영어 모의고사 (자동 편성)

Emissions trading, a market-based mechanism for ①curbing greenhouse gases, allows governments to set an overall limit on carbon output while letting firms trade permits within that limit. Under this system, ②known as cap-and-trade, companies that cut emissions more cheaply than required can sell surplus allowances to firms facing higher reduction costs. Proponents argue that this flexibility lets society reach a given environmental target at the lowest overall cost, since abatement shifts toward whoever can ③achieve it most economically. Critics, however, ④contends that trading schemes frequently allocate too many permits, a flaw that has historically depressed carbon prices and blunted incentives to invest in cleaner technology. For example, early phases of several regional markets granted allowances so generously that permit prices collapsed, ⑤leaving polluters with little pressure to change their practices.

A cotton plant that manufactures its own insecticide sounds like science fiction, yet it has been ①growing in fields around the world for decades. Scientists achieved this by isolating a gene from a soil bacterium that produces a protein toxic to specific insect pests but harmless to humans, then ②inserting that gene into the plant's own genome so that every cell manufactures the protective protein. Other genetically modified crops carry a gene that allows them ③survive direct exposure to a particular herbicide, letting farmers spray a field to kill weeds without harming the crop growing among them. Supporters point to yield increases and reduced pesticide spraying documented across millions of hectares, while critics worry about weeds and insects ④evolving resistance to these built-in defenses over time, much as bacteria evolve resistance to antibiotics. Regulatory agencies in most countries now require extensive testing before a genetically modified crop reaches the market, ⑤evaluating everything from its nutritional content to its potential effects on nearby ecosystems.

Extended producer responsibility, a policy ①requiring manufacturers to bear responsibility for their products even after use, has been adopted by governments seeking to reduce landfill waste. Under such schemes, companies must finance the collection and recycling of goods once consumers ②discard them, rather than leaving municipalities to absorb the cost. Advocates maintain that shifting this burden onto producers creates a powerful incentive to design products that are more durable, easily ③disassembled, and readily recyclable from the outset. Critics counter that the policy, whatever its theoretical merits, often fails to reduce waste meaningfully unless ④paired with rigorous enforcement and transparent reporting requirements. For instance, some manufacturers merely pass the added cost of compliance on to consumers, without making substantive changes to how products are designed. In contrast, jurisdictions that combine producer responsibility with strict eco-design standards and independent audits tend to witness genuine improvements in recyclability. Therefore, policymakers hoping to harness this approach must resist treating it as self-executing and instead invest in oversight that ⑤determine whether producers actually change behavior.

As buildings account for a substantial share of global energy consumption, architects have increasingly turned to a design philosophy ①known as the passive house standard, which minimizes energy demand through the building's own structure rather than through mechanical systems. Central to this approach is airtight construction, in which continuous insulation and sealed joints ②prevents conditioned air from leaking outward, thereby reducing the heating and cooling loads conventional buildings require. Triple-glazed windows, ③oriented to capture sunlight in winter while shading interiors in summer, further stabilize indoor temperatures without relying heavily on furnaces or air conditioners. Ventilation systems ④equipped with heat exchangers also recover warmth from outgoing air, ⑤transferring it to incoming air so that comfort is maintained without excessive energy use. For example, some passive houses built in cold climates have reduced heating costs by more than ninety percent. Consequently, many architects regard passive house design not as a luxury for wealthy homeowners but as a practical model capable of reshaping mainstream construction.

When a resource is shared among many users, none of ①whom bears the full cost of its depletion, each individual is tempted to extract as much value as possible before others do the same. This dynamic, famously ②labeled the tragedy of the commons, describes how shared pastures and fisheries can be degraded even when every participant privately understands the danger of overuse. A single herder who adds one more animal to a communal pasture gains the entire benefit of that addition, whereas the resulting damage to the grass ③is shared among other herders who depend on the land. Because self-interest offers no incentive to restrain consumption unilaterally, the resource tends ④to exhausted long before any user intends such an outcome. For decades, economists assumed that only two remedies existed: strict regulation or the conversion of shared resources into private property. Elinor Ostrom challenged this assumption, however, by ⑤documenting communities that had sustainably managed fisheries and forests for generations through locally devised rules and mutual monitoring rather than external control.

