Read the passage given below and answer the questions: (from 141 to 150) .... The kind of stewardship championed by David Brower, Paul Ehrlich, E.O. Wilson, Morris and Stewart Udall, Edmund Muskie and Richard Nixon reflected their awe at the grandeur, interconnectedness and unpredictability of the ecosystems and wild landscapes. That perspective was transformative. It ushered in the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act and the Endangered Species Act, name just a few successes. This suite of laws produced real results and is still working, protecting natural systems and the people who rely on them. After all we have the hopeful and heroic thinkers who gave us the Clean Air Act to thank for the 2015 Clean Power Plan, the only tool the United States has to enforce national climate change action. But from climate change denial to corporate malfeasance resistance to enforceable environmental protection is rampant. Seeking any conceivable path forward, many young leaders are exchanging their sympathy for the victims of environmental damage for the concerns of the regulated community. They turn away from enforceability - based approaches and promote more conservative techniques that they hope will impress and persuade reticent and cynical policymakers and power brokers. If this is environmentalism at all, it is "desperate environmentalism, " characterized not by awe, enthusiasm and enjoyment of nature but by appeasement. It relies on utilitarian efficiencies, costbenefit analyses, private sector indulgences and anthropocentric divvying of natural resources. It champions voluntary commitments, tweaks to corporate supply chains, protection not of the last great places on Earth but of those places that yield profit of services. From market-friendly cap-andtrade to profit-driven corporate social responsibility, desperate environmentalists angle for the least-bad of the worst options rather than the robust and enforceable safeguards that once defined the movement. At best, the desperate form of environmentalism is a greyhound chasing a rabbit lure futilely around the track. At worst it is the ratcheting of individually good policies into a sweeping, embedded ideology from which the movement cannot return. The environmentalists of old insisted on transformation not marginal gains. The Clean Water Act aimed to restore the integrity of all the nation's waters by eliminating water pollution. Now we quantify whether such improvement is economically efficient, and we politely ask whether an industrial facility might consider reducing its discharge. Perhaps, desperate environmentalists suggest, such a reduction would improve the bottom line by reducing some costs. Suddenly, economic efficiency moves from being one in a collection of cultural values that drive decisions to the only relevant value. And the ratchet turns in only one direction. Having conceded so much to conservative approaches, desperate environmentalists cannot advocate what is now a radical idea of the past: Government should force polluters to reduce pollution for the sake of healthy natural systems and human enjoyment. The problem is, desperate environmentalists strive for a mythical conservative embrace but cooperation from the right is unrealistic. As they move right in an attempt to meet their opponents, the opponents will not, at some undefined threshold of compromise, consent to new policies of protection. Rather, desperate environmentalists could continue to erode their position until environmentalism grows unrecognizable .......
Why does the author say that "desperate environmentalists could continue to erode their position until environmentalism grows unrecognizable?
-
A.
Because environmentalism divorced from economic considerations and profit-driven corporate social responsibilities is not true environmentalism but is a greyhound chasing a rabbit lure futilely around the track.
-
B.
Because as desperate environmentalists give in increasingly to conservative approaches to accommodate economic efficiency and marginal gains, they are increasingly moving towards a position that might make environmentalism impossible.
-
C.
Because radicals and transformative positions of old environmentalists have become redundant and obsolete in the present scenario.
-
D.
Because economic efficiency has transformation from being one in a collection of various cultural values that drove decision -making to being the only relevant value.
Correct Answer:
B. Because as desperate environmentalists give in increasingly to conservative approaches to accommodate economic efficiency and marginal gains, they are increasingly moving towards a position that might make environmentalism impossible.
Explanation:
The author suggests that environmentalists, in their desperation, might increasingly compromise their stance by adopting conservative methods to prioritize economic efficiency and slight improvements. This shift could lead environmentalism to become unrecognizable and potentially unachievable. Therefore, option (b) is the correct choice.
Click below to open Discussion & Feedback
0 Issues
Please
login to comment or Report Issues.