问答题 Education in America American schools, both public and private, consist of 12 years of grades—basically 8 years of elementary school and 4 years of secondary or high school, although grades 7 and 8, or 7, 8 and 9 may be housed together in a middle school or junior high school. In addition, the elementary school offers five-year-olds a year of kindergarten, usually half-day sessions, before they have formal instruction in reading and writing in the first grade. In a few states two years of junior college(the first two years of higher education) or a vocational school are part of the public school system. Schooling is compulsory in most states to the age of 16. The public schools are administered by local school boards—groups of people elected by the voters. The board appoints the superintendent and sometimes participates in choosing the teachers, decides how school funds are to be allocated, and has some voice in establishing the curriculum. Local funds for the schools come largely from property taxes paid by residents of the local school districts. Thus the people of the entire community, not just the parents of the children who attend, pay for public schools, which are free and open to everyone. In elementary school, all children in a given grade study the same thing. In junior high school the student may have a limited choice of subjects. In high school the choice is wider. While some subjects are required of everyone, some high school students, in addition, take vocational classes, and others study subjects that will prepare them for college. Students from both groups study under the same roof, each selecting courses according to his or her needs and interests. High school students commonly study four to five basic subjects per semester, each for approximately an hour a day. Additional courses, such as physical education, art, or music, may meet twice a week. After high school a person may prepare for a particular vocation or occupation by attending vocational courses either in a junior college or in a privately supported training school such as secretarial or industrial school. Or a person may attend a college or university. The term "college" refers to an undergraduate institution that confers a Bachelor of Arts or a Bachelor of Science degree after four years of study. A university generally is a group of colleges, each serving a special purpose. a college of liberal arts, a college of business, a college of education, and the like. In addition, universities offer graduate programs. The Master of Arts degree occasionally may be obtained after one year of additional specialized study, although some institutions require longer study. The Doctor of Philosophy is the highest academic degree in the area of the sciences and humanities. Professional degrees in such fields as medicine and law are part of the program of graduate education. Many colleges and universities are privately supported. Many have church affiliations. In each state, however, there is at least one university and often several colleges that receive support from state funds. Students in these schools, however, as well as those in private colleges, must pay tuition, but the state schools are much less expensive than private ones, particularly for students who are residents of the state.

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问答题Passage Translation 2 If your great grandparents were born in a rich country in the early 1900s, their lifespan would have been about 50. Today people in developed countries have a life expectancy of 80 or more. This is because the improvements of public health, such as running water and flushing toilets and then medical care. But these improvements have mostly benefited richer nations. There are still places in the world that don’t have clean water, enough food and enough doctors. So people there often suffer from famine and disease.

