Every year, the American Lung Association (ALA) releases its annual report card on smog, and every year it gives an "F" to over half the nation's counties and cities. When ALA's "State of the Air 2002" recently came out, dozens of credulous local journalists once again took the bait, ominously reporting that their corner of the nation received a failing grade. The national coverage was no better, repeating as fact ALA's statement that it is "gravely concerned" about air quality, and neglecting to solicit the views of even one scientist with a differing view. Too bad, because this report card says a lot less about actual air quality than it does about the tactics and motives of the ALA.
The very fact that 60 percent of counties were giver an "F" seems to be alarmist. This is particularly tree given that smog levels have been trending downward for several decades. According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) statistics, ozone, the primary constituent of smog, progress will likely continue, even without the wave of new regulations ALA is now demanding.
ALA is correct that some areas still occasionally exceed the federal standard for ozone, but such spikes are far less frequent than in the past. Even Los Angeles, the undisputed smog capital of America, has cleaned up its act considerably. Los Angeles, which exceeded federal smog standards for 154 days in 1989, has had 75 percent fewer such spikes in recent years. But an ALA-assigned "F" misleadingly implies that air quality has not improved at all.
Most of the nation is currently in attainment with the current smog standard, and much of the rest is getting close. Nonetheless, ALA chose to assign an "F" to entire county based on just a few readings above a strict new EPA standard enacted in 1997 but not yet in force. In effect, ALA demanded a standard even more stringent than the federal government's, which allows some leeway for a few anomalously high readings in otherwise clean areas. ALA further exaggerated the public-health hazard by grossly over stating the risks of these relatively minor and sporadic increases above the standard.
The media's response to ALA's "State of the Air 2002" can best be described as ______.
A. trusting
B. suspicious
C. critical
D. hesitant
Diarrhea, the modem word, resembles the old Greek expression for "a flowing through." Ancient Egyptian doctors left descriptions of the suffering of Pharaohs scratched on papyrus even before Hippocrates, the old Greek, gave it a name few people can spell correctly. An equal opportunity affliction, diarrhea has laid low kings and common men, women, and children for at least as long as historians have recorded such fascinating trivia. It wiped out, almost, more soldiers in America's Civil War than guns and swords. In the developing world today, acute diarrhea strikes more than one billion humans every year, and leaves more than five million dead, usually the very young. Diarrhea remains one of the two most common medical complaints of humanity.
"Frequent passage of unformed watery bowel movements," as described by Taver's Cyclopedic Medical Dictionary, diarrhea falls into two broad types: invasive and non-invasive. From bacterial sources, invasive diarrhea, sometimes called "dysentery," attacks the lower intestinal wall causing inflammation, abscesses, and ulcers that may lead to mucus and blood (often "black blood" from the action of digestive juices) in the stools, high fever, "stomach" crams from the depths of hell, and significant amounts of body fluid rushing from the patient's nether region. Serious debilitation, even death, can occur from the resulting dehydration and from the spread of the bacteria to other parts of the body. Non-invasive diarrheas grow from colonies of microscopic evil-doers that set up housekeeping on, but do not invade, intestinal walls. Toxins released by the colonies cause cramps, nausea, vomiting, and massive gushes of fluid from the patient's lower intestinal tract. Non-invasive diarrhea carries a high risk for dehydration.
In Paragraph 1, the author uses the quoted word "grief" from Shakespeare to refer to ______.
A. the terrible weather
B. the stern army life
C. the suffering from diarrhea
D. the tough wartime
Everywhere we turn, we see the symbolic process at work. There are 【C1】______ things men do or want to do, possess or want to possess, that have not a symbolic value.
Almost all fashionable clothes are 【C2】______ symbolic, so is food. We 【C3】______ our furniture to serve 【C4】______ visible symbols of our taste, wealth, and social position. We often choose our houses 【C5】______ the basis of a feeling that it "looks well" to have a "good address." We trade perfectly good cars in for 【C6】______ models not always to get better transportation, but to give 【C7】______ to the community that we can 【C8】______ it.
Such complicated and apparently 【C9】______ behavior. leads philosophers to ask over and over again, "why can't human beings 【C10】______ simply and naturally." Often the complexity of human life makes us look enviously at the relative 【C11】______ of such live as dogs and cats. Simply, the fact that symbolic process makes complexity possible is no 【C12】______ for wanting to 【C13】______ to a cat and to a cat-and-dog existence. A better solution is to understand the symbolic process 【C14】______ instead of being its slaves we become, to some degree at least, its 【C15】______.
【C1】______
A. many
B. some
C. few
D. enough
Although the Solar Decathlon's purpose is to advertise the benefits of electricity-generating solar panels and other residential solar gadgets, the bad weather has made it hard to ignore the limitations. As fate so amply demonstrated, not every day is a sunny day, and indeed DOE's "Solar Village on the National Mall" has received very little of what it needs to nm.
Since solar is not an always available energy source, even a community consisting entirely of solar homes and businesses would still need to be connected to a constantly-running power plant (most likely natural gas or coal fired) to provide reliable electricity. For this reason, the fossil fuel savings and environmental benefits of solar are considerably smaller than many proponents suggest.
Washington, D.C. gets its share of sunny days as well, but even so, solar equipment provides only a modest amount of energy in relation to its cost. In fact, a $5,000 rooftop photovoltaic system typically generates no more than $100 of electricity per year, providing a rate of return comparable to a passbook savings account.
Nor do the costs end when the system is installed. Like anything exposed to the elements, solar equipment is subject to wear and storm damage, and may need ongoing maintenance and repairs. In addition, the materials that turn sunlight into electricity degrade over time. Thus, solar panels will eventually need to be replaced, most likely before the investment has fully paid itself off in the form. of reduced utility bills.
Solar energy has always had its share of true believers willing to pay extra to feel good about their homes and themselves. But for homeowners who view it as an investment, it is not a good one. The economic realities are rarely acknowledged by the government officials and solar equipment manufactures involved in the Solar Decathlon and similarly one-sided promotions. By failing to be objective, the pro-solar crowd does consumers a real disservice.
The Solar Decathlon is most probably the name of a ______.
A. technology
B. contest
C. strategy
D. machine