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  3. The world as we know it, some believe, needs fossil fuel to grow. "Global demand for energy is rising, driven by growing populat

The world as we know it, some believe, needs fossil fuel to grow. "Global demand for energy is rising, driven by growing populat

admin2023-01-30  7
问题     The world as we know it, some believe, needs fossil fuel to grow. "Global demand for energy is rising, driven by growing population with rising living standards," reads the Shell website. A recently-deleted British Petroleum ad said, "The world needs progress, seeking new possibilities everywhere so we can keep powering dreams and ambitions. " In other words, the key to people of the world living long, more prosperous lives is access to energy.
    However, a study in the journal Environmental Research Letters came to a starkly different conclusion. After examining the relationship between the life expectancy and fossil fuel use across 70 countries from the year 1971 to 2014, the researchers found that the increase in energy consumption was not the primary reason countries saw the increased life expectancy. Although energy and energy consumption were correlated with the life expectancy—an increase of 14 years over the 43-year period—the increase in energy use only accounted for roughly one-quarter of that increase; roughly four of those 14 years.
    "The easiest way to explain this is a thought experiment: given the relationships we measure from our data, can we measure how much the life expectancy would have increased if only fossil fuel emissions had increased? And can we measure how much the life expectancy would have increased without any increase in fossil fuel emissions? The total of these two add up to the total change in the life expectancy," said lead author of the study Julia Steinberger, via email.
    However, the researchers found that increased energy consumption was associated with a 90% increase in GDP—the economic meter usually used as a basis for assessing a country’s well-being, and ultimately the well-being of its residents. Academics have debated whether increasing GDP is possible while also reducing carbon emissions for a long time.
    For their part, the authors argue that GDP is an intrinsically flawed meter for residents’ well-being because, just because it does assess the economic standing of a nation, doesn’t mean it speaks to how that wealth is (or isn’t) distributed, let alone how long and well residents will live. If policymakers mean what they say when they claim to care about improving people’s lives while lowering greenhouse gas emissions, these findings are good for everybody.

What have researchers found about GDP?
选项 A、Increased energy consumption is the key factor in the increase in GDP.
B、GDP shouldn’t be a basis for assessing a country’s well-being.
C、GDP is not determined by energy consumption.
D、Energy consumption should be decreased for the sake of GDP.
答案A
解析 由题干中的researchers和GDP定位到第四段首句。细节辨认题。定位句表明，研究者们发现能源消耗的增加和GDP中90％的增加有关。由此可以看出，能源消耗的增加决定了GDP的绝大部分的增加，因此前者为后者的重要决定因素，故答案为A)。
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