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
How does Ausubel feel about the scientific progress made every day?
How does Ausubel feel about the scientific progress made every day?
admin
2022-03-28
37
问题
How does Ausubel feel about the scientific progress made every day?
W: What makes you such an optimist?
M: Working in The Rockerfeller University here in New York, I am overwhelmed every week by what people are learning. Genetics offers the most dramatic example, but in materials science and so many fields it’s almost as astonishing. Modern science is very young. Even if you go back to Galileo, it’s only 400 years old. Large-scale organized research is less than 100 years old. The chance to do things much better is enormous. Take energy. It’s a big cause for environmental concern. If you look at the whole system from mining fuel to powering my desk lamp, right now it is about 5 percent efficient. The other 95 percent of the energy in the fuel gets wasted along the way. We can’t jump quickly to 50 percent. But we have centuries of opportunity ahead of us. Whether you look at transport or energy or food systems, they all look juvenile to me. I mean that in a positive sense; they have great potential.
W: You began your career as an environmental scientist. Do you think environmentalists are part of the problem or part of the solution now?
M: The Greens themselves are part of a dynamic ecology, raising the alarms. Functionally, they are earth-sensing instruments. They are absolutely necessary. I started my career in the mid-1970s in marine pollution, and then in 1977 I became one of the first people to work full-time on global warming. I felt my main job was raising the alarm. That’s important. But after seven or eight years, I thought if I’m going to have a long career in the environment, I’d like to provide solutions too. So I spent five years as director of programmes at National Academy of Engineering. Engineers have a different way of thinking from Greens. They like machines that work, and they do enormously important environmental work. A problem is that the two groups don’t talk to each other much. Greens are not very good at taking a long view. They see that forests are disappearing or emissions are rising, and they see disaster looming. But I have an enthusiasm for history, especially the history of technology. My father was a historian of the 19th century industrial revolution in Britain. History is very powerful at showing that things fall as well as rise, including technologies. In fact, the history of technology is largely the history of substitution.
W: For example?
M: Here in New York, the density of horses a century ago was environmentally disastrous. Their replacement by automobiles had a huge environmental benefit. But of course every system has fallout. Cars were dangerous. If they had stayed as dangerous as they were in the 1930s, the automotive system could not have grown. They needed headlights and windshield wipers and seat belts. Then other problems grew, like urban air pollution. So we developed catalytic converters. And as pollution gets worse, there are hybrid vehicles and hydrogen fuel cells. They might allow the world with, say, two billion cars, compared with the 600 million we have right now. It’s not so much that there are limits to growth, in the famous phrase, but rather that any technology, like any empire, contains the seeds of its end. Instead of the technology growing exponentially and destroying everything around it, some other technology will generally take over that is superior. At one billion people in the world there might have been an alternative way of living. But at 6.4 billion and with 4 or 5 billion who don’t have much but want more, then you have no choice but to get better at providing the services people want. I don’t think my green colleagues have enough faith in their own scientific and technical peers.
W: So what do you say to people who think that climate change will overwhelm us? Even if a solution is technically achievable, can we make the changes?
M: The climate change problem is very simple. It requires favoring natural gas, nuclear and energy efficiency, as well as some adaptations. Intellectually the problem was solved in the early to mid-1980s. But making the necessary social change is different. And we shouldn’t be surprised at the problems. Quite a few of my friends who were involved in the international Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, whose report came out last spring, were furious because they felt it received inadequate media attention. But the newspapers were covering the death of the pope and the wedding of Prince Charles and Camilla Parker-Bowles. Social status and sexuality are what interest us. That’s not going to change. The trick is to come up with technologies that are digestible, that slip into the way we live, the way iPods and laptops do.
选项
答案
necessary social change
解析
转载请注明原文地址:https://jikaoti.com/ti/IsIsFFFM
本试题收录于:
公共英语五级笔试题库公共英语(PETS)分类
0
公共英语五级笔试
公共英语(PETS)
相关试题推荐
______resultsin"Acidrain"?______cost30%lessthancoal-firedpowerinFrance?
Whatisthistextmainlyabout?Energyisrequiredinallofthefollowingexcept______.
Whatisthistextmainlyabout?Whichofthefollowingconsumesmostenergy?
ThepassagementionsallofthefollowingasfactorsimportanttothesuccessofanewfoodcropEXCEPTthe______.
Duringtheperiod1490~1979themainprogressmentionedinthispassagewas______.Theword"scuba"is______.
ThepastfewdecadesinBirminghamhaveprovedthatslumclearance______.Accordingtotheauthor,anumberofBirminghamCity
Asthe2lstcenturybegins,anumberofleadersinpolitics,education,andotherprofessionsbelievethattheUnitedStatesmus
What’sthemainobjectiveofastudentwhoattendsacertainnumberofcourses?
NoteveryPresidentisaleader,buteverytimeweelectaPresidentwehopeforone,especiallyintimesofdoubtandcrisis.I
YouwillhearaninterviewwithProf.JesseAusubelabouthisoptimisticattitudestowardsenvironmentalissuestoday.Asyouli
随机试题
起重吊装作业中,吊物严禁超出施工现场的范围。()
32岁,已婚,继发不孕3年,月经规律,5d/30d,偶有经期痛。既往药物流产3次,有盆腔炎病史。妇科检查:外阴毛发分布正常,阴道通畅,子宫中位,常大,活动差,质中,无压痛,双附件增厚,轻度压痛。输卵管通液提示通而不畅。
有机磷农药生产或使用过程中,导致人体中毒的主要途径是
土地利用具有明显的()。
乡级政府编制的决策草案,由()审批。
某开发公司购买空地一块,拟开发住宅小区。地价800万元一次付清,预计建设期为两年,第一年建设投资600万元,第二年建设投资1000万元,住宅总建筑面积16000平方米,预计平均售价为2500元/平方米;销售计划为:建设期第一、二年分别预售房屋的10%和20
在撰写教育实验研究报告的过程中,“资料数据的搜集和分析处理,实验结果的检验方式”这部分应该放在
[*]
Morethan45millionAmericansnowbelongtoahealthclub.Wespendsome$19billionayearongymmemberships.Ofcourse,some
在排序过程中,每一次数据元素的移动会产生新的逆序的排序方法是()。
最新回复
(
0
)