【thatll】iBT备考日志

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【好文章，共欣赏】
KENNEDY CARE
by Nicholas Lemann---SEPTEMBER 7, 2009

"One of the traditional methods of imposing statism or socialism on a people has been by way of medicine. It’s very easy to disguise a medical program as a humanitarian project. Most people are a little reluctant to oppose anything that suggests medical care for people who possibly can’t afford it.” This was Ronald Reagan, in 1961, speaking in opposition to an early version of Medicare, the big federal health-insurance program for senior citizens. An important station on Reagan’s road from actor to politician—coming between the national barnstorming(有关演说家的，演说家所作的事) he did as a spokesman for General Electric and his sensational campaign speech for Barry Goldwater, in 1964—was the eleven-minute recording from which this quotation comes. It was called “Ronald Reagan Speaks Out Against Socialized Medicine,” and the American Medical Association distributed it to its members.

Reagan believed that government health insurance for senior citizens was a Trojan horse（特洛伊木马）: the real goal was universal health care and then full-on（complete; unrestrained） socialism. So it was important to resist sentimental appeals: “Now, the advocates of this bill, when you try to oppose it, challenge you on an emotional basis. They say, ‘What would you do, throw these poor old people out to die with no medical attention?’ That’s ridiculous, and, of course, no one has advocated it.”

Four years later, Congress passed Medicare, the emblematic achievement of Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society. Politics is moved less by new ideas than by the ability of politicians to bend the direction of history, even slightly. Government health care had been a leading item on the liberal agenda at least since Harry Truman first proposed it, in 1946. When Reagan made his recording, the time for federal health care had not yet come; what had changed by 1965 was the martyrdom of John F. Kennedy, which made Congress and the public far more amenable to liberal reforms, and the legislative skill of Lyndon Johnson. The first law putting substantial federal money into needy local schools passed at around the same time, and for the same reasons. So did the first tough civil-rights law since Reconstruction. But health care for all was, even in the heyday of the Great Society, a step too far（为时还远的一步，也就是目前做是过头了的）.

Barack Obama, early in his Presidential campaign, did not push universal health care as forcefully as his rivals did. (His position on health care was several notches more centrist than it had been earlier in his career, no doubt because he was aware of the issue’s sixty-year history of drawing relentless and successful Republican attacks.) That changed after Edward Kennedy endorsed him, at a crucial moment in the campaign—most likely, as a result of Kennedy’s prodding. As President, Obama has emerged with a decidedly ambitious agenda, and an all-out first-year push for universal health care, the goal that eluded five of his Democratic predecessors, is part of that. Kennedy’s death, last week, will cost Obama a vote in the Senate, but this may be outweighed—is it too much to hope?—by the good feeling that Kennedy’s decades of large-heartedness have generated, and by the unmistakable sense that universal health care was his enduring wish. His death could spur health-care legislation the way his brother’s death spurred civil-rights legislation.


Kennedy, who entered the Senate in 1963, didn’t come to support universal health care until he was in his second term, when the country had become more liberal. Even Richard Nixon endorsed a form of universal health care. Then history moved again: by 1980, Kennedy was too liberal to get the nomination of his own party and Ronald Reagan was no longer too conservative to be elected President. But Kennedy’s relentless support for universal health care kept it in a kind of incubated state, ready to reëmerge whenever the political climate shifted again.

During last year’s Presidential campaign, Obama remarked to the editorial board of the Reno Gazette-Journal, “I think Ronald Reagan changed the trajectory of America in a way that Richard Nixon did not and in a way that Bill Clinton did not. He put us on a fundamentally different path because the country was ready for it.” He then had to spend several days apologizing, but it’s easy to see what he was trying to say: as President, he wanted to have a liberal effect equivalent to Reagan’s conservative one.

It’s important to remember, though, that Reagan was not so maximalist as he sounded. During his first Inaugural Address, he declared that “government is the problem,” but he did not try to dismantle the “socialized medicine” program he had begun his political career railing against. Welfare reform came not under Reagan but under Bill Clinton, who governed in Reagan’s long shadow. Reagan’s critical contribution was to change the terms of the debate.

