网站导航   4000-006-150  
小站教育
学生选择在小站备考:30天 525857名,今日申请3440人    备考咨询 >>

【新SAT写作】5月7日北美SAT写作考试阅读原文

2016年05月10日15:37 来源:互联网
参与(7) 阅读(20280)
摘要:5月7日北美SAT写作考试文章源自Time, 真题为“Viewpoint:air-conditioning will be the end of us”,作者Eric Klinenberg呼吁为了人类的未来,减少使用空调。

【新SAT写作】5月7日北美SAT写作考试阅读原文图1

5月7日北美SAT写作考试文章源自Time, 题目为“Viewpoint:air-conditioning will be the end of us”,作者Eric Klinenberg呼吁为了人类的未来,减少使用空调。

以下是原文:

P1: Earlier this week, as the temperature in New York City hit the upper 90s and the heat index topped 100, my utility provider issued a heat alert and advised customers to use air-conditioning “wisely.” It was a nice, polite gesture but also an utterly ineffectual one. After all, despite our other green tendencies, most Americans still believe that the wise way to use air conditioners is to crank them up, cooling down every room in the house — or even better, relax in the cold blasts of a movie theater or shopping mall, where someone else pays the bills. Today Americans use twice as much energy for air-conditioning as we did 20 years ago, and more than the rest of the world’s nations combined. As a climate-change adaptation strategy, this is as dumb as it gets.

P2: I’m hardly against air-conditioning. During heat waves, artificial cooling can save the lives of old, sick and frail people, and epidemiologists have shown that owning an AC unit is one of the strongest predictors of who survives during dangerously hot summer weeks. I’ve long advocated public-health programs that help truly vulnerable people, whether isolated elders in broiling urban apartments or farm workers who toil in sunbaked fields, by giving them easy access to air-conditioning.

P3: I also recognize that air conditioners can enhance productivity in offices and make factories safer for workers who might otherwise wilt in searing temperatures. Used conservatively — say, to reduce indoor temperatures to the mid-70s in rooms that, because of shortsighted design, cannot be cooled by cross-ventilation from fans and windows — air conditioners may well generate enough benefits to balance the indisputable, irreversible damage they generate. But in most situations, the case for air-conditioning is made of hot air.

P4: What’s indefensible is our habit of converting homes, offices and massive commercial outlets into igloos on summer days, regardless of how hot it is outdoors. Recently, New York City prohibited stores from pumping arctic air out onto the searing sidewalks in an attempt to lure customers while burning through fossil fuels in suicidal fashion. I can’t help but wonder whether cities like New York will ever prohibit stores from cooling their facilities below, say, 70°F. No doubt a law like that would raise even more objections than Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s attempt to ban big sodas, but it might well be necessary if we can’t turn down the dial on our own.

P5: I’m skeptical that American businesses and consumers will reduce their use of air-conditioning without new rules and regulations, especially now that natural gas has helped bring down energy bills and the short-term costs of cranking the AC are relatively low. Part of the problem is that in recent decades, the fastest-growing U.S. cities — places like Las Vegas, Phoenix and Austin — have effectively been built on air-conditioning. (This is also true in the Middle East and Asia, and as a result, global energy consumption is soaring precisely when it needs to be lowered.) Throughout the country, most designs for new office, commercial and residential property rely entirely on AC, rather than on time-honored cooling technologies such as shading from trees and cross-ventilation from windows and fans. As a result, there is now an expectation that indoor air will be frigid on even the steamiest days everywhere from the Deep South to the Great West. What’s worse, this expectation is spreading to the nations where American culture carries influence; sales of air conditioners rose 20% in India and China last year.

P6: Trying to engineer hot weather out of existence rather than adjust our culture of consumption for the age of climate change is one of our biggest environmental blind spots. If you can’t stand the heat, you should know that blasting the AC will ultimately make us all even hotter. Let’s put our air conditioners on ice before it’s too late.

>>>传送门

新SAT写作真题范文赏析汇总:http://sat.zhan.com/xiezuo46460.html

6月4日亚太新SAT考试真题回忆解析:http://sat.zhan.com/fuxi46227.html

新SAT考试攻略汇总、你想知道的都在这儿了:http://sat.zhan.com/fuxi46180.html

SAT/ACT备考资料免费领取

免费领取
看完仍有疑问?想要更详细的答案?
备考问题一键咨询提分方案
获取专业解答

相关文章

【SAT词汇资料】SAT direct hits 部分必背... SAT阅读如何高分?文章斜体字会告诉你 揭秘如何在短时间内正确做对SAT阅读选择题 【SAT备考】浅析SAT阅读高频题型答题技巧 7种速杀绝招、攻克SAT阅读词汇填空题 【SAT阅读技巧】SAT阅读考前备考战略 怎样快速阅读SAT文章?7大事项要注意 【美国留学】详解美国大学的招生制度如何选拔大学生
版权申明| 隐私保护| 意见反馈| 联系我们| 关于我们| 网站地图| 最新资讯
© 2011-2024 ZHAN.com All Rights Reserved. 沪ICP备13042692号-23 举报电话:4000-006-150
沪公网安备 31010602002658号
增值电信业务经营许可证:沪B2-20180682