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
40
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
substitution
解析
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/mMXd777K
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
Whatshouldonedoifhewantstoworkmoreefficientlyathislowpointinthemorning?
AnswerQuestionsbyreferringtothearticleaboutmobilephonesinthefollowingmagazinearticle.A=NokiaB=Ericss
Forthispart,youareallowed40minutestowriteacompositiononJobProblemsforGraduates.Studythefollowingchartscar
Itissuggestedthatthewordmodernis______today.WhyistheIndustrialRevolutionnotarevolutioninthesensethatthis
Itissuggestedthatthewordmodernis______today.Ourawarenessofchangeisdifferentfromthatofourpredecessorsbecaus
WhatfoodisnotprovidedformostBritishchildrenatschool?
Insomesocietiesitisthecustomforparentstoarrangethemarriagesoftheirchildren.Oftenthebrideandgroomwillnotbe
What’sthemainobjectiveofastudentwhoattendsacertainnumberofcourses?
Present-dayphilosophersusuallyenvisiontheirdisciplineasanendeavorthathasbeen,sinceantiquity,distinctfromandsupe
ThenewprestigeoftheBritishgraduatesisthemostspectacularbecauseinthepastBritainhasbeenmuch(31)interestedinu
随机试题
膜式蒸发器中,适用于易结晶、结垢物料的是()。
原发性肝癌早期转移途径为()
骨关节结核病人,若体质极度虚弱,发热,脉速,冷脓肿继发感染,皮肤红热,脓肿黏稠而又不能耐受较大手术者,应进行下列哪项局部处理
能发挥生理作用的血钙是
下列不属于城市对外交通的综合布局中应考虑的原则的是()。
某工程项目业主采用工程量清单计价方式公开招标确定了承包人,双方签订了工程承包合同,合同工期为6个月。合同中的清单项目及费用包括:分项工程项目4项,总费用为200万元,相应专业措施费用为16万元;安全文明施工措施费用为6万元;计日工费用为3万元;暂列金额
我国利率市场化的基本方式有()。
投保人故意造成被保险人死亡、伤残或疾病的,保险人虽不承担给付保险金的责任,但若投保人已交足1年以上保费,保险人应向其他权利人退还保险单的现金价值。()
甲科技公司(以下简称甲公司)开发出一种新型保健技术,为将该技术转化为产品,甲公司与乙企业签订了技术合同。合同约定:资金、设备、材料等物质条件由乙企业提供,研究开发工作全部由甲公司负责。为使开发顺利进行,乙企业决定投资兴建一座新技术试验楼。经过必要的程序,乙
假设是两个变量之间的关系假定,如假设“社会工作者应变能力越强,服务对象出现积极改变的可能越大”,属于()。
最新回复
(
0
)