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Homage to Windmills Last summer, to get away from suffocating smog, I drove my family west
from Washington, D.C., to Santa Fe, New Mexico. As we crossed the
country, our car radio kept us informed about the ordeal of the big cities
and their faltering machines. Around us, however, the Great Plains told
a far different story. Above all, we marvelled at the sight of working
windmills, creaky sentinels of a bygone age. And the contrast left me with
windmills on my mind.
Windmills are much, much more than relics. They are symbols of sanity
for a world that is increasingly hooked on machines with an inordinate
hunger for fuel and a prodigious capacity to pollute.
Ecologically, the windmill is one of man's few perfect devices. It harnesses a completely free resource to pump water under conditions that
respect the laws and limits of nature. Consider this contrast: In Arizona,
western Texas and many other places of the arid South-west ranchers
have long used electric pumps to deplete ground water stored up over
the centuries by geologic processes. The costs of such exploitation are
now tragically evident in shrinking farmlands and in the fast-growing
thirst for "replacement" water from Canada and Alaska. But ranchers
who still use windmills to tap near-surface water for their livestock --
taking only as much as is replaced each year -- face no such crisis. They
are working with nature. And therein lies the message of windmills.
Like water-wheels and sailing-boats,
windmills have Zero Environmental Impact (ZEI). They remind us that science can save us over the
long haul only if it designs a new generation of machines that come much
closer than their predecessors to achieving ZEI.
The automobile is the antithesis of the windmill. It symbolizes our
hell-bent rush to increase production, convenience and mobility, with little
thought for the trade-offs in fouled air, congested cities and highways,
and hundreds of thousands of automobile accidents each year. Like so
much of our present industrial technology, the automobile works at cross
purposes with life.
Today the evidence is clear that our high-energy, high-waste society is
making exorbitant demands on the resources of the planet. Largely
because of U.S. consumption, most of the world's petroleum fuels will
be exhausted within a century.
I certainly do not propose a return to a windmill
economy. In fact, there is no way for us to achieve a
low-pollution technology overnight -- and Zero
Environmental Impact has been an impossibility for human
societies ever since they began hunting and burning on
the savanna plains of a million years ago. Belatedly,
however, we are beginning to realize that our
technological skills must be bent toward an
accommodation with natural laws -- laws such as the
recycling of materials. We now see efforts to ban the
use of long-lived pesticides, to remove phosphates from
detergents, to take the lead out of petrol, to clean up
or completely replace the internal-combustion engine.
One hopes that these steps mark the beginning of a
historic reversal of our "raid-and-waste" style of
development.
As I contemplate my family's trip, I cannot help but wonder if I, like
that dreamer Don Quixote, have merely been tilting at windmills. Is it
only nostalgia that makes me and millions of other Americans hope for
a more modest technology ? I do not think so. The issue is nobler than
survival. It is whether we can equip ourselves to live truly decent lives.
If we are to meet this challenge, our inventors and technicians will have
to pay homage to windmills. They will have to build us machines that
use, not abuse, the unearned gifts of nature.
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1. |
The description of the windmills as "creaky sentinels of a bygone age" tells us
that the windmills are |
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(A) |
broken-down machines. |
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(B) |
old machines of a past era. |
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(C) |
machines that were once used for defence. |
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(D) |
old and useless machines. |
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2. |
In the second paragraph, the writer implies that he |
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(A) |
admires windmills because they are relics. |
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(B) |
thinks highly of windmills because they need no fuel to operate. |
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(C) |
considers windmills a solution to energy and pollution problems. |
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(D) |
favours windmills above other contemporary machines which consume fuel
and pollute the world. |
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3. |
The main virtue of the windmill in the south-west of the United States is that |
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(A) |
it uses a completely free source of energy. |
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(B) |
it taps only near-surface water. |
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(C) |
it is inexpensive and easy to operate. |
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(D) |
it does not need electricity to operate it. |
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4. |
What has caused the decrease in the farming area in the south-west of the United
States ? |
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(A) |
It has been caused by the extensive use of windmills. |
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(B) |
It has been caused by the depletion of underground water supplies. |
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(C) |
It has been the result of keeping too much livestock. |
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(D) |
It has been the result of geologic processes over the centuries. |
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5. |
The statement "windmills have Zero
Environmental Impact" means that windmills |
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(A) |
do no damage or harm to the environment. |
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(B) |
make no impression on the surroundings at all. |
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(C) |
are inefficient when compared with other machines. |
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(D) |
are useless. |
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6. |
The automobile works at cross purposes with
life in that |
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(A) |
it brings convenience and mobility to man. |
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(B) |
it is a product of our present industrial technology. |
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(C) |
it has brought more harm than good to man. |
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(D) |
it kills its drivers. |
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7. |
In the passage, the writer says that our
present industrial technology |
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(A) |
should make way for a windmill technology. |
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(B) |
should make way for a less wasteful technology. |
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(C) |
must achieve Zero Environmental Impact. |
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(D) |
should be completely abolished. |
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8. |
It is implied in the passage that ideally
man's technology should |
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(A) |
work side by side with the laws of nature. |
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(B) |
concentrate on the process of recycling. |
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(C) |
make only limited use of petrol and other fuels. |
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(D) |
produce no waste materials. |
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9. |
"The issued" refers to |
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(A) |
man's survival in the future. |
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(B) |
man's ability to live a truly decent life. |
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(C) |
modern technology. |
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(D) |
windmills. |
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10. |
In the last paragraph the writer is |
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(A) |
contemplating man's past. |
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(B) |
being nostalgic. |
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(C) |
looking ahead hopefully towards a better future. |
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(D) |
thinking of survival. |
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