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Greenhouse and Airlines British green groups spanked

游客2023-12-11  24
问题                         Greenhouse and Airlines
    British green groups spanked the Prince Charles for deciding to fly to the U. S. to pick up a prestigious environmental award, arguing that the carbon emissions created by his travel canceled out his green credit. His critics may be onto something. Jets are uniquely polluting. On an individual level, a single long-haul flight can emit more carbon per passenger than months of SUV driving. Though air travel is responsible for only 1.6% of total greenhouse gas emissions, according to one estimate, in many countries it’s the fastest-growing single source.
    One of the biggest problems, as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) points out, is that the carbon emitted by air travel currently has "no technology". As messy a source of pollution as electricity generation and ground transportation are, technologies do exist that could drastically cut carbon from power plants and cars. Not so for planes.
    Admittedly, the airline industry has improved efficiency over the past 40 years, with technological upgrades more than doubling efficiency. There are slight adjustments in aircraft operations that could cut carbon emissions even further. Virgin Atlantic airlines tycoon Richard Branson, who last year pledged $ 3 billion in the fight against climate change, advocates having planes towed on the ground rather than taxiing, which he has said could cut a yet unspecified portion of fuel on long flights. Emissions trading for the air industry could help as well, with airlines given carbon caps and then being required to purchase credits from other industries if they exceed their limits. But there’s nothing on the horizon for aircraft with the carbon-cutting potential of hydrogen engines or solar energy.
    Nor is there any replacement for long-haul air travel itself. I can take a train from Boston to Washington, but the only way I’m getting from Tokyo to New York City is in aircraft. On an individual level, you can try to make your flight carbon neutral by donating to, say, a forestry project that will soak up the greenhouse gases you have created. An increasing number of airlines and travel agents do offer such options. The London-based Carbon Neutral Company reports that requests for carbon offsetting from individual travelers have jumped over the past six months. But the still tiny number of neutralized flights can hardly compensate for the rapid increases in global air travel.
    So is grounding ourselves the only answer? That seems to be the conclusion of environmentalists in Britain, who also went after Prime Minister Tony Blair for a recent holiday trip to Miami. Though Blair finally promised to begin offsetting his leisure travel, he insisted that telling people to fly less was simply impractical—and he’s probably right. Our best bet for now may be to limit any business and leisure flights that we can and offset the rest. [br] It can be inferred that the author______.
选项 A、is concerned about the rapid growth of aviation
B、regards airline emission as a solvable problem
C、is in approval of environmentalists’ suggestion
D、suggests developing technologies to reduce flight carbon
答案 A
解析 本题考查作者观点态度。首段第三句指出飞行排放物对环境危害巨大。末句指出在许多国家飞行所产生的碳是增长最迅速的温室气体，即，这些国家的航空业务增长迅速。由此可以推知，出于环境方面的考虑，作者非常关注航空业的发展。因此，[A]项正确。第二段提到尚无技术能大幅减少飞行排放物。第三段前四句虽然指出航空公司在减少碳排放上采取了一些措施，且确实取得了一些效果，但是末句转折指出飞机不具备使用替代能源的潜力。可见作者对航空业减少碳排放的潜力不持乐观态度。[B]项不正确。第五段第二句指出环保主义者提出了采用陆地旅行的建议，但是他们跟在布莱尔之后也乘坐飞机去度假。可以得知作者对环保主义者持讽刺态度。排除[C]。文中只指出目前尚无技术能够大大降低飞行污染，但没有提出应该继续深入研究。排除[D]。
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