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
Part Ⅱ Reading Comprehension (Skimming and Scanning) Directions: In this part, you will have 15 minutes to go over the passage q
Part Ⅱ Reading Comprehension (Skimming and Scanning) Directions: In this part, you will have 15 minutes to go over the passage q
admin
2010-09-25
49
问题
Part Ⅱ Reading Comprehension (Skimming and Scanning)
Directions: In this part, you will have 15 minutes to go over the passage quickly and answer the questions on Answer Sheet 1. For questions 1-7, choose the best answer from the four choices marked [A], [B], [C] and [D]. For questions 8-10, complete the sentences with the information given in the passage.
Pollution: A Life and Death Issue
One of the main themes of Planet under Pressure is the way many of the Earth’s environmental crises reinforce one another. Pollution is an obvious example--we do not have the option of growing food, or finding enough water, on a squeaky- clean planet, but on one increasingly tarnished and trashed by the way we have used it so far.
Cutting waste and clearing up pollution cost money. Yet time and again it is the quest for wealth that generates much of the mass in the first place. Living in a way that is less damaging to the Earth is not easy, but it is vital, because pollution is pervasive and often life-threatening.
Air: the World Health Organization (WHO) says three million people are killed worldwide by outdoor air pollution annually from vehicles and industrial emissions, and 1.6 million indoors through using solid fuel. Most are in poor countries.
Water: diseases carried in water are responsible for 80% of illnesses and deaths in developing countries, killing a child every eight seconds. Each year 2.1 million people die from diarrhoeal(痢疾的) diseases associated with poor water:
Soil: contaminated land is a problem in industrialized countries, where former factories and power stations can leave waste like heavy metals in the soil. It can also occur in developing countries, sometimes used for dumping pesticides. Agriculture can pollute land with pesticides, nitrate-rich fertilizers and slurry from livestock. And when the contamination reaches rivers it damages life there, and can even create dead zones off the coast, as in the Gulf of Mexico.
Chronic Problem
Chemicals are a frequent pollutant. When we think of chemical contamination it is often images of events like Bhopal that come to mind. But the problem is widespread. One study says 7~20% of cancers are attributable to poor air end pollution in homes and workplaces. The WHO, concerned about chemicals that persist and build up in the body, especially in the young, says we may "be conducting a large-scale experiment with children’s health".
Some man-made chemicals, endocrine (内分泌) disruptors like phthalates (酞酸盐) and nonylphenol--a breakdown product of spermicides (杀精子剂), cosmetics and detergents--are blamed for causing changes in the genitals of some animals. Affected species include polar bears--so not even the Arctic is immune. And the chemicals climb the food chain, from fish to mammals, and to us.
About 70,000 chemicals are on the market, with around 1,500 new ones appearing annually. At least 30,000 am thought never to have been comprehensively tested for theft possible risks to people.
At fast glance, the plastic buckets stacked in the comer of the environmental NGO office look like any others. But the containers are an unlikely weapon in one poor community’s fight against oil companies which they say are responsible for widespread ill-health caused by years of pollution. The vessels are used by a network of local volunteers, known as the Bucket Brigade, to gather air samples in neighborhoods bordering oil refineries, as part of a campaign to monitor and document air pollution which they believe is coming from the plants.
In South Africa, as in many developing and newly industrialized countries, legislation on air pollution has failed to keep pace with mushrooming industries. So local residents, like many in poor communities around the globe, have faced the problem of investigating their claim that industries on their doorsteps are making them sick.
Trade-off
But the snag is that modern society demands many of them, and some are essential for survival. So while we invoke the precautionary principle, which always recommends erring on the side of caution, we have to recognize there will be trade-offs m be made.
The pesticide DDT does great damage to wildlife and can affect the human nervous system, but can also be effective against malaria(疟疾). Where does the priority lie?
The industrialized world has not yet cleaned up the mess it created, but it is reaping the benefits of the pollution it has caused. It can hardly tell the developing countries that they have no right to follow suit.
Another complication in tackling pollution is that it does not respect political frontiers. There is a U.N. convention on trans-boundary air pollution, but that cannot cover every problem that can arise between neighbors, or between states which do not share a border. Perhaps the best example is climate change--the countries of the world share one atmosphere, and what one does can affect everyone.
For One and All
One of the principles that are supposed to apply here is simple---the polluter pays. Sometimes it is obvious who is to blame and who must pay the price, but it is not always straightforward to work out just who is the polluter, or whether the rest of us would be happy to pay the price of stopping the pollution.
One way of cleaning up after ourselves would be to throw less away, designing products to be recycled or even just to last longer.
Previous generations worked on the assumption that discarding our waste was a proper way to get rid of it, so we used to dump nuclear materials and other potential hazards at sea, confident they would be dispersed in the depths.
We now think that is too risky because, as one author wrote, "there’s no such place as ’away’, and there’s no such person as the ’other’."
