2010 was the year the Earth struck back.
Earthquakes, heat waves, floods, volcanoes, super typhoons, blizzards (暴風雪), landslides and droughts killed at least a quarter million people in 2010 – the deadliest year in more than a generation. More people were killed worldwide by natural disasters this year than have been killed in terrorism attacks in the past 40 years combined.
“It just seemed like it was back-to-back(接二連三) and it came in waves,” said Craig Fugate, who heads the US Federal Emergency Management Agency. It handled a record number of disasters in 2010.
“The term “100-year event’ really lost its meaning this year.”
And we have ourselves to blame most of the time, scientists and disaster experts say.
Even though many disasters have the ring of random chance, the hand of man made this a particularly deadly, costly, extreme and strange year for everything from wild weather to earthquakes.
Poor construction and development practices make earthquakes more deadly than they need be. More people live in poverty in vulnerable buildings（危房） in crowded cities. That means that when the ground shakes, the river floods, or the tropical cyclone hits, more people die.
Disasters from the Earth, such as earthquakes and volcanoes “are pretty much constant,” said Andreas Schraft, vice president of catastrophic perils for the Geneva-based insurance giant Swiss Re. “All the change that’s made is man-made.”
The January earthquake that killed well more than 220,000 people in Haiti is a perfect example. Port-au-Prince has nearly three times as many people – many of them living in poverty- and more poorly built shanties(棚戶區(qū)) ,than it did 25 years ago. So had the same quake hit in 1985 instead of 2010; total deaths would have probably been in the 80,000 range, said Richard Olson, director of disaster risk reduction at Florida International University.
Climate scientists say Earth’s climate also is changing thanks to man-made global warming, bringing extreme weather, such as heat waves and flooding.
The excessive(過多的) amount of extreme weather that dominated 2010 is a classic sign of man-made global warming that climate scientists have long warned about. They calculate that the killer Russian heat wave – setting a national record of 111 degrees – would happen once every 100,000 years without global warming.
Data show that 18 countries broke their records for the hottest day ever.
“The Earth strikes back in response to bad human decision-making,” said Debarati Guha Sapir.” “It’s almost as if the policies, the government policies and development policies, are helping the Earth strike back instead of protecting from it. We’ve created conditions where the slightest thing the Earth does is really going to have a surprising impact.” White House science adviser John Holdren said we should get used to climate disasters or do something about global warming. “The science is clear that we can expect more and more of these kinds of damaging events unless and until society has sharply reduced the amount of heat-trapping gases and particles(顆粒).”
小題1:From paragraph 1 to paragraph 3, we learn
___________________________.
| A．what natural disasters mean to the people all over the world |
| B．how terrorism attacks struck in the past four decades |
| C．how the Earth struck back in 2010 |
| D．why the world saw so many disasters in 2010 |
小題2:The author gives the example of the big earthquake in Haiti to show that
___________ .
| A．poor construction largely accounts for more deaths than expected |
| B．man’s behaviours are to blame for the constant occurrence of natural disasters |
| C．the extreme weather mainly contributes to the disaster of the quake |
| D．the country’s poverty and over- crowdedness results in the disaster |
小題3: Which of the following would Debarati Guha Sapir most probably agree with?
| A．Environment protection should be taken into account in policy-making. |
| B．Natural disasters are causing increase. |
| C．The earth wouldn’t strike back but for the destruction by man. |
| D．Conditions should be created to rid the influence of disasters. |
小題4: According to John Holdren, the best way to cut back on the number of natural disasters is
__________________ .
| A．to forecast the happening of natural disasters accurately |
| B．to build stronger houses that can stand severe earthquakes and floods |
| C．to make better decisions and policies of city development |
| D．to send out much fewer greenhouse gases and particles |
小題5:What is the real concern of the writer of this article?
| A．The major causes of natural disasters. |
| B．The human unawareness of environment protection. |
| C．The harmonious relationship between humans and nature. |
| D．The serious results of global warming and earthquakes. |