On health care, Reagan’s party has now been reduced to making the argument that he mocked back in 1961—that Obama and the Democrats want to deny medical care to seniors. To say this is to indicate that you regard unlimited Medicare benefits as a sacred right, and, once you’ve taken that step, it becomes difficult—for reasons that Reagan gave in his recording—to oppose government-guaranteed health benefits for people who aren’t senior citizens. The times have changed. The largest increase in government health-care provision since Medicare was George W. Bush’s prescription-drug benefit.

Now, suddenly, it seems that everybody—from Rachel Maddow, on the left, to Peggy Noonan, on the right—is beating up on the formerly untouchable Obama, and taking the health-care battles to be evidence of Presidential weakness. This is absurd. Obama has already substantially realized his Reagan-size Presidential ambition, though in a manner almost opposite from Reagan’s: he has significantly increased the size and scope of government—just look at the classic measure, the increase in federal spending—but hasn’t set out to change the prevailing rhetoric about government. Nonetheless, on health care and other issues the rhetoric has changed. If a health-care bill passes this fall, it will be full of compromises: departures from liberal ideals, and fudges about how much it will cost. But anybody who stops fighting for it now is going to spend years repenting. As long as Congress passes, and Obama signs, a law that embodies the principle of universal, government-guaranteed coverage, the country will have achieved an enormous, and previously elusive, advance. Reagan nailed it in 1961: medical care is a core element in the liberal social compact.

The passage of a substantive health-care bill would be immensely to Obama’s credit, but he would not be its only begetter. What he said in Reno was exactly right: if he winds up being able to shift the trajectory of American politics, it will be because the country was ready. Ted Kennedy spent a career making sure that it would be. ♦

肯尼迪与全民医保
简介
　　巴拉克·奥巴马在里诺市说，如果他终于能够改变美国政局轨迹，那是因为这个国家已经准备好了。诚哉斯言。

“将国家主义或社会主义强加于个人之上的惯常做法之一就是通过医疗的手段。医疗项目很容易就能伪装成人道主义事业，而大多数人都不愿对给那些哪怕无力支付费用的人提供医疗护理服务提出异议。”这是罗纳德·里根在1961年对医疗保险法初期雏形的反对之词，该项法案旨在为美国老龄公民提供联邦健康保险计划。上文的引言出处是一段被誉为“罗纳德·里根公然反对社会化医疗”的11分钟录音讲话，它被视作里根从演员变身为政客的重要一驿。里根曾是通用电气公司的发言人，在全国举行演说。1964年，他又曾为巴利·高华德发表了轰动一时的竞选演讲。里根的这段11分钟录音讲话后被美国医学会分发给其成员。

　　里根认为，政府为老龄公民上健康保险是一座特洛伊木马：以全民医保为目的，却是不折不扣的社会主义产物。因此很有必要对情感上的诉求保持清醒的头脑：“现在，此项法案的鼓吹者将从情感角度质问那些试图反对它的人。他们会说，‘你怎么办？对这些穷困的老人撒手不管？让他们得不到治疗，慢慢等死？’这真可笑。好在还没有人支持这一法案。”

　　四年过去了，美国国会通过了医疗保险法，这是林登·约翰逊“伟大的社会”的象征性成就。美国政局更多的是被政治家们扭转历史方向的能力而非新思想所改变，哪怕改变一丝一毫。1946年，政府医保至少成为了自哈里·杜鲁门首次提出以来自由党议程上的首要议题。当里根发表录音讲话时，联邦医保时代尚未到来。到了1965年，约翰·肯尼迪遇刺身亡使得情况有所改变，美国国会和公众更易接纳自由派的变革，以及林登·约翰逊的立法手腕。与此同时，第一项将大量联邦资金投入到贫困地方学校的法案也因同样理由获得通过。此时，第一项公民权利法案也在美国南方各州重建之后首获通过。但是医疗保健，哪怕是在“伟大的社会”的鼎盛时期，仍旧有些搞过了头。

