The Truth about the EnvironmentFor many environmen...

The Truth about the Environment

For many environmentalists, the world seems to be getting worse. They have developed a hit-list of our main fears: that natural resources are running out; that the population is ever growing, leaving less and less to eat; that species are becoming extinct in vast numbers, and that the planet's air and water are becoming ever more polluted.

But a quick look at the facts shows a different picture. First, energy and other natural resources have become more abundant, not less so, since the book The Limits to Growth was published in 1972 by a group of scientists. Second, more food is now produced per head of the world's population than at any time in history. Fewer people are starving. Third, although species are indeed becoming extinct, only about 0.7% of them are expected to disappear in the next 50 years, not 25-50%, as has so often been predicted. And finally, most forms of environmental pollution either appear to have been exaggerated, or are temporary-associated with the early phases of industrialisation and therefore best cured not by restricting economic growth, but by accelerating it. One form. of pollution—the release of greenhouse gases that causes global warming—does appear to be a phenomenon that is going to extend well into our future, but its total impact is unlikely to pose a devastating problem.

Yet opinion polls suggest that many people nurture the belief that environmental standards are declining and many factors seem to cause this disjunction between perception and reality.

Not for a moment ______ the truth of your explanation about the event.

  A) we have doubted           B) did we doubt     C) we had doubted

      D) doubted we

The Truth about Lying

I've been wanting to write on a subject that intrigues and challenges me: the subject of lying. I've found it very difficult to do. Everyone I've talked to has a quite intense and personal but often rather intolerant point of view about what lies he can and can never tell. I've finally reached the conclusion that I can't present any ultimate conclusions, for too many people would promptly disagree. Instead, I'd like to present a series of moral puzzles, all concerned with lying. I'll tell you what I think about them. Do you agree?

Social Lies

Most of the people I've talked with say that they find social lying acceptable and necessary. They think it's the civilized way for folks to behave. Without these little white lies, they say, our relationships would be short and nasty. It's arrogant, they say, to insist on being incorruptible and so brave that you cause other people unnecessary embarrassment or pain by compulsively presenting them with your honesty. I basically agree. What about you?

Will you say to people, when it simply isn't true, "I like your new hairdo," "you're looking much better," "It's so nice to see you," " I had a wonderful time"? Will you praise ugly presents and ugly kids?

And even though, as I do, you may prefer the polite evasion of "You really cooked a storm" instead of "The soup "—which taste like warmed-over coffee—"is wonderful, "will you, if you must, proclaim it wonderful?

There's one man I know who absolutely refuses to tell social lies. "I can't play that game, "he says," Fm simply not made that way. "And his answer to the argument that saying nice things to someone doesn't cost anything is, "Yes, it does--it destroys your credibility. "My friend does not indulge in what he calls "flattery, false praise and sweet comments". When others tell lies he will not go along. He says that social lying is lying, that little white lies are still lies. And he feels that telling lies is morally wrong. What about you?

Peace-keeping Lies

Many people tell peace-keeping lies; lies designed to avoid irritation or argument; lies designed to shelter the liar from possible blame or pain; lies designed to keep trouble at bay without hurting anyone.

I tell these lies at times, yet I always feel they're wrong. I understand why we tell them, but still they feel wrong. And whenever I lie so that someone won't disapprove of me or think less of me or yell at me, I feel I'm a bit of a coward, I feel I'm dodging responsibility, I feel guilty. What about you?

Do you, when you arc late for a date because you overslept, say you're late because you got caught in traffic jam?

Do you, when you didn't remember that it was your father's birthday, say that his present must be delayed in the mail?

Finally, do you keep the peace by telling your husband lies on the subject of money? And in general do you find yourself ready, willing and able to lie to him when you make absurd mistakes or lose or break things?

Protective Lies

Protective lies are lies folks tell—often quite serious lies--because they're convinced that the truth would be too damaging. They lie because they feel there are certain human values that are more important than the wrong of having lied. They lie, not for personal gain, but because they believe it's for the good of the person they're lying to. They lie to those who trust them most of all, on the grounds that breaking this trust is justified.

They may lie to their children on money or marital matters.

They may lie to dying about the state of their health.

I sometimes tell such lies, but I'm aware that it's quite presumptuous to claim I know what's best for others to know. That's called playing God. That's called manipulation and control. And we never can be sure, once we start to ju

A．Y

B．N

C．NG

听力原文： If there was a single act that would improve your health, cut your risk of food-borne illnesses, and help preserve the environment and the welfare of millions of animals, would you do it?

The act I'm referring to is the choice you make every time you sit down to a meal.

More than a million Canadians have already acted: they have chosen not to eat meat. And the pace of change has been dramatic.

Vegetarian food sales are showing unparalleled growth. Especially popular are meat-free burgers and hot dogs, and the plant-based cuisines of India, China, Mexico, Italy and Japan.

Fuelling the shift toward vegetarianism have been the health recommendations of medical research. Study after study has uncovered the same basic truth: plant foods lower your risk of chronic disease; animal foods increase it.

The American Dietetic Association says: "Scientific data suggest possible relationships between a vegetarian diet and reduced risk for several chronic degenerative diseases."

