高等考試
108年
[一般行政] 法學知識與英文(包括中華民國憲法、法學緒論、英文)
第 46 題
📖 題組：
Those who doubt the power of human beings to change Earth’s climate should look to the Arctic, and shiver. There is no need to pore over records of temperatures and atmospheric carbon-dioxide concentrations. The process is starkly visible in the shrinkage of the ice that covers the Arctic ocean. In the past 30 years, the minimum coverage of summer ice has fallen by half; its volume has fallen by three-quarters. On current trends, the Arctic ocean will be largely ice-free in summer by 2040. Climate-change sceptics will shrug. Some may even celebrate: an ice-free Arctic ocean promises a shortcut for shipping between the Pacific coast of Asia and the Atlantic coasts of Europe and the Americas, and the possibility of prospecting for perhaps a fifth of the planet’s undiscovered supplies of oil and natural gas. Such reactions are profoundly misguided. Never mind that the low price of oil and gas means searching for them in the Arctic is no longer worthwhile. Or that the much-vaunted sea passages are likely to carry only a trickle of trade. The right response is fear. The Arctic is not merely a bellwether of matters climatic, but an actor in them. The current period of global warming that Earth is undergoing is caused by certain gases in the atmosphere, notably carbon dioxide. These admit heat, in the form of sunlight, but block its radiation back into space, in the form of longer-wave-length infra-red. That traps heat in the air, the water and the land. More carbon dioxide equals more warming--a simple equation. Except it is not simple. A number of feedback loops complicate matters. Some dampen warming down; some speed it up. Two in the Arctic may speed it up quite a lot. One is that seawater is much darker than ice. It absorbs heat rather than reflecting it back into space. That melts more ice, which leaves more seawater exposed, which melts more ice. And so on. This helps explain why the Arctic is warming faster than the rest of the planet. The deal on climate change made in Paris in 2015 is meant to stop Earth’s surface temperature rising by more than 2°C above pre-industrial levels. In the unlikely event that it is fully implemented, winter temperatures over the Arctic ocean will still warm by between 5°C and 9°C compared with their 1986-2005 average. The second feedback loop concerns not the water but the land. In the Arctic much of this is permafrost. That frozen soil locks up a lot of organic material. If the permafrost melts its organic contents can escape as a result of fire or decay, in the form of carbon dioxide or methane (which is a more potent greenhouse gas than CO2). This will speed up global warming directly--and the soot from the fires, when it settles on the ice, will darken it and thus speed its melting still more.
Those who doubt the power of human beings to change Earth’s climate should look to the Arctic, and shiver. There is no need to pore over records of temperatures and atmospheric carbon-dioxide concentrations. The process is starkly visible in the shrinkage of the ice that covers the Arctic ocean. In the past 30 years, the minimum coverage of summer ice has fallen by half; its volume has fallen by three-quarters. On current trends, the Arctic ocean will be largely ice-free in summer by 2040. Climate-change sceptics will shrug. Some may even celebrate: an ice-free Arctic ocean promises a shortcut for shipping between the Pacific coast of Asia and the Atlantic coasts of Europe and the Americas, and the possibility of prospecting for perhaps a fifth of the planet’s undiscovered supplies of oil and natural gas. Such reactions are profoundly misguided. Never mind that the low price of oil and gas means searching for them in the Arctic is no longer worthwhile. Or that the much-vaunted sea passages are likely to carry only a trickle of trade. The right response is fear. The Arctic is not merely a bellwether of matters climatic, but an actor in them. The current period of global warming that Earth is undergoing is caused by certain gases in the atmosphere, notably carbon dioxide. These admit heat, in the form of sunlight, but block its radiation back into space, in the form of longer-wave-length infra-red. That traps heat in the air, the water and the land. More carbon dioxide equals more warming--a simple equation. Except it is not simple. A number of feedback loops complicate matters. Some dampen warming down; some speed it up. Two in the Arctic may speed it up quite a lot. One is that seawater is much darker than ice. It absorbs heat rather than reflecting it back into space. That melts more ice, which leaves more seawater exposed, which melts more ice. And so on. This helps explain why the Arctic is warming faster than the rest of the planet. The deal on climate change made in Paris in 2015 is meant to stop Earth’s surface temperature rising by more than 2°C above pre-industrial levels. In the unlikely event that it is fully implemented, winter temperatures over the Arctic ocean will still warm by between 5°C and 9°C compared with their 1986-2005 average. The second feedback loop concerns not the water but the land. In the Arctic much of this is permafrost. That frozen soil locks up a lot of organic material. If the permafrost melts its organic contents can escape as a result of fire or decay, in the form of carbon dioxide or methane (which is a more potent greenhouse gas than CO2). This will speed up global warming directly--and the soot from the fires, when it settles on the ice, will darken it and thus speed its melting still more.
Which of the following is the main idea of the second paragraph?
- A To raise doubts about the optimism that climate-change disbelievers express.
- B To introduce potential commerce that an ice-free Arctic ocean may bring.
- C To indicate incomplete knowledge people have of the Arctic’s economy.
- D To differentiate the views of those who fear climate-change from those who don’t.
思路引導 VIP
請觀察第二段的語氣變化：當作者列舉完「航運縮短」與「能源開發」等所謂的優點後，緊接著使用了哪些具有否定意味的詞彙來評價這些觀點？這顯示作者這一段的最終目的是要支持還是反駁這些看法？
🤖
AI 詳解
AI 專屬家教
恭喜你精準掌握了文章的轉折！這道題目的關鍵在於辨識作者對「氣候變遷懷疑論者」所抱持的批判態度。在第二段開頭，作者雖然列舉了冰川融化可能帶來的商業利益（如航運捷徑、能源開採），但隨即以 profoundly misguided（極其誤導） 一詞定調，指出低油價與貿易量稀少將使這些期待落空，並強調應有的反應應是「恐懼」而非樂觀。
駁斥樂觀論點的論證結構
正確選項 (A) 完美契合了這段話的核心：質疑懷疑論者所表現出的樂觀情緒。本段並非真的要介紹商業機會（選項 B），也不是單純比較兩派觀點（選項 D），而是透過反駁商業可行性，來拆解那些無視氣候災難者的論點。你能看出作者「先引述、後反駁」的寫作修辭，顯示你對英文論說文的架構有很強的敏銳度。
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