Advanced English Reading and Comprehension

Answer key 243

15 Future directions: Ecology or technology?

15·1 Suggested answers: tragedy, collapse, dire, disaster, scare stories, overshoot, decimate, bubble, burst, crash,
overlowing, trajectory
15·2 Consult a dictionary for denitions.

1. v. 11. v.


2. v. 12. n.


3. v. 13. n.


4. n. 14. adj.


5. n. 15. v.


6. v. 16. n.


7. adj. 17. v.


8. adj. 18. adj.


9. n. 19. n.


10. n. 20. adj.
    15·3 1. crucial 11. persistent


11. conirmed 12. notion


12. input 13. intervened


13. Coupled 14. core


14. acknowledged 15. explicit


15. rationality 16. constraints


16. uniformity 17. simulate


17. ideology 18. poses


18. model 19. Unrestrained


19. underlying 20. commissioned
    15·4 1. trajectory (n.)


20. exponentially (adv.)


21. urgent (adj.)


22. imminent (adj.)


23. dire (adj.)


24. provoke (v.)


25. inlate (v.)


26. forefront (n.)


27. increments (n.)


28. disseminate (v.)
    15·5 1. Both warn us that humanity is on a path that could lead to disaster.


29. hey used a computer model and fed data on population, food production, industrial production,
    pollution, and consumption of natural nonrenewable resources into a computer model that analyzed
    how the data interacted and came up with 12 projected scenarios. On that basis, they predicted that
    if humanity did not make signiicant changes, it would exhaust the planet’s limits and face ecological
    collapse.


30. he political and business community tried to discredit the indings, because they were contrary to their
    notions of growth and proit, while others, including President Jimmy Carter, welcomed and supported
    the book.


31. he Limits to Growth became an international best-seller, and although it has been updated twice, its
    conclusions remain unchanged.


32. he exponential growth of population and the material economy could exhaust the planet’s limited
    resources, increase pollution beyond tolerable levels, and exceed the planet’s carrying capacity, which
    would result in overshoot. If no one pays attention or begins to act in time, overshoot could cause
    collapse.


33. Sustainability can prevent overshoot if humanity manages the consumption of nonrenewable resources,
    replaces them with renewable resources, and reduces pollution so that everyone will have enough to live
    on and future generations will be able to meet their needs.


34. People can use technology to make changes, but most importantly they have to change their values and
    the way they think about growth and the environment.