1 . It’s the year 2140 and two kids ride their surfboards in the heart of Manhattan, near the point where Sixth Avenue meets Broadway. If you are familiar with this junction you will know it is far from the US’s current coastline. But in Kim Stanley Robinson’s novel New York 2140, Manhattan is flooded after continuous climate change causes the sea level to rise by 15.25 m.
Robinson’s 2017 climate fiction novel belongs to a new kind of novel, which tells “the story of the next century”. It might be helping readers across the world comprehend the situation in which we currently find ourselves.
Climate change is an indescribable crisis to make sense of. Drop some poisonous chemicals in a river now and you will see dead fish within days, but what do you witness when you release (释放) carbon dioxide (CO2)?
“This is where fiction comes in: it brings the abstract data closer to home by focusing on the face sand stories in these futures. Show readers a detailed account of a climate-changed future,” says Robinson, and they have an easier time imagining it. “Science fiction gets people thinking in a way that another report on climate change doesn’t,” says Shelley Streeby, a professor of Literature and Ethnic Studies at UC San Diego. “It helps people feel not only about what might be coming, but also about the present. It is about taking certain conditions that exist nowadays, extending them into the future and throwing a bunch of characters into their midst.”
In the search to adopt climate change as a topic, writers are doing what they do best: trying to tell a good story. Sometimes they write with a touch of optimism as they negotiate the current crisis. But even with this optimism, these writers want to make sure the world knows they, at least, are paying attention.
1. What is the function of the first paragraph?| A．To give background on a story. |
| B．To promote the novel New York 2140. |
| C．To lead to the topic of climate fiction. |
| D．To show the influence of climate change. |
| A．By inferring. | B．By comparing. |
| C．By analyzing. | D．By imagining. |
| A．Approving. | B．Cautious. | C．Negative. | D．Doubtful. |
| A．Climate Crisis: No Longer a Forecast |
| B．The Future World: More Promising |
| C．New York 2140: A New Type of Novel |
| D．Climate Fiction: A Reminder of Climate Change |
