首页
外语
计算机
考研
公务员
职业资格
财经
工程
司法
医学
专升本
自考
实用职业技能
登录
外语
Saving Nature, But Only Man Environmental Necessities and Environmental Luxuries A)Environmental sensitivity is now as required
Saving Nature, But Only Man Environmental Necessities and Environmental Luxuries A)Environmental sensitivity is now as required
admin
2017-01-20
29
问题
Saving Nature, But Only Man
Environmental Necessities and Environmental Luxuries
A)Environmental sensitivity is now as required an attitude in polite society as is, say, belief in democracy or aversion to nylon. But now that everyone has claims to love Mother Earth, how are we to choose among the dozens of conflicting proposals, restrictions, projects, regulations and laws advanced in the name of the environment? Clearly not everything with an environmental claim is worth doing. How to choose?
B)There is a simple way. First, distinguish between environmental luxuries and environmental necessities. Luxuries are those things that would be nice to have if costless. Necessities are those things we must have regardless. Then apply a rule. Call it the fundamental principle of sensible environmentalism: Combating ecological change that directly threatens the health and safety of people is an environmental necessity. All else is luxury. For example: preserving the atmosphere, by both protecting the ozone layer and halting the greenhouse effect, is an environmental necessity. In April scientists reported that ozone damage is far worse than previously thought. Ozone reduction not only causes skin cancer and eye cataracts(白内障), it also destroys plankton(浮游生物), the beginning of the food chain on top which we humans sit.
C)The reality of the greenhouse effect is more speculative, though its possible consequences are far deadlier: melting ice caps, flooded coastlines, disturbed climate, dried up plains and, ultimately, empty breadbaskets. The American Midwest feeds the world. Are we prepared to see Iowa acquire Albuquerque’s climate? And Siberia acquire Iowa’s? Ozone reduction and the greenhouse effect are human disasters. They happen to occur in the environment. But they are urgent because they directly threaten man. A sensible environmentalism, the only kind of environmentalism that will win universal public support, begins by unashamedly declaring that nature is here to serve man. A sensible environmentalism is entirely man-centered: it calls for man to preserve nature, but on the grounds of self-preservation.
A Sensible Environmentalism Does Not Sentimentalize the Earth
D)A sensible environmentalism does not sentimentalize the earth. It does not ask people to sacrifice in the name of other creatures. After all, it is hard enough to ask people to sacrifice in the name of other humans.(Think of the public resistance to foreign aid and welfare.)Ask hardworking voters to sacrifice in the name of snail darter(蜗牛鱼), and, if they are feeling polite, they will give you a shrug.
E)Of course, this man-centeredness runs against the grain of a contemporary environmentalism that worships the earth to the point of excess. One scientific theory—Gaia theory—actually claims that Earth is a living organism. This kind of environmentalism likes to consider itself spiritual. It is nothing more than sentimental. It takes, for example, a highly selective view of the kindliness of nature. My nature worship stops with the May storms that killed more than 125,000 Bengalis and left 10 million homeless.
F)A non-sentimental environmentalism is one founded on Protagoras principle that " Man is the measure of all things". Such a principle helps us to fight our way through the jungle of environmental argument. Take the current debate raging over oil drilling in a corner of the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge. Environmentalists, fighting against a bill working its way through Congress to permit such exploration, argue that we should be conserving energy instead of drilling for it. This is a false either/or proposition. The country does need a substantial energy tax to reduce consumption. But it needs more production, too. Government estimates indicate a nearly fifty-fifty chance that under the ANWR lies one of the five largest oil fields ever discovered in America.
G)We have just come through a war fought in part over oil: Energy dependence costs Americans not just dollars but lives. It is a ridiculous sentimentalism that would deny ourselves oil that is peacefully attainable because it risks disrupting the breeding grounds of Arctic reindeer(驯鹿). I like the reindeer as much as the next man. And I would be rather sorry if their mating patterns are disturbed. But you cannot have everything. And if the choice is between the welfare of reindeer and reducing oil dependence that gets people killed in wars, I choose man over reindeer every time.
