| Hi Amu,
the reports in lines 17 - 19 are "the reports that lake erie would be dead by now." passage 2 says things like "few ideas are more deeply entrenched in our political culture than that of impending doom" (which you read to answer question 17), and it also says that both the Left and the Right are afraid to admit that government reactions to environmentalists' warnings can sometimes save the environment (lines 76 to 85). from these citations we can tell that the writer of passage 2 thinks that the messages of "impending doom" used by environmentalists get results, even if they're not actually true.
(a) isn't right, passage 2 never says that the trumped-up messages are unethical.
(b) isn't right, because passage 2 doesn't talk about scientific uncertainty.
(c) isn't right--this is what passage 1 (middle paragraph)
(d) is right. passage 2 says these messages of doom have served the purpose of motivating the public into action.
(e) is wrong. passage 2 doesn't say that the warnings are still needed--in fact, line 76 says the environmentalists have created so much success with their over-the-top warnings that the environment is no longer collapsing all around us, and so the messages of doom are now no longer needed. | 
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