2. 外语
  3. Organic Agriculture The idea that shopping is the new politics is certainly enticing. Never mind the ballot box: vote with y

Organic Agriculture The idea that shopping is the new politics is certainly enticing. Never mind the ballot box: vote with y

admin2013-01-10  79
问题                             Organic Agriculture
    The idea that shopping is the new politics is certainly enticing. Never mind the ballot box: vote with your supermarket trolley instead. Elections occur relatively rarely, but you probably go shopping several times a month, providing yourself with lots of opportunities to express your opinions. If you are worried about the environment, you might buy organic food; if you want to help poor farmers, you can do your bit by buying Fair-trade products; or you can express a dislike of evil multinational companies and rampant globalization by buying only local produce. And the best bit is that shopping, unlike voting, is fun; so you can "do good and enjoy yourself at the same time".
    Sadly, it’s not that easy.There are good reasons to doubt the claims made about three of the most popular varieties of "ethical" food; organic food, Fair-trade food and local food. People who want to make the world a better place cannot do so by shifting their shopping habits: transforming the planet requires duller disciplines, like politics.
    Organic food, which is grown without man-made pesticides and fertilizers, is generally assumed to be more environmentally friendly than conventional intensive farming, which is heavily reliant on chemical inputs. But it all depends what you mean by "environmentally friendly". Farming is inherently bad for the environment. Since humans took it up around 11,000 years ago, the result has been deforestation on a massive scale. But following the "green revolution" of the 1960s greater use of chemical fertilizer has tripled grain yields with very little increase in the area of land under cultivation. Organic methods, which rely on crop rotation, manure and compost in place of fertilizer, are far less intensive. So producing the world’s current agricultural output organically would require several times as much land as is currently cultivated. There wouldn’t be much room left for the rainforest.
    Surely the case for local food, produced as close as possible to the consumer in order to minimize "food miles" and, by extension, carbon emissions, is clear? Surprisingly, it is not. A study of Britain’s food system found that nearly half of food-vehicle miles (ie. miles traveled by vehicles carrying food) were driven by cars going to and from the shops. Most people live closer to a supermarket than a farmer’s market, so more local food could mean more food-vehicle miles. Moving food around in big, carefully packed lorries, as supermarkets do, may in fact be the most efficient way to transport the stuff.
By saying "Sadly, it’s not that easy" (Line 1, Para. 2) ,the author means______.
选项 A、shopping election is easier said than done for most of the shoppers
B、it is hard to vote and go shopping at the same time
C、things do not always turn out to be as expected
D、shoppers will have trouble in expressing opinions
答案C
解析 语义理解题。根据题干提示定位到原文第二段前两句：Sadly，it’s not that easy．There are good reasons to doubt the claims made about three of the most popular varieties of “ethical”food．．．此处提到对这三种最流行的号称“道德性”食物的怀疑，还是很有道理的。即事情不像在前文中人们所想象的那样，因此选[C]项。[A]项对购物者而言“购物选举”说起来容易做起来难”，[B]项“很难在购物时同时选举”和[D]项“购物者表达立场时遇到麻烦”均错。
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/YDhK777K
0

专业英语四级

相关试题推荐
随机试题
最新回复(0)