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王
jon
【目標解答時間 15分 配点 37点
15
次の英文を読み, 下記の設問 (A~D) に答えなさい。
Fire is "a good servant but a bad master." In my house, in summer, I smell the
air for the faintest hint of smoke as keenly as any horse or dog or kangaroo. I
watch for columns of smoke, visualising again and again how fire could rush(
1 )the hill towards us. But if you are philosophical about it, fire is a natural
5 part of the Australian environment and has been for millions of years. Living
with the threat of fire in the bush, or in the wild, is like living with sharks when
diving, or with snakes while walking, or with traffic accidents on a city street.
The idea that we should remove every shark from the sea, or every snake from
the land, and control- burn, or deliberately set fire, to prevent any risk of
10 bushfires is a recipe for making the environment even worse.
As Phil Koperberg, head of the New South Wales Fire Brigades, said ( 2 )
the Sydney bushfires of 1994, amid calls for massive control burning, “Do you
want to concrete over all the bush? If you choose to live in the bush, you choose
to accept the risk.
f
It is often claimed that some Austratian plants and animals have actually
adapted to fire, evidence of an extraordinarily long period (millions of years
before human arrival) during which fire has been more significant in the
Australian environment than it has been on any other continent, but this is
probably not strictly true. Many plants have adapted to the environment in
20 ways that also happen to be valuable in times of fire. ( 3 ), animals have
adapted to a variety of different habitats, and can therefore survive during
different periods of vegetation regrowth after a fire (or after, say, a cyclone, a
flood, or just a tree falling in a forest).
A tree that has the ability to regenerate from roots or lower trunk when the
25 upper tree dies as a result of being broken off in a storm, or falls over, rotten to
the core, will also be able to respond when the upper part is killed by a fire.
Seeds adapted to long hot droughts, and requiring a combination of heat and
water for germination", will also find a fire, if followed by rain, a good stimulus
for growing new plants. There does appear to be evidence that chemicals in
30 smoke can help promote growth in plants, but whether this is a direct
可能性があるかを 何度も
が続いているのだ。 森林地帯,
ダイビングのときにサメ,
そやカンガルーにも負けな
の匂いを嗅ぐ。 私は,どのよ
暮らすようなものである。 海
しき主人である」(
れば, 火事はオーストラリア
>>
のヘビを取り除くべきだと
意図的に火を放つべきだ ,
1994年のシドニー
ている真っ只中
と言った。
入れるこ
