It is often claimed that knowledge is something that we cannot do without, especially in our competitive society.

In the following text, some sentences have been removed. For Questions 41-45, choose the most suitable one from the list (A、B、C、D、E、F、G……) to fit into each of the numbered blank. There are several extra choices, which do not fit in any of the gaps. (10 points) At Yale University, some ten students live off campus in a cooperative home they call the Green House. (41)______. Late at night, they drive to the store and quietly jump into its car-sized dumpster, picking out unopened packages of still fresh food. They find milk, eggs, bread and cookies, chocolate, soup, vegetables, even frozen pizzas and soymilk. Not only are most Green House residents vegetarian, but they are also moderate freegans, meaning that they eat mainly what they can get for free. These students, of course, are trying to leave as small an "ecological footprint" as possible. (42)______. Across America other devout environmentalists tire "off the grid", building shacks in the wilderness without running water or electricity. Frustrated with environmental destruction and waste, they have renounced the system that fosters and perpetuates it. Such ascetic anti-consumerism may be the most dramatic side of environmentalism, and it leads to cultural ferment that can set into motion political and economic change. Its practitioners focus on personal sacrifice, hoping that their ideals and asceticism will spread like a religion. (43)______. Our political and economic systems are deeply immature. Environmentalists need m spend just as much energy organizing political and economic environmentalism. Also, old-fashioned environmentalism often assumes that business is opposed to environmental protection. In fact, thousands of US companies are discovering, often with the help of energy consultants, how much money they have to stand from becoming environmentally efficient: saving energy and recycling within industry. The recent book Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution by Paul Hawkenetal now translated into Chinese, should get some of the credit for bringing about this transformation in attitudes. Paradoxically, the US is both the birthplace of global environmentalism and the world"s biggest environmental spender. Romanticism, the European and American literary and artistic movement that found God in the wilderness, had a strong long term impact on American thinking, starting in the middle third of the 19th century. In particular, renewed attention to the essays of Henry David Thoreau (1817-62) helped launch modern environmentalism a century after his death. (44)______. Why the discrepancy?Most environmental damage cannot be boiled down to the choices made by individuals. Most environmental damage cannot be boiled down to the choices made by individuals. Rather, individuals are locked into a system in which heavy industry commits the majority of ecological crimes, buttressed by an economic system that squanders natural resources. The government gives away mining rights and opens public forests to loggers practically for free—and big business spends millions of dollars to make sure politicians keep on doing so. (45)______. For many environmental problems, the solution is organized political pressure and entrepreneurial innovation.A. At times, the moral conviction and worldview of the Green House appear as all encompassing as a religious faith. Green House inmates live in the most environmentally "pious" way one could conceive of in the city.B. But effective environmentalism requires more than words, more than cultural change. It requires legal and economic reform. It demands historically unprecedented policies incorporating the value of cherished natural resources in market calculations. It calls for new organizations and entrepreneurial commitment. Anyone have any ideas?C. But one drawback of focusing environmentalist energy on abstaining from personal consumption is that such an approach can distract people from the larger muses of environmental destruction, which cannot be affected by individual choices to consume or not to consume.D. Other government subsidies support several filthy industries. While the government pays for new freeways, thus subsidizing automobiles, it ignores trains and bus networks. Polluters don"t pay the real cost of externalities such as toxic waste and air and water pollution.E. They recycle cans, bottles and paper meticulously, sorting them into the bins collected by municipal trucks in American cities. They reuse "grey water", meaning that they plug the drain when they shower and then use buckets to flush the toilet with the old soapy water. To prevent food from going to waste, they even get most of their groceries out of the trash of an upscale grocery store.F. We should recall, however, that environmentalists have often been fobbed off with token gestures, idle talk and unimplemented treaties. Even President Bush, who has the worst environmental record of any American president so far, has mastered the art of (largely empty) environmentalist rhetoric.G. Yet today America, with only 596 of the world"s population, produces 2496 of global carbon dioxide emissions. The US, like many other rich countries, has cleaned up its air and water, but it is still the biggest contributor to the greatest environmental threat ever global climate change.

