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DIRECTIONS (Qs. 71-80):
Read the following passage and answer the questions that follow. Certain words are given in bold to help you locate them while answering some of the questions.
It may be quite a while before climatologists are able to predict rainfall in the American Midwest by measuring snow-fall in the Himalayas. But there is one prediction which they can confidently make now, and that is that the earth’s ice cover — from the polar ice caps to the Himalayas — is thawing at an alarming rate. So much so that over 50 per cent of the planet’s mountain glacier mass could be history by the turn of the next century. According to the latest findings of the US-based environmental thinktank, Worldwatch institute, the Arctic Sea ice has shrunk by nearly 40 per cent in the last 25 years, even as Antarctica’s extensive ice fields and glaciers have been badly ‘bleeding’ at their edges. This would indicate that the earth has entered a period of climatic change that is likely to cause widespread environmental, economic and social disruption over the next century if emissions of heat-trapping gases are not reduced. As a result of global warming, average planetwide temperatures have been going up steadily.
If the levels of carbon dioxide — the bad boy of global warming — in the atmosphere are allowed to increase at the present rate, more heat will be trapped in the planetary cocoon, raising global temperatures to scorching highs. The polar ice caps will melt and the resultant rise in sea levels will be catastrophic for low-lying island-states and countries with large coastal populations, such as Marshall Islands and Bangladesh. Regional flooding will threaten water supplies and dramatically alter the habitats of many flora and fauna. This is particularly bad news for such regions as northern India, home to half of the total Indian populace who depend wholly on the glacier-fed rivers for their drinking water and irrigation needs.
With the Himalayan ice caps melting like ice-cream on a hot summer day, these snow-fed rivers will first swell and then run dry, triggering off devastating floods, followed by a desolating drought. People used to think there was time to sort out problems related to climate change, but no longer. The chilling prospect of an imminent global glacial melt calls for immediate damage control exercises to stabilise the climate. A good way to begin, perhaps, will be to overhaul the energy and transportation systems which drive the world’s fossil fuel economy and, instead develop low-carbon energy systems based on electronic technologies.
ENGLISH LANGUAGE
DIRECTIONS (Qs. 71-80):
Read the following passage and answer the questions that follow. Certain words are given in bold to help you locate them while answering some of the questions.
It may be quite a while before climatologists are able to predict rainfall in the American Midwest by measuring snow-fall in the Himalayas. But there is one prediction which they can confidently make now, and that is that the earth’s ice cover — from the polar ice caps to the Himalayas — is thawing at an alarming rate. So much so that over 50 per cent of the planet’s mountain glacier mass could be history by the turn of the next century. According to the latest findings of the US-based environmental thinktank, Worldwatch institute, the Arctic Sea ice has shrunk by nearly 40 per cent in the last 25 years, even as Antarctica’s extensive ice fields and glaciers have been badly ‘bleeding’ at their edges. This would indicate that the earth has entered a period of climatic change that is likely to cause widespread environmental, economic and social disruption over the next century if emissions of heat-trapping gases are not reduced. As a result of global warming, average planetwide temperatures have been going up steadily.
If the levels of carbon dioxide — the bad boy of global warming — in the atmosphere are allowed to increase at the present rate, more heat will be trapped in the planetary cocoon, raising global temperatures to scorching highs. The polar ice caps will melt and the resultant rise in sea levels will be catastrophic for low-lying island-states and countries with large coastal populations, such as Marshall Islands and Bangladesh. Regional flooding will threaten water supplies and dramatically alter the habitats of many flora and fauna. This is particularly bad news for such regions as northern India, home to half of the total Indian populace who depend wholly on the glacier-fed rivers for their drinking water and irrigation needs.
With the Himalayan ice caps melting like ice-cream on a hot summer day, these snow-fed rivers will first swell and then run dry, triggering off devastating floods, followed by a desolating drought. People used to think there was time to sort out problems related to climate change, but no longer. The chilling prospect of an imminent global glacial melt calls for immediate damage control exercises to stabilise the climate. A good way to begin, perhaps, will be to overhaul the energy and transportation systems which drive the world’s fossil fuel economy and, instead develop low-carbon energy systems based on electronic technologies.
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