　　巴拉克·奥巴马在总统竞选初期并没有像他的对手那样力推全民医疗（奥巴马对医保的立场较之其政治生涯早期更显温和，这无疑是因为他很清楚此项议题已招致共和党人六年来不间断的成功抨击 ）。然而当奥巴马在选战关键时刻获得爱德华·肯尼迪的支持之后，他的策略发生了转变，这极有可能是肯尼迪促成的结果。作为总统，奥巴马带着明确果敢、雄心勃勃的议程出现在公众面前，包括在其任期第一年全面推行医保计划，而这正是他的五位民主党前辈都曾刻意回避的施政目标。上周，爱德华·肯尼迪的去世将使奥巴马在参议院失去一张选票。然而，肯尼迪逝世所造成的影响或许被夸大了，希望反倒无从寄予。几十年来，肯尼迪的宽宏大量使他广受爱戴，全民医保又是他未竟之誓愿。爱德华·肯尼迪的死将能促进美国医疗立法进程，正如他的哥哥约翰·肯尼迪的死促进了美国民权立法那样。

　　肯尼迪1963年进入美国国会，在他的第二个任期之前，他并没有参与支持全民医疗计划。当美国变得更加开明自由，就连理查德·尼克松都签署批准了一份全民医疗的文件。接下来，历史再次发生了转变。到了1980年，肯尼迪由于坚持过分自由的道路，未能获得民主党的提名，罗纳德·里根的保守风格却不再是他当选总统的阻碍。但是，肯尼迪对全民医疗的支持始终坚定不移，好似孵化之卵，只待政治气候一变，就破壳而出。
　　在去年的美国总统竞选中，奥巴马对《里诺宪期刊》编委会说，“我认为罗纳德·里根以一种方式改变了美国的轨迹，而这种方式无论是理查德·尼克松还是比尔·克林顿，都未能企及。里根将我们置于一条完全不同的道路上，因为这个国家已经准备好上路了。”虽然后来奥巴马不得不花好几天时间为这段话致歉，但他试图说明的意思是显而易见的：作为一国总统，他要拥有与里根的保守派力量旗鼓相当的自由派影响力。
　　但我们有必要牢记，里根并非他听起来的那样是个反对妥协者。在其首次就职演说中，里根虽声称“政府就是问题”，但他并未试图把他政治生涯初期所痛骂的“国家公费医疗”体制进行一番剖解。美国社会保障改革并非出现在里根执政时期，而是到比尔·克林顿执政时期才有——后者在里根的阴影之下领导美国多年。里根对美国社会的决定性贡献是他改变了辩论的措辞。
　　在医疗保障问题上，现在的里根政党只能像1961年时那样说些嘲弄的话了：奥巴马和民主党人拒绝为老龄公民提供医保。说这些是为了向你表明，一旦你将无限制的医保福利视作人的一项神圣权利，那么你将很难反对政府为老年人以外的公民提供担保的健康福利。世易时移，自医疗保险法通过以来，美国政府在医保方面的最大拨款增幅来自于乔治·布什政府的处方药医保项目。
　　忽然之间，从左派的雷切尔·麦德到右派的佩吉·诺南，眼下似乎每个人都在斥责原本不可侵犯的奥巴马，他们将医保一役视作奥巴马执政力薄弱的证明。这很荒唐。奥巴马早已明确意识到，尽管在执政方式上他与里根几乎背道而驰，但他政治上的勃勃野心并不输里根半毫。他已经扩大了政府的规模和权力范围，但他并未着手改变政府的措辞基调。尽管如此，奥巴马政府在医疗保障等议题方面的措辞已经发生了变化。如果医保预算能够在今年秋季获得通过，它将是妥协的产物：远离自由主义思想，在开支问题上敷衍搪塞。但是，任何一个现在止步不前的人都将在未来悔恨多年。只要美国国会一通过，奥巴马一签署，体现着政府担保普遍原则的医保预算法案将成为美国一度回避如今却终于达成的巨大进步。1961年时里根就曾一语道破：医疗保障是开明社会影响力的核心要素。
　　通向实质性医保的道路给了奥巴马无上荣光，但他并非此事的唯一促成者。诚如他在里诺市所说的那样，如果他终于能够改变美国政局轨迹，那是因为这个国家已经准备好了。泰德·肯尼迪穷其执政一生，确保事情本就如此。♦

thatllUID: 2538832

【听力---SSS---August 25, 2009】

Disappearing Bees Have Devastated Ribosomes
A study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by May Berenbaum and colleagues finds that bee colony collapse disorder seems to be related to bees' ribosomes breaking down, which keeps them from making the proteins they need to deal with stress and disease.

