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
We keep an eye out for wonders, my daughter and I, every morning as we walk down our farm lane to meet the school bus. And where
We keep an eye out for wonders, my daughter and I, every morning as we walk down our farm lane to meet the school bus. And where
admin
2013-10-08
32
问题
We keep an eye out for wonders, my daughter and I, every morning as we walk down our farm lane to meet the school bus. And wherever we find them, they reflect the magic of water: a spider web drooping with dew like a necklace. A rain-colored heron rising from the creek bank. One astonishing morning, we had a visitation of frogs. Dozens of them hurtled up from the grass ahead of our feet, launching themselves, white-bellied, in bouncing arcs, as if we’d been caught in a downpour of amphibians. It seemed to mark the dawning of some new watery age. On another day we met a snapping turtle in his olive drab armor. Normally this is a pond-locked creature, but some ambition had moved him onto our gravel lane, using the rainy week as a passport from our farm to somewhere else.
The little, nameless creek tumbling through our hollow holds us in bondage. Before we came to southern Appalachia, we lived for years in Arizona, where a permanent brook of that size would merit a nature preserve. In the Grand Canyon State, every license plate reminded us that water changes the face of the land, splitting open rock desert like a peach, leaving mile-deep gashes of infinite hue. Cities there function like space stations, importing every ounce of fresh water from distant rivers. But such is the human inclination to take water as a birthright that public fountains still may bubble in Arizona’s town squares and farmers there raise thirsty crops. Retirees from rainier climates irrigate green lawns that impersonate the grasslands they left behind. The truth encroaches on all the fantasies, though, when desert residents wait months between rains, watching cacti tighten their belts and roadrunners skirmish over precious beads from a dripping garden faucet. Water is life. It’s the salty stock of our origins, the pounding circulatory system of the world. It makes up two-thirds of our bodies, just like the map of the world; our vital fluids are saline, like the ocean. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.
Even while we take Mother Water for granted, humans understand in our bones that she is the boss. We stake our civilizations on the coasts and mighty rivers. Our deepest dread is the threat of having too little moisture — or too much. We’ve lately raised the Earth’s average temperature by 0.74°C, a number that sounds inconsequential. But these words do not: flood, drought, hurricane, rising sea levels, bursting levees. Water is the visible face of climate and, therefore, climate change. Shifting rain patterns flood some regions and dry up others as nature demonstrates a grave physics lesson: Hot air holds more water molecules than cold.
The results are in plain sight along beaten coasts from Louisiana to the Philippines as super-warmed air above the ocean brews superstorms, the likes of which we have never known. In arid places the same physics amplify evaporation and drought, visible in the dust-dry farms of the Murray-Darling River Basin in Australia. On top of the Himalaya, glaciers whose melt water sustains vast populations are dwindling. The snapping turtle I met on my lane may have been looking for higher ground. Last summer brought us a string of floods that left tomatoes spoilt on the vine and our farmers needing disaster relief for the third consecutive year. The past decade has brought us more extreme storms than ever before, of the kind that dump many inches in a day, laying down crops and utility poles and great sodden oaks whose roots cannot find purchase in the saturated ground. The word "disaster" seems to mock us. After enough repetitions of shocking weather, we can’t remain indefinitely shocked.
How can the world shift beneath our feet? All we know is founded on its rhythms: Water will flow from the snowcapped mountains, rain and sun will arrive in their proper seasons. Humans first formed our tongues around language, surely, for the purpose of explaining these constants to our children. What should we tell them now? That "reliable" has been rained out, or died of thirst? When the Earth seems to raise its own voice to the pitch of a gale, have we the ears to listen?
A suitable title for the passage would be
选项
A、The Causes of Disasters.
B、The Evolution of Creatures.
C、Water Resource Is Limited.
D、Water Is Life.
答案
D
解析
主旨题。考查对整个文章主旨内容的把握。A项“灾害泛滥的原因”,文中虽然提到自然灾害,但是没具体分析其产生的原因;本文并没有涉及生物的进化,故B项可以排除;C项“水资源有限”偏离文中主要围绕水资源的作用这一主题,而D项“水即是生命”在文中已有提到,故为正确答案。
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/oLZO777K
0
专业英语八级
相关试题推荐
WhichofthefollowingstatementsisNOTtrue?
Agreatmanycitiesareexperiencingdifficultieswhicharenothingnewinthehistoryofcities,exceptintheirscale.Somec
CriticalThinking&InnovativeWritingI.Heateddiscussionaboutthe(1)_____ofEng-lishteachingandlearning.1)bottle-nec
CriticalThinking&InnovativeWritingI.Heateddiscussionaboutthe(1)_____ofEng-lishteachingandlearning.1)bottle-nec
OnlineUniversityDegreesThroughDistanceEducationMoreandmoreuniversitiesaroundtheworldareofferingonlinelanguageco
除了读书之外,同知心的朋友通信,有时也教我感到一点兴奋。因为写信时可以上天下地的无所不谈,谈的话虽然都不关重要,而且大都是杂乱无章,然而不必像对社会说话时要打起什么腔调。也不必像做学术论文时必须严密地构思。有什么话便说什么,想到那里,笔便写到那里,正是个性
ThelargestlakeinBritainis______inNorthernIreland.
AcademicResearchandProjectDesignI.ResearchandDesign—(1)___isaspringofcreationwhileinterestisapowersourcefo
TheattackonPearlHarborwasasurprisemilitarystrikeconductedbyJapaneseNavyagainstU.S.Navyin
随机试题
委托第三方机构参与绩效管理,从涵盖范围看,主要包括()。
下面关于滴定读数描述错误的是
按照临床诊疗道德的最优化原则,医务人员不需要考虑的是()
A.耐受性B.耐药性C.成瘾性D.习惯性E.快速耐受性长期用药后突然停药发生严重的生理功能紊乱称为()。
根据《国家赔偿法》第28条的规定,违法吊销许可证和执照、责令停产停业的,应当赔偿停产停业期间必要的经常性费用开支。必要的经常性费用开支,是指企业在停产停业期间用于维持的________。
学习过程中,学习者经常通过做笔记的方式帮助学习,这种学习策略属于()。
虽然现代医学已经相当发达,但对导致儿童性早熟的原因却还知之甚少。因为找不到原因,也就给了人们胡乱猜想的空间,但是,科学理论和实践都显示,植物激素不会是原因。而所谓奶粉中的雌激素,也不是原因——因为,所有检测过的奶粉中的雌激素含量,比母乳中的雌激素含量还要低
马克思说:“人只有为同时代人的完美、为他们的幸福而工作,自己才能达到完美。如果一个人只为自己劳动,他也许能成为著名的学者、伟大的哲人、卓越的诗人,然而他永远不能成为完美的、真正伟大的人物”。这表明()
TOFOREIGNERS,fewthingsseemaspeculiarlyBritishasthehabitofsendingyoungchildrenawayfromhometoschool.Atfirstg
A、Shecancancelitanytimebyfree.B、Shecantransfertheunusedminutestoanotherphone.C、Shehastosignanotheragreement
最新回复
(
0
)