That is the reason why I am not in favour of revising the plan.

Americans don't like to lose wars. Of course, a lot depends on how you define just what a war is. There are shooting wars—the kind that test patriotism and courage—and those are the kind at which the U.S. excels. But other struggles test those qualities too. What else was the Great Depression or the space race or the construction of the railroads? If American indulge in a bit of flag—when the job is done, they earned it. Now there is a similar challenge—global warming. The steady deterioration of the very climate of this very planet is becoming a war of the first order, and by any measure, the U.S. is losing. Indeed, if America is figting at all, it's fighting on the wrong side. The U.S. produces nearly a quarter of the world's greenhouse gases each year and has stubbornly made it clear that it doesn' t intend to do a whole lot about it. Although 174 nations approved the admittedly flawed Kyoto accords to reduce carbon levels, the U.S. walked away from them. There are vague promises of manufacturing fuel from herbs or powering cars with hydrogen. But for a country that tightly cites patriotism as one of its core values, the U.S. is taking a pass on what might be the most patriotic struggle of all. It' s hard to imagine a bigger fight than one for the survival of a country' s coasts and farms, the health of its people and stability of its economy. The rub is, if the vast majority of people increasingly agree that climate change is a global emergency, there' s far less agreement on how to fix it. Industry offers its plans, which too often would fix little. Environmentalists offer theirs, which too often amount to native wish lists that could weaken America' s growth. But let' s assume that those interested parties and others will always bent the table and will always demand that their voices be heard and that their needs be addressed. What would an aggressive, ambitious, effective plan look like—one that would leave the U.S. both environmentally safe and economically sound? Halting climate change will be far harder. One of the more conservative plans for addressing the problem calls for a reduction of 25 billion tons of carbon emissions over the next 52 years. And yet by devising a consistent strategy that mixes short-time profit with long-range objective and blends pragmatism with ambition, the U.S. can, without major damage to the economy, help halt the worst effects of climate change and ensure the survival of its way of life for future generations. Money will do some of the work, but what's needed most is will. "I'm not saying the challenge isn't almost overwhelming," says Fred Krupp. "But this is America, and America has risen to these challenges before."

The United States economy produced roughly $15 trillion worth of goods and services in 2008, making it easily the largest in the world. China is next, at about $ 12 trillion, according to one widely used estimate. Per person, the American economy has the fourth largest output—more than $45,000 for every man, woman and child, on average—behind Luxembourg, Bermuda and Liechtenstein, all havens for offshore banking. In 2007, the American economy began to slow significantly, mostly because of a real-estate slump and related financial problems. In December 2007, the economy entered a recession, according to a committee of academic economists, overseen by the National Bureau of Economic Research, that is widely considered the arbiter of recessions. The committee defines a recession as a broad-based and protracted downturn in economic activity, and its members typically wait many months before announcing that a recession has ended. By nearly all accounts, the recession continued into early 2009, making it the longest one in decades. The economy was last in recession in 2001. Contrary to widespread belief, the terrorist attacks of 2001 did not cause the downturn that year. The economy slowed as the dot-com bubble started leaking in early 2000 and began to shrink in early 2001. The recession ended in November 2001. Over the last few decades, recessions have become less common than they once were. Ben S. Bernanke, the Federal Reserve chairman, and others have described this development as the "great moderation". While the economy used to swing between expansion and contraction every few years, there had been only two relatively brief recessions over the last 25 years before the current downturn. Perhaps the most important reason for the change is the new flexibility of businesses. Executives can now track the ups and downs of their sales and inventories more closely than they used to, thanks in large part to computers. Better transportation, like FedEx, also helps companies to keep their warehouses lean. So a company is less likely to find itself suddenly stuck with too many workers and products—and then have to make sharp cutbacks. Yet there are also now increasing worries that a boom in consumer spending, helped along by more consumer debt, played a large role in lifting economic growth—and moderating its swings—over the last generation. If this is the case—and if the end of the debt boom leads to slower consumer spending, as seems to be happening—economic growth may slow significantly in coming years, even after the recession ends.

