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Obama’s Energy Policy While the Gulf of Mexico oil sp

游客2023-12-26  22
问题                         Obama’s Energy Policy
   While the Gulf of Mexico oil spill that prompted the president’s speech is an unprecedented catastrophe, it’s nothing compared to what’s ahead if we keep pretending that fossil fuels are cheap. Addressing our habits of carbon consumption isn’t just the most important possible response to this particular disaster. It’s probably the most important issue this president, or any other for the next few decades, will face. Moreover, there’s a fairly clear solution that’s already been outlined: at the moment, there’s an implicit public subsidy for carbon use that enables our reliance, so the government needs to compensate for it by jack up the price of energy somehow. A cap-and-trade system is the preferred method here in much the same way that an insurance mandate was in healthcare reform: it’s a politically palatable partial measure, but far better than nothing.
   But Obama gave a lame speech by only offering vague generalities about " increasing the cost of energy," failing to lay out the case for the reform that he knows perfectly well to be the only viable one. In fact, if the president decided to take the idea of energy reform to the people, he probably still wouldn’t get legislation passed. But even in failure, there’s something to be gained from speaking clearly and honestly to the public.
   Woodrow Wilson was a generally pretty detestable guy, but there’s something Obama could learn from him. At the end of World War I, Wilson expended massive, futile effort trying to convince Americans that the League of Nations was the world’s only hope for peace and stability. The Republicans who opposed Wilson over the League succeeded, in large part, because a weary country wasn’t willing to accept an intellectual president’s high-flown scheme to prevent the recent disaster from repeating.
   When the feeble League failed and the crisis of the 1930s developed into World War II, it offered a kind of perverse validation to Wilson’s effort. By forcefully campaigning for the United States to take a central role in global stability, he had elucidated the choices facing the American people. After World War II, the argument of 1919 reoccurred, but it was won by Wilson’s successor, Harry Truman. The reoccurrence of global war had validated Wilson’s argument, making it much easier for Truman to sell Americans on the Marshall Plan, NATO, the United Nations and, ultimately, the Cold War itself. By being ambitious and clear, Wilson lost, but his side won out in the long term for the same reason. [br] What message would the author like to convey by the example of Woodrow Wilson?
选项 A、The process of attaining difficult political goals sometimes involves a futile-seeming first act.
B、The process of attaining lofty political goals sometimes involves a futile-seeming first act.
C、Sometimes political martyrdom is needed to earn the public’s trust.
D、It is difficult to achieve a strategic gain by appearing lofty.
答案 A
解析 例证归纳题型，答案是A。本题涉及作者通过威尔逊一例传达的信息，涉及例证问题，需关注两方面信息，一是例证本身的论证内容，二是例证前后的引言及结论，在阅读理解的过程中，后者作为线索性信息尤为重要。本文例证的论证部分位于第三、四两段，主要内容为威尔逊倡导国际联盟未果而败选，世易时移，其后继者终因同一理念而获胜。线索性信息可见于第二、三、四段的首尾。第二段结尾可见作者的基本态度：奥巴马即便倡导能源改革方案，也可能无法获得立法通过，但即便如此，开诚布公仍能对解决问题有所助益；第三段开头可见作者的举例用意：希望奥巴马以威尔逊为鉴；第四段结尾可见作者对例证的总结：尽管威尔逊因为开诚布公、目标宏大而败选，但从长远来看，其所在的党派却最终因此获得了胜利。归纳总结上述内容，可见在四个选项中，A选项最符合作者本意。本题核心：重点关注段落开头及结尾的线索性信息。
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