Directions: There are 7 passages in this section. Each passage is followed by some questions orunfinished statements. For each of them there are four choices marked A, B, C, and D. You should decideon the best choice. 

Passage 6

Two years ago, a Danish environmentalist called Bjorn Lomborg had an idea. We all want to make the world a better place but, given finite resources, we should look for the most cost-effective ways of doing so. He persuaded a bunch of economists, including three Nobel laureates, to draw up a list of priorities. They found that efforts to fight malnutrition and disease would save many lives at modest expense, whereas fighting global warming would cost a colossal amount and yield distant and uncertain rewards. 

That conclusion upset a lot of environmentalists. This week, another man who upsets a lot of people embraced it. John Bolton, America’ s ambassador to the United Nations, said that Mr. Lomborg’ s Copenhagen Consensus provided a useful way for the world body to get its priorities straight. Too often at the UN, said Mr. Bolton, everything is a priority. The secretary-general is charged with carrying out 9, 000 mandates, he said, and when you have 9, 000 priorities you have none. 

So, over the weekend, Mr. Bolton sat down with UN diplomats from seven other countries to rank 40 ways of tackling ten global crises. The problems addressed were climate change, communicable diseases, war education, financial instability, governance, malnutrition, migration, clean water and trade barriers. 

Given a notional $ 50 billion, how would the ambassadors spend it to make the world a better place? Their conclusions were strikingly similar to the Copenhagen Consensus. After hearing presentations from experts on each problem, they drew up a list of priorities. The top four were basic health care, better water and sanitation, more schools and better nutrition for children. Averting climate change came last. 

The ambassadors thought it wiser to spend money on things they knew would work. Promoting breast-feeding, for example, costs very little and is proven to save lives. It also helps infants grow up stronger and more intelligent, which means they will earn more as adults. Vitamin A supplements cost as little as $1, save lives and stop people from going blind. And so on. 

For climate change, the trouble is that though few dispute that it is occurring, no one knows how severe it will be or what damage it will cause. And the proposed solutions are staggeringly expensive. 

Mr. Lomborg reckons that the benefits of implementing the Kyoto protocol would probably outweigh the costs, but not until 2100. This calculation will not please A1 Gore. Nipped at the post by George Bush in 2000, Mr. Gore calls global warming an onrushing catastrophe and argues vigorously that curbing it is the most urgent moral challenge facing mankind. 

Mr. Lomborg demurs. We need to realize that there are many inconvenient truths, he says. But whether he and Mr. Bolton can persuade the UN of this remains to be seen.