Questões de Inglês

A questão se refere aos textos.

 

TEXTO

Brazilian ethanol is not causing deforestation

    Ethanol production in Brazil is not causing deforestation in the Amazon region, says Peter Zuurbier, Associate Professor and Director of the Latin America Office of Wageningen University, the world’s leading center of expertise on tropical agriculture.
    According to him, the notion often held by NGO’s that sugarcane is displacing cattle and soybean production into the Amazon is inaccurate. “The real problem lies in illegal deforestation and lack of property rights, as around 50 percent of the Amazon region has disputed titles and this is an invitation for timber companies,” he says.
    Prof. Zuurbier tries to explain a dynamic process between illegal activities in the Amazon rainforest and the expansion of agricultural lands towards that region. NGO’s often state that sugarcane production is displacing cattle and soybean production towards and into the Amazon, burning down the area to make it suitable for agriculture and pastures.
    According to Zuurbier, however, the process is slightly different. “Well organized groups and corporations with questionable land titles, but also official land owners began to chop down large acreages of forest to trade timber, both legally and illegally,” he says. “Usually, after the empty strips of land were abandoned, cattle owners would move into these cheap lands. However, after 3 to 4 years of cattle breeding, the thin soil of the Amazon is completely useless without any form of fertilization and livestock owners usually move into the next abandoned area. Soybean farmers meanwhile replace the livestock in these areas, recognizing the opportunity to fertilize the area for soybean production.”
    Prof. Zuurbier says the cause of deforestation and agricultural production in or near the Amazon, is simply illegal deforestation itself. According to him, the fact that Brazil still has questionable land titles, no set-aside policy and great difficulty to enforce existing laws to counter illegal timber trade, are the real reasons why the Amazon rainforest is in danger.

(Ethanol Statistics - January 21st 2008, http://www.sucre-ethique.org/Wageningen-expert-Brazilian)

TEXTO 

Coasting on Past Glory

    The Amazon is still largely intact, but the future hinges on decisions being made now.
    From the window of a Boeing, few countries are greener than Brazil. Since much of this vast territory in the heart of South America is still unpeopled and unblemished, it’s not surprising that Brazil looks good against the backdrop of a mistreated planet. It ranks 34th of 149 nations in Yale and Columbia’s Environmental Performance Index – greener than Ireland (35th) and the United States (39th). But how long will the country be able to hold on to this favorable score?
    To get a better look, you have to go to 9,000 meters, the altitude from which the NASA remote-sensing satellites sweep the earth. Every year, scientists at Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research (INPE) pore over satellite images to produce the most detailed survey of deforestation of any nation in the world. Such candor has won Brazil kudos, but also criticism. Brazil is the fourth biggest contributor of greenhouse gases globally, of which 75 percent comes from the felling and burning of forests. So when data released by INPE in late May showed that 5,850 square kilometers of forest (an area larger than Brunei) had disappeared from August 2007 to April 2008 – a 17 percent spike from the year before – the planet took notice. “Brazil has a fantastic endowment from nature but is failing when it comes to managing it,” says Judicael Clevelario Junior, head of environmental studies at the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), the census bureau.
    Brazil’s green laurels are not an illusion. Four fifths of its electric power comes from hydroelectric plants. It is the world leader in biofuels – nearly 30 percent of its cars run on ethanol. The trouble is that these virtues reflect sound decisions made in the 1970s, during the ambitious military government of Gen. Ernesto Geisel. Brazil has not always followed them up.
    (…) Fortunately, Brazil has options. Its booming economy is not beholden to coal-fired power plants, and the rain forest is still largely intact. “Brazil has a rare opportunity to transform itself into a rich country and still maintain its natural capital,” says Clevelario Jr. If it can go back to its old habit of making the right environmental moves.

(Newsweek, July 14th 2008, http://www.newsweek.com/id/143696)

De acordo com os dois textos, é possível afirmar que:

A questão se refere aos textos.

 

TEXTO

Brazilian ethanol is not causing deforestation

    Ethanol production in Brazil is not causing deforestation in the Amazon region, says Peter Zuurbier, Associate Professor and Director of the Latin America Office of Wageningen University, the world’s leading center of expertise on tropical agriculture.
    According to him, the notion often held by NGO’s that sugarcane is displacing cattle and soybean production into the Amazon is inaccurate. “The real problem lies in illegal deforestation and lack of property rights, as around 50 percent of the Amazon region has disputed titles and this is an invitation for timber companies,” he says.
    Prof. Zuurbier tries to explain a dynamic process between illegal activities in the Amazon rainforest and the expansion of agricultural lands towards that region. NGO’s often state that sugarcane production is displacing cattle and soybean production towards and into the Amazon, burning down the area to make it suitable for agriculture and pastures.
    According to Zuurbier, however, the process is slightly different. “Well organized groups and corporations with questionable land titles, but also official land owners began to chop down large acreages of forest to trade timber, both legally and illegally,” he says. “Usually, after the empty strips of land were abandoned, cattle owners would move into these cheap lands. However, after 3 to 4 years of cattle breeding, the thin soil of the Amazon is completely useless without any form of fertilization and livestock owners usually move into the next abandoned area. Soybean farmers meanwhile replace the livestock in these areas, recognizing the opportunity to fertilize the area for soybean production.”
    Prof. Zuurbier says the cause of deforestation and agricultural production in or near the Amazon, is simply illegal deforestation itself. According to him, the fact that Brazil still has questionable land titles, no set-aside policy and great difficulty to enforce existing laws to counter illegal timber trade, are the real reasons why the Amazon rainforest is in danger.

