题目内容
They’re faithful, friendly and furry-but under their harmless appearance, dogs and cats, the world’s most popular house pets, use up more energy resources in a year than driving a car, according to a new book
In their book Time to Eat the Dog: The Real Guide to Sustainable（可持续的） Living, New Zealand-based architects Robert and Brenda Vale say keeping a medium-sized dog has the same ecological impact as driving 10,000 km a year in a 4.6 liter Land Cruiser. "There are no recipes in the book," Robert Vale said, laughingly, in a telephone interview. "We’re not actually saying it is time to eat the dog. We’re just saying that we need to think about and know the ecological impact of some of the things we do and that we take for granted."
Constructing and driving the jeep for a year requires 0.41 hectares of land, while growing and manufacturing a dog’s food takes about 0.84 hectares. Meat-eating swells the eco-footprint of dogs, and cats are not that much better, the Vales found. Thus, they recommend keeping "greener", smaller, and more sustainable pets, such as goldfish, chickens or rabbits.
The book’s playful title, and serious suggestion that pet animals should be usefully "recycled", by being eaten by their owners or turned into pet food when they die, may not appeal to animal fans.
Offputting as the idea may be, the question is valid, considering the planet’s growing population and limited resources, Robert Vale said.
"Issues about sustainability are increasingly becoming things that are going to require us to make choices which are as difficult as eating your dog. It’s not just about changing your light bulbs or taking a cloth bag to the supermarket," he said. "It’s about much more challenging and difficult issues," he added. "Once you see where cats and dogs fit in your overall balance of things, you might decide to have the cat but not to have the two cars and the three bathrooms and be a meat eater yourself."
1. In the book architects Robert and Brenda Vale mainly intend to ______
A. show their interest in driving a car
B. clarify their disapproval of house pets
C. persuade readers to live an energy-saving life
D. remind people to make the most of energy resources
2. From the text, we know______
A. cats aren’t so environmentally friendly as dogs
B. pets occupy more room than a car at home
C. most people in the world keep dogs as house pets
D. pet owners should take their ecological impact into account
3. According to the Vales, ______
A. people are encouraged to keep a medium-sized dog
B. people are supposed to eat dogs at once
C. animal fans are willing to turn their pets into food
D. people are advised to keep more sustainable pets
4. The underlined word "offputting" in Paragraph 5 roughly means ______
A. unpleasant B. acceptable C. reasonable D. satisfactory
5. The last paragraph shows that______
A. the writer shows little interest in changing the light bulbs
B. it’s challenging for people to live a sustainable life
C. people shouldn’t keep pets as well as a car meanwhile
D. it’s necessary for pet owners to eat their lovely dogs
CDDAB