H)Similarly the spotted owl. I am no enemy of the owl. If it could be preserved at no or little cost, I would agree: the variety of nature is a good, a high aesthetic(美学的)good. But it is no more than that. And sometimes aesthetic goods have to be sacrificed to the more fundamental ones. If the cost of preserving the spotted owl is the loss of livelihood for 30,000 logging families, I choose family over owl. Man Is the Master of Nature
I)The important distinction is between those environmental goods that are fundamental and those that are merely aesthetic. Nature is our charge. It is not our master. It is to be respected and even cultivated. But it is man’s world. And when man has to choose between his well-being and that of nature, nature will have to accommodate.
J)Man should accommodate only when his fate and that of nature are bound up together. The most urgent accommodation must be made when the very integrity of man’s environment—e. g. : atmospheric ozone— is threatened. When the threat to man is of a lesser order(say, the pollutants form coal- and oil-fired generators that cause death from disease but not fatal damage to the ecosystem), a more moderate accommodation that balances economic against health concerns is in order. But in either case the principle is the same: protect the environment—because it is man’s environment. The sentimental environmentalists will call this saving nature with a totally wrong frame of mind. Exactly. A sensible—a humanistic—environmentalism does it not for nature’s sake but for our own.
When dealing with the relationship between human beings and nature, we should stick to the principle that human beings’ well-being is in the first place.
选项
答案
I
解析
转载请注明原文地址:https://jikaoti.com/ti/XqjFFFFM
0
大学英语四级
相关试题推荐
Globalwarmingmayornotbethegreatenvironmentalcrisisofthe21stcentury,but—regardlessofweatheritisorisn’t—wewo
Forthispart,youareallowed30minutestowriteaspeechonsavingwaterresources.Youshouldwriteatleast120wordsbutn
A、EnvironmentalScienceisappealingtotheman.B、Themanisengagedinprotectingendangeredanimals.C、Animalsandplantsare
Duringthenineteenthcentury,whenlittlewasknownaboutenvironmental-ismandconservation,itwascommontohearpeopleinE
Duringthenineteenthcentury,whenlittlewasknownaboutenvironmental-ismandconservation,itwascommontohearpeopleinE
Duringthenineteenthcentury,whenlittlewasknownaboutenvironmental-ismandconservation,itwascommontohearpeopleinE
Duringthenineteenthcentury,whenlittlewasknownaboutenvironmental-ismandconservation,itwascommontohearpeopleinE
随机试题
A.健脾养心,补益气血B.健脾养心,理气化痰C.行气开郁,化痰散结D.疏肝解郁,理气畅中E.清肝化痰,疏肝解郁郁证中,肝气郁结的常用治法是()。
某设计方案年产量为12万吨,已知每吨产品的销售价格为650元,每吨产品缴纳的税金为65元,单位可变成本为250元,年总固定成本为1500万元。则以单位产品可变成本表示的盈亏平衡点为()元/吨。
容易造成股利支付额与本期净利相脱节的股利分配政策是( )。
陶行知说:“教师必须具有健康的体魄,农人的身手,科学的头脑,艺术的兴味,改革社会的精神。”这体现了教师职业劳动的()。
近年来,全国各地相继启动了高考制度改革,新高考更注重考查学生的综合素质,内容主要包括思想品德、学业水平、身心健康、艺术素养、社会实践5个方面。但据调查,我国城乡教育发展不均衡,很多农村学校的素质教育无法到位,农村孩子在新高考综合素质测评中容易处于劣势地位。
文化体制改革重点任务基本完成,是2015年我国文化改革发展的目标之一。()
A.That’sright,John.B.Whyshouldwebelieveyouthistime?C.ButMrs.Faulkes,yousaidthatfiveyearsagowhenyouwerec
俗话说:“买卖不在仁义在”,请运用合同的基本原则和合同法的相关理论知识对其加以辨析。
某一市长曾建议向进城的私人车辆每天收取五美元的费用,宣称这种费用的征收将缓解该城市的交通拥挤状况。该市长解释说,由于该费用比许多附近站点乘坐环线公共汽车的费用要高,许多人会由自己驾驶汽车转为乘坐公共汽车。以下哪项陈述为证明该市长的推理是有缺陷的提供了最好的
The"paperlessoffice"hasearnedaproudplaceonlistsoftechnologicalpromisesthatdidnotcometopass.Surely,though,th
最新回复
(
0
)