A big clue about what’s behind the disappearing honeybees, also known as colony collapse disorder, or CCD: May Berenbaum’s team at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign found that bees’ ribosomes（核糖体） were torn up.
“The ribosomes make the proteins that allow bees to respond to pesticides, to respond to diseases, to respond to poor nutrition. So the ribosomal fragments that we were finding explain a lot of things, explains among other things the observation that CCD seems to be caused by everything. And in fact it very well might be that once the ribosomes cease functioning properly, then anything can cause bees to go under（破产，屈服，死）.”
A possible cause is multiple viral infections. “So the bee apparently has the capacity to deal with one or two of these, but multiple viral infections, basically the whole system breaks down.” The finding, in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, doesn’t pinpoint a cause or cure for CCD. But “we now have an explanation for what went wrong.”

thatllUID: 2538832

【好文章，共欣赏】
Is there any point in fighting to stave off industrial apocalypse?
The collapse of civilisation will bring us a saner world, says Paul Kingsnorth. No, counters George Monbiot – we can't let billions perish
*apocalypse: a great disaster  *an environmental apocalypse*
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Dear George
On the desk in front of me is a set of graphs. The horizontal axis of each represents the years 1750 to 2000. The graphs show, variously, population levels, CO2 concentration in the atmosphere, exploitation of fisheries, destruction of tropical forests, paper consumption, number of motor vehicles, water use, the rate of species extinction and the totality of the human economy's gross domestic product.

What grips me about these graphs (and graphs don't usually grip me) is that though they all show very different things, they have an almost identical shape. A line begins on the left of the page, rising gradually as it moves to the right. Then, in the last inch or so – around 1950 – it veers steeply upwards, like a pilot banking after a cliff has suddenly appeared from what he thought was an empty bank of cloud.

The root cause of all these trends is the same: a rapacious human economy bringing the world swiftly to the brink of chaos. We know this; some of us even attempt to stop it happening. Yet all of these trends continue to get rapidly worse, and there is no sign of that changing soon. What these graphs make clear better than anything else is the cold reality: there is a serious crash on the way（要降临了）.

Yet very few of us are prepared to look honestly at the message this reality is screaming at us: that the civilisation we are a part of is hitting the buffers at full speed, and it is too late to stop it. Instead, most of us – and I include in this generalisation much of the mainstream environmental movement – are still wedded to（be wedded to sth.专心致力于某事，固守坚持某事） a vision of the future as an upgraded version of the present. We still believe in "progress", as lazily defined by western liberalism. We still believe that we will be able to continue living more or less the same comfortable lives (albeit with more windfarms（风力发电厂） and better lightbulbs) if we can only embrace "sustainable development" rapidly enough; and that we can then extend it to the extra 3 billion people who will shortly join us on this already gasping planet（早已气喘吁吁的星球）.

I think this is simply denial（这是一个名词）.（这种想法就是在否认问题） The writing is on the wall for industrial society, and no amount of ethical shopping or determined protesting is going to change that now（这个表达很好，没有一个。。。的数量可以改变那个，也就是再多的什么也改变不了那个）. Take a civilisation built on（将什么建立在什么上） the myth of human exceptionalism and a deeply embedded cultural attitude to "nature"（对自然根深蒂固的文化态度）; add a blind belief in（盲目相信） technological and material progress; then fuel the whole thing with a power source（用一种能源让整个的鼓足了劲） that is discovered to be disastrously destructive only after we have used it to inflate our numbers and appetites beyond the point of no return. What do you get? We are starting to find out.

