问答题 Environmentalists claim the moral high ground: their interests are in preserving our precious planet, protecting defenseless animals, ensuring our children have clean water to drink and air to breathe. Yet environmentalists' policies have been a much more mixed bag in terms of their actual consequences. {{U}} {{U}} 21 {{/U}} {{/U}}{{U}}Indisputably, many regulations and initiatives have reduced pollution and improved air and water quality, to the benefit of everyone, but other environmental efforts have backfired, some with truly disastrous consequences.{{/U}}
Consider what's happened with DDT (a chemical used to kill insects that harm crops). The pesticide came into use during World War II and helped eliminate malaria. However in 1962, an environmentalist wrote that the chemical was causing cancer and destroying wildlife. In 1972, DDT was banned in the U. S. and ultimately worldwide. As a result of the ban, malaria remained a plague in many poor countries. {{U}} {{U}} 22 {{/U}} {{/U}}{{U}}So during the decades in which DDT was not used, when the world bowed to undoubtedly well-intentioned environmental activists, about 50 million people-overwhelmingly African children-died, mostly unnecessarily.{{/U}}
Ethanol provides another example. For years, biofuels were heralded as the promising alternative to fossil fuels, yet it turns out biofuel's environmental impact is much more complicated. In 2008, Time magazine wrote about ethanol's dubious environmental benefits. {{U}} {{U}} 23 {{/U}} {{/U}}{{U}}The article warned that forests, wetlands, and grasslands were being sacrificed in a rush to farm crops that could be turned into gasoline, so the once environmentally favored solution to our energy problems is now recognized as a potential environmental catastrophe{{/U}}. It's worth noting that, beyond biofuel's environmental effects, using food for fuel has a significant impact on the worldwide food supply.
Prominent environmentalists promise that they are confident that man is causing the Earth to warm, and they don't want to contemplate alternative theories about how the sun might be responsible for warming, that the warming isn't unprecedented and therefore could be naturally occurring. {{U}} {{U}} 24 {{/U}} {{/U}}{{U}}They don't want to consider the costs of policies that they want to oppose in the name of combating global warming, or .just how ineffectual those policies might be{{/U}}. Yet the public should consider what a significant decline in worldwide wealth will mean, particularly for those who are already poor.
{{U}} {{U}} 25 {{/U}} {{/U}}{{U}}Those who question global warming alarmists' claims and policy prescriptions have been compared to massacre deniers, yet what are we to call environmentalists whose policies have resulted in the deaths of millions and could aggravate poverty, and hunger?{{/U}} The movie title Not Evil, Just Wrong may be too charitable.
【正确答案】毋庸置疑,许多政策和主动措施降低了污染,提高了空气和水的质量,人人都能得益,然而,其他环保措施却事与愿违,有些简直造成了灾难性的后果。
【答案解析】
【正确答案】因此,在DDT被禁用的几十年里,虽然这些环保人士得到了全世界首肯,而且他们倡导的举措无疑也都是出于好意,但与此同时,却有大约5000万人——绝大多数是非洲的儿童——死于疟疾,其中大多数都是不必要的死亡。
【答案解析】
【正确答案】文章中警告说,森林、湿地和牧地都被人们匆忙改造成农田,以种植可以转化为汽油的作物。因此,这一解决能源问题的途径,一度被认为有利于环保,现在却公认为潜在的环境杀手。
【答案解析】
【正确答案】他们以应对全球变暖为名反对一些政策,却不考虑那些政策可能付出的代价,以及那些措施实施下来究竟会有多少效果。
【答案解析】
【正确答案】有人质疑全球变暖的说法和相关政策,认为是危言耸听,而这些人却被比喻成当年的“大屠杀否认者”,然而,那些环保主义者又应该被称作什么呢?他们的政策已经让数以百万计的人失去了生命,而且还加剧了贫困和饥荒。
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