问答题The German Train Drivers" Union (GDL), the country"s oldest, used to be among its most obscure. That changed in July when its feisty leader, Manfred Schell, rejected an agreement between Deutsche Bahn, the main railway company, and the bulk of its workforce. His members, he said, deserve a big rise in their "miserable pay"—up to 31%, the union has hinted. The threat of an economy-crippling strike, which could happen as early as August 28th, is shocking enough. Still more is GDL"s challenge to Germany"s tradition of trade-union solidarity. Big unions are appalled by the prospect of some workers snatching better pay and conditions from weaker fellows. Employers accustomed to labour peace fret that Germany will face "English conditions" of rival unions competing by striking. GDL is not the first to break ranks. In 1999 airline pilots pulled out from DAG, the white-collar employees" union, to fight for their own deals. Six years later doctors abandoned an alliance with ver.di, a grouping formed by the merger of five service-sector unions, to strike for a bigger pay rise than the behemoth could win for them. GDL"s defection seems to confirm the unravelling of a system based on umbrella labour contracts for whole industries or firms. Companies complain that such contracts subvert competitiveness by imposing similar conditions regardless of size or strength. But they lose fewer work days to strikes than European rivals. Germany"s prowess in manufacturing, rare for a rich country, may be due in part to the security such contracts provide. Is that about to change? A separate deal for GDL would have "huge consequences for the next round" of labour negotiations, says Hans-Joachim Schabedoth, head of policy planning for the German Trade Union Confederation (DGB), the main union umbrella group. "Wage disputes will become harder to settle." Yet GDL"s behaviour probably threatens workers more than employers. German employment is recovering after years of stagnation and some trades are starting to benefit. Even so, recovery will not restore unions" self-confidence or the relative equality among workers (in West Germany, at least) that prevailed before German unification in 1990. Instead, growing prosperity may be accompanied by a bitter quarrel over how to divide it. Things have been going badly for the big trade unions ever since the fizzling in the mid- 1990s of the unification boom. Growth slowed, unemployment soared and workers in newly capitalist eastern Europe stole German jobs. Since 1991 the DGB has lost 44% of its members. Employers exploited unions" weakness by demanding opt-out clauses in labour contracts and sometimes dispensing with them altogether. Collective agreements now cover 65% of workers in western Germany, compared with 76% in 1998, says Reinhard Bispinck of the Hans-B6ckler Foundation, the DGB"s research arm. Workers" flexibility made the recovery possible. Companies "drove up productivity tremendously by having docile and productive unions," says Anke Hassel of the Hertie School of Governance, a private university. And now some are benefiting. Metal-bashing and electronics firms have added 85,000 jobs since employment hit bottom in April 2006. IG Metall, that industry"s union, won a pay rise of over 4% for June 2007-October 2008. "Employees are no longer prepared to accept (hourly) wage increases much below the long- term average" of about 2(作图)%, says Eekart Tuchtfeld, an economist at Commerzbank. But high-productivity sectors, particularly manufacturing, will gain more than less-productive services. Global competition will continue to pressure wages overall. "The underlying situation will not change," says Mr. Tuchtfeld. Under the constitution, unions and employers are autonomous and disputes have been resolved by the courts. But breakaway unions make it more difficult for courts to defend one union"s right to negotiate on behalf of a company"s entire workforce. The right to strike may now have to be regulated by law, Mr. Schabedoth believes. Another statutory fix, championed especially by ver. di, is a proposed minimum wage of 7.50 an hour. The sense of crisis may ebb if mediators appointed by GDL and Deutsche Bahn manage to avoid a separate contract for GDL"s drivers. But that will not solve the underlying problem. the discovery, as Germany recovers from its slump, that some workers are more equal than others.

问答题What is the author's view on the relationship between energy prices and inflation?

问答题Some decades ago, the powers declared that employee diversity was a good thing, as desirable as double-digit profit margins. It"s proving just as difficult to achieve. Companies try all sorts of things to attract and promote minorities and women. They hire organizational psychologists. They staff booths at diversity fairs. They host dim-sum brunches and salsa nights. The most popular—and expensive—approach is diversity training, or workshops to teach executives to embrace the benefits of a diverse staff. Too bad it doesn"t work. A groundbreaking new study by three sociologists shows that diversity training has little to no effect on the racial and gender mix of a company"s top ranks. Frank Dobbin of Harvard, Alexandra Kalev of the University of California, Berkeley, and Erin Kelly of the University of Minnesota sifted through decades of federal employment statistics provided by companies. Their analysis found no real change in the number of women and minority managers after companies began diversity training. That"s right—none. Networking didn"t do much, either. Mentorships did. Among the least common tactics, one—assigning a diversity point person or task force—has the best record of success. "Companies have spent millions of dollars a year on these programs without actually knowing, Are these efforts worth it?" Dobbin says. "In the case of diversity training, the answer is no." The law is one reason that employers favor diversity training. In the wake of whopping settlements in race-discrimination suits against large companies, including Texaco and Coca- Cola, over the past decade, employers believe that having a program in place can show a judge that they are sincerely fighting prejudice. But this too is a myth, says Dobbin. "I don"t know of a single case where courts gave credit for diversity training.” Social psychologists have many theories to explain why diversity training doesn"t work as intended. Studies show that any training generates a backlash and that mandatory diversity training in particular may even activate a bias. Researchers also see evidence of "irresistible stereotypes", or biases so deeply ingrained that they simply can"t be taught away in a one-day workshop. Consultants on diversity insist that the training they give has value. R. Roosevelt Thomas, founder of the American Institute for Managing Diversity, says corporate America must first redefine the word. "Diversity means differences and similarities," he says, be they in race, gender or corporate culture. He teaches executives to focus on skills and not familiarity. "In a foxhole, I want someone who can shoot," he says. "I don"t care where they"re from. Some folks have to be reminded of that." So what does work? The study"s findings in this area were striking too.. at companies that assigned a person or committee to oversee diversity, ensuring direct accountability for results, the number of minorities and women climbed 10% in the years following the appointment. Mentorships worked too, particularly for black women, increasing their numbers in management 23.5 %. Most effective is the combination of all these strategies, says Dobbin. In practice, companies find that a multipronged approach leads to results. General Electric initiated an aggressive diversity strategy under former CEO Jack Welch that included employee networks, regular planning forums, formal mentoring, and recruiting at colleges popular with minorities. Perhaps most significantly, GE appointed a chief diversity officer, Deborah Elam. In 2000, women, minorities and non-U.S. citizens made up 22% of GE"s officers and 29% of senior executives. By 2005, their ranks swelled to 34% among officers and 40% of senior execs. "Training just to train is not enough," says Elam. "You"ve got to have accountability at the top." Accountability for the careers of women and minorities requires a substantial commitment of time, staff and money—but so does diversity training. And only one works.

