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  3. Greenhouse and Airlines British green groups spanked the Prince Charles for deciding to fly to the U. S. to pick up a presti

Greenhouse and Airlines British green groups spanked the Prince Charles for deciding to fly to the U. S. to pick up a presti

admin2013-07-11  29
问题                         Greenhouse and Airlines
    British green groups spanked the Prince Charles for deciding to fly to the U. S. to pick up a prestigious environmental award, arguing that the carbon emissions created by his travel canceled out his green credit. His critics may be onto something. Jets are uniquely polluting. On an individual level, a single long-haul flight can emit more carbon per passenger than months of SUV driving. Though air travel is responsible for only 1.6% of total greenhouse gas emissions, according to one estimate, in many countries it’s the fastest-growing single source.
    One of the biggest problems, as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) points out, is that the carbon emitted by air travel currently has "no technology". As messy a source of pollution as electricity generation and ground transportation are, technologies do exist that could drastically cut carbon from power plants and cars. Not so for planes.
    Admittedly, the airline industry has improved efficiency over the past 40 years, with technological upgrades more than doubling efficiency. There are slight adjustments in aircraft operations that could cut carbon emissions even further. Virgin Atlantic airlines tycoon Richard Branson, who last year pledged $ 3 billion in the fight against climate change, advocates having planes towed on the ground rather than taxiing, which he has said could cut a yet unspecified portion of fuel on long flights. Emissions trading for the air industry could help as well, with airlines given carbon caps and then being required to purchase credits from other industries if they exceed their limits. But there’s nothing on the horizon for aircraft with the carbon-cutting potential of hydrogen engines or solar energy.
    Nor is there any replacement for long-haul air travel itself. I can take a train from Boston to Washington, but the only way I’m getting from Tokyo to New York City is in aircraft. On an individual level, you can try to make your flight carbon neutral by donating to, say, a forestry project that will soak up the greenhouse gases you have created. An increasing number of airlines and travel agents do offer such options. The London-based Carbon Neutral Company reports that requests for carbon offsetting from individual travelers have jumped over the past six months. But the still tiny number of neutralized flights can hardly compensate for the rapid increases in global air travel.
    So is grounding ourselves the only answer? That seems to be the conclusion of environmentalists in Britain, who also went after Prime Minister Tony Blair for a recent holiday trip to Miami. Though Blair finally promised to begin offsetting his leisure travel, he insisted that telling people to fly less was simply impractical—and he’s probably right. Our best bet for now may be to limit any business and leisure flights that we can and offset the rest.
The measures taken by the air industry to reduce carbon emissions possibly include______.
选项 A、purchasing fuel-efficient aircrafts
B、taking part in emission trading
C、using alternative energies
D、donating to green projects
答案B
解析 本题考查事实细节。第三段前半部分集中介绍了航空业降低污染所做的努力以及提议。其中第四句提到，航空业的排污交易也可以起到一定的作用。因此，[B]项正确。该段首句提到航空业在过去的四十年里提高了效率。但是并没有提到现在的飞机存在油耗差异。所以[A]不正确。第五句指出尚无替代能源(燃氢发动机和太阳能)可用于航空业。因此，[C]项与文意相悖。第四段第三句指出为了抵消自己所乘飞机产生的碳排放，个体旅行者可以向林业工程捐款。[D]项偷梁换柱，把个体旅行者偷换成航空公司，且向绿色工程捐款是对所造成污染的一种补偿，并不能减少污染。
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