Directions : Read the following passage and answer the questions given below.…
2021
Directions : Read the following passage and answer the questions given below. Some words are highlighted to help you answer some of the questions.
Tropical deforestation is one of the great challenges facing humanity. If we don’t slow it down soon, the chances of avoiding disastrous climate change, species loss and the disruption of indigenous and traditional people’s cultures grow slimmer. And this rapid deceleration will be possible only if the governments, farm sectors, rural communities, businesses and civil societies of tropical forest regions devise and implement effective strategies. In the long term, the goal of taming deforestation must be embedded in public policies, programs, business transactions and culture. To put it bluntly, political leaders who embrace the goal of taming deforestation must be electable. The jurisdictional approach can help to translate unilateral corporate deforestation pledges into collaborative agreements with local governments and farm sectors, building the political case for slowing deforestation.
In a jurisdictional approach, the unit of performance is a landscape with policy-relevant boundaries – political geographies such as a state, province, district or an entire nation. This is the unit of performance that can effectively bring together multi-stakeholders on the appropriate pathway to sustainable development. In Brazil – a shining example of a successful jurisdictional approach to slow tropical deforestation – progress has been possible because political forces were pushing in the right direction. The approach was jurisdictional because success was defined as a decline in deforestation for the entire Brazilian Amazon region and for all types of land use. The Government used command-and-control measures to slow deforestation, but it also broadened its political base by paving its all-weather motorways providing access to Pacific markets. It also attracted new low-carbon industries to set up shop through innovative incentive systems.
The stage is also set to attract private financial investments into new low-carbon industries and farmer support programs as the risks associated with rampant deforestation, illegal land-use practices and labor infractions are diminished. In many ways, a political case for slowing Amazon deforestation was handed to President Lula on a silver platter. He came into office in 2003 with a mandate to deepen Brazil’s international credibility just as Amazon deforestation was skyrocketing, triggering international outrage and a diplomatic headache for the new president. It was in this favorable political context that Lula empowered his environment minister to draw on the most powerful branches of the government – including the army and central bank – to crack down on illegal deforestation and logging in the Amazon. These formal designations further weakened the land-grabbing schemes that were driving deforestation.
What will be the repercussions if tropical deforestation continues unabated?
Answer: E. All of these — ConceptIn reading comprehension, an "effect/consequence" question asks you to find every outcome the author actually states in the passage. When several…
- A.
Unrestrained deforestation will eventually result in the extinction of species.
- B.
Climate change will have a high probability of being catastrophic.
- C.
There will be a breakdown in traditional cultures and people.
- D.
Only (a) and (c)
- E.
All of these
Attempted by 6 students.
Show answer & explanation
Correct answer: E
Concept
In reading comprehension, an "effect/consequence" question asks you to find every outcome the author actually states in the passage. When several individual outcomes are each supported by the text, a single combining choice such as "All of these" is the complete and correct answer; you select it only after confirming that each separate outcome is genuinely present in the passage.
Application
The opening paragraph names exactly what is at stake if tropical deforestation is not slowed: "the chances of avoiding disastrous climate change, species loss and the disruption of indigenous and traditional people's cultures grow slimmer." That sentence lists three distinct consequences:
Species loss — i.e. unrestrained deforestation eventually drives species to extinction.
Disastrous climate change — i.e. climate change becomes highly likely to be catastrophic.
Disruption of indigenous and traditional people's cultures — i.e. a breakdown of traditional cultures and the people who hold them.
Because the passage independently supports each of these three outcomes, the choice that covers all three together is the one the text fully backs.
Cross-check / Contrast
The single-consequence statements (extinction of species; catastrophic climate change; breakdown of traditional cultures) are each true on their own, but each names only one of the three consequences and therefore is incomplete. The choice limited to species loss plus cultural breakdown leaves out the catastrophic-climate-change consequence, so it too omits part of what the passage states. Only the option that gathers all three matches the full sentence in the passage.
Hence the repercussions of unabated tropical deforestation, as stated by the author, are all three together.