(Ethanol Statistics - January 21st 2008, http://www.sucre-ethique.org/Wageningen-expert-Brazilian)

TEXTO 

Coasting on Past Glory

    The Amazon is still largely intact, but the future hinges on decisions being made now.
    From the window of a Boeing, few countries are greener than Brazil. Since much of this vast territory in the heart of South America is still unpeopled and unblemished, it’s not surprising that Brazil looks good against the backdrop of a mistreated planet. It ranks 34th of 149 nations in Yale and Columbia’s Environmental Performance Index – greener than Ireland (35th) and the United States (39th). But how long will the country be able to hold on to this favorable score?
    To get a better look, you have to go to 9,000 meters, the altitude from which the NASA remote-sensing satellites sweep the earth. Every year, scientists at Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research (INPE) pore over satellite images to produce the most detailed survey of deforestation of any nation in the world. Such candor has won Brazil kudos, but also criticism. Brazil is the fourth biggest contributor of greenhouse gases globally, of which 75 percent comes from the felling and burning of forests. So when data released by INPE in late May showed that 5,850 square kilometers of forest (an area larger than Brunei) had disappeared from August 2007 to April 2008 – a 17 percent spike from the year before – the planet took notice. “Brazil has a fantastic endowment from nature but is failing when it comes to managing it,” says Judicael Clevelario Junior, head of environmental studies at the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), the census bureau.
    Brazil’s green laurels are not an illusion. Four fifths of its electric power comes from hydroelectric plants. It is the world leader in biofuels – nearly 30 percent of its cars run on ethanol. The trouble is that these virtues reflect sound decisions made in the 1970s, during the ambitious military government of Gen. Ernesto Geisel. Brazil has not always followed them up.
    (…) Fortunately, Brazil has options. Its booming economy is not beholden to coal-fired power plants, and the rain forest is still largely intact. “Brazil has a rare opportunity to transform itself into a rich country and still maintain its natural capital,” says Clevelario Jr. If it can go back to its old habit of making the right environmental moves.

(Newsweek, July 14th 2008, http://www.newsweek.com/id/143696)

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TEXTO

Brazilian ethanol is not causing deforestation

    Ethanol production in Brazil is not causing deforestation in the Amazon region, says Peter Zuurbier, Associate Professor and Director of the Latin America Office of Wageningen University, the world’s leading center of expertise on tropical agriculture.

    According to him, the notion often held by NGO’s that sugarcane is displacing cattle and soybean production into the Amazon is inaccurate. “The real problem lies in illegal deforestation and lack of property rights, as around 50 percent of the Amazon region has disputed titles and this is an invitation for timber companies,” he says.

    Prof. Zuurbier tries to explain a dynamic process between illegal activities in the Amazon rainforest and the expansion of agricultural lands towards that region. NGO’s often state that sugarcane production is displacing cattle and soybean production towards and into the Amazon, burning down the area to make it suitable for agriculture and pastures.

    According to Zuurbier, however, the process is slightly different. “Well organized groups and corporations with questionable land titles, but also official land owners began to chop down large acreages of forest to trade timber, both legally and illegally,” he says. “Usually, after the empty strips of land were abandoned, cattle owners would move into these cheap lands. However, after 3 to 4 years of cattle breeding, the thin soil of the Amazon is completely useless without any form of fertilization and livestock owners usually move into the next abandoned area. Soybean farmers meanwhile replace the livestock in these areas, recognizing the opportunity to fertilize the area for soybean production.”

    Prof. Zuurbier says the cause of deforestation and agricultural production in or near the Amazon, is simply illegal deforestation itself. According to him, the fact that Brazil still has questionable land titles, no set-aside policy and great difficulty to enforce existing laws to counter illegal timber trade, are the real reasons why the Amazon rainforest is in danger.

(Ethanol Statistics - January 21st 2008, http://www.sucre-ethique.org/Wageningen-expert-Brazilian)

Indique a alternativa em que os termos denotam, respectivamente, o mesmo significado dos sublinhados na sentença: 

The real problem lies in illegal deforestation and lack of property rights.

