阅读任务：
1. 耳提面命的意思查不认识的单词；找出不理解的长难句。
2. 厘清段与段之间的逻辑结构关系，动手画一下全文的思维导图。（用手画用软件都可以）
3. 听音频，模仿发音。
4. 最后把文章朗读3遍，培养语感！！！
5. 回答以下问题：
① 第一段第一行的smoulder可以替换成什么词？
②为什么说脱碳很难达成？
Global warming
In the line of fire创意广告图片
美国好莱坞电影The world is losing the war against climate change
化痰水果
Earth is smouldering. From Seattle to Siberia this summer, flames have consumed swathes of the northern hemisphere. One of 18 wildfires sweeping through California, among the worst in the state’s history, is generating such heat that it created its own weather. Fires that raged through a coastal area near Athens in late July killed 91 (e Science ction). Elwhere people are suffocating in the heat. Roughly 125 have died in Japan as the result of a heatwave that pushed temperatures in Tokyo above 40°C for the first time.
Such calamities, once considered freakish, are now commonplace. Scientists have long cautioned that, as the planet warms—it is roughly 1°C hotter today than before the industrial age’s first furnaces were lit—weather patterns will go berrk. An early analysis has found that this sweltering European summer would have been less than half as likely were it not for human-induced global warming.
十八岁生日祝福Yet as the impact of climate change becomes more evident, so too does the scale of the challenge ahead. Three years after countries vowed in Paris to keep warming “well below” 2°C relative to pre-industrial levels, greenhou-gas emissions are up again. So are investments in oil and gas. In 2017, for the first time in four years, demand for coal ro. Subsidies for renewables, such as wind and solar power, are dwindling in many places and investment has stalled; climate-friendly nuclear power is expensive and unpopular. It is tempting to think the are temporary tbacks and that mankind, with its instinct for lf-prervation, will muddle through to a victory over global warming. In fact, it is losing the war.谆的读音
Living in a fuel’s paradi
Insufficient progress is not to say no progress at all. As solar panels, wind turbines and other low-carbon technologies become cheaper and more efficient, their u has surged. Last year the number of electric cars sold around the world pasd 1m. In some sunny and blustery places renewable power now costs less than coal.
神眉鬼道Public concern is picking up. A poll last year of 38 countries found that 61% of people e climate change as a big threat; only the terrorists of Islamic State inspired more fear. In the West campaigning investors talk of divesting from companies that make their living from coal and oil. Despite President Donald Trump’s decision to yank America out of the Paris deal, many American cities and states have reaffirmed their commitment to it. Even some of the sceptic-in-chief’s fellow Republicans appear less aver to tackling the problem (e United States ction). In smog-shrouded China and India, citizens choking on fumes are prompting governments to rethink plans to rely heavily on coal to electrify their countries.
Optimists say that decarbonisation is within reach. Yet, even allowing for the familiar com
plexities of agreeing on and enforcing global targets, it is proving extraordinarily difficult.
文明扫墓
One reason is soaring energy demand, especially in developing Asia. In 2006-16, as Asia’s emerging economies forged ahead, their energy consumption ro by 40%. The u of coal, easily the dirtiest fossil fuel, grew at an annual rate of 3.1%. U of cleaner natural gas grew by 5.2% and of oil by 2.9%. Fossil fuels are easier to hook up to today’s grids than renewables that depend on the sun shining and the wind blowing. Even as green fund managers threaten to pull back from oil companies, state-owned behemoths in the Middle East and Russia e Asian demand as a compelling reason to invest.
The cond reason is economic and political inertia. The more fossil fuels a country consumes, the harder it is to wean itlf off them. Powerful lobbies, and the voters who back them, entrench coal in the energy mix. Reshaping existing ways of doing things can take years. In 2017 Britain enjoyed its first coal-free day since igniting the Industrial Revolution in the 1800s. Coal generates not merely 80% of India’s electricity, but also underpins the economies of some of its poorest states (e Briefing). Panjandrums in Del
hi are not keen to countenance the end of coal, lest that cripple the banking system, which lent it too much money, and the railways, which depend on it.
