There was one thought that air pollution affected only the area immediately around large cities with factories and heavy automob

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问题     There was one thought that air pollution affected only the area immediately around large cities with factories and heavy automobile traffic. At present, we realize that although these are the areas with the worst air pollution, the problem is literally worldwide. On several occasions over the past decade, a heavy cloud of air pollution has covered the east of the United States and brought health warnings in rural areas away from any major concentration of manufacturing and automobile traffic. In fact, the very climate of the entire earth may be infected by air pollution. Some scientists consider that the increasing concentration of carbon dioxide in the air resulting from the burning of fossil fuels (coal and oil) is creating "a greenhouse effect"—conserving heat reflected from the earth and raising the world’s average temperature. If this view is correct and the world’s temperature is raised only a few degrees, much of the polar ice cap will melt and cities such as New York, Boston, Miami, and New Orleans will be in water.
    Another view, less widely held, is that increasing particular matter in the atmosphere is blocking sunlight and lowering the earth’s temperature—a result that would be equally disastrous. A drop of just a few degrees could create something close to a new ice age, and would make agriculture difficult or impossible in many of our top farming areas. Today we do not know for sure that either of these conditions will happen (though one recent government report drafted by experts in the field concluded that the greenhouse effect is very possible). Perhaps, if we are lucky enough, the two tendencies will offset each other and the world’s temperature will stay about the same as it is now.
    Driven by economic profit, people neglect the damage on our environment caused by the "advanced civilization". Maybe the air pollution is the price the human beings have to pay for their development. But is it really worthwhile?
The word "offset" in the second paragraph could be replaced by________.

选项 A、slip into
B、make up for
C、set up
D、catch up with

答案B

解析 释义题。本文是讲空气污染和温室效应等方面的内容,由划线单词可定位至文章第二段的最后一句,联系上下文推测该句表达的意思应是如果说我们够幸运的话,也许这两种倾向会互相抵消,地球温度就可以基本保持不变。offset在此处的意思是“抵消,弥补”,B选项:make up for意为“弥补”,符合题意,故选B。
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