(A)Forget planes, trains or automobiles — if Joan Pick wants to go anywhere, she runs. And she eats nothing but raw food. Is her lifestyle extreme or the future we must all face up to?
W e all know we should reduce our carbon footprint, but I don’ t think that many people would be prepared to go as far as Joan Pick. She hasn’ t driven a car since 1973. Her gas supply was cut off, and her electricity usage is minimal. She eats only raw food and the only items she ever buys are new trainers—because she gets around by running everywhere. Pick，a scientist for many years，is 67 and claims her lifestyle keeps her healthy.
Much as I admire Pick’ s low impact on this frazzled earth, is her lifestyle all a bit extreme? She shrugs her shoulders. “Does it look like a hovel?“ she says, looking at her flat. It doesn.t； it is neat and tidy, and the furniture is classic 1960s that she has had for 40 years. She listens to Classic F M and Radio 4 on an old secondhand stereo system. The only electricity she uses is a single light (low-energy bulbs, of course) for the evenings, and her kettle, which not only makes the tea she drinks all clay, but provides the hot water for laundry — which she does by hand 一 and bucket baths.
Pick doesn.t have heating. Doesn.t she get cold? “Sometimes，”she says. How does she keep warm?“Clothing and exercise,”she replies.
She decided to start living like this, “because I realized we have got the energy question totally wrong. I decided to imagine that the earth was a business in need of sound management. We
are all members of the board, a shareholder, a consumer and an employee. W e believed that fossil fuels were infinite, but they are finite.”
Her world has shrunk to the distance around her flat in south London that she can run to (which isn’ t small — she can run to Tower Bridge, several miles away). These days, Pick spends her time going to the library to read the papers —“It takes longer on a Thursday because I have to read the New Scientist as well, but it. s so awful”— and looking through W h o . s W h o and Google to find the addresses of the politicians, scientists and industry leaders she wants to write to.
Doesn. t she ever want to go on holiday? “Oh no,”she says. “I’ ve never enjoyed going on holidays. You can learn about places by reading about them.”I wonder if her life isn’ t a bit isolating. She has never married and doesn. t have a partner. She admits that her friends and neighbors do think she.s a bit mad. Maybe she is, but perhaps we will all have to live like Pick one day.
She follows a raw vegetarian diet. She says, “I had tried every diet in the hook, so I decided to try a raw-food vegetarian diet.”We go into her kitchen, where she opens a large tub full of mixed seeds and nuts, which forms the basis of her diet, along with fruit and wheatgerm. “It. s very easy to live like this. I couldn.t t imagine living any other way now”，she says.
It seems a bit joyless to me, hut Pickisn，t a joyless person； far from it—she. s delightful. I.ve made her late for her daily two-hour run. W e walk down the stairs together (she never uses the lift) and she runs off into the afternoon sunshine.
Decide whether the following statements are True (T) or False (F).
(1). (判断题) Joan Pick didn. t drive because a car was beyond her. (本题2.0分)
A、 T
B、 F
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