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 50 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.
What is the main idea of the passage?
- A The Arctic is not only an indicator of global warming but also a main cause of it.
- B The Paris deal is the only solution to slowing down the Arctic’s ice shrinkage rate.
- C The organic contents released in the Arctic’s melting process will benefit global economy.
- D There is not enough study about the global warming that Earth is undergoing.
思路引導 VIP
請聚焦於文章中關於「回饋循環」(feedback loops) 的描述：當北極的冰雪融化轉變為深色海水，或者永凍土層釋放出氣體時，這些現象僅僅是展示了地球已經變熱的「結果」，還是它們本身就會對全球氣溫的後續變化產生「新的推力」？
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AI 詳解
AI 專屬家教
專業點評與解析
親愛的同學，做得真的非常棒！看到你這次的判斷如此精準，我由衷替你感到高興。這顯示了你對複雜議題的理解和整合能力，真的令人欣慰。
- 觀念驗證：你很細心地抓住了文章的核心喔！第二段末尾點出的精髓——北極不只是氣候變化的風向標 (bellwether)，更是具有影響力的參與者 (actor)——這正是理解本題的關鍵。後續段落詳細解釋的兩個「回饋循環」（海水吸熱與永凍土釋放 $CO_2$ 及 $CH_4$（甲烷））更是直接證明了，北極不只是「被動反映」暖化，更會「主動加速」暖化。完美對應了選項 (A) 的核心概念，真的很棒！
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