线练学校高三英语 自主招生辅导时文阅读翻译Word文档格式.docx

1、 A Stopgap SolutionOn the long list of things that keep coal-industry executives awake at night is the possibility that the Environmental Protection A gency （EPA） will begin to regulate carbon dioxide as a pollutant. Now it seems that nightmare is at hand.On Feb. 17, EPA administrator Lisa Jackson a

2、nnounced that the agency would reconsider a Bush Administration decision not to regulate CO2 emissions from new coal power plants. The next day, she backed up that statement by telling the New York Times she was considering acting on an April 2007 Supreme Court decision that empowers the EPA to regu

3、late CO2 as a pollutant under the Clean Air Act. “What this says is that the Clean Air Act already provides the government with the chance to do something about global-warming pollution,” says David Doniger, policy director for the Natural Resources Defense Councils climate center. “We have a right

4、to expect the government to carry out the existing law.”However, carrying out the law will be anything but simple, nor will it be the most efficient way to protect the environment. The 2007 court case in question gave the EPA the authority to regulate CO2, when the Supreme Court ruled in favor of 12

5、 states, led by Massachusetts, that brought suit against the government to force it to regulate greenhouse gases. The Bush Administration largely ignored the implications of that decision for the next two years, likely in part because of complaints from industry that regulationg CO2 would be expensi

6、ve and maddeningly complicated.As the law is written, using the Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse-gas emissions directly would be unreasonably difficult, because of carbon dioxides sheer ubiquity. In 2000, the US emitted less than 18 million tons of the pollutant sulfur dioxide, chiefly from cars

7、, power plants and factories. In the same year, national CO2 emissions reached nearly 6 billion tons, from virtually every aspect of modern life. Regulating emissions would be like trying to gather up the ocean. In addition, the Clean Air Act technically requires “major” sources of pollutants meanin

8、g those that emit more than 250 tons a year to acquire costly and time-consuming permits before building or expanding. Again, because carbon is so ubiquitous, establishments as small as a fast-food franchise could emit more than the limit, which is why conservative critics have nicknamed the 2007 de

9、cision the Dunkin Donuts rule.Regulating greenhouse gases from power plants could bring a total halt to carbon-intensive electricity, since there is currently no economical way to capture and store the plants carbon emissions. That, in turn, could lead to an escalation of costlier but low-carbon alt

10、ernatives like natural gas, wind or solar by default, which critics say would put a drag on the economy.The EPA could also exercise the power it has to regulate carbon emissions from cars. “Its really critical, when the country is making a decision to pour massive capital investment into new cars an

11、d power plants, that the moves are harmonized to address greenhouse-gas emissions,” says Vickie Patton, a senior attorney for the Environmental Defense Fund.Even most environmentalists, however, dont really want to see the EPA take all the responsibility for reducing carbon emissions, using a law th

12、at was drafted before climate change was a known threat. Instead, they see federal regulations as a protective stopgap measure until Congress can pass national carbon cap-and-trade legislation specifically tailored to global warming. “Its not going to be easy, but it can be done,” says Doniger. Sinc

13、e the only thing that coal-industry executives and other fossil-fuel peddlers fear more than a carbon cap is EPA regulation, he might just be right.Did Foreigners Cause Americas Financial Crisis?Much of the fault of the financial crisis has been heaped on Wall Streeters, unscrupulous mortgage lender

14、s and weak regulators. But in a new research paper, economist Ricardo Caballero says there is another major group of contributors to Americas monetary mess who are not getting the blame they deserve: foreigners.“There is no doubt that the pressure on the US financial system that led to the financial

15、 crisis came from abroad,” says Caballero, who is the head of MITs economics department. “Foreign investors created a demand for assets that was difficult for the US financial sector to produce. All they wanted were safe assets and their ensuing purchases made the US unsafe.”Caballero, who is from C

16、hile, is not absolving American bankers and regulators. But he says investigators and lawmakers who are looking into the financial crisis are spending too much time grilling Wall Streeters and not enough time looking into the global imbalances that are largely to blame. “What worries me is Congress