Irritating Air
Despite recent improvements, however, the health problems are still there. A 2002 medical study, carried out by Durban’s Nelson Mandela School of Medicine and a U.S. university, found that an abnormally high 52% of students and teachers at a primary school bordering the Engen plant suffered from asthma(哮喘). It found that increases in air pollution tended to aggravate asthma symptoms in children.
The petrol producers do not dispute the findings but argue that researchers were unable to establish a causal link between air pollution and the high prevalence of asthma among the school population.
For the community, the next step is to take legal action. But, according to internationally recognized environmentalist Bobby Peek, targeting the companies would be difficult as it would be near-impossible to prove that illnesses suffered were caused by pollution coming from a particular plant.
Mr. Peek, who grew up beneath Engen’s stacks, says the activists are now considering taking action against the authorities. "We are now looking at suing the government on constitutional grounds, for failing to ensure our right to protection from a harmful environment as stipulated in the constitution," he said.
Legislative Change
A new batch(批) of environmental laws, the National Air Quality Management Act, has just been passed by the South African parliament to replace outdated 1965 legislation with fighter controls and tougher sanctions.
Martinus van Schalkwyk, the minister of environmental affairs and tourism, visited the south Durban basin earlier this year and said there were measures in place to improve the situation. "I share the anger and frustration of this community. It is long overdue," he told the South African Broadcasting Corporation.
The local authorities have also established a "Multi-Point Plan" for the area. They say it is a powerful model for tackling pollution and points to a 40% reduction in sulphur dioxide emissions in recent years.
The pesticide DDT can be effective against ______.
选项
A、malaria
B、wildlife
C、animals
D、human nervous system
答案
A
解析
根据题干信息词the pesticide DDT定位到第二个小标题下的第二段。即:杀虫剂DDT会伤害野生动植物并且能影响人类的神经系统,但对预防疟疾是很有效的(be effective against malaria),故选A。
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/5Pz7777K
0
大学英语六级
相关试题推荐
Whydopeoplework?Undoubtedlyyouhave【B1】______askedyourselfthesamequestion,perhapsfocusedonwhyyouhavetowork."S
________________(和整个地球相比),thehighestmountaindoesnotseemhighatall.
HitlerandhismenhadtheirhatredtowardsJewsandcolorpeople.Oursocietyisriddledwithsuchhatredbased【S1】_
TheWorldHealth【B1】______saysavianinfluenzacouldbecomeaworldwidethreatunlessgovernmentsactnowtostopit.Officials
A、languageteacherB、AuniversitylecturerC、AdoctorD、AnurseC
CBS,oneofthethreemajorcommercialnetworks,wereorganizedin【S1】______1928whichitsfounder,WilliamPaley,ac
CBS,oneofthethreemajorcommercialnetworks,wereorganizedin【S1】______1928whichitsfounder,WilliamPaley,ac
A、Theyaretheparentsofyoungchildren.B、Theyareprofessionalstorytellers.C、Thestorieswillhelpthemimprovetheirvocab
A、Securemorestudentparkingspaces.B、Preserveanopenspaceoncampus.C、Getmorefundingfortheirgroup.D、Scheduleameeti
Somehardplasticscanbe______metalsinmanufacturingmachineparts.
随机试题
[*]
下列物质中抑制胃酸分泌的是
2型糖尿病血糖控制的目标是
根据项目特点,在项目选址中可能需要进行的专题比选工作不包括()。
某小区住宅楼工程,建筑面积43177㎡,地上9层,结构形式为全现浇剪力墙结构,基础为带形基础,施工过程中每道工序严格按“三检制”进行检查验收。建设单位为某房地产开发有限公司,设计单位为某设计研究院,监理单位为某监理公司,施工单位为该市某建设集团公司,材料供
某公司的会计部门具有强大的内部控制结构。该部门具有高度的职责分离、定期对账、严格审查和全面内部审计。某心怀不满的固定资产会计师蓄意贪污由应收账款部门处理的现金收入。会计师计划将这些资金用于赌博。使用舞弊三角模型,哪一项是对公司舞弊风险情况的最佳评估?
H公司是东北一家民营企业,1996年创建时仅有50万元资金和5个员工。近年来市场对其产品需求不断升温,吸引了数十家企业进入该地区。该企业产品在市场有一定的竞争能力,企业经济效益也不错。公司规模不断扩大,部门增加到十个,人员发展到150多。创办人自任总经理,
简要回答计算机网络按传输范围和逻辑功能两个方面的分类。
蓝眼冯骥才①古玩行中有对天敌,就是造假画的和看假画的。造假画的,费尽心机,用尽绝招,为的是骗过看假画的那双又尖又刁的眼;看假画的,却凭这双眼识破天机,看破诡计,捏着这
北极地区冰壶的逐渐融化,更________的意义在于北冰洋上将出现新航道,新航道的出现可以让环北极地区国家________提出对北极地区的主权主张,不仅可以使本国获得经济和军事利益,而且可以直接对其他国家的科学考察,经济开发等活动进行________。依
最新回复
(
0
)