There is a general support for the argument Democrats are beginning to make that priority should be given to improving the ability of the government to prevent the smuggling of weapons of mass destruction into the entry and to respond effectively should such an attack occur.

Offering Help Write a letter of about 100 words based on the following situation: Your roommate Ken is moving to another dorm room this weekend. Now write him a letter to offer your help and send him a little gift. Do not sign your own name at the end of the letter. Use "Li Ming" instead. Do not write the address.

Someone has calculated that by the time an American reaches the age of 40, he or she has been exposed to one million ads. Another estimate is that we have encountered more than 600,000 ads by the time we reach the age of only 18. Now, of course, we don"t remember what exactly they said or even what the product was, but a composite message gets through: that you deserve the best, that you should have it now, and that it"s okay to indulge yourself, because you deserve the compliments, sex appeal, or adventure you are going to get as a result of buying this car or those cigarettes. Our consumer-based economy makes two absolutely reciprocal psychological demands on its members. On the one hand, you need the "discipline" values to ensure that people will be good workers and lead orderly, law-abiding lives. On the other hand, you need the "enjoy yourself" messages to get people to be good consumers. One author was disturbed about the "enjoy yourself" side, but acknowledged that "without a means of stimulating mass consumption, the very structure of our business enterprise would collapse." The interesting question has to do with the psychological consequences of the discrepancy between the dual messages. The "discipline" or "traditional values" theme demands that one compartment of the personality have a will strong enough to keep the individual doing unpleasant work at low wages, or to stay in an unhappy marriage, and, in general, to do things for the good of the commonwealth. The "enjoy yourself" message, on the other hand, tends to encourage a very different kind of personality-one that is self-centered, based on impulse, and is unwilling to delay rewards. As an illustration, I can"t resist reciting one of my favorite ads of all time, an ad from a psychology magazine: "I love me. I"m just a good friend to myself. And I like to do what makes me feel good. I used to sit around, putting things off till tomorrow. Tomorrow I"ll drink champagne, and buy a set of pearls, and pick up that new stereo. But now I live my dreams today, not tomorrow." So what happens to us as we take in these opposing messages, as we are, in fact, torn between the opposite personality types that our society seems to require of us? Tile result is anxiety, fear, and a mysterious dread. The fear of being sucked in and dragged down by our consumer culture is real: the credit card company is not friendly when you default on your bills. And we all know that the path of pleasure-seeking and blind acquisition is a recipe for financial ruin-for most of us, anyway-and that, in American society, there isn"t much of a safety net to catch you if you fall.

