One of the classic science-fiction treatments of the end of civilization was The Death of Grass, by John Christopher, in which a mysterious sickness struck down all the grasses on which most of the world's agriculture is based, from rice to wheat. Tn the end, politics among the survivors of disease, war and famine were reduced to bitter fratricidal struggle over a defensible potato patch. Like most of the so-called ''comfortable disaster" novels, this could be criticized for optimism. Depressing as a future of famine and the war of all against all might seem, the consequences were largely limited to humans.
However, the threatened extinction of insect populations around the world raises the prospect of a much less general disaster, which would involve plants, birds, fish, small mammals, and everything else depending on insects. That's just the start. Other species, and we ourselves, depend on the animals and plants that need insects. When they go, we go. This is not just a greater disaster. It's a much more reasonable one. The most recent study has concluded that insect biomass is decreasing around the world at a rate of 2.5% a year. At that rate, half the insects in the world will be gone in 50 years' time, and all of them in a century — though no one will be keeping track of centuries then.
The chief driver of this disaster is unchecked human greed. I spite our individual and even collective cleverness, we behave as a species with as little foresight as a colony of nematode worms that will consume everything that it can reach until all is gone and it dies off naturally. The challenge of behaving more intelligently than creatures that have no brain at all will not be easy. But unlike the nematodes, we know what to do. The UN convention on biodiversity was signed in 1992, alongside the convention on climate change. Giving it the strength to hold back our appetites is now urgent. Biodiversity is not an optional extra. It is the web that holds all life, including human life.
The two main expressions of greed that speed this apocalypse are global warming and industrial agriculture. It appears that most of the damage is being done in the developed world by farming practices. The use of giant fields, lack of shelter for insects of any sort at all, whether they are harmful to human interests or not, and where the plants are drenched in long-lasting pesticides, is fatal for uncounted billions of insects. The effects of this kind of forming reach beyond the fields immediately affected, too. There has been a huge loss of aquatic insect species from the rivers into which the products of industrial agriculture are flushed by rain. Even in German nature reserves, which are by definition protected from the use of pesticides, there have been sleep falls in insect populations because so many of the most widely used ones are persistent and prevent breeding.
32. Which of the following statements about The Death of Grass is true?
A.It holds an optimistic attitude towards famine in the future. |
B.It understates the severity of the disaster facing the world. |
C.It gives a vivid account of the most serious famine in history. |
D.It demonstrates how evil human nature turns out to be. |
33. In paragraph 2, the writer mentions the most recent study in order to________.
A.prove that the prediction about the great disaster makes sense |
B.show how soon the insects worldwide will go extinct |
C.argue for the necessity to protect insect populations |
D.suggest a possible approach to increasing insect biomass |
34. What can be inferred from the passage?
A.Humans are similar to nematode in that both of them lack foresight. |
B.We haven't done enough about maintaining biodiversity. |
C.Modem farming is to blame for the threatened extinction of insects. |
D.Germany sets a good example by minimizing the use of pesticides. |
35. What will the author probably discuss after the last paragraph?
A.How industrial agriculture brings about apocalypse. |
B.What influence pesticides may have on people's lives. |
C.Why insect populations in Germany are on the decline. |
D.Where unchecked human greed can also by spotted. |