【阅读理解】 Skeptics are a strange lot.Some of them refuse to admit the serious threat of human activities to the enviroment, and they are tired of people who disagree with them.Those people,say skeptics,spread nothing but bad news about the environment.The “ecoguilt”brought on by the discouraging news about our planet gives rise to the popularity of skeptics as people search for more comforting worldviews. Perhaps that explains why a new book by Bjorn Lomborg received so much publicity.That book ,The Skeptical Environmentalist, declares that it measures the “real state of the world”as fine. Of course ,another explanation is the deep pockets of some big businesses with special interests. Indeed, Mr. Lomborg's views are similar to those of some industryfunded organizations, which start huge activities through the media to confuse the public about issues like global warming. So it was strange to see Mr. Lomborg's book go largely unchallenged in the media though his beliefs were contrary to most scientific opinions. One national newspaper in Canada ran a number of articles and reviews full of words of praise, even with the conclusion that “After Lomborg, the environmental movement will begin to die down.” Such onesided views should have immediately been challenged. But only a different review appeared in Nature, a respected science magazine with specific readership. The review remarked that Mr. Lomborg's “preference for unexamined materials is incredible(不可信的)”. |