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For many environmentalists, the world seems to be getting worse. They have developed a hitlist of our main fears: natural resources are 1__________ out? the population is ever growing, leaving less and less to eat? species are becoming 2__________ in vast numbers, and 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 3__________ 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 4__________ of the world's population than at any time in history. Fewer people are 5__________ . 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 6__________ . And finally, most forms of environmental pollution either appear to have been 7__________ , or are transient - associated with the early stages of industrialization and therefore best cured not by restricting economic growth, but by 8__________ 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 9__________ a devastating (令人心神不安的) problem. A bigger problem may well turn out to be an inappropriate response to it.
Yet opinion polls suggest that many people nurture the belief that environmental standards are declining and some factors seem to cause this disjunction between 10__________ and reality.
A) pose
B) exaggerated
C) accelerating
D) extinct
E) exist
F) perception
G) wealthy
H) magnified
I) starving
J) head
K) running
L) predicted
M) abundant
N) conception
O) reducing |
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发表于 2016-7-11 18:42:12