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
2019-08-17
96
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
foresight
解析
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/tkWd777K
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
Youhavereadanarticleinamagazinewhichstates,"Wearesurroundedbyvariousinventionsinourlife:microwave,telephone,
WhatkindofoverviewdoesthebookintendtogiveaboutAmericansociety?
Whatdoesthespeakersuggestthatthestudentsshoulddoduringtheterm?
Themid-19thcenturytimetravelerswouldnotbesurprisedbytoday’sInternetbecause______Thethemeofthepassageis:_____
AstheInternethasrapidlybecomeamainstreammedium,thesocialimpactoftheInternethasbeenatopicofongoingdebate.So
Atwhattimeoftheyeardoesthisinterviewtakeplace?
Acompany’smaingoalinusingvoicemailistobeefficientandsavemoney.
Acompany’smaingoalinusingvoicemailistobeefficientandsavemoney.
OnehundredandthirteenmillionAmericanshaveatleastonebank-issuedcreditcard.Theygivetheirownersautomatic(31)ins
AnswerQuestionsbyreferringtothefollowingthreeadvertisementsforrefrigerators.Somechoicesmayberequiredmorethan
随机试题
如果A国的利率高于B国,则A国货币相对于B国货币在远期将( )。
下列有关证券公司内部控制制度机制建设的基本要求,说法错误的是()。
(2002年真题)书稿加工要符合规范原则,其中特别要注意简化字、繁体字、异体字的使用,数字用法,汉语拼音拼写方法以及()等。
①成长和成才所包含的意蕴要深刻和正面,也是多元化的②真正意义上的成功,已经被狭隘的“成功学”所污染了,它所携带的那些正面力量就因此被人们一并厌恶③让青年不被庸俗的“成功学”左右,首先要釜底抽薪——我们不要总谈“成功”,要转化话语系统④对青年,我们不建
在美国这样的商业社会里,无论他们抛出了多少关乎人文、情怀、精神的词藻,几乎所有艺术与技术,_______都是一门生意,即便是教主乔布斯和他的苹果也不例外。但这本身无可指摘,也不_______这些公司和这些人缔造一个伟大的时代。填入画横线部分最恰当的一项是:
多个事务在某个调度下的执行是正确的,是能保证数据库一致性的,当且仅当该调度是______。
下列叙述中正确的是()。
检查软件产品是否符合需求定义的过程称为______。
目前使用的硬磁盘,在其读/写寻址过程中()。
Peopletendtobuyprivatecarstoday.Formanypeople,especiallyyoungpeople,owningaprivatecarhassomanyadvantagestha
最新回复
(
0
)