The ecological footprint, a widely cited measure of how much biologically productive land and water a population requires to sustain its consumption, has become one of the most ①familiar tools for communicating humanity's environmental impact. By converting diverse activities, from driving to eating meat, into a single unit of land area, the measure allows policymakers to grasp whether a lifestyle exceeds what the planet can regenerate. This simplicity, however, is also the source of its most ②occasional criticism. Because the footprint aggregates dissimilar impacts, such as carbon emissions and water scarcity, into one composite figure, it can ③obscure important differences among problems that require distinct policy responses. A region might reduce its footprint by lowering carbon emissions while simultaneously depleting a local aquifer, yet the aggregate number could still appear to improve, ④concealing damage that demands urgent attention. Furthermore, the method assumes that all bio-productive land is roughly ⑤interchangeable, treating a hectare of forest as equivalent to a hectare of farmland, even though the two provide markedly different ecological functions.

Economists have long debated whether prosperity and environmental quality are fundamentally ①opposed, or whether the relationship between them changes shape as an economy matures. The Environmental Kuznets Curve, a hypothesis borrowed from earlier theories of income inequality, proposes that pollution initially ②rises alongside economic growth before eventually declining once a society crosses a certain threshold of wealth. In its early stages, industrializing nations ③prioritize output over conservation, treating clean air and water as expendable costs of development to be addressed later. Beyond a certain point, however, rising incomes generate both the technological capacity and the political will to demand ④more lenient regulation, so degradation begins to reverse even as production keeps expanding. Some scholars regard this trajectory as a ⑤reassuring paradox, suggesting that the very growth blamed for ecological harm may eventually finance its own repair. Critics, by contrast, argue that the curve rests on a narrow selection of pollutants that happen to decline with wealth, while ignoring greenhouse gases and resource depletion, which show no comparable tendency to fall.

Traditional industrial systems have relied on a linear model of production, in which raw materials are extracted, transformed into goods, and eventually discarded as waste. This approach treats natural resources as if ①unlimited and disposal as if costless. A circular economy proposes an alternative framework in which materials are kept in continuous use through reuse, repair, and recycling, thereby ②reducing the extraction of virgin resources. Central to this model is the notion that waste, rather than being an inevitable byproduct, can be redesigned as a resource for another process, much as fallen leaves nourish the trees that shed them. For example, manufacturers design products so that components can be disassembled and reused in new items once their original function ends. Some companies also lease equipment instead of selling it outright, retaining responsibility for refurbishment. Because such practices lessen dependence on finite raw materials, they ③increase the environmental damage caused by mining. Consequently, the circular economy is increasingly regarded as a ④viable economic strategy that ⑤conserves resources for future generations.

Biodegradable plastics have been promoted as a promising solution to plastic waste, since they are designed to decompose into natural substances rather than persist for centuries. Manufacturers derive these materials from renewable resources such as corn starch, blending them with additives that accelerate microbial breakdown once discarded. However, _______________. For example, a bag labeled biodegradable may take years, not the weeks advertised, to break down in a landfill or ocean, where temperature and microbial activity remain low. In addition, when mixed with conventional plastics in recycling streams, they can contaminate the process, weakening the quality of materials produced afterward. Some engineers therefore compare biodegradable plastics to a bridge that leads nowhere unless paired with infrastructure that completes the journey. Ultimately, realizing their genuine potential requires not only technological refinement but also facilities capable of providing the precise conditions decomposition demands.

When people evaluate their personal contribution to water scarcity, they often consider only the water that flows directly from household taps, overlooking a far larger quantity consumed indirectly through the goods they purchase. (A) The water footprint, a concept that extends this narrow view, measures the total volume of freshwater used to produce the goods and services an individual or a nation consumes. Central to this concept is the notion of virtual water, the water embedded invisibly within a product, from irrigating cotton fields to livestock raised for meat. (B) Critics caution, however, that focusing exclusively on aggregate volume can mislead policymakers, since a liter of water drawn from a region suffering drought carries far greater consequences than one drawn from a water-abundant area. (C) For instance, producing a kilogram of beef can require several thousand liters of water, whereas a kilogram of vegetables typically demands a fraction of that amount. Nations that import water-intensive goods rather than producing them domestically are importing virtual water from regions that may face severe shortages.