WHO was the first modern artist? How about Giorgione? (46) A far-fetched notion, perhaps, but this Renaissance Venetian revolutionized painting—and his work, focusing on subjects such as bodies, landscapes and female beauty, was titled "modern" by the leading art commentator of the day, Vasari. Giorgione was not alone, as illustrated by the excellent catalogue accompanying the exhibition "Bellini, Giorgione, Titian, and the Renaissance of Venetian Painting" now showing at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. (47) What made him, and the generation of artists he inspired, so special was his ability to absorb the new currents of culture then flowing through Venice. A catalyst was Leonardo Da Vinci, who briefly visited Venice in 1500. In Leonardo"s drawings, Giorgione, as well as the younger artist, Titian, and their master, Giovanni Bellini, glimpsed a new conception of the human form, based on observation and expressed in smoky contours and subtle shades of light and dark. Over the subsequent 30 years, one of the most exciting periods in the history of art unfolded. In readable, engaging essays, David Brown and Sylvia Ferino-Pagden, the exhibition"s curators, together with a team of top scholars, tell its story. We learn how this triumvirate of Venetian painters devoured not only Leonardo"s ideas, but also those of Albrecht Darer, the German artist whose realistic rendering of nature was known in Venice through prints, even before his sojourn there in 1506-7. (48) Darer"s work taught Venetian artists that landscape could be an independent element of a painting, rather than just a symbolic backdrop for religious subjects. The result was a new style full of natural movement, sensuality and poetic atmosphere. (49) Venetian painting had long been characterized by its jewel-like color—obtained by grinding colored glass and minerals—but now it was applied in a way that gave art the kiss of life. Giorgione blazed the trail. A top student of Bellini, he later forged his own style, inspired by the current vogue for pastoral love poetry based on recently discovered ancient texts, then the bestsellers of Venice"s flourishing printing industry. (50) He excelled at what was known among the educated elite as the model a competition between painting and poetry in which painters sought to prove that they could rival poets in conveying beauty by appealing to the eyes, as well as to the mind. This was revolutionary because it implied that painting originated in the imagination of the artist, rather than being a simple recording of the great and the good, history and religion. It proved painters were creators and not just craftsmen.

Many of the world"s big lakes are threatened by pollution or huge drainage schemes. But there is least one fairly bright spot. The Great Lakes and St. Lawrence River system between Canada and the United States, which together account for a fifth of the world"s non-polar fresh water, are much healthier than they were. Can they stay that way? Though Lake Michigan is wholly the United States, all five lakes are governed by the Boundary Waters Treaty of 1909, implemented by an independent bi-national joint commission. In 1978, both countries agreed to try to clean up the water in the lakes, several of which were heavily polluted. They have done so though in fact the improvement owes as much to economic change as to government action. Steel and other heavy industry have given way to cleaner industries and services, both in Ontario and in American lakeside states. The result: tests on fish and birds show residues of heavy metals have declined (though dangerous levels of mercury are still found), while in past ten years the rivers near Toronto have been successfully stocked with salmon. There are still worries. One problem is farming. This uses much lake water 929% of the total that is withdrawn) from irrigation, while also polluting the lakes and river systems. The huge quantities of manure spread on farms in Ontario and Quebec also causes pollution, by running off the land into streams, rivers and then lakes. Some scientists also worry that water levels will fall permanently. Climate change is likely to cut rainfall in the Great Lakes basin, while ever more water will be drawn from the lakes by a rising urban population. General consumption in the basin will increase by 25% in the next 25 years, according to a forecast by a consultant to the commission. Other threats include some 140 exotic species of flora, fish and shellfish that have found their way into the lakes, some via ships" ballast. The zebra mussel from Eastern Europe is the most notorious and probably most damaging to the environment. It consumes a lot of oxygen (though it also helps to clean the water). Lastly, there is the hazardous prospect of decommissioning Ontario"s two dozen ageing nuclear reactors, which line the shores of Lake Ontario and Lake Huron. Fortunately, the long history of successful cooperation between the two countries and among the local governments suggest these threats can be managed. Both governments have approved the commission"s plan to set up international watershed boards across the continent. These are to take a "holistic" approach to ecosystems. Maybe the Zebra mussel and the farm run-offs have met their match.

Writeanessayof160—200wordsbasedonthefollowingpicture.Inyouressay,youshould1)describethepicturebriefly,2)showyourunderstandingofitssymbolicmeaning,and3)giveyourviewontheOlympics.Youshouldwriteitneatly.

