This article has a passage on the truth about the environment reading answers. These IELTS reading answers are extremely important for your IELTS exam preparation online. You can check out the way of the questions asked along with the right way to answer the questions.
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The Truth About the Environment IELTS Reading Answers
Part One
For many environmentalists, the world seems to be getting worse. They have developed a hit-list of our main fears: that natural resources are running out; that the population is ever growing, leaving less and less to eat; that species are becoming extinct in vast numbers, and that the planet’s air and water are becoming ever more polluted.
Part Two
But a quick look at the facts shows a different picture. First, energy and other natural resources have become more abundant, not less so, since the ‘Limits to Growth’ was published in 1972 by a group of scientists. Second, more food is now produced per head of the world’s population than at any time in history. Fewer people are starving. Third, although species are indeed becoming extinct, only about 0.7% of them are expected to disappear in the next 50 years, not 25-50%, as has so often been predicted. And finally, most forms of environmental pollution either appear to have been exaggerated, or are transient – associated with the early phases of industrialisation and therefore best cured not by restricting economic growth, but by accelerating it. One form of pollution – the release of greenhouse gasses that causes global warming – does appear to be a phenomenon that is going to extend well into our future, but its total impact is unlikely to pose a devastating problem. A bigger problem may well turn out to be an inappropriate response to it.
Part Three
Yet opinion polls suggest that many people nurture the belief that environmental standards are declining and four factors seem to cause this disjunction between perception and reality.
One is the lopsidedness built into scientific research. Scientific funding goes mainly to areas with many problems. That may be wise policy, but it will also create an impression that many more potential problems exist than is the case.
Secondly, environmental groups need to be noticed by the mass media. They also need to keep the money rolling in. Understandably, perhaps,they sometimes overstate their arguments. In 1997, for example, the World Wide Fund for Nature issued a press release entitled: ‘Two thirds of the world’s forests lost forever’. The truth turns out to be nearer 20%.
Part Four
Though these groups are run overwhelmingly by selfless folk, they nevertheless share many of the characteristics of other lobby groups. That would matter less if people applied the same degree of skepticism to environmental lobbying as they do to lobby groups In other fields. A trade organization arguing for, say, weaker pollution controls is instantly seen as self-interested. Yet a green organization opposing such a weakening is seen as altruistic, even if an impartial view of the controls in question might suggest they are doing more harm than good.
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Part Five
A third source of confusion is the attitude of the media. People are clearly more curious about bad news than good. Newspapers and broadcasters are there to provide what the public wants. That, however, can lead to significant distortions of perception. An example was America’s encounter with El Nino in 1997 and 1998. This climatic phenomenon was accused of wrecking tourism, causing allergies, melting the ski-slopes and causing 22 deaths. However, according to an article in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, the damage it did was estimated at US$4 billion but the benefits amounted to some US$19 billion. These came from higher winter temperatures (which saved an estimated 850 lives, reduced heating costs and diminished spring floods caused by meltwaters).
Part Six
The fourth factor is poor individual perception. People worry that the endless rise in the amount of stuff everyone throws away will cause the world to run out of places to dispose of waste. Yet, even if America’s trash output continues to rise as it has done in the past, and even if the American population doubles by 2100, all the rubbish America produces through the entire 21st century will still take up only one-12.000th of the area of the entire United States.
So what of global warming? As we know, carbon dioxide emissions are causing the planet to warm. The best estimates are that the temperatures will rise by 2-3°C in this century, causing considerable problems, at a total cost of US$5,000 billion.
Part Seven
Despite the intuition that something drastic needs to be done about such a costly problem, economic analyses clearly show it will be far more expensive to cut carbon dioxide emissions radically than to pay the costs of adaptation to the increased temperatures. A model by one of the main authors of the United Nations Climate Change Panel shows how an expected temperature increase of 2.1 degrees in 2100 would only be diminished to an increase of 1.9 degrees. Or to put it another way, the temperature increase that the planet would have experienced in 2094 would be postponed to 2100.
Part Eight
So this does not prevent global warming, but merely buys the world six years. Yet the cost of reducing carbon dioxide emissions, for the United States alone, will be higher than the cost of solving the world’s single, most pressing health problem: providing universal access to clean drinking water and sanitation. Such measures would avoid 2 million deaths every year, and prevent half a billion people from becoming seriously ill.
It is crucial that we look at the facts if we want to make the best possible decisions for the future. It may be costly to be overly optimistic – but more costly still to be too pessimistic.
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Questions Related to IELTS Reading Passage
Question Number One
Following are a few statements given from the passage above. You have to check the answers from the passage and write them correctly.
#1. According to an article in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, the damage it did was estimated at _______________ but the benefits amounted to some _____________.
Answer: US$4 billion, US$19 billion
#2. In 1997, the World Wide Fund for Nature issued a press release entitled: _________________
Answer: ‘Two thirds of the world’s forests lost forever’.
#3. A model by one of the main authors of the United Nations Climate Change Panel shows how an expected temperature increase of ____________ in 2100 would only be diminished to an increase of ____________.
Answer: 2.1 degrees, 1.9 degrees
#4. Species are indeed becoming extinct, only about _________ of them are expected to disappear in the next 50 years.
Answer: 0.7%
#5. Providing universal access to clean drinking water and sanitation measures would avoid ___________ every year,
Answer: 2 million deaths
Question Number Two
Look at the statements below and after reading them, write TRUE or FALSE in front of them.
TRUE – If the statement agrees with the information that is given above in the passage.
FALSE – If the statement disagrees with the information that is given above in the passage.
#1. The fourth factor is poor individual perception.
Answer: FALSE
#2. For many environmentalists, the world seems to be getting worse.
Answer: TRUE
#3. Limits to Growth’ was published in 1972 by a group of scientists.
Answer: TRUE
#4. The best estimates are that the temperatures will rise by 15-20°C in this century.
Answer: FALSE
#5. The temperature increase that the planet would have experienced in 2094 would be postponed to 2100.
Answer: TRUE
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