问答题在一个极为漫长的历史阶段中，人类只能通过音乐表演和口授来传播音乐。当人类发明了乐谱后，音乐便开始脱离表演而演变成“文字”得以记录和传播。然而，人类音乐传播的真正革命性里程碑的建立者无疑是科学家们。他们创造了令人叹为观止的音乐传播手段，从最早的机械“留声机”到今天五花八门的“电子媒体”。在20世纪诸多的音乐传播手段中，无线电广播的发明和发展对音乐的传播起了极为重要的作用。然而，高科技的高速发展也使我国广播音乐工作者在新世纪中面临着严峻的挑战。

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问答题Eating more than 18 ounces of red meat per week ups your risk of colorectal cancer. Its risk also rises by 40% with every three ounces serving of process meat eating per day.

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问答题When I was growing up, I was only occasionally exposed to the criminal classes. And even then it was mostly in a harmless, almost charming fashion. The Internet has changed that. Now I have round-the clock dealings with crooks, charlatans, con men and women of easy virtue. Every morning, I wake up to find an avalanche of solicitations from unscrupulous brokerage houses, shady pharmaceutical firms, mysterious surgeons and crooked lawyers. The Highway to Hell seems to run directly through my PC. Emails from illiterate scoundrels hoping to get my personal financial information are forever pouring into nay inbox. Sorry, guys, but "credit kard" is a dead giveaway that you"re not really from Bank of America. People pretending to be my sister-in-law in rural England try to get me to open attachments that will spread ruinous viruses throughout my computer and ultimately throughout all of society. They also commandeer friends" address books and send me baleful emails begging for money—-fast—because they have been mugged by depraved street urchins and are now penniless in Mexico City, Mozambique or Delhi. And then, of course, there are those tearful missives from deposed Nigerian potentates, imploring me to help them recover their stolen fortunes by parting with mine. I am not saying that my childhood was a Garden of Eden. My Uncle Johnny, who fell in with a rough crowd—the U.S. Navy—when he was 16, was always in trouble with the law. He would get sprung from the slammer every couple of years and stop by the house long enough to drag my dad out on a few ill-advised benders. Then he would do something society frowned upon and gel shipped right back to the Big House. But Uncle Johnny never once tried to enlist me in knocking over liquor stores or fencing stolen goods or pickpocketing hapless tourists, as I was only a wee tot. Besides, there were no tourists back then. I did know a few hoodlums and low-level drug dealers in high school and college, but I did not have direct contact with them on a daily basis. At the factory jobs I worked in college, there was always someone who handled football pools, but he was just a guy who knew other guys who might actually know wiseguys. He was not a wiseguy himself. Sure, there were always a few shady characters who asked me to look the other way while they "boosted" merchandise from the warehouse. But they didn"t ask me to steal it myself; the most they asked was for me to drive the getaway car. Of course I didn"t. I didn"t have a license. Thus I could go long periods having no direct social congress with felons, so long as I stayed out of certain neighborhoods, certain tap rooms and certain friends" houses. The thing I most hate today is that I never see the faces of the people who are trying to rip me off. In college, I knew who the drug dealers were; they always had names like Shelby or Vega the Trip. But I didn"t have to engage with them unless I wanted to. They didn"t do much in the way of outreach. These days, I can"t avoid daily contact with crooks lurking in the technological shadows. Perfectly legitimate Web searches redirect me to sites operated by Moloch and his sidekick Baal. Last month, I foolishly clicked the "Exit this page" button on a pop-up ad offering me a free phone and was redirected to a shockingly graphic porn site. I didn"t get the phone, either. All of which makes me long for the good old days when Uncle Johnny used to stop by the house. At least he was a crook with a human face.

