阅读理解
Most
of the new diseases we humans have faced in the past several decades have come
from animals. The more we come into contact with wild animals, the more we risk
a so-called disease “spillover” from animals to humans.
“As
people move and wildlife move in response to a changing environment, humans and
wildlife and animals will come in contact more regularly,” said Jeanne Fair
from the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. Fair argues that by
shifting animal habitats, climate change will also make the opportunities for
disease spillover more frequent. “Everything is sort of shifting and will shift
into the future as the environment changes through climate change,” Fair said.
Scientists,
including climatologists and epidemiologists (流行病学家) on Fair's team at Los Alamos, are beginning to
model how changes to the climate will impact the spread of infectious diseases.
It's early days for this kind of research, but previous studies suggest that
extreme weather has already played a role in at least one outbreak. Scientists
say drought and deforestation have combined to force bats out of rain forests
and into orchards (果园) in Malaysia
to find food. Those bats, a common disease reservoir, then passed the Nipah
virus through pigs to humans for the first time in the late 1990s.
“We're
going by the past data to really predict what's going to happen in the future,”
Fair said, “And so, anytime you increase that wildlife-human interface, that's
sort of an emerging disease hot spot. And so, that's just increasing as we go
forward.”
Jeffrey
Shaman, head of the climate and health program at Columbia University's public
health school, argues we don't yet know whether climate change will cause a net
increase in infectious disease rates globally. For example, mosquitoes carry
disease that affects millions of people across the world every year. As their
habitats expand in some parts of the world, they might contract diseases
elsewhere. Shaman says what we know for certain about climate change is that it
will make it harder to predict where disease outbreaks will pop up.
(1)
How does climate change affect the spread of disease according to Fair?
A . By breaking animals' habits.
B . By increasing animals' varieties.
C . By promoting animals' breeding.
D . By changing animals' living environment.
(2)
What is the example of bats for in paragraph 3?
A . Explaining the influence of Nipah virus.
B . Proving the harm of bats to human beings.
C . Showing the effects of climate change on disease.
D . Presenting scientists' early study about the cause of disease.
(3)
What can we infer from Fair's words in paragraph 4?
A . Humans should give up studying animals.
B . Frequent contact with animals can cause disease outbreaks.
C . Disease hot spots will disappear if animals die out.
D . Past data can solve the problems in the future.
(4)
What could be the best title for the text?
A . Climate Change and Disease Spillover
B . Animals' Interaction with Humans
C . Early Studies about Extreme Weather
D . Scientists' Prediction for Disease Outbreaks
答案: D
C
B
A