Animal foods have serious nutritional drawbacks: They are devoid of fiber, contain far too much saturated (饱和的) fat, and may even carry traces of hormones, steroids (类固醇) and antibiotics. It makes little difference whether you eat beef, pork, chicken or fish.

Animal foods are also gaining notoriety as breeding grounds for E. coli (大肠杆菌), campylobacter (弯曲菌) and other bacteria that cause illness.

So why aren't governments doing anything about this? Unfortunately, they have bowed to pressure from powerful lobby groups such as the Beef Information Center, the Canadian Egg Marketing Agency and the Dairy Farmers of Canada. According to documents retrieved through the Freedom of Information Act, these groups forced changes to Canada's latest food guide before it was released in 1993.

This should come as no surprise: Even a minor reduction in recommended intakes of animal protein could cost these industries billions of dollars a year.

While health and food safety are compelling reasons for choosing a vegetarian lifestyle, there are also larger issues to consider. Animal-based agriculture is one of the most environmentally destructive industries on the face of the Earth.

23.Which of the following are NOT recommended as healthy meals?

24.Why there has been a shift toward vegetarianism ?

25.Which of the following are NOT the nutritional drawbacks of Animal foods?

26.Who were responsible for the change of Canada's latest food guide before it was released in 1993?

(43)

A．Meatless hot dogs.

B．Meat-free burgers.

C．The plant-based cuisines of India, China, Mexico, Italy and Japan.

D．Meals of animal protein.

We all know the truth_____the moon moves around the earth.

A．that

B．if

C．what

D．where

The only solid pieces of scientific truth about which I feel totally confident is that we are profoundly ignorant about nature. Indeed, I regard this as the major discovery of the past hundred years of biology. It would have amazed the brightest minds of the 18th century Enlightenment to be told by any of us how little we know and how bewildering seems the way ahead. It is this sudden confrontation with the depth and scope of ignorance that represents the most significant contribution of the 20th century science to the human intellect. In earlier times, we either pretended to understand how things worked or ignored the problem, or simply made up stories to fill the gaps. Now that we have begun exploring in earnest, we are getting glimpses of how huge the questions are, and how far from being answered. It is not so bad being ignorant if you are totally ignorant; the hard thing is knowing in some detail the reality of ignorance, the worst spots and here and there the not-so-had spots.

Reading the papers and looking at television these days, one can easily be persuaded that the human species is on its last legs, still tottering along but only barely making it. In this view, disease is the biggest menace of all. Even when we are not endangering our lives by eating the wrong sorts of food and taking the wrong kinds of exercise, we are placing ourselves in harm's way by means of the toxins we keep inserting into the environment around us.

As if this were not enough, we have fallen into the new habit of thinking our way into illness: ff we take up the wrong kind of personality, we nm the risk of contracting a new disease called stress, followed quickly by coronary occlusion. Or if we just sit tight and try to let the world slip by, here comes cancer, from something we ate, breathed or touched. No wonder we are a nervous lot. The word is out that if we were not surrounded and propped up by platoons of health professionals, we would drop in our tracks.

The truth is something different, in my view. There has never been a time in history when human beings in general have been statistically as healthy as the people now living in the industrial societies of the Western world. Our average life expectancy has stretched from 45 years a century ago to today's figure of around 75. More of us than ever before are living into our 80s and 90s. Dying from disease in childhood and adolescence is no longer the common occurrence that it was 100 years ago, when tuberculosis and other lethal microbial infections were the chief causes of premature death. Today, dying young is a rare and catastrophic occurrence, and when it does happen, it is usually caused by trauma.

Medicine must get some of the credit for the remarkable improvement in human health, but not all. The profession of plumbing also had much to do with the change. When sanitary engineering assured the populace of uncontaminated water, the great epidemics of typhoid fever and cholera came to an end. Even before such advances, as early as the 17th century, improvements in agriculture and nutrition had increased people's resistance to infection.

In short we have come a long way--the longest part of that way with common sense, cleanliness and a better standard of living, but a substantial recent distance as well with medicine. We still have an agenda of lethal and incapacitating illnesses to cause us anxiety, but these shouldn't worry us to death. The diseases that used to kill off most of us early in life have been brought under control.

Meanwhile, biomedical research has moved us into the early stage of a totally new era in medicine. So much has recently been learned about fundamental processes at cellular and subcellular levels that there are no longer any disease mechanisms that have the look of impenetrable mysteries. There is a great deal still to be learned about the ailments of our middle years and old age—cancer, heart disease, stroke, dementia, arthritis and the rest. But they no longer seem unapproachable, as they did just ten years ago.

Today's powerful technologies for basic research have made it possible for scientists to investigate almost any question. This does not guarantee a quick answer, of course, or even a correct one; but the ability to make intelligent guesses and then to formulate sharp questions concerning medicine's hardest problems is something new.

It no longer stretches the imagination to see a time ahead when human beings, in industrialized society, can be relatively free of disease for a full run through life. This does not mean that we shall be any happier or be living much longer than we do now. We shall still die most often by wearing out, according to our individual genetic clocks; but we shall not be so humiliated by the chronic illnesses that now make old age itself seem a disease.

The author believes that people are doing great harm to their lives

A．eating too much

B．taking wrong exercises

C．polluting the environment

D．A, B and C