In her novel of "Reunion, American Style", Rona Jaffe suggests that a class reunion "is more than a sentimental journey. It is also a way of answering the question that lies at the back of nearly all our minds. Did they do better than I?" Jaffe' s observation may be misplaced but not completely lost. 【F1】 According to a study conducted by social psychologist Jack Sparacino, the overwhelming majority who attend reunions aren 't there invidiously to compare their recent accomplishments with those of their former classmates. Instead, they hope, primarily, to relive their earlier successes. Certainly, a few return to show their former classmates how well they have done; others enjoy observing the changes that have occurred in their classmates (not always in themselves, of course). 【F2】 But the majorities who attend their class reunions do so to relive the good times they remember having when they were younger. 【F3】 In his study, attendees had been more popular, more often re garded as attractive, and more involved in extracurricular activities than those classmates who chose not to attend. For those who turned up at their reunions, then, the old times were also the good times! It would appear that Americans have a special fondness for reunions, judging by their prevalence. Major league baseball players, fraternity members, veterans groups, high school and college graduates, and former Boy Scouts all hold reunions on a regular basis. In addition, family reunions frequently attract blood relatives from faraway places who spend considerable money and time to reunite. 【F4】 Actually, in their affection for reuniting with friends, family or colleagues, Americans are probably no different from any other people, except that Americans have created an amazing number and variety of institutionalized forms of gatherings to facilitate the satisfaction of this desire. Indeed, reunions have increasingly become formal events that are organized on a regular basis and, in the process, they have also become big business. Shell Norris of Class Reunion, Inc., says that Chicago alone has 1,500 high school reunions each year. A conservative estimate on the national level would be 10,000 annually. At one time, all high school reunions were organized by volunteers, usually female homemakers. 【F5】 In the last few years, however, as more and more women have entered the labour force, alumni reunions are increasingly being planned by specialized companies rather than by part-time volunteers. The first college reunion was held by the alumni of Yale University in 1792. Graduates of Pennsylvania, Princeton, Stanford, and Brown followed suit. And by the end of the 19th century, most 4-year institutions were holding alumni reunions.

BSection III Writing/B

More than one in ten people who are regularly exposed to organophosphate pesticides(有机磷酸脂农药) will suffer unrecoverable physical and mental damage, a team of psychiatrists warns. The investigators say that theirs is the first serious attempt to estimate the number of people suffering because of chronic low-level exposure to the pesticides. "This is a worrying high level of illness," says one researcher. The findings by the researcher, who also treats many of the victims, conflict with those of the Britain"s government agency monitoring occupational health, which says there is no good evidence to suggest chronic exposure leads to widespread illness. The research team sent questionnaires to 400 farmers selected at random from a phone book. Of 179 who replied, 130 reported that they had been exposed to organophosphates. And 21 farmers complained of enough symptoms to be classed as suffering from organophosphate poisoning. Allowing for bias inherent in the survey method, they suggest that around 10 percent of farmers exposed to the pesticides suffer from poisoning. The researchers also uncovered a consistent pattern of symptoms ranging from extreme tiredness and speech difficulty to suicidal impulses. Again this contrasts with the government agency"s view that there is no clear pattern of symptoms for pesticide poisoning, making a diagnosis difficult. They believe the real figure for poisoning is much higher, once you include cancers and heart disease linked to the pesticide. Last year, British specialists also found evidence of a link between organophosphates and severe bone abnormalities in eight men. One of the researchers, Anthony Lyons of Queen"s Medical centre in Nottingham, says preliminary results from a larger follow-up study suggest the extent of bone damage may be worse than they feared. All those who suffer from organophosphate poisoning complain of becoming "exquisitely sensitive" to any further exposure. This is bad news for any Gulf War veterans sent back to the Middle East. Many scientists and doctors are convinced that Gulf War Syndrome is at least partly caused by organophosphate pesticides, which were sprayed in tents and on clothes to protect troops from biting insects. A spokesman for Britain"s Ministry of Defense says there are no immediate plans to send ground troops to the Gulf. But the US is moving 5,000 troops into the region. Returning troops "would be more vulnerable to poisoning", says one of the leading US authorities on such poisoning.

