Earth Hour participation has grown by leaps and bounds since its inception in 2007. Advocates claim it saves energy and raises a

admin2021-05-24  28

问题         Earth Hour participation has grown by leaps and bounds since its inception in 2007. Advocates claim it saves energy and raises awareness of the issue. Naysayers dismiss it as worthless and paranoiacs dismiss it as a conspiracy. The following article introduces the basic information of Earth Hour and people’s opinions to it.
        Write an article of NO LESS THAN 300 words, in which you should:
        1. summarize briefly the article;
        2. give your comment.
        This Saturday night, a global effort is set to take place to promote energy conservation—the Earth Hour. To join in on the effort, simply turn off your lights from 8:30-9:30 pm in your local time zone. This worldwide effort is designed to demonstrate that each person has a choice in their energy consumption—and at any time can simply choose to use less.
        Some 2,400 cities in 82 countries have signed up to participate, six times more than last year. Some of the landmarks scheduled to go dark include the Great Pyramids and Sphinx in Egypt, Acropolis in Greece, Broadway Theater marquees, etc.
        Earth Hour began in Sydney in 2007, when 2.2 million homes and businesses switched off their lights for one hour. In 2008 the message had grown into a global sustainability movement, with 50 million people switching off their lights.
        This year, however, Earth Hour has been transformed from being just a sign of solidarity regarding energy conservation, to a "global vote." The organizers of this year’s event are publicizing participation in the event as a vote "For Earth and Against Global Warming". According to Earth Hour sponsor the World Wildlife Fund(WWF), "For the first time in history, people of all ages, nationalities, race and background have the opportunity to use their light switch as their vote—switching off your lights is a vote for Earth, or leaving them on is a vote for global warming. WWF are urging the world to VOTE EARTH and reach the target of 1 billion votes, which will be presented to world leaders at the Global Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen. Some scientists are confident that the temperature increases we are experiencing are all within normal heating and cooling trends that have been occurring for centuries, long before industrialization was ever an issue. Other scientific bodies have stated unequivocally that global warming is occurring, and people are causing it by burning fossil fuels—and the only debate about global wanning is about how much and how fast warming will continue as a result of heat-trapping emissions.
        As a result of this controversy, not everyone agrees with the message of Earth Hour—and at least one counter-protest is planned for Saturday. Suburban Philadelphia ice cream shop owner Bob Gerenser, 56, believes global warming is based on faulty science and calls Earth Hour "nonsense." The resident of New Hope, PA, and owner of Gerenser’s Exotic Ice Cream planned to illuminate his store with extra theatrical lighting.
        "I’m going to get everyone I know in my neighborhood to turn on every light they possibly can to waste as much electricity as possible to underline the absurdity of this action... by being absurd"
        Despite the controversy over "global warming" or climate change, I personally think that energy conservation is never a bad thing. So the lights will go out in our house for an hour on Saturday, for no other reason than to remind my family that at any time we can choose to reduce our energy usage by simply flicking a switch.

选项

答案 Conserving Energy: More Than One Hour a Year The article discusses this year’s Earth Hour movement to call for energy conservation by encouraging people switching off their lights for one hour and vote for Earth to fight against global warming. However, scientists and citizens who are convinced that global warming has far been over-exaggerated don’t seem to appreciate this effort. For me, Global warming is a real problem whose enormity and seriousness cannot be underestimated, but there definitely are better ways to arouse people’s awareness of conserving energy. Simply asking our parents how much warmer it has become these years than the time when they were children we can understand what global warming means to us. Plus, all those pictures and research studies on disappearing icebergs, melting glaciers, and the desperate polar bears that have lost their habitats are hard proof of it. It makes total sense that environmentalists try to arouse people’s awareness, but urging everyone to switch off their lights at a certain time is too much to ask. First, that one hour may be very important for small businesses and people with special plans on that day. The inconveniences this event brings about might lead to people’s repulsion and resistance in spite of its good intentions. Furthermore, if energy conservation is only promoted once a year in this way, it’s very likely that people only participate for one hour a year and go back to their daily routine of wasting energy again. Energy conservation should not be only about an activity or demonstration. It should become a habit To achieve this, more public service advertisements can be made to remind people of the significance of preserving energy. Also, courses need to be added to elementary school curriculum so that kids get to know the threats of global warming and form a good habit of saving energy at an early age. In conclusion, to fight global warming, more can be achieved when people participate in energy conservation willingly or even subconsciously in everyday life.

解析         材料是一篇关于“地球一小时”活动的新闻报道。
        前三段介绍了今年的地球一小时活动的情况,来自82个国家的2400个城市参加了活动,而且今年还以此作为一种投票的方式(global vote),鼓励人们对抗全球变暖。
        第四、五段指出有人反对这一做法,并不是所有人都相信地球一小时所传递的信息(not everyone agrees with the message of Earth Hour),有人认为全球变暖是科学谬论(global warming is based on faulty science),地球一小时的活动显得无意义(nonsense)。
        文章最后一段总结,尽管存在全球变暖还是气候变化的争议,节约能源总是好的(never a bad thing),地球一小时的目的就是提醒人们节约能源(reduce our energy usage)。
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/nLIK777K
0

最新回复(0)