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
You will hear an interview with Prof. Jesse Ausubel about his optimistic attitudes towards environmental issues today. As you li
You will hear an interview with Prof. Jesse Ausubel about his optimistic attitudes towards environmental issues today. As you li
admin
2016-07-10
83
问题
You will hear an interview with Prof. Jesse Ausubel about his optimistic attitudes towards environmental issues today. As you listen, answer the questions or complete the notes in your test booklet for Questions 21 to 30 by writing no more than three words in the space provided on the right. You will hear the interview twice. You now have 1 minute to read Questions 21 to 30.
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
necessary social change
解析
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/GzWd777K
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
Answerquestionsbyreferringtothefollowingbookreviews.Whichbook...AChangecanbeablessingoracruse,depend
Thewriter’sgeneralattitudetowardstheworldleadersmeetingattheU.N.is______.Whichofthefollowingbestsummarizesth
Thewriter’sgeneralattitudetowardstheworldleadersmeetingattheU.N.is______.WhatdidtheU.N.callonnationstodoa
NoteveryPresidentisaleader,buteverytimeweelectaPresidentwehopeforone,especiallyintimesofdoubtandcrisis.I
OneofthereasonsformoreAsianstudentstostudyMBAinCaliforniais______ThenumberofMBAshiredbyMcKinsey&Co.in19
Answerquestionsbyreferringtothefollowingbookreviews.Somechoicesmayberequiredmorethanonce.Whichbook…A
AccordingtothisarticlethetrendtowardearlymarriagesYouthfulexpectationsofmarriagecanbedescribedas
______hasthelargestnumberofroomsamongthefourhotelcasinos?______hostssportevents?
NoteveryPresidentisaleader,buteverytimeweelectaPresidentwehopeforone,especiallyintimesofdoubtandcrisis.I
Throughouthistorytherehavebeenmanyunusualtaxesleviedonsuchthingsashats,beds,baths,marriages,andfunerals.Atonetim
随机试题
钻井液材料的质量指标分为()指标和钻井液性能指标两类。
能识别DNA特异序列并在识别位点或其周围切割双链DNA的一类酶是
患者,男性,35岁。一年前开始出现低热、乏力,近半年来逐渐出现四肢关节与肌肉酸痛,举手及登楼困难,同时在眼睑、鼻梁、远端指间关节及甲周围皮肤出现暗红色斑。该患者最可能的诊断是
肺痿用药忌用肺胀平时宜常服
关于预激综合征并发心动过速,下列哪项不正确
女,36岁。发现左乳肿物3个月,近期增大明显。检查左乳外上象限可扪及3cm×3cm肿块,质硬,活动差,左腋下未扪及肿大淋巴结。行乳腺细针穿刺活检为坏死组织。进一步处理为
杜仲炮制的作用是
儿童生长发育迟缓,食欲减退或有异食癖,最可能缺乏的营养素是()。
课程设计
Readthearticlebelowabouttheimportanceofanameandthequestionsontheoppositepage.Foreachquestion(13-18),mark
最新回复
(
0
)