Irma

托福閱讀 練習小短文 - 野火、熱浪產生的空汙致死(環保學科) 

就這篇文章來說算是時事結合部分的環境保護相關內容，主要內容應是有關2010年莫斯科因為大面積的野火後連日的高溫和有毒煙霧散發造成首都人民的死亡率攀升以及經濟影響。其實就這個主題內容來說，有關熱浪、野火、乾旱等等問題都仍是全球氣候主題內容之一，或許托福不一定會就這麼直白的時事為測驗內容，但是不妨礙托福已另一種研究報告做考題呈現。在托福閱讀中除了看懂文章很重要之外，另一部分就是要理解作者在文字中希望讀者可以從中可以了解思考的內容。

文章內容：

    Scorching heat and acrid smoke have nearly doubled death rates in Moscow, a city official said on Monday, as a shroud of smog from raging forest and peat fires beset Russia's capital for a third week.

　　Firefighters battled wildfires covering 1,740 square km (672 sq miles) -- bigger than the area of Greater London -- in what the state weather forecaster said was Russia's worst heat wave for a millennium.

　　"The average death rate in the city during normal times is between 360 and 380 people per day. Today, we are around 700," Andrei Seltsovsky, Moscow's health department chief, told a city government meeting.

　　Russia's worst drought in decades has spooked world grain markets, driving wheat prices up at the swiftest rate in more than 30 years and raising the specter of a food crisis.

　　Seltsovsky said heat stroke was the main cause of the recent increase in deaths. He said ambulance dispatches in Moscow were up by about a quarter to 10,000 a day and problems linked to heart disease, bronchial asthma and strokes had increased.

　　"This is no secret," Seltsovsky said. "Everyone thinks we're making secrets out of it. It's 40 degrees (Celsius, or 104 Fahrenheit) on the street. Abroad, people drown like flies and no one asks questions."

　　Moscow morgues and hospitals were overcrowded, funeral parlors were doing a brisk business in coffins, and a sign in one crematorium said it was fully booked and taking no new orders.

　　"Today we have 80 bodies. We store them anywhere we can because the refrigerators are full," an attendant at Hospital No. 62's morgue, designed to hold up to 35 corpses, told Reuters.

　　Until Monday, neither federal nor Moscow authorities had announced data on deaths from heat and pollution, giving rise to suspicion of a Soviet-style cover-up in the face of criticism of the government's handling of the wildfire crisis.

　　Officials say 52 people have been killed by fires that have ravaged forests and fields and destroyed a handful of villages since late July.

　　ECONOMIC IMPACT

　　Prime Minister Vladimir Putin last week announced a grain export ban from August 15 to December 31, sending prices higher and hurting shares of brewers such as Carlsberg and Heineken.

　　SovEcon, a leading agricultural analyst, said on Monday the government might extend the ban even longer, reducing 2010-11 wheat exports to about 3 million tonnes instead of the earlier expected 10-11 million tonnes.

　　SovEcon also said Russia's wheat crop might be about one-third smaller than last year's, dropping to 43 million tonnes from 61.7 million tonnes in 2009.

　　Russia's main sugar lobby warned on Monday that the drought may hamper this year's beet sugar output, reducing it from the earlier expected 4 million tonnes to 3.2-3.5 million tonnes.

　　The downgraded sugar beet forecast is not expect to change Russia's import needs as it has large domestic reserves. Almost all sugar produced in Russia is consumed domestically.

　　Kremlin critics have blamed Putin for what they call a sluggish and ineffective government response to the fires, but polls have so far shown no decline in his popularity.

　　Russia has begun to feel economic effects from the horrid weather conditions, which have prompted banks and businesses to reduce staffing and slowed activity in the service sector.

　　Alfa Bank, a Moscow investment bank, said it would not publish a daily research bulletin on Monday or Tuesday.

　　"Owing to severe weather in Moscow, there is only a limited presence at the bank," an Alfa official said in an e-mail.

　　According to the business daily Kommersant, investment bank Uralsib shortened its workday on Monday, and state-controlled behemoth Sberbank closed some of its back offices.

　　But many Muscovites did report for work, trudging to metro stations or driving on streets where visibility was far below normal and smog veiled buildings.

　　Many people wore facemasks to try to filter the smoke, but the masks were increasingly hard to find and some doctors raised concerns about an official whitewash of the real impact of the smoke in Moscow.

　　An unnamed doctor at a Moscow clinic wrote on his Internet site over the weekend that he was wary of diagnosing patients with heat- and smoke-related illnesses for fear of dismissal.

　　Another doctor at a major hospital, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters on Sunday that senior management had instructed staff not to link patients' illnesses with the heat.

　　Moscow authorities said over the weekend that reception centers were operating city-wide as refuges from the heat. But Vitaly Bredikhin, deputy manager of one of the centers, said that about 90 percent of the facilities lacked air-conditioning.

　　At one of the shelters, in an old building near Pushkin Square in the center of the city, about 10 elderly people sat in a hot dining room with no air-conditioning or even a fan.