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Ecological Intelligence

Bryan Walsh

 

    When it comes to going green, intention can be easier than action. Case in point: you decide to buy a T shirt made from 100% organic cotton, because everyone knows that organic is better for Earth. And in some ways it is; in conventional cotton-farming, pesticides strip the soil of life. But that green label doesn´t tell the whole story – like the fact that even organic cotton requires more than 2,640 gal. (10,000 L) of water to grow enough fiber for one T shirt. Or the possibility that the T shirt may have been dyed using harsh industrial chemicals, which can pollute local groundwater. If you knew all that, would you possibly consider the T shirt green? Would you still buy it?

    Scanning the supermarket aisles, we lack the data to understand the full impact of what we choose – and probably couldn´t make sense of the information even if we had it.

   But what if we could seamlessly calculate the full lifetime effect of our actions on the earth and on our bodies? Not just carbon footprints but social and biological footprints as well? What if we could think ecologically? That´s what psychologist Daniel Goleman describes in his forthcoming book, Ecological Intelligence. Using a young science called industrial ecology, businesses and green activists alike are beginning to compile the environmental and biological impact of our every decision – and delivering that information to consumers in a user-friendly way. That´s thinking ecologically – understanding the global environmental consequences of our local choices.

(Time, March.12, 2009)

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The Revivals of the fittest

Jeremy McCarter

 

    One compensation of New York City life is that even the unpleasant parts come wrapped in legend. Your commute to Brooklyn might be a drag, but hey, Walt Whitman did it before you, and immortalized it in a poem. For generations, no art form has done more to make the city a place of fables than the Broadway musical. From Rodgers and Hart´s “Manhattan” in 1925 to “Christopher Street” in “Wonderful Town” to “Another Hundred People” in “Company”, songwriters haven´t just reflected their madcap city – they´ve helped to define it.

    Now, just when New Yorkers are in the midst of a spiritual flogging – upstaged by Obama´s Washington, humbled by Wall Street´s collapse, perplexed by real estate prices that are almost reasonable – the two greatest New York musicals have returned. If staged well, “West Side Story”, with its native-born and Puerto Rican gang warfare, distills the violence, frustrated dreams and tragic undertow of this immigrant town. And “Guys and Dolls”, with its hustlers and zealous (though badly outnumbered) religious believers, captures the ingenuity of New York´s street poetry, the hard-edged sense of humor that is constantly demanded of people forced to navigate these sidewalks every day. Both of the revivals take liberties with the material, in hopes of speaking more directly to our vexed moment. Each tells a very different story about the way we live in the nation´s artistic capital now.

    The chief novelty of the revival of “West Side Story” directed by Arthur Laurents, the show´s 91-year old librettist, is that considerable chuncks of the sad tale of Tony and Maria are now spoken and sung in Spanish. When this happens the first time, in a scene between Maria (Josefina Scaglione) and Anita (Karen Olivo, who just became a great big star), your eyes flick instinctively to the proscenium arch for a translation to appear. It doesn´t. This prompts two thoughts in quick succession: (1) Hey, you have to know Spanish to understand what they´re saying. (2) Wait – why don´t I know Spanish?

(Newsweek, March 30, 2009)

Assinale a alternativa que corresponde à palavra novelty da frase – The chief novelty of the revival of “West Side Story…” – no último parágrafo.

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The Revivals of the fittest

Jeremy McCarter

 

    One compensation of New York City life is that even the unpleasant parts come wrapped in legend. Your commute to Brooklyn might be a drag, but hey, Walt Whitman did it before you, and immortalized it in a poem. For generations, no art form has done more to make the city a place of fables than the Broadway musical. From Rodgers and Hart´s “Manhattan” in 1925 to “Christopher Street” in “Wonderful Town” to “Another Hundred People” in “Company”, songwriters haven´t just reflected their madcap city – they´ve helped to define it.

    Now, just when New Yorkers are in the midst of a spiritual flogging – upstaged by Obama´s Washington, humbled by Wall Street´s collapse, perplexed by real estate prices that are almost reasonable – the two greatest New York musicals have returned. If staged well, “West Side Story”, with its native-born and Puerto Rican gang warfare, distills the violence, frustrated dreams and tragic undertow of this immigrant town. And “Guys and Dolls”, with its hustlers and zealous (though badly outnumbered) religious believers, captures the ingenuity of New York´s street poetry, the hard-edged sense of humor that is constantly demanded of people forced to navigate these sidewalks every day. Both of the revivals take liberties with the material, in hopes of speaking more directly to our vexed moment. Each tells a very different story about the way we live in the nation´s artistic capital now.

    The chief novelty of the revival of “West Side Story” directed by Arthur Laurents, the show´s 91-year old librettist, is that considerable chuncks of the sad tale of Tony and Maria are now spoken and sung in Spanish. When this happens the first time, in a scene between Maria (Josefina Scaglione) and Anita (Karen Olivo, who just became a great big star), your eyes flick instinctively to the proscenium arch for a translation to appear. It doesn´t. This prompts two thoughts in quick succession: (1) Hey, you have to know Spanish to understand what they´re saying. (2) Wait – why don´t I know Spanish?

(Newsweek, March 30, 2009)

 

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