Global warming is causing more than 300,000 deaths and about $125 billion in economic losses each year, according to a report by

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问题     Global warming is causing more than 300,000 deaths and about $125 billion in economic losses each year, according to a report by the Global Humanitarian Forum, an organization led by Kofi Annan, the former United Nations secretary general.
    The report, to be released Friday, analyzed data and existing studies of health, disaster, population and economic trends. It found that human-influenced climate change was raising the global death rates from illnesses including malnutrition (营养不良) and heat-related health problems.
    But even before its release, the report drew criticism from some experts on climate and risk, who questioned its methods and conclusions.
    Along with the deaths, the report said that the lives of 325 million people, primarily in poor countries, were being seriously affected by climate change. It projected that the number would double by 2030.
    Roger Pielke Jr., a political scientist at the University of Colorado, Boulder, who studies disaster trends, said the Forum’s report was “a methodological embarrassment” because there was no way to distinguish deaths or economic losses related to human-driven global warming amid the much larger losses resulting from the growth in populations and economic development in vulnerable (易受伤害的) regions. Dr. Pielke said that “climate change is an important problem requiring our utmost attention.” But the report, he said, “will harm the cause for action on both climate change and disasters because it is so deeply flawed (有瑕疵的).”
    However, Soren Andreasen, a social scientist at Dalberg Global Development Partners who supervised the writing of the report, defended it, saying that it was clear that the numbers were rough estimates. He said the report was aimed at world leaders, who will meet in Copenhagen in December to negotiate a new international climate treaty.
    In a press release describing the report, Mr. Annan stressed the need for the negotiations to focus on increasing the flow of money from rich to poor regions to help reduce their vulnerability to climate hazards while still curbing the emissions of the heat-trapping gases. More than 90% of the human and economic losses from climate change are occurring in poor countries, according to the report.
What does Dr. Pielke say about the Forum’s report?

选项 A、Its statistics look embarrassing.
B、It deserves our closest attention.
C、It is invalid in terms of methodology.
D、Its conclusion is purposely exaggerated.

答案C

解析 根据题干中的Pielke和the Forum’s report将本题出处定位于第5段首句。第5段首句提到,Pielke认为该论坛报告是“方法论的尴尬”,后面紧接着对此进行解释:因为在脆弱地区,在由人口增长和经济发展所造成的较大损失中,没有办法区分出由人力驱使的全球变暖造成的死亡和经济损失。由此可见,Pielke认为就方法论而言,该论坛的报告是无效的,故答案为C)。A)是根据a methodological embarrassment设的干扰项。文中指的是得出结论的方法无效,而不是统计数字令人尴尬。B)是根据requiring our utmost attention设的强干扰项。文中提到,最需要我们关注的是气候变化,而不是论坛报告。Pielke未提到他认为报告的结论是有意夸大的,故排除D)。
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