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  3. In popular discussions of emissions-rights trading systems, it is common to mistake the smokestacks for the trees. For example,

In popular discussions of emissions-rights trading systems, it is common to mistake the smokestacks for the trees. For example,

admin2014-06-20  79
问题     In popular discussions of emissions-rights trading systems, it is common to mistake the smokestacks for the trees. For example, the wealthy oil enclave of Abu Dhabi brags that it has planted more than 130 million trees—each of which does its duty in absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. However, this artificial forest in the desert also consumes huge quantities of irrigation water produced, or recycled, from expensive desalination plants. The trees may allow its leaders to wear a halo at international meetings, but the rude fact is that they are an energy-intensive beauty strip, like most of so-called green capitalism. And, while we’re at it, let’s just ask: What if the buying and selling of carbon credits and pollution offsets fails to reduce global warming? What exactly will motivate governments and global industries then to join hands in a crusade to reduce emissions through regulation and taxation?
    Kyoto-type climate diplomacy assumes that all the major actors will recognize an overriding common interest in gaining harness over the runaway greenhouse effect. But global warming is not War of the Worlds, where invading Martians are dedicated to annihilating all of humanity without distinction. Climate change, instead, will initially produce dramatically unequal impacts across regions and social classes. It will reinforce, not diminish, geopolitical inequality and conflict.
    As the UNDP emphasized in its report last year, global warming is above all a threat to the poor and the unborn, the "two parties with little or no political voice". Coordinated global action on their behalf thus presupposes either their revolutionary empowerment or the transformation of the self-interest of rich countries and classes into an enlightened "solidarity" without precedent in history. From a rational perspective, the latter outcome only seems realistic if it can be shown that privileged groups possess no preferential "exit" option, that internationalist public opinion drives policymaking in key countries, and that greenhouse gas reduction could be achieved without major sacrifices in upscale Northern Hemispheric standards of living—none of which seems highly likely.
    And what if growing environmental and social turbulence, instead of stimulating heroic innovation and international cooperation, simply drives elite publics into even more frenzied attempts to wall themselves off from the rest of humanity? Global intervention, in this unexplored but not improbable scenario, would be silently abandoned(as, to some extent, it already has been)in favor of accelerated investment in selective adaptation for Earth’s first-class passengers. We’re talking here of the prospect of creating green and gated oases of permanent affluence on an otherwise stricken planet.
    Of course, there will still be treaties, carbon credits, famine relief, humanitarian acrobatics, and perhaps, the full-scale conversion of some European cities and small countries to alternative energy. But the shift to low-, or zero-emission lifestyles would be almost unimaginably expensive. And this will certainly become even more unimaginable after perhaps 2030, when the combined impacts of climate change, peak oil, peak water, and an additional 1. 5 billion people on the planet may begin to seriously threaten growth.
The author gives the example of Abu Dhabi in order to illustrate that
选项 A、artificial forests can be a solution to environmental problems.
B、what Abu Dhabi has done has won international recognition.
C、planting trees in huge-numbers is harmful to desert environment.
D、environmentally-friendly attempts may damage the environment.
答案D
解析 推断题。题目问的是“作者举Abu Dhabi的例子的目的是什么?”。在文章第一段第二句“…the wealthy oil enclave of AbuDhabi brags that it has planted more than 130 million trees…”中作者提出了Abu Dhabi的例子，其目的应该就在第一段中。由第一段第三句“However，this artificial forest in the desert also consumeshuge quantities of irrigation water produced，or recycled，from ex—pensive desalination plants．”可知：这种在沙漠中的人工造林消耗了大量的灌溉用水。再由第一段第四句“…but the rude fact is thatthey are an energy—intensive beauty strip，like most of so—calledgreen capitalism．”可知：事实的真相是，这些树是一个能源密集的“光带”，正如大多数所谓的绿色资本主义。由此可以推断作者对Abu Dhabi的做法是不赞同的，即沙漠的人工造林不一定对环境有好处，这与D项内容相符。故选D。
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