The idea that shopping is the new politics is certainly seductive. You probably go shopping several times a month, providing yourself with lots of opportunities to express your opinions. If you are worried about the environment, you might buy organic food; if you want to help poor farmers, you can do your bit by buying Fairtrade products; or you can express a dislike of evil multinational companies and rampant globalisation by buying only local produce. Sadly, it’s not that easy. There are good reasons to doubt the claims made about three of the most popular varieties of “ethical” food: organic food, Fairtrade food and local food. People who want to make the world a better place cannot do so by shifting their shopping habits: transforming the planet requires duller disciplines, like politics.
Organic food, which is grown without man-made pesticides and fertilisers, is generally assumed to be more environmentally friendly than conventional intensive farming. However, farming is inherently bad for the environment: since humans took it up around 11,000 years ago, the result has been deforestation on a massive scale. But following the “green revolution” of the 1960s greater use of chemical fertiliser has tripled grain yields with very little increase in the area of land under cultivation. Organic methods, which rely on crop rotation, manure and compost in place of fertiliser, are far less intensive. So producing the world’s current agricultural output organically would require several times as much land as is currently cultivated. There wouldn’t be much room left for the rainforest.
Fairtrade food is designed to raise poor farmers’ incomes. It is sold at a higher price than ordinary food, with a subsidy passed back to the farmer. But prices of agricultural commodities are low because of overproduction. By propping up the price, the Fairtrade system encourages farmers to produce more of these commodities rather than diversifying into other crops and so depresses prices—thus achieving, for most farmers, exactly the opposite of what the initiative is intended to do. And since only a small fraction of the mark-up on Fairtrade foods actually goes to the farmer—most goes to the retailer—the system gives rich consumers an inflated impression of their largesse and makes alleviating poverty seem too easy.
Surely the case for local food, produced as close as possible to the consumer in order to minimise “food miles” and, by extension, carbon emissions, is clear? Surprisingly, it is not. A study of Britain’s food system found that nearly half of food-vehicle miles (ie, miles travelled by vehicles carrying food) were driven by cars going to and from the shops. Most people live closer to a supermarket than a farmer’s market, so more local food could mean more food-vehicle miles. Moving food around in big, carefully packed lorries, as supermarkets do, may in fact be the most efficient way to transport the stuff.
What’s more, once the energy used in production as well as transport is taken into account, local food may turn out to be even less green. Producing lamb in New Zealand and shipping it to Britain uses less energy than producing British lamb, because farming in New Zealand is less energy-intensive. And since the local-food movement looks suspiciously like old-fashioned protectionism masquerading as concern for the environment, helping poor countries is presumably not the point.
1. In the author’s eyes, the view of seeing shopping as a political event is _______.
A) very helpful
B) not practical
C) sheer nonsense
D) quite harmful
2. According to the author, what may be the chief reason for the disadvantage of organic food?
A) It cannot yield enough food.
B) It is involved with some kind of political event.
C) It is directly responsible for the global deforestation.
D) It is not necessarily environment-friendly.
3. Which of the following is TRUE according to the author?
A) Most benefit from fair-trade food goes to farmers since it is them who decide to raise the price.
B) Fairtrade food encourages farmers to increase the diversity of their produces.
C) Fairtrade food fails to fulfill its original design because farmers are deprived of most of the profit.
D) Fairtrade food can effectively involve consumers to the effort of poverty alleviation.
4. The author’s attitude towards the issue of local food seems to be _______.
A) approving
B) objective
C) indifferent
D) ironic
5. It could be inferred from the text that _______.
A) local food might increase, instead of decrease, carbon emissions
B) Fairtrade food can encourage people to be more generous and concerned about the farmers
C) organic food is supposed to be produced in areas that are currently covered by tropical rainforests
D) local food is, in fact, the disguise of the traditional sense of trade protectionism
Jim Clark, 55, is the first person ever to start three companies that each grew to be worth more than $1 billion—an achievement celebrated in Michael Lewis’ best-selling book, The New New Thing . Clark saw in primitive computer graphics chips the potential for powerful new workstations built by Silicon Graphics. He looked at a simple interface for websites, and turned it into the Netscape Web browser. And he most recently has exploited the potential of the Web for dispensing medical information through a company called Healtheon. Each of these ideas has netted Clark a cool billion or so. Shouldn’t such a visionary come up with a similarly new way of giving those bucks away?
Well, no. Clark has bestowed his money the old-fashioned way—by attaching his name to a building at Stanford University, his alma mater. His $150 million grant, establishing the Jim C. Clark Center for Biomedical Engineering and Sciences, reflects his belief that just as computer technology has been driving today’s economy, biotech will power it over the next 40 years. “Some people say you should give where the need is greatest,” he says, shrugging. “But that’s the job for government. For me, with only a few billion, I have more impact targeting a specific priority.”
Clark also wanted to reward Stanford, whose labs he used while engineering the chip for his Silicon Graphics workstations. And this was the sort of philanthropic gesture that would still leave him time to have fun running companies, building yachts and flying helicopters. Clark has a personal insight into why some tech multimillionaires postpone serious charitable giving. At one point in 1998, he watched the value of his Netscape stock erode from $2 billion to $200 million. And other wealthy techies have seen similar wild swings in their personal fortunes. Explains Clark: “When you see your net worth drop like that, you think, ‘If this keeps going, I’m going to have to sell my airplane.’”
