The twentieth century was a time of exponential scientific and technical advance and the spread of democracy and human rights throughout the world. It was also a dark and savage age of world wars, genocide, and totalitarian ideologies. While [1l (1. combined 2. coupled 3. preoccupied) with all this tumult, humanity managed collaterally to damage the natural environment and draw down the nonrenewable resources of the planet with abandon. We thereby accelerated the erasure of entire ecosystems and the extinction of thousands of species.
As a new century begins, we have begun to awaken from this delirium. Now we may be ready to settle down before we wreck the planet.It is time to [2] ( 1. modify 2. calculate . adjust) what it will take to provide a sustainable life for everyone into the indefinite future. The question of the century is: How best can we shift to a culture of permanence, both for ourselves and for the biosphere that sustains us?
Consider that with the global population past six billion and on its way to eight billion or more by mid-century, per-capita fresh water and arable land are descending to levels that resource experts agree are [3l ( 1. reasonable 2. risky . debatable). The ecological footprint―the average amount of productive land and shallow sea appropriated by each person for food, water, housing, energy, transportation, commerce, and waste absorption―is about one hectare in developing nations but about 9.6 hectares in the United States. The footprint for the total human population is 2.1 hectares. For every person in the world to reach present U.S. levels of consumption with existing technology would [4](1. substitute 2. eliminate 3. require) four more planet Earths. At the same time Homo sapiens has become a geophysical force, the first species in the history of the planet to attain that dubious distinction. We have driven atmospheric carbon dioxide to the highest levels in at least two hundred thousand years and contributed to a global warming that will ultimately be bad news everywhere.
In short, we have entered the Century of the Environment, in which the immediate future is conceived of as a bottleneck. Science and technology, combined with a lack of self-understanding and obstinacy, brought us to where we are today. Now science and technology, combined with foresight and moral courage, must see us [51] (1. through 2. over 3. beyond) the bottleneck and out.
“Wait! Hold on there just one minute!” That is the voice of the economist.
In spite of two centuries of doomsaying, humanity is enjoying [6] ( 1. unperturbed 2. unperceived 3. unprecedented) prosperity. There are environmental problems, but they can be solved. Think of them as the detritus of progress, to be cleared away. The global economic picture is favorable.The GNPs of the industrial countries continue to rise. Since 1950 percapita income has risen continuously. Even though the world population has increased at an explosive 1.8 percent each year during the same period, cereal production, the source of more than half the food calories of the poorer nations, has more than kept [7] ( 1. pace 2. face 3. race), rising from 275 kilograms per head in the early 1950s to 370 kilograms by the 1980s.
For two centuries the specter of Malthus* troubled the dreams of futurists. By rising exponentially, the doomsayers claimed, population must outstrip the limited resources of the world and bring about famine, chaos, and war. On occasion this scenario did [8]( 1. unfold 2. display 3. appeal) locally. But that has been more the result of political mismanagement than Malthusian theory. Human ingenuity has always found a way to [9]( 1. accelerate 2. accommodate 3. encourage) rising populations and allow most to prosper.
Genius and effort have transformed the environment to the benefit of human life.
We have turned a wild and [10] ( 1. inevitable 2. negligible 3. inhospitable) world into a garden. Human dominance is Earth’s destiny. The harmful perturbations we have caused can be [11] (1. modernized 2. mobilized 3. moderated) and reversed as we go along.
The environmentalist has a different worldview.
Yes, it’s true that the human condition has improved dramatically in many ways. But you’re painted only half the [12] ( 1. picture 2. view 3. perspective). As your worldview implies, humanity has learned how to create an economy-driven paradise. Yes again―but only on an infinitely large and malleable planet. It should be obvious to you that Earth is finite and its environment increasingly brittle. o one should look to GNPs and corporate annual reports for a competent [13] ( 1. project 2. projection 3. provider) of the world’s long-term economic future. To the information there, if we are to understand the real world, must be added the research reports of natural-resource specialists.
They argue that we can [14] ( 1. any longer 2. no longer 3. no less) afford to ignore the dependency of the economy on the environmental resource base. It is the content of economic growth, with natural resources factored in, that counts in the long term. A country that levels its forests, drains its aquifers, and washes its topsoil downriver without measuring the cost is a country traveling blind. It faces a [15] (1. shaky 2. crispy . transparent) economic future.
By presenting these two polar views of the economic future, we don’t wish to imply the existence of two cultures with distinct ethos. All who care about both the economy and environment are members of the same culture. The two debaters differ in the factors they take into account in [16] (1. foreshadowing 2. foregrounding 3. forecasting) the state of the world, how far they look into the future, and how much they care about nonhuman life. Most economists today recognize very well that the world has limits and the human population cannot afford to grow much larger. They know that humanity is destroying biodiversity. They just don’t like to spend a lot of time thinking about it.
The environmentalist view, or environmentalism, is fortunately spreading. The essence of this view has been defined in the following way. Earth, unlike the other solar planets, is not in physical equilibrium. It depends on its living shell to create the special conditions under which life is sustainable. The soil, water, and atmosphere of its surface have evolved over hundreds of millions of years to their present condition by activity of the biosphere, an extremely complex layer of living creatures. The biosphere creates our world anew every day and holds it in a unique physical disequilibrium. When we destroy ecosystems and extinguish species, we degrade the greatest heritage this planet has to offer and [17]( 1. hardly 2. conversely 3. thereby) threaten our own existence.
This is the essence of environmentalism. It is the guiding principle of [18](2. confined 3. devoted) to the health of the planet, but it is not yet a general worldview. The relative indifference to the environment springs from deep within human nature. The human brain evidently evolved to commit itself emotionally only to a small piece of geography, a limited band of kinsmen, and two or three generations into the future. Why do we think in this short-sighted way? The reason is simple: it is a hard-wired part of our heritage. For hundreds of millennia those who worked for short-term gain within a small circle of relatives and friends lived longer and left more offspring―even when their collective striving caused their chiefdoms and empires to [19] ( 1. crumble 2. grumble 3. trample) around them. The long view that might have saved their distant descendants required a vision and an extended altruism instinctively difficult to marshal.
The dilemma of environmental reasoning stems from this conflict between short-term and long-term values. To select values for the near future of one’s own tribe or country is relatively easy. To select values for the distant future of the whole planet also is relatively easy―in theory [20] ( 1. at best 2. at least 3. at most).To combine the two visions to create a universal environmental ethic is, on the other hand, very difficult. But combine them we must, because a universal environmental ethic is the only guide by which humanity and the rest of life can be safely conducted through the bottleneck into which our species has foolishly blundered.
*Notes:
Malthus = Thomas Robert Malthus (1766-1834) An English economist who proposed a theory that the population tends to increase at a greater rate than its means of subsistence, resulting in war, famine, and epidemic.
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