Directions: Some sentences have been removed in the following text. Choose the most suitable one from the list A-G to fit into each of the blanks. There are two extra choices which do not fit in any of the blanks.
A massive environmental catastrophe is predicted, but help arrives in the form of new and utterly unexpected technology. America in the 21st century? No, London in the 19th. Some apocryphal Victorian, so the story goes, looked at the rate at which the number of horses on city streets was increasing and assured his peers that their capital would soon be knee-deep in horse manure. He got it wrong, largely because he failed to predict the imminent rise of the automobile. That brought its own problems, of course, but the point was that Victorians were blindsided by the future—which, as any would be Cassandra soon learns, is seldom what it appears to be.
Think for a minute: Is there a technology right under our noses that will make many of our own environmental fears moot? Yes, there is. It’s called the Internet. 1. ___________________
In the past two years alone, here’s what has happened: more people are working from home; companies are using B2B websites to coordinate their supply chain more efficiently; inventories are lower, meaning warehouses are emptier; and although the paperless office has failed to arrive, online habits are reducing paper needs by millions of tons.
You may scoff: Am I really going to save the planet by buying books online rather than a book shop at the mall? Actually you just might. A book purchased online costs about one-sixteenth the energy of one bought in the store. For starters, it takes about 0.1 gal. of fuel to ship an average 2.5-lb. book, whereas your average trip to the mall uses up 1 gal. of gas. 2. ___________________
Then there’s all that waste from real-world stores, which need heating and lighting. Online retailers that employ nothing but warehouses have about eight times the number of sales per square foot of space used. 3. ___________________ For everything you buy with appoint and a click, the planet thanks you.
Consider the tremendous saving now that millions of us are able to work from home—or at least, dial into the office more than we drive there. 4. ___________________ You might as well be there, especially with lightning-fast broadband Internet connections.
The ease of e-commerce can also be a curse. If you demand overnight shipping on those books, it’ll take six times the amount of fuel to get them to you as would normal delivery thanks to jet-fuel costs. But environmental groups welcome the Net’s energy efficiency. 5. ___________________
A. Internet is allowing a type of growth that uses energy and resources better.
B. Almost anybody who uses the Internet on a regular basis will feel the savings occurring.
C. According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the Internet could make 12.5% of retail space superfluous.
D. Worldwide, at least $27 billion in advertising will be siphoned away from you daily read and onto the Internet during the next five years.
E. After all, your refrigerator’s always on; the heating is always on in the winter.
F. One minute spent driving, in general, uses the same amount of energy as 20 minutes’ worth of time sitting at home with your computer.
G. According to scores of studies, the dotcom revolution is already starting to have a profound impact on the way industry affects our world.