Clark is critical of some of his Silicon Valley brethren who haven’t been as generous, despite their multibillion-dollar net worth. He hopes his gift will spur other tech billionaires to action, particularly Yahoo founders Jerry Yang and David Filo, who don’t discuss specifics of any giving they may have done—and who Clark believes have been too frugal. “These guys actually ran the Yahoo servers out of Stanford,” says Clark. “They should be giving something back. These guys are young, but they’ve got more money than me. Or take Larry Ellison; he should be doing more.”
But Clark remains optimistic: “These new-money guys, first they have to get a couple of houses, the plane. At that point they’ll think about: How can I do something more impacting?”
1. The author begins his article with Clark’s experience to ______.
A) show the great achievements of Clark
B) show the richness of Clark
C) show the payback of Clark’s brilliant ideas
D) show Clark’s desire to get fortunes
2. Clark believes that the bestowal of the money ______.
A) should be done in an old way
B) should take the form of generosity
C) should be given in a limited field
D) should involve all rich men
3. The founders of Yahoo are mentioned to show ______.
A) their way of saving money
B) their ungenerosity and less interest in donating
C) Clark’s contempt of the new money
D) their difficulty in getting rich
4. Clark’s attitude toward his Silicon Valley brethren is of ______.
A) strong disapproval
B) reserved consent
C) slight contempt
D) enthusiastic support
5. From the text we learn that Larry Ellison is ______.
A) a Yuppie
B) Clark’s competitor
C) a successful techie
D) a young tech billionaire
As the music industry searches for a new model in the age of digital distribution and internet piracy, it is getting a helping hand from an unexpected quarter: video games such as “Guitar Hero” and “Rock Band”, which let people play along to songs on simplified imitation instruments. “These games are revitalising the industry,” says Aram Sinnreich, an industry expert at New York University. “They’re helping as both a revenue and an advertising platform.”
The main impact of the games is to provide exposure. Inclusion of their music in these popular games has allowed previously obscure bands to achieve international fame, and veteran musicians to blast the ears of a new generation. According to Activision Blizzard, the video-game giant behind “Guitar Hero III”, bands whose songs are included in the game can expect online sales of their music to increase by an average of 300% as a result. “We’re definitely in demand—we’re constantly being pitched by artists and management,” says Paul DeGooyer, senior vice-president of games and music at MTV, which publishes “Rock Band”. As well as increasing sales, having a song in his game also boosts a band’s overall fame and popularity. “We’re providing a new outlet for people to experience music,” he says.
One beneficiary has been Dragonforce, a British speed-metal band that rose to fame after their song “Through the Fire and Flames” was included as the hardest track in “Guitar Hero III”. Its difficulty has inspired many players to post videos of themselves playing the song online. Chris Brown, who is in charge of the band’s marketing, says the track had sold 55,000 copies online before the game’s release in October 2007. “Now we’re up to 624,000. Guitar Hero has really opened up our music to the mainstream,” says Mr Brown.
Established artists are also using the games to promote their music. Bobby Kotick, Activision’s boss, says Aerosmith have made more money from “Guitar Hero: Aerosmith”, a version of the video-game that features the band, than from any of their albums. Mr Kotick has even suggested that rather than expecting games companies to pay to license their music, bands should pay to have their music included in games. Motley Crue released a new single via “Rock Band” in April, and in September Metallica’s new album “Death Magnetic” was made available as a download for “Guitar Hero” on the day of its release. (Fans have pointed out that the video-game version actually sounds better than the album.) Such in-game downloads are typically sold for $2 per song, twice as much as the music alone fetches on iTunes, the leading online-music store.
But will it last? Bob Lefsetz, a veteran industry figure, speculates that music games, which burst onto the scene in 2005, could burn out just as quickly. Teenagers already like classic rock anyway, he says, so the games will not greatly expand the market. “The music business is looking for any good news. These games aren’t going to save it.”
1. The main problem faced by the music industry is ______.
A) the unexpected competition from video games
B) it needs to find a new business model for long-term development
C) it is severely threatened by online piracy
D) it fails to catch up with the technological development of digital distribution
2. It can be inferred from the text that ______.
A) all the bands with their music included in video games can gain popularity
B) the major influence of video games on the music industry is increasing revenue
C) artists and managers try to find the best music bands from video games
D) inspiring interaction with game players can increase a band’s fame
3. Bobby Kotick, Activision’s boss, believes that ______.
A) he has already established a new business model for the music industry
B) music in video games should also be downloadable on the internet
C) there should be difference between the video-game and album versions of a song
D) video games should charge bands but not the other way around
4. We can draw a conclusion from the last paragraph that ______.
A) the collaboration between video games and the music industry might be a flash in the pan
B) the video game model is the last gasp of the deteriorating music industry
C) rock music is not exactly the reason why the bands succeed in video games
D) the music business is still looking for greater music
5. From the text we can see that the writer’s attitude toward the collaboration seems ______.
A) objective
B) positive
C) pessimistic
D) indifferent
.