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
Our trouble lies in a simple confusion, one to which economists have been prone since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution
Our trouble lies in a simple confusion, one to which economists have been prone since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution
admin
2013-11-29
21
问题
Our trouble lies in a simple confusion, one to which economists have been prone since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. Growth and ecology operate by different rules. Economists tend to assume that every problem of scarcity can be solved by substitution, by replacing tuna with tilapia, without factoring in the long-term environmental implications of either. But whereas economies might expand, ecosystems do not. They change—pine gives way to oak, coyotes arrive in New England—and they reproduce themselves, but they do not increase in extent or abundance year after year. Most economists think of scarcity as a labor problem, imagining that only energy and technology place limits on production. To harvest more wood, build a better chain saw; to pump more oil, drill more wells; to get more food, invent pest-resistant plants.
That logic thrived on new frontiers and more intensive production, and it held off the prophets of scarcity—from Thomas Robert Malthus to Paul Ehrlich—whose predictions of famine and shortage have not come to pass. The Agricultural Revolution that began in seventeenth-century England radically increased the amount of food that could be grown on an acre of land, and the same happened in the 1960s and 1970s when fertilizer and hybridized seeds arrived in India and Mexico. But the picture looks entirely different when we change the scale. Industrial society is roughly 250 years old; make the last ten thousand years e-qual to twenty-four hours, and we have been producing consumer goods and CO
2
for only the last thirty-six minutes. Do the same for the past 1 million years of human evolution, and every thing from the steam engine to the search engine fits into the past twenty-one seconds. If we are not careful, hunting and gathering will look like a far more successful strategy of survival than economic growth. The latter has changed so much about the earth and human societies in so little time that it makes more sense to be cautious than triumphant.
Although food scarcity, when it occurs, is a localized problem, other kinds of scarcity are already here. Groundwater is alarmingly low in regions all over the world, but the most immediate threat to growth is surely petroleum.
What does the passage say about the predictions made by Thomas Robert Malthus and Paul Ehrlich?
选项
A、They proved to be useful.
B、They have not come true.
C、They proved to be accurate.
D、They have not drawn enough attention.
答案
B
解析
根据文中第二段首句“That logic thrived on new frontiers and more intensive production,and it held off the prophets of scarcity--from Thomas Robert Malthus to Paul Ehrlich--whose predictions of famine and shortage have not come to pass.”可知,托马斯·罗伯特·马尔萨斯和保罗·奥利克对饥荒和短缺的预言没有应验。据此可知,B项为正确答案。
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/BHhO777K
0
考博英语
相关试题推荐
Despitetheirmanydifferencesoftemperamentandofliteraryperspective,Emerson,Thoreau,Hawthorne,Melville,andWhitmansh
Despitetheirmanydifferencesoftemperamentandofliteraryperspective,Emerson,Thoreau,Hawthorne,Melville,andWhitmansh
Scholarsandstudentshavealwaysbeengreattravelers.Theofficialcasefor"academicmobility"isnowoftenstatedinimpres
Dependingonwhetheryoubelieveinprincipleortheartofthepossible,theUnitedNations’newproposalforthefutureofWes
Justiceinsocietymustincludebothafairtrialtotheaccusedandtheselectionofanappropriatepunishmentforthoseproven
BetweentheinventionofagricultureandthecommercialrevolutionthatmarkedtheendoftheMiddleAges,wealthandtechnology
MorethanhalfofallJewsmarriedinU.S.since1990havewedpeoplewhoaren’tJewish.Nearly480,000Americanchildrentrader
Inthewakeof11September,Visionics,aleadingmanufacturer,issuedafactsheetexplaininghowitstechnologycouldenhance
Mostofthecivilservantsinvolvedintheaffairhavebeensuccessfully______andsentenced.
随机试题
简述早期希腊对外殖民的原因及其影响。
你认为社区工作者应该具备什么素质?你为什么认为自己能胜任这个职位?
“三角脸”、“小瘦丫头儿”出自小说()
关于芒硝现代应用叙述错误的是
含有大量(25%以上)吸湿、收敛性粉末成分的软膏状制剂称为
加快推进人才强国战略,树立人才资源是()的理念,坚持党管人才的原则。
用来衡量员工未来是否愿意留在组织中工作的重要指标是(),它体现了个体与组织之间的关系。
下列关于酶的叙述,不正确的是()。
《郎之万一瓦隆教育改革方案》将法国教育分为两阶段,第一阶段是(),第二阶段是高等教育
奈奎斯特定理描述了有限带宽、无噪声信道的最大数据传输速率与信道带宽的关系。对于二进制数据,若信道带宽B=3000Hz,则最大数据传输速率为
最新回复
(
0
)