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At the World Economic Forum last month, President Trump drew claps when he announced the United Stat

英语试题 07-09
At the World Economic Forum last month, President Trump drew claps when he announced the United States would respond to the forum's proposal to plant one trillion(万亿) trees to fight climate change. The trillion-tree idea won wide attention last summer after a study published in the journal Science concluded that planting so many trees was “the most effective climate change solution to date”.
If only it were true. But it isn't. Planting trees would slow down the planet's warming, but the only thing that will save us and future generations from paying a huge price in dollars, lives and damage to nature is rapid and considerable reductions in carbon release from fossil fuels, to net zero by 2050.
Focusing on trees as the big solution to climate change is a dangerous diversion(偏离). Worse still, it takes attention away from those responsible for the carbon release that are pushing us toward disaster. For example, in the Netherlands, you can pay Shell an additional 1 euro cent for each liter of regular gasoline you put in your tank, to plant trees to balance the carbon release from your driving. That's clearly no more than disaster slightly delayed. The only way to stop this planet from overheating is through political, economic, technological and social solutions that end the use of fossil fuels.
There is no way that planting trees, even across a global area the size of the United States, can absorb the huge amounts of fossil carbon released from industrial societies. Trees do take up carbon from the atmosphere as they grow. But this uptake merely replaces carbon lost when forests were cleared in the first place, usually long ago. Regrowing forests where they once grew can undo some damage done in the past, but even a trillion trees can't store enough carbon to head off dramatic climate changes this century.
In a sharp counter argument to last summer's Paper in Science, Justin Gillis wrote in the same journal in October that the study's findings were inconsistent with the dynamics of the global carbon cycle. He warned that “the claim that global tree restoration(复原) is our most effective climate solution is simply scientifically incorrect and dangerously misleading”.
12. What do we know about the trillion-tree idea?
A. It was published in a journal.
B. It was proposed last summer.
C. It was put forward by Trump.
D. It drew lots of public attention.
13. What is paragraph 3 mainly about?
A. A drawback of the tree planting strategy.
B. An example of balancing carbon release.
C. An anecdote of making a purchase at Shell.
D. A responsibility for politicians and economists.
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