The Best Media to Use There are plenty of options available for spreading news, such as newspapers, radio, TV, the Internet and so on. According to your option what is the best media to use? Why? Write a composition of 160-200 words.

It was inevitable that any of President George W. Bush"s fans had to be very disappointed by his decision to implement high tariffs on steel imported to the U.S. The president"s defense was pathetic: He argued that the steel tariffs were somehow consistent with free trade, that the domestic industry was important and struggling, and that the relief was a temporary measure to allow time for restructuring. One reason that this argument is absurd is that U.S. integrated steel companies ("Big Steel") have received various forms of government protection and subsidy for more than 30 years. Instead of encouraging the industry to restructure, the long-term protection has sustained inefficient companies and cost U.S. consumers dearly. As Anne O. Krueger, now deputy managing director of the International Monetary Fund, said in a report on Big Steel: "The American Big Steel industry has been the champion lobbyist and seeker of protection.... It provides a key and disillusioning example of the ability to lobby in Washington for measures which hurt the general public and help a very small group". Since 1950s, Big Steel has been reluctant to make the investments needed to match the new technologies introduced elsewhere. It agreed to high wages for its unionized labor force. Hence, the companies have difficulty in competing not only with more efficient producers in Asia and Europe but also with technologically advanced U.S. mini-mills, which rely on scrap metal as an input. Led by Nucor Cor., these mills now capture about half of overall U.S. sales. The profitability of U.S. steel companies depends also on steel prices, which, despite attempts at protection by the U.S. and other governments, are determined primarily in world markets. These prices are relatively high as recently as early 2000 but have since declined with the world recession to reach the lowest dollar values of the last 20 years. Although these low prices are unfortunate for U.S. producers, they are beneficial for the overall U.S. economy. The low prices are also signal that the inefficient Big Steel companies should go out of business even faster than they have been. Instead of leaving or modernizing, the dying Big Steel industry complains that foreigners dump steels by selling at low prices. However, it is hard to see why it is bad for the overall U.S. economy if foreign producers wish to sell us their goods at low prices. After all, the extreme case of dumping is one where foreigners give us their steel for free and why would that be a bad thing?

I seldom, if ever, saw such a fine sight.

The day of terror at the Virginia Polytechnic and State University in Blacksburg began at about 7:15 a. m., with the shooting of a woman and a male resident adviser on the fourth floor of a dorm building on campus, Kristen Bensley, a freshman who lived below the floor where the shooting occurred, told TIME, "There were minors going on about the assailant was fighting with his girlfriend or something of that nature". Bensley notes that only residents can get into the building, using a specific "passport", that is, a card that one has to swipe in order to open doors before 10 a.m. If he was an outsider, someone would have had to let him in. Or more likely, he was a resident of the dorm himself. If so, how did be keep so much ammunition unnoticed? Unlike high schools, most universities can"t beef up security with a metal detector or two. So what can be done to protect students? Other questions remain unanswered. Why was there a two-hour gap between the incident at the dorm and a far more fatal one across campus? At one point, that led to theorizing that more than one gunman was involved. The gunman who killed at least 30 people at Norris Hall shortly after 9 a.m. was described by some sources as an Asian man. It has been a surreal time for the students. Brandon Stiltner, a senior aerospace engineering student, and Jonathan Hess, a senior mechanical engineer, were watching TV all day but by noon they"d had enough. "We decided we needed to do something", Stiltner said. "We were worthless sitting around". So they took their six-foot Virginia Tech sign off the wall and logged into Facebook. Within the next few hours 100 people replied to their e-mail request for a vigil. By 8 p.m. hundreds bf students began filing down the steps of the War Memorial Chapel toward the drill field. Clusters of two and three students stood together in silence. Slowly they began to line up to sign the board. "I"m still really in disbelief", says Stiltner. The shock of the day"s shootings sank in, Hess said, as he carried the sign across campus for the vigil. "It hit me", Hess said, "to know that it was in these buildings". The media crews that swarmed campus were also surreal to Hess and Stiltner. "We could look out our window and see exactly what"s on TV", Stiltner says. He watched his sign crowded with initials and prayers, awaiting the names of the victims, He shuddered. "I hope I don"t have any nasty surprises".

