Direction: These questions are based on the information given below: Our…
2026
Direction: These questions are based on the information given below: Our current approach to solving global warming will not work. It is flawed economically, because carbon taxes will cost a fortune and do little, and it is flawed politically because negotiations to reduce carbon-dioxide emissions will become ever more fraught and divisive. And even if you disagree on both counts, the current approach is also flawed technologically. Many countries are now setting ambitious carbon cutting goals ahead of global negotiations. Let us imagine that the world ultimately agrees on an ambitious target. Say, we decide to reduce carbon-dioxide emissions by three-quarters by the year 2100 while maintaining reasonable growth. Herein lies the technological problem to meet this goal, non-carbon based sources of energy would have to be astounding 2.5 times greater in 2100 than that was in the year 2000. These figures were calculated by economists of a foreign university. Their research shows that confronting global warming effectively requires nothing short of a technological revolution. We are not taking this challenge seriously. If we continue on our current path, technological development will be nowhere near significant enough to make non-carbon based energy sources competitive with fossil fuels on price and effectiveness. Sadly, during the international negotiations, the focus is on how much carbon to cut, rather than on how to do so. Little or no consideration will be given to whether the means of cutting emissions are sufficient to achieve the goals. Politicians will base their decisions on global warming models that simply assume that technological breakthroughs will happen by themselves. This faith is sadly and dangerously misplaced. Economists examine the state of non-carbon based energy today - nuclear, wind, solar, and geothermal and find that, taken together, alternative energy sources would get us less than halfway towards a path of stable carbon emissions by 2050, and only a tiny fraction of the way towards stabilisation by 2100. We need many times more non-carbon based energy than which is currently produced. Yet the needed technology will not be ready in terms of scalability or stability. In many cases, there is still a need for the most basic research and development. We are not even close to getting this revolution started. Current technology is so inefficient that to take just one example, if we were serious about wind power, we would have to blanket most countries with wind turbines to generate enough energy for everybody, and we would still have the massive problem of storage. We don't know what to do when the wind does not blow. Policy makers should abandon fraught carbon reduction negotiations and instead make agreements to invest in research and development to get this technology to the level where it needs to be. Which of the following points is/are suggested in the passage by which global warming can be reduced?
- A.
Make the approach towards global warming completely free from political intervention.
- B.
Make non-carbon based energy methods as efficient and cost effective as the fossil fuels.
- C.
Force every country to confine itself to stricter terms of carbon emissions.
- D.
Avoid international negotiation on carbon cuts until the technological research comes out with a scalable and stable solution.
Attempted by 100 students.
Show answer & explanation
Correct answer: B
Answer: Make non-carbon based energy methods as efficient and cost effective as fossil fuels.
Evidence from the passage:
The author says confronting global warming "requires nothing short of a technological revolution" and that we must "make non-carbon based energy sources competitive with fossil fuels on price and effectiveness."
Economists cited find that current alternative energy would get us less than halfway to stable emissions by 2050 and only a tiny fraction by 2100, showing the need for much better non-carbon technology.
The passage recommends shifting international focus from arguing over how much carbon to cut to making agreements to invest in research and development so technology can reach required scalability and stability.
Why the other choices are not supported:
Making the approach completely free from political intervention is not proposed; the passage critiques current politics but calls for different political agreements (to fund R&D), not depoliticization.
Forcing every country into stricter emissions terms is rejected by the passage as politically fraught and technologically unrealistic without major advances in non-carbon energy.
Avoiding international negotiation on carbon cuts until technology arrives is oversimplified; the passage advises abandoning carbon-cut negotiations in favor of negotiating commitments to invest in research and development so technology can be developed.