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
2014-06-20
21
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
foresight
解析
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/hMXd777K
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
Thewriter’sgeneralattitudetowardstelevisioninlearningis______.Contrastingwatchingtelevisionwiththesituationofr
Ifitwereonlynecessarytodecidewhether(31)teachelementarysciencetoeveryoneonamassbasis(32)tofindthegiftedfe
StandardEnglishisthatvarietyofEnglishwhichisusuallyusedillprint,andwhichisnormallytaughtinschoolsandtonon-
Childrenwhogriptheirpenstooclosetothewritingpointarelikelytobeatadisadvantageinexaminations,(31)tothefirs
Fordecades,environmentalistshavewarnedofacomingclimatecrisis.Theiralarmswentunheeded,andlastyearwereapedanea
Insomesocietiesitisthecustomforparentstoarrangethemarriagesoftheirchildren.Oftenthebrideandgroomwillnotbe
OneofthereasonsformoreAsianstudentstostudyMBAinCaliforniais______ThenumberofMBAshiredbyMcKinsey&Co.in19
______islocatedinmetropolitanMelbourne?______providesthenumberofitspostgraduates?
During1958theWestGermangovernmentcausedsomedisappointmenttotheBritishandFrenchaircraftindustriesbyfailingtoor
______islocatedinthecountryside?______offerscoursesinEnglishandsociology?
随机试题
A.扁桃体切除B.免疫调节剂C.抗生素+抗病毒药D.纤维支气管镜局部灌洗治疗E.肺叶切除以下情况,应采取哪项治疗女,5岁,反复咳嗽、咳脓痰,肺CT示右中叶囊状支气管扩张
患者,男,44岁。自诉平素体健。14小时以来觉胸骨后疼痛难忍,伴大汗。体检:气急不能平卧,心率120次/分,频发早搏,无心脏杂音,两肺底有细湿啰音。血压100/85mmHg(13.3/11kPa)。心电图示急性前间隔心肌梗死,完全性右束支传导阻滞,频发室
属于健康性护理诊断的是
估价资料的保管期限是从估价报告出具之日起到估价报告得到使用之日止。()
《国务院关于加强环境保护重点工作的意见》指出的着力解决影响科学发展和损害群众健康的突出环境问题不包括()。
戊公司生产和销售E、F两种产品,每年产销平衡。为了加强产品成本管理,合理确定下年度经营计划和产品销售价格,该公司专门召开总经理办公会进行讨论。相关资料如下:资料一:2014年E产品实际产销量为3680件,生产实际用工为7000小时,实际人工成
关于课堂作业的设计原则,下列说法不正确的一项是()。
“人的思维是否具有真理性,这并不是一个理论的问题,而是一个实践的问题。人应该在实践中证明自己思维的真理性,即自己思维的现实性和力量,亦即自己思维的此岸性。”这一论断说明了()
在下列解决死锁的方法中,属于死锁预防策略的是( )。
Thisautumnterm,springterm,oracademicyearprogramoffersadvancedstudentsanopportunitytoimprovetheirspokenaridwri
最新回复
(
0
)