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问答题许多专家认为，教学改革的当务之急是要改变现在的课程设置和考试办法，不要让孩子只知道“头悬梁，锥刺股，死读书，读死书”。他们指出，教育改革的关键在于使全社会认识到，中、小学教育的目的不只是让学生掌握必要的知识，更应该提高学生整体素质，特别是他们对于人生意义和社会责任这些根本的问题要有比较深入的思考。学校要在这些方面深入研究，选择合适的内容和方式引导和帮助学生形成正确的观点。如果学校只强调知识教育而忽视了人生课程的引导，那么培养出来的只是一批文字或者数字机器，而不是准备进入社会的预备人才。

问答题Consider the following statements, made by the same man eight years apart. "Eventually, being "poor" won"t be as much a matter of living in a poor country as it will be a matter of having poor skills." That was Bill Gates talking in 1992. Way back then, the Microsoft chairman"s image was that of a rather harsh, libertarian-leaning fellow who proudly declared his products alone would "change the world." When asked what he would do with his billions, the boy wonder of Silicon Valley used to shrug off the question, saying his long workdays didn"t leave time for charity. But now listen to the same Gates-or perhaps not quite the same Gages-talking in the fall of 2000: Whenever the computer industry has a panel about the digital divide and I"m on the panel, I always think, "OK, you want to send computers to Africa, what about food and electricity-those computers aren"t going to be that valuable"... The mothers are going to walk right up to that computer and say: "My children are dying, what can you do?" Yes, even Bill Gates, the iconic capitalist of our day, seems to have come around. The self-assured Gates of 1992 was obviously a man of his times, confident of his industry"s ability to change the world, certain that the power of markets and new technology, once unleashed, would address most of the world"s ills. But the more skeptical Gates of the new millennium is someone who evinces a passion for giving and government aid. He shares a growing realization, even in the multibillionaire set, that something is amiss with the ideology that has prevailed since the end of the cold war: global-capitalism-as-panacea.

问答题Americans do not go in for envy. The gap between rich and poor is bigger than in any other advanced country, but most people are unconcerned. Whereas Europeans fret about the way the economic pie is divided, Americans want to join the rich, not soak them. Eight out often, more than anywhere else, believe that though you may start poor, if you work hard, you can make pots of money. It is a central part of the American Dream. The political consensus, therefore, has sought to pursue economic growth rather than the redistribution of income, in keeping with John Kennedy's adage that "a rising tide lifts all boats." The tide has been rising fast recently. Thanks to a jump in productivity growth after 1995, America's economy has outpaced other rich countries' for a decade. Its workers now produce over 30% more each hour they work than ten years ago. In the late 1990s everybody shared in this boom. Though incomes were rising fastest at the top, all workers' wages far outpaced inflation.

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问答题技术进步和全球化经济改变了雇主的需求，研究生院正在改革它们的课程，以使学生具有市场竞争力。举例来说，商学院已经制定出新的重点研究领域——电子商务、保健、品牌管理，这些领域能培养学生把理论应用到工作中去。法学院则按常规使学生接触国际法，因为众多的商业交易和各种法律案件如今都是跨国界的。即使最受欢迎的工程师们最终也需要接受继续教育，因此，工程学院正在设置远程教育课程。这样，那些工作着的学生可以利用业余时间上因特网学习。 随着教育机会的日益增多，研究生课程选择便需要自我斟酌并做大量的研究。那些已进入医学院或法学院学习的人显然十分渴望获取学位，但是，他们也需要作出新的决定：选学什么能使他们未来的职业更好。拥有理科博士学位的人因为具备独立工作和解决复杂问题的能力，现在往往被招聘到投资银行业、管理咨询业和制药业；英语毕业生则在出版业找到机会。