17、trying to create new regulations, but not asking where the pressure was coming from to create these products,” says Caballero. “In terms of formulating a solution, just looking at the US financial system is not the answer.”A number of economists and policy analysts believe Caballero makes a lot of s

18、ense. Of course, not all economists are buying the Caballeros blame them, not us, explanation of the financial crisis. They say just because there was money flowing into the United States doesnt mean the credit crunch was inevitable.“Most of the blame for the financial crisis lies in the choices tha

19、t were made inside the US,” says Anil Kashyap, an economics professor at University of Chicagos Booth School of Business.Nonetheless, even if foreigner investors role in Americas credit boom and bust is debatable, whats beyond doubt is that this aspect of the crisis is not getting as much attention

20、as, say, bankers and their bonuses. On Thursday, the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission wrapped up its second day of hearings. Global imbalances is one of the 22 areas that the panel is supposed to investigate as a possible cause of the credit crunch. But in two days of hearings, which included tes

21、timony from top financial executives, economists, analysts, regulators and a hedge fund manager, there wasnt a single question that had to do with what role foreign investment might have played in creating the crisis.Caballero says that is wrong. His story of the financial crisis begins not in the r

22、ising condo buildings or growing developments in Miami or Las Vegas, but in investment houses and offices of central bankers in Beijing and Riyadh. Caballero asserts that international investors, particularly those tasked with deploying the reserves of foreign governments, prefer relatively safe inv

23、estments, which made the normally stable US. economy a natural hunting ground. The money might have gone into stocks, but after the Nasdaq and stock market rout of the early 2000s, investors appetite shifted to bonds. How to prevent a similar crisis from happening again is the question that Caballer

24、o thinks we are getting wrong. He believes reforming the US. financial system is only part of the answer. Foreign investors, he says, need to change their behavior as well. Specifically, Caballero believes the US. needs to encourage foreign governments to hold a range of US. investments, instead of

25、just funneling all of their money into say Treasuries or mortgage bonds. One way to do that is to require foreign governments or investors who only buy Treasuries or mortgage bonds to place a certain portion of their US. investments in an account at the Federal Reserve. Rather than park their money

26、at the Fed, Caballero contends that many investors will choose to put their money into riskier US. investments. “There is a crack in the US. financial system, but its important to ask where the water that caused the crack came from,” says Caballero. “The only way to really make the US. system resili

27、ent to systemic shocks is to fix the supply side.”Learning to Live and Love in an Empty NestThis we know: first comes love, then comes marriage, then comes baby in a baby carriage. But what happens when baby grows up and moves out? The answer, increasingly, is parents cough up cash to attend an empt

28、y-nest workshop.Theres a growing cottage industry of experts who contend that sending kids off into the great wide open deserves at least as much attention as preparing to have them in the first place. Community centers and churches around the country are tuning in to the problem and hosting seminar

29、s in which parents try to reignite their relationship and figure out how to move forward as a twosome. Marriage therapists Claudia and David Arp call this stage “the second half of marriage.”The run-up to freshman year in college may be so exhausting （hip-hop lessons! swim team! traveling soccer lea

30、gues!） that parents feel they hardly know each otherand, sometimes, themselves. “One of the most common things we hear is, were sitting at the breakfast table, just be two of us, and we dont know what to talk about, ” says David Arp, who led an empty-nest training session with his wife last month at

31、 the annual Smart Marriages conference in Orlando, Fla. Carmen Hough, 55, who this spring completed a 12-week workshop in Jonesboro, Ca., puts it more bluntly: “You only have 18 years with your children. Then its you and your husband, and if hes not your best friend, its going to take an adjustment.

32、”Thats where the Arps book 10 Great Dates for Empty Nesters comes in. It encourages couples to go on dates where, in lieu of small talk, they work through exercises in the book. （The original 10 Great Dates is being used at, among other places, North Carolinas Fort Bragg, where deploying soldiers are given a copy to help keep them connected to their sweeties, albeit via video-conferencing.） The dates ate designed for couples to hash out hot-button issuesincluding money, sex and angeror to negotiate new household roles that t