Question

THE TREE MASSACRE


by Alex Shoumatoff


The paper industry is destroying11 one of America’s last great stands of native forest25 to bring you fresh shopping12 bags and toilet paper.


If there were an international tribunal that prosecuted9 crimes against the planet, like the one in The Hague that deals23 with crimes against humanity, what is happening22 on the Cumberland Plateau in eastern Tennessee would undoubtedly be indictable.


The crime — one of many clandestine ecocides American corporations are committing1 around the world — has taken2 place28 over three decades. About 200,000 acres on this tableland have already been clear-cut30 by the paper industry, and the cutting13 continues3. Where once grew10 some of the most biologically rich hardwood forest in North America’s Temperate Zone (which extends4 from the Gulf of Mexico to southern Canada), there are now row after row of fast-growing loblolly pine trees genetically engineered to yield the most pulp in the shortest time. But the paper industry’s insatiable appetite26 for timber has met5 with unexpected competition from an equally voracious insect. In the last four years, an estimated 50 to 70 percent of the pines planted6 on the plateau have been devoured31 by the southern pine beetle. The entire South has been ravaged32 by the worst outbreak in its history of this native predator of pine trees, caused by the tremendous increase in the amount of pine available for it to eat on the industry plantations that have replaced20 the native forest. Unable to salvage its dead timber, the paper industry has been losing17hundreds of millions of dollars. Yet it seems7 still committed to destroying16 what remains24 of the extraordinarily lush forest on the Cumberland Plateau, which, along with eastern Tennessee’s Great Valley and the Cumberland Mountains, has the highest concentration of endangered species in North America. The loss of biodiversity is tragic but also absurd economically; it doesn’t even make good business sense.


Not many people are aware of what is taking14place33. Nearly 90 percent of the Cumberland Plateau is in private hands and exempt from all but a few government regulations18. The federal and state agencies that are supposed to be regulating the paper, timber, and mining15 industries are populated with34 these companies’ former executives and have come29 to view these industries as clients whose permits and projects should be facilitated35 rather than scrutinized. But a quarter of the world’s paper27 and 60 percent of America’s wood products are being19 produced36 in the South, and the will to address the abuses of the paper industry, which contributes8 millions of dollars to the campaign coffers of politicians around the country, just isn’t there — certainly not in Tennessee.


There’s another reason for the lack of public awareness: Much of the devastation is hidden from view by thin “beauty strips” of native forest left along the plateau’s highways. The only way to get the full picture is to go up in a small plane and see it from the air.


Check the option whose verbs are in the simple present:

a) are committing (ref.1), has taken (ref.2), continues (ref.3)

b) continues (ref.3), seems (ref.7), contributes (ref.8)

c) extends (ref.4), has met (ref.5), planted (ref.6)
QUAL A RESPOSTA???
URGENTE

Answer 1

Resposta:

Letra "C"

Check the option whose verbs are in the simple present:

O TEXTO fala sobre desmatamento!!

plantou e um verbo conheceu estende!

Answer 2

Resposta:

Alternativa correta: c) continues (ref.3), seems (ref.7), contributes (ref.8)

Explicação:

Os três verbos da alternativa c) estão conjugados na terceira pessoa do singular (he/she/it). “Continues” é uma flexão do verbo “to continue” (continuar), “seems” é uma flexão do verbo “to seem” (parecer) e “contributes” é uma flexão do verbo “to contribute” (contribuir).

Para formar as flexões de terceira pessoa do singular (he/she/it) no Simple Present, temos como regra geral o acréscimo de –s na forma infinitiva do verbo, sem o “to”. (Exemplo: to seem > seems).

Dependendo da terminação do verbo, pode ser necessário acrescentar ou retirar mais letras. (Exemplo: to worry > worries).

Para todas as outras pessoas (I, you, we e they), a flexão no Simple Present corresponde ao verbo no infinitivo sem o “to”. (Exemplos: to continue > continue; to contribute > contribute.)

Veja em que tempo verbal estão as flexões das outras alternativas:

a) are committing (ref.1), has taken (ref.2), continues (ref.3):

- are commiting: Present Continuous

- has taken: Present Perfect

- continues: Simple Present

b) extends (ref.4), has met (ref.5), planted (ref.6)

- extends: Simple Present

- has met: Present Perfect

- planted: Simple Past

d) prosecuted (ref.9), contributes (ref.8), grew (ref.10)

- prosecuted: Simple Past

- contributes: Simple Present

- grew: Simple Past