For most people Britain's bouncing economy, now growing at its fastest for three years, is cause for cheer. Not,【C1】______for those who manage the country's electricity power system. For them【C2】______growth means faster progress towards a critical situation. Ofgem, the energy regulator, has long【C3】______that the margin between peak electricity demand and【C4】______supply is falling. In June it said the margin would【C5】______from 14% in 2014 to just 4% in the winter of 2018, increasing the risk of blackouts【C6】______the weather turn cold or a power station or two【C7】______. Since that report Britain's economy has grown fast. Ofgem's assessment【C8】______that Britain would grow by about 1.6% in 2017. The Bank of England now【C9】______2.8% growth. This will【C10】______consumption. Over the past decade an increase in peak electricity demand of 0.5%【C11】______each additional percentage point of economic growth. John Feddersen of Aurora Energy Research thinks the capacity margin will therefore【C12】______to 2.6% by 2018 unless action is taken. That【C13】______into a one-in-seven chance of shortages, up from the one-in-twelve chance【C14】______was thought most likely last summer. Falling coal prices have kept Britain's coal-fired power stations running at full【C15】______. That means many will have to close sooner than was【C16】______because European environmental laws【C17】______the total number of operating hours left to them. At the same time cheap coal has made electricity from gas uncompetitive,【C18】______operators to put some gas-fired plants into long-term【C19】______. Renewable capacity cannot yet make up the【C20】______.

Opportunities for water companies are flowing around the world because of looming shortages and decades of underinvestment. Saudi Arabia and Algeria, where water shortages have become acute, are placing billions of dollars of contracts out to bid to improve water supplies for their growing populations. The trend is expected to grow, as 40% of the world"s population will suffer water shortages by 2050, according to the United Nations Development Program. Global warming is expected to exacerbate the problem. Saudi Arabia began privatizing water services after shortages sparked riots last November in Jeddah. Loay Ahmed Musallam, the deputy water minister, said the first contract to manage water supplies for Riyadh would be awarded this year. By 2010, private companies will provide water for half the population, he added. Saudi Arabia plans to invest $37 billion over five years to improve water pipelines. Leaks cost 1 million cubic meters of water a day—the output of seven desalination plants—the minister said. Even after putting contracts out to bid, governments still face politically sensitive decisions. In Saudi Arabia, for example, water tariffs are among the lowest in the world. Musallam said Saudis consumed twice as much water as Britons in spite of living in one of the driest parts of the globe. The government is introducing measures to encourage water conservation. Even in the US, the shortfall between actual investment and the industry"s real needs is estimated to be $122 billion for waste water treatment and $100 billion for drinking water over the next 12 years, said Michael Dean of the Environmental Protection Agency. "People take for granted clean, safe, inexpensive water, but the old ways of paying for water in the US no longer meet our needs", Dean said. Water services in the US are mainly owned by municipalities, which fiercely resist privatization. Gasson says decades of underinvestment are catching up with the water industry. "Either tariffs or subsidies will have to rise. We are at an inflection point. Investment now is unavoidable", he said. David Lloyd Owen, a British consultant, estimated the investment shortfall for the global water industry at $1.2 trillion over the next 20 years. "The question is how to overcome political resistance to the involvement of the private sector", he said. "The water industry is one of the most conservative in the world. By and large, it is still run by bureaucrats and engineers", Owen said. "There is also a passionate and well-organized lobby against privatization". He sees more room for the private sector as technology for desalination and recycling come to play an increasing role in the industry. Banks are also becoming more creative in matching the financing of capital outlays in the industry with the long lives of water treatment facilities.