41 . The reason why so many Americans die in fires is that _________.
A) they took no interest in new technology
B) they did not attach great importance to preventing fires
C) they showed indifference to fighting Fires
D) they did not spend enough money on fire facilities
42. Although the Fire death rate has declined, the United States ________.
A) still has the worst fire death rate in the world
B) is still alert to the fire problem
C) is still training a large number of safety experts
D) is still confronted with the serious fire problem
43. It can be inferred from the passage that ________.
A) fire safety lessons should be aimed at American adults
B) American children have not received enough education of fire safety lesson
C) Japan is better equipped with fire facilities than the Untied States
D) America's large population accounts for high fire frequency
44. In what aspects should the United States learn from Japan?
A) Architecture and building material.
B) Education and technology.
C) Laws and attitude.
D) All of the above
45. To narrow the gap between the fire death rate in the United States and that in other countries, the author suggests ________.
A) developing new technology
B) counting more on laws and social pressure
C) placing a fire extinguisher in every family
D) reinforcing the safeness of household appliances
Questions 46 to 50 are based on the following Passage.
There are hidden factors which scientists call “feedback mechanisms”. No one knows quite how they will interact with the changing climate. Here's one example: plants and animals adapt to climate change over centuries. At the current estimate of half a degree centigrade of warming per decade, vegetation(植物) may not keep up. Climatologist James Hansen predicts climate zones will shift toward the poles by 50 to 75kilometres a year-faster than trees can naturally migrate. Species that find themselves in an unfamiliar environment will die. The 1000kilometre-wide strip of forest running through Canada, the USSR and Scandinavia could be cut by half. Millions of dying trees would soon lead to massive forest fires, releasing ions of CO2 and further boosting global warming.
There arc dozens of other possible. feedback mechanisms'. Higher temperatures will fuel condensation and increase cloudiness, which may actually damp down global warming. Others, like the ‘albedo’ effect, will do the opposite. The. ‘albedo’ effect is the amount of solar energy reflected by the earth's surface. As northern ice and snow melts and the darker sea and land pokes( 戳) through, more heat will be absorbed, adding to the global temperature increase.
Even if we were to magically stop all greenhouse-gas emissions tomorrow the impact on global climate would continue for decades. Delay will simply make the problem worse. The fact is that some of us are doing quite well the way things are. In the developed world prosperity has been built on 150 years of cheap fossil fuels.
Material progress has been linked to energy consumption. Today 75 per cent of all the world's energy is consumed by a quarter of the world's population. The average rich world resident adds about 3.2 tons of CO2 yearly to the atmosphere, more than four times the level added by each Third World citizen. The US, with just seven per cent of the global population, is responsible for 22 per cent of global warming. |
