TEXT A The destruction of our natural resources and contamination of our food supply continue to occur, largely because of the extreme difficulty in affixing legal responsibility on those who continue to treat our environment with reckless abandon. Attempts to prevent pollution legislation, economic incentives and friendly persuasion have been met by lawsuits, personal and industrial denial and long delays—not only in accepting responsibility, but more importantly, in doing something about it. It seems that only when government decides it can afford tax incentives or production sacrifices is there any initiative for change. Where is industry’s and our recognition that protecting mankind’s great treasure is the single most important responsibility If ever there will be time for environmental health professionals to come to the frontlines and provide leadership to solve environmental problems, that time is now. We are being asked, and, in fact, the public is demanding that we take positive action. It is our responsibility as professionals in environmental health to make the difference. Yes, the ecologists, the environmental activists and the conservationists serve to communicate, stimulate thinking and promote behavioral change. However, it is those of us who are paid to make the decisions to develop, improve and enforce environmental standards, I submit, who must lead the charge. We must recognize that environmental health issues do not stop at city limits, county lines, state or even federal boundaries. We can no longer afford to be tunnel-versioned in our approach. We must visualize issues’ from every perspective make the objective decisions. We must express our views clearly to prevent media distortion and public confusion. I believe we have a three-part mission for the present. First, we must continue to press for improvements in the quality of life that people can make for themselves. Second, we must investigate and understand the link between environment and health. Third, we must be able to communicate technical information in a form that citizens can understand. If we can accomplish these three goals in this decade, maybe we can finally stop environmental degradation, and not merely hold it back. We will then be able to spend pollution dollars truly on prevention rather than on bandages. We can infer from the first two paragraphs that the industrialists disregard environmental protection chiefly because______.
A. they are unaware of the consequences of what they are doing
B. they are reluctant to sacrifice their own economic interests
C. time has not yet come for them to put due emphasis on it
D. it is difficult for them to take effective measures
TEXT D When you are small, all ambitions fall into one grand category: when I’ m grown up. When I’ m grown up, you say, I’ll go up in space. I’ m going to be an author. I’ll kill them all and then they’ll be sorry. I’ll be married in a cathedral with sixteen bridesmaids in pink lace. I’ll have a puppy of my own and no one will be able to take him away. None of it ever happens, of course-- or darn little, but the fantasies give you the idea that there is something to grow up for. Indeed, one of the saddest things about gilded adolescence is the feeling that from eighteen on, it’ s all downhill; I read with horror of an American hippie wedding where someone said to the groom (aged twenty) "you seem so kinda grown up somehow", and the lad had to go round seeking assurance that he wash’ t. No, really he wasn’t. A determination to be better adults than the present incumbents are fine, but to refuse to grow up at all is just plain unrealism. Right, so then you get some of what you want, or something like it, or something that will do all right; and for years you are too busy to do more than live in the present and put one foot in front of the other, your goals stretching little beyond the day when the boss has a stroke or the moment when the children can bring you tea in bed—and the later moment when they actually bring you hot tea, not mostly slopped in the saucer. However, I have now discovered an even sweeter category of ambition. When my children are grown up, I’ll learn to fly an airplane. I will career round the sky, knowing that if I do "go pop", there will be no little ones to suffer shock and maladjustment; that even if the worst does come to the worst, I will at least dodge the geriatric ward and all that look for your glasses in order to see where you’ ye left your teeth. When my children are grown up, I’ll have fragile lovely things on low tables; I’ll have a white carpet; I’ll go to the pictures in the afternoons. When the children are grown up, I’ll actually be able to do a day, s work in a day, instead of spread over three, and go away for a weekend without planning as if for a trip to the Moon. When I’ m grown up—I mean when they’ re grown up—I’ll be free. Of course, I know it’s got to get worse before it gets better. Twelve-year-old, I’ m told, don’t go to bed at seven, so you don’t even get your evenings. Once they’ re past ten you have to start worrying about their friends instead of simply shooing the intruders off the doorstep, and to settle down to a steady ten years of criticism of everything you’ ve ever thought or done or worn. Boys, it seems, may be less of a trial than girls, since they Can’t get pregnant and they don’t borrow your clothes—if they do borrow your clothes, of course, you’ve got even more to worry about. The young don’t respect their parents any more, that’s what. Goodness, how sad. Still, like eating snails, it might be all right once you’ ye got over the idea; it might let us off having to bother quite so much with them when the time comes. But one is simply not going to be able to drone away one’s days, toothless by the fire, brooding on the past. Young people often feel that the age of eighteen is the______.
A. right age to get married
B. gateway to happiness
C. hardest part of life
D. best time of life