Thanks in no small part to Al Gore and his film producers, the American public is waking up to the seriousness of global warming

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问题     Thanks in no small part to Al Gore and his film producers, the American public is waking up to the seriousness of global warming. What is not so widely appreciated is that unless the US government acts urgently and decisively, this problem could very quickly get very much worse.
    For reasons both economic and political coal is poised to be the fuel of choice in the coming decades as the US weans itself off foreign oil. Coal combustion generates half the US’s electricity and releases about 1. 5 billion tons of carbon dioxide a year. If present trends continue, these figures will more than double by 2050, much to the detriment of the world’s climate. Without an alternative fuel, the only solution is to capture and store carbon dioxide from burning coal.
    Overcoming the engineering obstacles in the way of large-scale sequestration of carbon dioxide will be hard enough, but the bigger challenge is one of political will. US companies as yet have no incentive to capture carbon emissions. While moves at state and congressional levels are pushing in the right direction, the ambiguity in the administration’s policy is counterproductive.
    It is time for the US government to put a price on carbon emissions so utilities that invest in technologies to reduce carbon emissions will see their efforts rewarded. Such a move would not only reduce the risks associated with global warming, but also go a long way to restoring America’s green credentials.
According to the author, what adds to the seriousness of global warming?

选项 A、The American public was ignorant of the problem.
B、The American government is doing nothing to deal with the problem.
C、The US will choose coal as the major fuel which will have large carbon emissions.
D、There is no alternative fuel other than foreign oil which has large carbon emissions.

答案C

解析 细节题。根据文中第二段的内容可知,由于经济和政治方面的原因,美国在未来的几十年中不再依赖国外石油,而是选择煤炭作为燃料。燃烧煤炭可为美国提供一半的电力,每年约排放15亿吨的二氧化碳。如果目前的趋势持续下去的话,到2050年这个数字会增加一倍多,对世界气候产生很大的破坏。因此C项正确。
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