and seat belts. Then other problems grew, like urban air pollution. So we developed catalytic converters. And as pollution gets worse, there are hybrid vehicles and hydrogen fuel cells. They might allow the world with, say, two billion cars, compared with the 600 million we have right now. It’s not so much that there are limits to growth, in the famous phrase, but rather that any technology, like any empire, contains the seeds of its end. Instead of the technology growing exponentially and destroying everything around it, some other technology will generally take over that is superior. At one billion people in the world there might have been an alternative way of living. But at 6.4 billion and with 4 or 5 billion who don’t have much but want more, then you have no choice but to get better at providing the services people want. I don’t think my green colleagues have enough faith in their own scientific and technical peers.
W: So what do you say to people who think that climate change will overwhelm us? Even if a solution is technically achievable, can we make the changes?
M: The climate change problem is very simple. It requires favoring natural gas, nuclear and energy efficiency, as well as some adaptations. Intellectually the problem was solved in the early to mid-1980s. But making the necessary social change is different. And we shouldn’t be surprised at the problems. Quite a few of my friends who were involved in the international Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, whose report came out last spring, were furious because they felt it received inadequate media attention. But the newspapers were covering the death of the pope and the wedding of Prince Charles and Camilla Parker-Bowles. Social status and sexuality are what interest us. That’s not going to change. The trick is to come up with technologies that are digestible, that slip into the way we live, the way iPods and laptops do.
选项
答案
95 percent
解析
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/3dWd777K
本试题收录于:
公共英语五级笔试题库公共英语(PETS)分类
0
公共英语五级笔试
公共英语(PETS)
相关试题推荐
______placesanstressonsomethingthatcanhardlybelearntatschool?______tellsreadersitdoesn’tfollowthatthosewhod
What’sthemainobjectiveofastudentwhoattendsacertainnumberofcourses?
Asthe2lstcenturybegins,anumberofleadersinpolitics,education,andotherprofessionsbelievethattheUnitedStatesmus
Throughouthistorytherehavebeenmanyunusualtaxesleviedonsuchthingsashats,beds,baths,marriages,andfunerals.Atonetim
What’sthemainobjectiveofastudentwhoattendsacertainnumberofcourses?
What’sthemainobjectiveofastudentwhoattendsacertainnumberofcourses?
Throughouthistorytherehavebeenmanyunusualtaxesleviedonsuchthingsashats,beds,baths,marriages,andfunerals.Aton
Throughouthistorytherehavebeenmanyunusualtaxesleviedonsuchthingsashats,Beds,Baths,marriages,andfunerals.Aton
YouwillhearaninterviewwithProf.JesseAusubelabouthisoptimisticattitudestowardsenvironmentalissuestoday.Asyouli
随机试题
某企业期间费用的有关资料如下:要求:(1)对上述费用按销售费用、管理费用和财务费用进行归类;(2)计算各费用超支或节约的绝对数和相对数;(3)分析各费用项目超支或节约的可能原因。
风淫证候的临床表现常不具有
患者,男,20岁,神志不清2h入院,既往患1型糖尿病5年,长期皮下注射胰岛素,近3d因腹泻而停用。体检:血压70/50mmHg,皮肤中度失水征,呼吸深大,有烂苹果味。最可能与诊断无关的检查是
已知乙酸与乙酸乙酯溶液的混合物中,氢(H)的质量分数为7%,其中碳的质量分数是()。
2003年3月10日,甲出资6万元设立个人独资企业光辉徽章厂(以下称企业),并聘请乙管理企业事务,同时规定,凡乙对外签订标的额超过1万元以上的合同,须经甲同意。4月5日,乙的好友丙找到乙,愿以4万元的高价向光辉徽章厂订购一批仿某世界著名企业的徽章。考虑到该
注册会计师在期中执行了控制测试,还需要针对剩余期间获取补充审计证据,下列相关考虑中,正确的是()。
最高管理者对其所作出的承诺提供证据的活动有________。
下列食物中所含有的物质属于食品污染范畴的是()。[江苏2011年11月三级真题]
给出部分材料,包括中国的保障房建设计划,建设管理中存在的问题。外国的一些做法等。要求就保障房建设写一篇策论文,要求文章逻辑清晰,认识深刻,对策有较强的针对性,篇幅在1200—1500字。
全国人民代表大会常务委员会无权行使的职权有下列哪些?()
最新回复
(
0
)