Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct answer to each of the questions from 36 to 42.
Now I'm as environmentally concerned as the next man, probably more so, in fact, but a spate of new books urging us to ‘live better, greener lifestyles' and to 'live within nature's limits' leaves me rather cold. Evidently, it's easy. Buy products that don't exploit other humans, animals or the environment. Don't shop at the multinational supermarkets, support small shops which sell environmentally friendly products, buy local produce when you need to, and, while you're about it, just make your own bread, butter, cheese, jam, keep a milking cow, a few pigs, goats, chickens, beehives, gardens and orchards. Well, what are you waiting for?
The book A Slice of Organic Life by Sheherazade Goldsmith contains plenty of useful advice, and she comes across as modest, sincere and well informed. But of lobbying for political change, there is not a word. According to Goldsmith you can save the planet from your own kitchen - if you have endless time and plenty of land. When I was reading it on the train, another passenger asked me if he could take a look. He flicked through it for a moment, and then summed up the problem in seven words: “This is for people who don't work!”
The media's obsession with beauty, wealth and fame blights every issue it touches, but none more so than green issues. There is an inherent conflict between the aspirational lifestyle journalism that makes readers feel better about themselves and sells country-style kitchens to those who can afford them, and the central demand of environmentalism - that we should consume less. 'None of these changes represents a sacrifice, Goldsmith tells us. 'Being more conscientious isn't about giving up things.' But it is it, like her, you own more than one home when others have none. Uncomfortable as this is for both the media and its advertisers, giving things up is an essential component of going green. A section on ethical shopping in Goldsmith's book advises us to buy organic, buy seasonal, buy local, buy sustainable, buy recycled. But it says nothing about buying less. Green consumerism is becoming a pox on the planet. If it merely swapped the damaging goods we buy for less damaging ones, I would champion it. But two parallel markets are developing – one for unethical products and one for ethical products, and the expansion of the second does little to hinder the growth of the first.
But there is another danger with ethical shopping. I have met houseowners who have bought solar panels and wind turbines before they have done the simple thing and insulated their lofts, partly because they love gadgets but partly, I suspect, because everyone can then see how conscientious and how rich they are. We are often told that buying such products encourages us to think more widely about environmental challenges, but it is just as likely to be depoliticising. Green consumerism is a substitute for collective action. No political challenge can be met by shopping.
(Adapted from Cambridge English Objective Proficiency by Peter Sunderland and Eria Whettem)