问答题 Directions: Read the following passages and then answer IN COMPLETE SENTENCES the questions which follow each passage. Use only information from the passage you have just read and write your answer in the corresponding space in your ANSWER BOOKLET. Questions 1～3 Friending wasn't used as a verb until about five years ago, when social networks such as Friendster, MySpace and Facebook burst onto the scene. Suddenly, our friends were something even better—an audience. If blogging felt like shouting into the void, posting updates on a social network felt more like an intimate conversation among friends at a pub. Inevitably, as our list of friends grew to encompass acquaintances, friends of friends and the girl who sat behind us in seventh-grade homeroom, online friendships became devalued. Suddenly, we knew as much about the lives of our distant acquaintances as we did about the lives of our intimates—what they'd had for dinner, how they felt about Tiger Woods and so on. Enter Twitter with a solution: no friends, just followers. These one-way relationships were easier to manage—no more annoying decisions about whether to give your ex boyfriend access to your photos, no more fussing over who could see your employment and contact information. Twitter's updates were also easily searchable on the Web, forcing users to be somewhat thoughtful about their posts. The intimate conversation became a talent show, a challenge to prove your intellectual prowess in 140 characters or less. This fall, Twitter turned its popularity into dollars, inking lucrative deals to allow its users' tweets to be broadcast via search algorithms on Google and Bing. Soon, Facebook followed suit with deals to distribute certain real-time data to Google and Bing. (Recall that despite being the fifth most popular Web site in the world, Facebook is barely profitable. ) Facebook spokesman Barry Schnitt says no money changed hands in the deals but says there was "probably an exchange of value. " Just one catch: Facebook had just "exchanged" to Google and Microsoft something that didn't exist. The vast majority of Facebook users restrict updates to their friends, and do not expect those updates to appear in public search results. (In fact, many people restrict their Facebook profile from appearing at all in search results). So Facebook had little content to provide to Google's and Bing's real-time search results. When Google's real-time search launched earlier this month, its results were primarily filled with Twitter updates. Coincidentally, Facebook presented its 350 million members with a new default privacy setting last week. For most people, the new suggested settings would open their Facebook updates and information to the entire world. Mr. Schnitt says the new privacy suggestions are an acknowledgement of "the way we think the world is going." Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg led by example, opening up his previously closed profile, including goofy photos of himself curled up with a teddy bear. Facebook also made public formerly private info such as profile pictures, gender, current city and the friends list. (Mr. Schnitt suggests that users are free to lie about their hometown or take down their profile picture to protect their privacy; in response to users' complaints, the friends' list can now be restricted to be viewed only by friends). Of course, many people will reject the default settings on Facebook and keep on chatting with only their Facebook friends. (Mr. Schnitt said more than 50% of its users had rejected the defaults at last tally). But those who want a private experience on Facebook will have to work harder at it: if you inadvertently post a comment on a friend's profile page that has been opened to the public, your comment will be public too. Just as Facebook turned friends into a commodity, it has likewise gathered our personal data—our updates, our baby photos, our endless chirping birthday notes—and readied it to be bundled and sold. So I give up. Rather than fighting to keep my Facebook profile private, I plan to open it up to the public—removing the fiction of intimacy and friendship. But I will also remove the vestiges of my private life from Facebook and make sure I never post anything that I wouldn't want my parents, employer, next-door neighbor or future employer to see. You'd be smart to do the same. We'll need to treat this increasingly public version of Facebook with the same hard-headedness that we treat Twitter: as a place to broadcast, but not a place for vulnerability. A place to carefully calibrate, sanitize and bowdlerize our words for every possible audience, now and forever. Not a place for intimacy with friends.

问答题祖国和平统一，乃千秋功业。台湾终必回归祖国，早日解决对各方有利。台湾同胞可安居乐业，两岸各族人民可解骨肉分离之痛，在台诸前辈及大陆去台人员亦可各得其所，且有利于亚太地区局势稳定和世界和平。 当今国际风云变幻莫测，台湾上下众议纷纭。岁月不居，来日苦短，夜长梦多，时不我与。试为贵党计，如能依时顺势，负起历史责任，毅然和谈，达成国家统一，则两党长期共存，互相监督，共图振兴中华之大业。

