Biosphere II was a spectacular failure. The gleaming glass-and-concrete habi

游客2025-03-25 15

问题 Biosphere II was a spectacular failure. The gleaming glass-and-concrete habitat sprawling across the desert in Oracle, Arizona, was supposed to support eight human "biospheri-ans" for two years, but the seal has to be broken before the experiment ended in 1993. Oxygen had fallen to levels normally seen at an elevation of 17,500 feet. Nitrous oxide had risen to the point where it threatened to cause brain damage. The fresh water supply became contaminated, and vines smothered(厚厚地覆盖)food plants. Insect pollinators(传授花粉的生物)and many other species became extinct. By the end, Biosphere II was overrun with swarms of ants and cockroaches.
Scientists who gathered recently to review the Biosphere II experiment reached a disturbing conclusion: "No one yet knows how to engineer systems that provide humans with the life-supporting services that natural ecosystems produce for free. "
The problem is that these ecosystems are undergoing wrenching changes. Water and air quality, while improving in some regions, are deteriorating in many others. Carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere are climbing. The world’s population could reach 10 billion by 2050. And famed Harvard biologist Edward O. Wilson says the current rate of species losses puts us "in the midst of one of the great extinction spasms (突然迸发) of geological history. " All of which makes many ecologists wonder whether humans too will soon become extinct. It’s an incredibly important but incredibly difficult question. If we continue on this course, we’re heading for a world in which we will have to engineer services we’ve always received for free from nature. That’s why the failure of Biosphere II was so disturbing: It proves that we don’t yet know how to do that.
The Biosphere II experience demonstrated that maintaining human life is a tricky proposition, especially if we can no longer rely on the services provided by natural ecosystems. If we are currently living through a mass extinction, as Wilson believes, we should consider the past. In the great Permian extinction 245 million years ago, 96 percent of species perished. Eventually, the Earth was repopulated with a rich collection of new species, but it took 100 million years. "That should give pause to anyone who believes that what Homo sapiens(现代人) destroys, nature will redeem," Wilson says. "Maybe so, but not within any length of time that has meaning for contemporary humanity. " [br] The seal of the Biosphere II had to be broken before the experiment ended because______.

选项 A、the bad climate of the desert made the human biospherians ill
B、the poisonous air caused brain damage of the human biospherians
C、the ecosystems in it became so bad that the human biospherians can’t live
D、the human biospherians were defeated by swarms of ants and cockroaches

答案 C

解析事实细节题。文中第一段“has to be broken before the experiment ended．Oxygen had fallen to levels normally seen at an elevation…cockroaches"中可以看出氧气浓度下降、氧化亚氮含量超高、水资源污染、许多昆虫及其他物种绝迹是人类无法生存其中、生态圈提前开启的重要原因。文中C选项表达的亦为此意。

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