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  3. The claims of vegetarians to the most environmentally responsible diets now appear to be validated by a report from leading scie

The claims of vegetarians to the most environmentally responsible diets now appear to be validated by a report from leading scie

admin2014-06-25  70
问题     The claims of vegetarians to the most environmentally responsible diets now appear to be validated by a report from leading scientists warning that catastrophic food shortages can only be avoided if the world switches to a mainly vegetarian diet in the next 40 years. With many regions like the Sahel in Africa already facing near-famine conditions, 2 billion people already malnourished, and an estimated 2 billion increase in the world population by 2050, a global plant-based diet seems not just desirable but inevitable. The Stockholm International Water Institute’s report notes that one third of the world’s cultivated cropland produces grain to feed livestock rather than people.
    While there are strong environmental and health reasons to reduce our dependence on animal farming and for the better-off to drastically cut meat consumption, we must resist the temptation to abstractly denote a universal vegetarian lifestyle as the sole or simple answer. At stake are also serious problems of overconsumption and the inequitable commandeering of global resources, neither of which will be solved merely by passing the braised tofu.
    In the name of "growth", that capitalist holy cow, a smaller number of people consume far more than their share of essential resources. Wealth concentration generates different purchasing power that allows richer nations as well as the better-off in every nation to consume—and waste—a disproportionate share of food, fuel, water and other resources. Cultivated land itself is put towards profit through speculation, mining and logging, rather than feeding people. The predictable argument that overpopulation is the main problem remains a red herring. When one person can consume or waste between two and five people’s share at a time when per-capita food production has increased, inequity, not human numbers, and the richer, not the poorer, are still the problem.
    Overconsumption and the corporatisation of food supply chains also underwrite the factory farming responsible for shocking levels of animal suffering and the exhaustion of marine ecosystems. When they can afford to do so at all, the poor have eaten meat sustainably and relatively humanely through small numbers of livestock or by fishing in limited quantities. The irony of vegetarianism or veganism as a lifestyle choice in wealthier countries is that it correlates with the relative affluence of being able to choose to spend your food budget on good-quality fruits, vegetables and grains. The less affluent remain condemned to buying whatever is cheapest, whether stale vegetables, processed foods or factory-farmed chicken.
    A serious discussion about food security and natural resource usage must emphasise redistributive social justice and not just lifestyle choices in the abstract. The excessive consumption of animal products clearly poses an imminent danger to both planet and human existence. But addressing this cannot take the form of a forced plant-diet moralism. We need a comprehensive reordering of the global economy and our priorities as human beings to end the limitless scandal that is widespread hunger.
According to the author, the prime cause of food shortage is______.
选项 A、sharp increase in world population
B、inadequate food production
C、unbalanced wealth distribution
D、irrational utilization of cropland resources
答案C
解析 第三段首先分析全球粮食危机的真正原因，末句总结指出，真正的问题仍在于资源分配不均(inequity)，富人才是原因所在，[C]选项正确。
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