问答题Almost a decade ago I suggested that global warming would become a "gushing" source of political hypocrisy. So it has. Politicians and scientists constantly warn of the grim outlook, and the subject is on the agenda of the upcoming Group of Eight summit of world economic leaders. But all this sound and fury is mainly exhibitionism—politicians pretending they"re saving the planet. The truth is that, barring major technological advances, they can"t (and won"t) do much about global warming. It would be nice if they admitted that, though this seems unlikely. Europe is the citadel of hypocrisy. Considering Europeans" contempt for the United States and George Bush for not embracing the Kyoto Protocol, you"d expect that they would have made major reductions in greenhouse gas emissions—the purpose of Kyoto. Well, not exactly. From 1990 (Kyoto"s base year for measuring changes) to 2002, global emissions of carbon dioxide (CO 2 ), the main greenhouse gas, increased 16.4 percent, reports the International Energy Agency. The U. S. increase was 16.7 percent, and most of Europe hasn"t done much better. Here are some IEA estimates of the increases: France, 6.9 percent; Italy, 8.3 percent; Greece, 28.2 percent; Ireland, 40.3 percent; the Netherlands, 13.2 percent; Portugal, 59 percent; Spain, 46.9 percent. It"s true that Germany (down 13.3 percent) and Britain (a 5.5 percent decline) have made big reductions. But their cuts had nothing to do with Kyoto. After reunification in 1990, Germany closed many inefficient coal-fired plants in eastern Germany; that was a huge one-time saving. In Britain, the government had earlier decided to shift electric utilities from coal (high CO 2 emissions) to plentiful natural gas (lower CO 2 emissions). On their present courses, many European countries will miss their Kyoto targets for 2008- 2012. To reduce emissions significantly, Europeans would have to suppress driving and electricity use; that would depress economic growth and fan popular discontent, it won"t happen. Political leaders everywhere deplore global warming—and then do little. Except for Eastern European nations, where dirty factories have been shuttered, few countries have cut emissions. Since 1990 Canada"s emissions are up 23.6 percent; Japan"s, 18.9 percent. We are seeing similar exhibitionism in the United States. The U. S. Conference of Mayors recently endorsed Kyoto. California and New Mexico have adopted "targets" for emission cuts, reports the Pew Center on Global Climate Change. All this busywork won"t much affect global warming, but who cares? The real purpose is for politicians to brandish their environmental credentials. Even if rich countries actually curbed their emissions, it wouldn"t matter much. Poor countries would offset the reductions. "We expect CO 2 emissions growth in China between now and 2030 will equal the growth of the United States, Canada, all of Europe, Japan, Australia, New Zealand and Korea combined," says Fatih Birol, the IEA"s chief economist. In India, he says, about 500 million people lack electricity; worldwide, the figure is 1.6 billion. Naturally, poor countries haven"t signed Kyoto; they won"t sacrifice economic gains—poverty reduction, bigger middle classes—to combat global warming. By 2030, the IEA predicts, world energy demand and greenhouse gases will increase by roughly 60 percent; poor countries will account for about two-thirds of the growth. China"s coal use is projected almost to double; its vehicle fleet could go from 24 million to 130 million. Like most forecasts, these won"t come true. But unless they"re wildly unreliable, they demonstrate that greenhouse emissions will still rise. Facing this prospect, we ought to align rhetoric and reality. First, we should tackle some energy problems. We need to reduce our use of oil, which increasingly comes from unstable or hostile regions. This is mainly a security issue, though it would modestly limit greenhouse gases. What should we do? Even with today"s high gasoline prices, we ought to adopt a stiff oil tax and tougher fuel economy standards, both to be introduced gradually. We can shift toward smaller vehicles, with more efficient hybrid engines. Unfortunately, Congress"s energy bills lack these measures. Second, we should acknowledge that global warming is an iffy proposition. Yes, it"s happening; but, no, we don"t know the consequences—how much warming will occur, what the effects (good or bad) will be or where. If we can"t predict the stock market and next year"s weather, why does anyone think we can predict the global climate in 75 years? Global warming is not an automatic doomsday. In some regions, warmer weather may be a boon. Third, we should recognize that improved technology is the only practical way of curbing greenhouse gases. About 80 percent of CO 2 emissions originate outside the transportation sector—from power generation and from fuels for industrial, commercial and residential use. Any technology solution would probably involve some acceptable form of nuclear power or an economic way of removing CO 2 from burned fossil fuels. "Renewable" energy (wind, solar, biomass) won"t suffice. Without technology gains, adapting to global warming makes more sense than trying to prevent it. Either way, the Bush administration rightly emphasizes research and development. What we have now is a respectable charade. Politicians and advocates make speeches, convene conferences and formulate plans. They pose as warriors against global warming. The media participate in the resulting deception by treating their gestures seriously. One danger is that some of these measures will harm the economy without producing significant environmental benefits. Policies motivated by political gain will inflict public pain. Why should anyone applaud?