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  3. Commerce has long been at the mercy of the elements. The British East India Company was almost strangled at birth when it lost s

Commerce has long been at the mercy of the elements. The British East India Company was almost strangled at birth when it lost s

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问题     Commerce has long been at the mercy of the elements. The British East India Company was almost strangled at birth when it lost several of its ships in a storm. But the toll is rising. The world has been so preoccupied with the man-made catastrophes of subprime mortgages and sovereign debt that it may not have noticed how much economic chaos nature has wreaked. With earthquakes in Japan and New Zealand, floods in Thailand and Australia and tornadoes in America, last year was the costliest on record for natural disasters.
    This trend is not, as is often thought, a result of climate change. There is little evidence that big hurricanes come ashore any more often than, say, a century ago. But disasters now extract a far higher price, for the simple reason that the world’s population and output are becoming concentrated in vulnerable cities near earthquake faults, on river deltas or along tropical coasts. Those risks will rise as the wealth of Shanghai and Kolkata comes to rival that of London and New York. Meanwhile, interconnected supply chains guarantee that when one region is knocked out by an earthquake or flood, the reverberations are global.
    This may sound grim, but the truth is more encouraging. Richer societies may lose more property to disaster but they are also better able to protect their people. Indeed, although the economic toll from disasters has risen, the death toll has not, despite the world’s growing population.
    The right role for government, then, is not to resist urbanization but to minimize the consequences when disaster strikes. This means, first, getting priorities right. At present, too large a slice of disaster budgets goes on rescue and repair after a tragedy, and not enough on consolidating defenses beforehand. Cyclone shelters are useless if they fall into disrepair.
    Second, government should be fiercer when private individuals and firms, left to pursue their own self-interest, put all of society at risk. For example, in their quest for growth, developers and local governments have eradicated sand dunes, mangrove swamps, reefs and flood plains that formed natural buffers between people and nature. Preserving or restoring more of this natural capital would make cities more resilient, much as increased financial capital does for the banking system.
    Third, governments must eliminate the perverse incentives their own policies produce. Politicians are often under pressure to limit the premiums insurance companies can charge. The result is to underprice the risk of living in dangerous areas—which is one reason that so many expensive homes await the next hurricane on Florida’s coast. When governments rebuild homes repeatedly struck by floods and wildfires, they are subsidizing people to live in hazardous places.
    For their part companies need to operate on the assumption that a disaster will strike at some point. This means preparing contingency plans, reinforcing supply chains and even, costly though this might be, having reserve suppliers lined up: there is no point in having a perfectly efficient supply chain if it can be snapped whenever nature takes a turn for the worst. Disasters are inevitable; their consequences need not be.
Which of the following proverbs can best summarize the author’s suggestion to the government in Paragraph 4?
选项 A、Lock the stable door after the horse has been stolen.
B、Repair the house before it rains.
C、Do not put all your eggs in one basket.
D、Sharpen your axe before cutting wood.
答案B
解析 本题考查对文章第四段内容的理解。作者在前三段提到，现代社会面对自然灾害遭受的损失更为严重的原因是城市化的进程导致财富积聚，人口集中。因此政府为了降低自然灾害可能造成的损失应该做的不是抵制城市化进程，而是想方设法将灾害损失降到最低。第四段第三句话明确提出现在大部分的救灾资金都被投入到了灾后重建过程中，而不是投入到灾难防备工作上。作者言下之意就是应该事先做好万全的保护工作才能够最大程度降低自然灾害造成的损失。[B]选项中的谚语最能概括作者的这层含义。
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