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  3. Despite the brouhaha (骚动) over stolen e-mails from the University of East Anglia, the science of climate change is well enough e

Despite the brouhaha (骚动) over stolen e-mails from the University of East Anglia, the science of climate change is well enough e

admin2012-06-20  35
问题     Despite the brouhaha (骚动) over stolen e-mails from the University of East Anglia, the science of climate change is well enough established by now that we can move on to the essential question: what’s the damage going to be?
    The total bill, if emissions are left unchecked, could reach 20 percent of annual per capita income, says Nicholas Stern, the British economist who led an influential Whitehall-sponsored study. William Nordhaus, a Yale economist, puts his "best guess" at 2.5 percent of yearly global GDP. And according to Dutch economist Richard Tol, the economic impact of a century’s worth of climate change is "relatively small" and "comparable to the impact of one or two years of economic growth".
    These estimates aren’t just different—they’re different by an order of magnitude. And while some might dismiss the cost estimates as mere intellectual exercises, they’re intellectual exercises with real impact. The Copenhagen meeting may be a bust, but countries from the United States to China are individually considering cap-and-trade schemes, carbon taxes, and other policies aimed at curtailing greenhouse gases. To be effective, a tax or cap-and-trade charge would have to force today’s emitters to pay the true "social cost of carbon"—in other words, the amount of damage an extra ton of carbon will cause in the coming centuries.
    Figuring out what that cost is, however, is no simple task. That’s largely because most of the bill won’t come due for many decades. A ton of carbon dioxide emitted today will linger in the air for anywhere from one to five centuries. Virtually every cost study shows that, even if economic growth continues apace (快速 地) and there’s no effort to slash emissions, the damage from climate change will be negligible until at least 2075. It could take 100 years before we see noticeably negative effects, and even more before we need to launch massive construction projects to mitigate (减轻) the damage.
What’s the damage brought by climate change according to the author?
选项 A、It accounts for 20% of annual per capita income.
B、It is about 2.5% of the yearly global GDP.
C、Its damage is overestimated by many economists.
D、Economists haven’t reached consensus yet.
答案D
解析 推理判断题。本段表达了不同的经济学家对气候变化带来的损失的看法。通过数据可知，Nicholas Stern认为如果不计算排放量，损失占人均年收入的20％，William Nordhaus认为损失最多占每年全球GDP的2．5％，Richard Tol则认为其影响相对较小，故答案为D)“经济学家尚未对此达成一致看法”。
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