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Seven Ways to Save the World
Forget the old idea that conserving energy is a form. of self-denial -- riding bicycles, dimming the lights, and taking fewer showers. These days conservation is all about efficiency: getting the same -- or better -- results from just a fraction of the energy. When a slump in business travel forced Ulrich Romer to cut costs at his family-owned hotel in Germany, he replaced hundreds of the hotel's wasteful light bulbs, getting the same light for 80 percent less power. He bought a new water boiler with a digitally controlled pump, and wrapped insulation around the pipes. Spending about ？100,000 on these and other improvements, he slashed his ？90,000 fuel and power bill by ？60,000 As a bonus, the hotel's lower energy needs have reduced its annual carbon emissions by more than 200 metric tons. "For us, saving energy has been very, very profitable," he says. "And most importantly, we're not giving up a single comfort for our guests."
Efficiency is also a great way to lower carbon emissions and help slow global warming. But the best argument for efficiency is its cost -- or, more precisely, its profitability. That's because quickly growing energy demand requires immense investment in new supply, not to mention the drain of rising energy prices.
No wonder efficiency has moved to the top of the political agenda. On Jan. 10, the European Union unveiled a plan to cut energy use across the continent by 20 percent by 2020. Last March, China imposed a 20 percent increase in energy efficiency by 2020. Even George W. Bush, the Texas oilman, is expected to talk about energy conservation in his State of the Union speech this week.
The good news is that the world is full of proven, cheap ways to save energy. Here are the seven that could have the biggest impact:
Insulate
Space heating and cooling eats up 36 percent of all the world's energy. There's virtually no limit to how much of that can be saved, as prototype "zero-energy homes" in Switzerland and Germany have shown. There's been a surge in new ways of keeping heat in and cold out (or vice versa). The most advanced insulation follows the law of increasing returns: if you add enough, you can scale down or even eliminate heating and air-conditioning equipment, lowering costs even before you start saving on utility bills. Studies have shown that green workplaces (ones that don't constantly need to have the heat or air-conditioner running) have higher worker productivity and lower sick rates.
Change Bulbs
Lighting eats up 20 percent of the world's electricity, or the equivalent of roughly 600,000 tons of coal a day. Forty percent of that powers old-fashioned incandescent light bulbs -- a 19th-century technology that wastes most of the power it consumes on unwanted heat.
Compact fluorescent lamps, or CFLs, not only use 75 to 80 percent leas electricity than incandescent bulbs to generate the same amount of light, but they also last 10 times longer, Phasing old bulbs out by 2030 would save the output of 650 power plants and avoid the release of 700 million tons of carbon into the atmosphere each year.
Comfort Zone
Water boilers, space heaters and air conditioners have been notoriously inefficient. The heat pump has altered that equation. It removes heat from the air outside or the ground below and uses it to supply heat to a building or its water supply. In the summer, the system can be reversed to cool buildings as well.
Most new residential buildings in Sweden are already heated with ground-source heat pumps. Such systems consume almost no conventional fuel at all. Several countries have used subsidies to jumpstart the market, including Japan, where almost 1 million heat pumps have been installed in the past two years to heat water for showers and hot tubs.
Remake Factories
From steel mills to paper f
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A．It has seen a steady decline in its profits.B．It has become much more competitive.C．
The passage states that while married couples can prepare for grieving by
The sea lay like an unbroken mirror all around the pine - girt, lonely shores of Orr's Island. Tall, kingly spruces wore their regal crowns of cones high in air, sparkling with diamonds of clear exuded gum; vast old hemlocks of primeval growth stood darkling in their forest shadows, their branches hung with long hoary moss; while feathery larches, turned to brilliant gold by autumn frosts, lighted up the darker shadows of the evergreens. It was one of those hazy, calm, dissolving days of Indian summer, when everything is so quiet that the faintest kiss of the wave on the beach can be heard, and white clouds seem to faint into the blue of the sky, and soft swathing bands of violet vapor make all earth look dreamy, and give to the sharp, clear - cut outlines of the northern landscape all those mysteries of light and shade which impart such tenderness to Italian scenery.
The funeral was over, --the tread of many feet, bearing the heavy burden of two broken lives, had been to the lonely graveyard, and had come back again, -- each footstep lighter and more unconstrained as each one went his way from the great old tragedy of Death to the common cheerful of Life.
