Malthusian fears that population growth will outstrip food supplies have been widely discounted as food production has kept well ahead of growing human numbers in the last half century. While population doubled, food supply tripled, and life expectancy increased from 46 in the 1950s to around 65 today. But more recently, some experts have once again been sounding the alarm about a possible food crisis.
The reason lies in the combined impact of many factors including climate change, forest denudation, land degradation, water shortage, declining oil supplies, species extinction, destruction of coastal ecosystems and the growing demands for a meat-rich diet from newly developed parts of the world.
At the root of all these problems has been the ruthless exploitation of the earth’s resources, fuelled by growing affluence in some parts of the world and desperate poverty in others. Between 1980 and 2000, global population rose from 4.4 billion to 6.1 billion, while food production increased 50 per cent. By 2050, the population is expected to reach 9 billion.
Data shows that while grain yields per acre have been increasing, the rate of increase has been slowing since the days of the Green Revolution in the 1970s. Most of the benefits of irrigation, machinery, fertilizer and plant breeding have already been realized. The production of grain per acre is close to the maximum obtainable through photosynthesis.
To keep up with the growth in human population, more food will have to be produced over the next 50 years than has been during the past 10,000 years combined, said the participants of the recent UN-backed forum in Iceland on sustainable development. It is, of course, possible that new technologies, smart environmental management and sensitive social policies will combine to good effect to usher in a new green revolution. But as grain reserves have fallen to their lowest level for many years, this cannot be guaranteed.
At the 1996 World Food Summit political leaders from 186 countries pledged to halve the number of hungry people in the world by the year 2015, or a reduction of 20 million each year. At that time, about 800 million people were reported to suffer from under- nourishment. In 2007 estimates from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) suggest that there are 854 million people who do not get enough to eat every day. "Far from decreasing, the number of hungry people in the world is currently increasing," said FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf. (Of course, world population has increased by some 800 million in that time, so food supplies have kept up relatively well, but have failed to reach an increasing number, let alone reduce the total going hungry.)
What’s the author’s attitude towards Malthusian theory（）
A. Mildly supportive
B. Somewhat indifferent
C. A little alarmed
D. Seemingly objective
参考答案：A
解析：
[试题类型] 观点态度题。
[解题思路] 作者在第一段提到了Malthusian，该段第一句指出Malthusian fears that population growth will outstrip food supplies，即马尔萨斯人口论担心人口增长将超过粮食供给。接着作者指出，由于上半个世纪粮食增长超过了人口增长的数量，因此人们对Malthusian理论普遍不再相信，(Malthusian fears...have been widely discounted...)，但段末作者笔锋一转，指出一些专家再一次敲响粮食危机的警钟(But...some experts have once again been sounding the alarm about a possible food crisis)，接着作者在第二、三段分析了导致粮食危机的原因，并分析了目前的粮食供给状况，最后指出缓解全球粮食危机任重而道远，由此可见，作者对Malthusian theory持支持态度(mildly supportive)，故选项[A]正确。
[干扰排除] 选项[B]“有些漠不关心的”，选项[C]“有点吃惊的”，选项[D]“貌似客观的”，都没有准确概括作者的态度，故排除。