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  3. Some people believe that society should try to save every plant and animal species, despite the expense to humans in effort, tim

Some people believe that society should try to save every plant and animal species, despite the expense to humans in effort, tim

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问题 Some people believe that society should try to save every plant and animal species, despite the expense to humans in effort, time, and financial well-being. Others believe that society need not make extraordinary efforts, especially at a great cost in money and jobs, to save endangered species.
Write a response in which you discuss which view more closely aligns with your own position and explain your reasoning for the position you take. In developing and supporting your position, you should address both of the views presented.
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答案 Human beings are increasingly capable of modifying the environment surrounding us, which has led to a growing number of species facing the threat of extinction. Should society make efforts to save endangered plant and animal species? Some people believe that people should try to protect and save every endangered species on this planet despite the tremendous cost, while others object saving endangered species at the cost of the society. From my point view, we should indeed make efforts to save them due to at least two practical reasons. To start, those who believe that society need not save endangered species may claim that the pending extinction of species is not necessarily the result of human activities. If human beings are not responsible for such extinction, humankind carries no moral obligation to save them. Throughout the history of our planet, they argue, life has risen and fallen a number of times. For example, multiple mass extinction events exist in Earth history and they have time after time decimated a large percentage of the living things. Such events predated the modern humans and apparently the extinction of many species is a pure consequence of Nature. Similar natural processes capable of wiping out species are still at play today. As a result, if the danger of becoming extinct today for a species is not because of human activities, we should not disturb the cycle of Nature and instead should just let such species go extinct, especially given the fact that saving them would inflict a considerable financial and labor cost to our society. While the argument above seems reasonable at the first glimpse, in reality there is a major flaw in its assumption. It assumes that we can tell confidently whether humans are responsible for the species becoming endangered. In some cases, this is easy to determine. For example, poaching by human beings is the fundamental factor in driving rhinos into the verge of extinction. And yet, in other cases the reasons may be murky and there could be multiple reasons involved, while human factors are often hard to identify. For instance, human beings have profoundly changed the surface environment of the Earth, by converting forest into cities and turning lands into urban metropolis. In this process, the climate and the habitat of wildlife have been affected, which in turn could lead to the potential demise of a species. Illegal hunting of tigers for instance is undeniably one reason for tigers’ endangered status; at the same time, human beings are also indirectly responsible because our actions have adversely affected the health of rainforest that tigers call home. By extension, even if some species are endangered by seemingly natural reasons, it is certainly possible that human beings are an indirect factor. Hence, there is still a moral obligation to save them. Furthermore, even if human beings have truly no responsibility whatsoever in the possible extinction of a species, does it mean that we should do nothing and let the extinction happen? I doubt so, because from a practical point of view a plant or animal species may carry values to our society. Sometimes such values are direct, such as some substances found in herbal plants have demonstrated abilities to fight certain cancers. In other cases, such values can be indirect and are not easily seen. For instance, certain bird species may seem to have little direct value to human society, and yet the fact that they prey on locust means they could provide essential ecological service to our society. The ongoing locust crisis in East Africa and the Near East poses a great threat to the stability of societies in those regions. In this case, those bird species can prove extremely valuable to human beings. Hence, given the possible service those species can provide, we should save endangered species from extinction. To sum up, from a pure naturalist’s point of view human beings shouldn’t intervene in the process of a species’ natural extinction since the moral burden does not fall onto our shoulder. Yet, practically speaking, because we cannot know for sure if a species’ extinction is the result of human actions and any species may provide valuable service to human society, we should save every endangered animal and plant species. (707 words)
解析     本文是GRE中为数不多的自然保护类的题目，另外一题是关于“是否要立法保护荒野区”。对于此类型的题目，我们最容易想到的思路是从自然保护与经济发展这两个角度出发。这自然是可以的，而且很容易就可以写出一篇4分的文章。但本文没有采取这种常规的思路，而是另辟蹊径，从理论和实践两个维度进行分析，并且引入了更加深层次的思考：如果物种的灭绝本身就是一个自然的过程，那人类还需要为之负责并拯救这些物种吗?
    这其实是很深刻的一个问题，因为它根本上反映了人类究竟该如何评估自身在自然界中所处的位置，以及应该起到什么作用。如果我们认为人类是自然界的主宰，那么人类的地位高于其他物种也就需要考虑到其他物种的生死。相反，如果认可人类只是自然界中平等的一员，那么我们就无须为其他物种的自然灭绝而操心。本文就考虑了后面这一种观点，并将其作为一个很有力的敌方观点提出，即如果物种灭绝是自然过程，人类无须负责。这种观点当然在理论上有其合理性，但是本文马上从实践层面进行了反驳：首先，我们不一定能知道物种灭绝究竟是不是人类活动所致；其二，即便灭绝与我们真的无关，袖手旁观会不会让人们付出更多的代价。换言之，从务实的角度出发，我们还是应该要保护那些濒临灭绝的物种。
    本文的新颖之处在于跳出了“保护环境就是保护自己”这种空泛的政治宣传式口号，而是用一个很深刻的敌方观点从客观上抬高了自身论证的高度，这样最终得出来的结论说服力自然更强。有人说“最好的敌人就是最好的朋友”，这篇文章则告诉我们想要拿高分，不妨从最有挑战的敌方观点下手。
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