The solemn black clock stood swaying with its eternal "tick - tock, tick - rock," in the kitchen of the brown house on Orr's Island. There was there that sense of a stillness that can be felt, -- such as settles down on a dwelling when any of its inmates have passed through its doors for the last time, to go whence they shall not return. The best room was shut up and darkened, with only so much light as could fall through a little heart - shaped hole in the window - shutter, -- for except on solemn visits, or prayer - meetings or weddings, or funerals, that room formed no part of the daily family scenery'.
The kitchen was clean and ample, with a great open fireplace and wide stone hearth, and oven on one side, and rows of old - fashioned splint - bottomed chairs against the wall. A table scoured to snowy white-ness, and a little work - stand whereon lay the Bible, the Mixssionary Herald, and the Weekly Christian Mirror, before named, formed the principal furniture. One feature, however, must not be forgotten, -- a great sea-chest, which had been the companion of Zephaniah through all the countries of the earth. Old, and battered, and unsightly it looked, yet report said that there was good store within of that which men for the most part respect more than anything else; and, indeed, it proved often when a deed of grace was to be done -- when a woman was suddenly made a widow in a coast gale, or a fishing-smack Was run down in the fogs off the banks, leaving in some neighboring cottage a family of orphans, -- in all such cases, the opening of this sea-chest was an event of good omen to the bereaved; for Zephaniah had a large heart and a large hand, and was apt to take it out full of silver dollars when once it went in. So the ark of the covenant could not have been looked on with more reverence than the neighbors usually showed to Captain Pennel's sea-chest.
The author describes Orr’s Island in a (n) ______ manner.
Mornings at Seven
For several years now my newsagent has been spelling my name incorrectly. Every morning I glance hopelessly at the top right - hand corner of my newspaper and wince. There is something vaguely uplifting about seeing one’s own name, one ‘s correct name written out in blue pencil at the top of a newspaper; and there is something litterly degrading about seeing one's name carelessly distorted. I have mentioned the matter to my newsagent several times, but it makes no difference. He is a surly, militant, independent devil, a monopolist of the worst kind.
He does not realise of course that his carelessness causes me endless trouble and no little embarrassment. I take my newspaper to the office, I read it on the train, and the people with whom I travel mispronounce my name because they have only the newsagent's written instruction to goon. When I fail to recognise my spoken name they look at me suspiciously -- as though I have momentarily forgotten my latest alias.
I used to rub out the newsagent’s blue pencillings before I left home, but modern newsprint does not stand up to modern erasers for long and my paper was always very much the worse for wear when I reached the station. For a few weeks I drafted an imaginary dog whenever I unfolded the newspaper in public. My travelling companions and office colleagues remained puzzled, however. Some of them seemed to think that I was leading a double life; the rest, that I was robbing somebody’s letter-60X on my way to work.
Later I tried crossing out the newsagent's mark and writing my correct name underneath it, but even this move was misinterpreted. At the office it was assumed that I made a practice of collecting discarded newspapers from the train and passing them off as my own. No one actually said as much, but action sometimes speak louder than words.
Naturally, I could not tell the newsagent of all these things. He would have laughed me out of the shop. I could only repeat my earlier protest...
I was at the shop early. He was standing behind the counter, and as soon as I saw him I knew that there would be some unpleasantness. Mr Higson is never at his best unshaven, in slippers atmosphere and braces, and smoking on an empty stomach. The little shop was heavy with the bitter - sweet odour of fresh newsprint and ink: stacks of crisp newspapers and magazines lay neatly on the counter, and Higson and the boy were making up the daily round.
"Express, Mirror and Woman," said Higson with his eye on a grubby notebook. The boy collected the newspapers, flicked the magazine between their pages and placed the folded bundle before his master. Higson bent and scrawled a name in the top right - hand comer of the Express -- just to the right of the Crusader in Chains. "Times, Financial Times, Mail, "he barked.
"Good morning, "I said, "Just a small point, I wonder..."
Higson let his blue pencil clatter to the counter and looked up.
"I thought it wouldn't be long! "be said. "Must be a week or more since you last changed your order."
"I don't think..."
"No use denying it, "he broke in. "All here in black and white. "He licked a finger and pushed at the pages of the notebook. "Here we are," he said. "February 14, Mail instead of Chronicle. March 14, Herald instead of Mail and cancel Telegraph for eight days. April I, Worker for Herald. May 26, Times instead of Felegraph, Chronicle instead of Worker. July 21 th..
"Surely, "I said, "I've a perfect right to read which papers I like!"
"You and old Topham! "he said.
"What's Mr Topham to do with it？ "I said.
"Well he's another of em. Chop and change, chop and change. Must think I've nothing better to do."
"As a matter of fact, "I said, "I called on quite another matter. I wanted to draw your attention to the fact that there are two L's in my name."
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