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  3. One year ago we stared aghast at images of the Southeast Asian tsunami. Video cameras taken on vacation to record the everyday p

One year ago we stared aghast at images of the Southeast Asian tsunami. Video cameras taken on vacation to record the everyday p

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问题     One year ago we stared aghast at images of the Southeast Asian tsunami. Video cameras taken on vacation to record the everyday pleasures of the beach were suddenly turned to quivering utility as they documented the panic and mayhem of a natural disaster. Who can forget the disbelief in the recorded voices? This can’t be happening to us. Human beings are never prepared for natural disasters. There is a kind of optimism built into our species that seems to prefer to live in the comfortable present rather than confront the possibility of destruction, It may happen, we seem to believe, but not now, and not to us. Mount Vesuvius has been erupting since historical records began. The eruption of A. D. 79 both destroyed Pompeii and preserved it for posterity. Pliny the Younger starkly recorded the details in prose that can still be read as a scientific ac-count. Yet houses are still being erected today at vulnerable sites around Vesuvius, in the face of the geological inevitability of further eruptions.
    Disasters are described as "acts of God". Whenever a natural catastrophe occurs, old questions resurface. How can we reconcile tragedy with the idea of a beneficent God? And with that question, the notion of punishment is never far behind. If classical religions were wont to attribute disasters to the wrath of the gods, even in this scientific age the old explanations still have their attractions. And who might not sneakily still wish to believe that a saint could intercede on our behalf?
    But there is another kind of disaster. Many scientists think that the Gulf Coast hurricanes may be a symptom of climate change. Carbon emissions have been accelerating more rapidly within a generation or two: this is not the result of some creeping plate indifferent to the fate of humans; this is our responsibility. However, there is still the same, almost willful blindness to the dangers of climate change; after all, the sun still rises, the crops still ripen--why worry? Geology tells us that there have been "green-house worlds" in the distant past. These have been times when seas flooded over continents. Even modest sea-level rises would spell the end of densely populated areas of the world like Bangladesh. In such a case, invoking the God to look after us for the best is just pie in the sky. These are not "acts of God" but acts of man. We should be ashamed of the consequences of our own willing blindness.  
The statement "greenhouse worlds" (Line 7, Para. 3) most probably means ______ .
选项 A、the world with greenhouse effect
B、the world with rich natural resource
C、the world without water
D、the world without plants
答案A
解析 地质学上讲在遥远的过去曾经有过“温室效应的世界”。接下来的一句话解释了greenhouse worlds就是大陆被洪水覆盖的时候。因此我们判断选项C“没有水的世界”是错误的。D“没有植物的世界”并没有明确地出现在文中。B“拥有丰富自然资源的世界”，这与文章的表述不相符。因此本题的答案是A。
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