来吧，先看一句话，猜猜它是什么意思——The official saw the writing on the wall and fled the country——“官员之所以逃到国外是因为‘看到了墙上的文字’”？ 如果真是这样，要么这位官员大白天搞占卜，要么这句话取自某本魔幻小说的离奇巫术。
“The writing on the wall”常见于新闻报道或文学读本，指的是a sign or warning of impending disaster（迫在眉睫的凶兆、不祥之兆）。其渊源确实和“占卜”挂钩，可追溯到《旧经·但以理书》。 《旧约》中记载：

　　古巴比伦国王Belshazar（伯沙撒）在宫殿里设宴纵饮时，忽然看到一个神秘的手指在王宫墙上写看不懂的文字，后来，国王叫到虏囚犹太预言家Daniel（但以理）才搞明白，墙上的字表示“大难临头”。如预言所示，伯沙撒当夜被杀，新国王由玛代人大利乌继任。

　　正由于这个“身死国王”的典故，the finger on the wall（墙上的手指）或the writing on the wall（墙上的文字）常和动词see或read连用，用来形容“不祥之兆”。所以，刚才的例句——The official saw the writing on the wall and fled the country——就可翻译为：“这个官员预感到自己将有大难，立即逃到了国外。”

We need to get real.（我们需要现实点） Climate change is teetering on the point of no return（在无法恢复的临界点上徘徊） while our leaders bang the drum for more growth. The economic system we rely upon cannot be tamed without collapsing（不靠崩溃不足以驯服）, for it relies upon that growth to function. And who wants it tamed anyway? Most people in the rich world won't be giving up their cars or holidays without a fight.

Some people – perhaps you – believe that these things should not be said, even if true, because saying them will deprive people of "hope", and without hope there will be no chance of "saving the planet". But false hope is worse than no hope at all. As for saving the planet – what we are really trying to save, as we scrabble around（摸索） planting turbines on mountains and shouting at ministers, is not the planet but our attachment to the western material culture, which we cannot imagine living without.

The challenge is not how to shore up（支撑住） a crumbling empire with wave machines and global summits, but to start thinking about how we are going to live through its fall, and what we can learn from its collapse.
All the best, Paul

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Dear Paul
Like you I have become ever gloomier about our chances of avoiding the crash you predict. For the past few years I have been almost professionally optimistic, exhorting people to keep fighting, knowing that to say there is no hope is to make it so. I still have some faith in our ability to make rational decisions based on evidence. But it is waning.
If it has taken governments this long even to start discussing reform of the common fisheries policy – if they refuse even to make contingency plans for peak oil – what hope is there of working towards a steady-state economy, let alone the voluntary economic contraction ultimately required to avoid either the climate crash or the depletion of crucial resources?
The interesting question, and the one that probably divides us, is this: to what extent should we welcome the likely collapse of industrial civilisation? Or more precisely: to what extent do we believe that some good may come of it?
I detect in your writings, and in the conversations we have had, an attraction towards – almost a yearning for – this apocalypse, a sense that you see it as a cleansing fire that will rid the world of a diseased society. If this is your view, I do not share it. I'm sure we can agree that the immediate consequences of collapse would be hideous: the breakdown of the systems that keep most of us alive; mass starvation; war. These alone surely give us sufficient reason to fight on, however faint our chances appear. But even if we were somehow able to put this out of our minds, I believe that what is likely to come out on the other side will be worse than our current settlement.
Here are three observations: 1 Our species (unlike most of its members) is tough and resilient; 2 When civilisations collapse, psychopaths take over; 3 We seldom learn from others' mistakes.
From the first observation, this follows: even if you are hardened to the fate of humans, you can surely see that our species will not become extinct without causing the extinction of almost all others. However hard we fall, we will recover sufficiently to land another hammer blow on the biosphere. We will continue to do so until there is so little left that even Homo sapiens can no longer survive. This is the ecological destiny of a species possessed of outstanding intelligence, opposable thumbs and an ability to interpret and exploit almost every possible resource – in the absence of political restraint.
From the second and third observations, this follows: instead of gathering as free collectives of happy householders, survivors of this collapse will be subject to the will of people seeking to monopolise remaining resources. This will is likely to be imposed through violence. Political accountability will be a distant memory. The chances of conserving any resource in these circumstances are approximately zero. The human and ecological consequences of the first global collapse are likely to persist for many generations, perhaps for our species' remaining time on earth. To imagine that good could come of the involuntary failure of industrial civilisation is also to succumb to denial. The answer to your question – what will we learn from this collapse? – is nothing.
This is why, despite everything, I fight on. I am not fighting to sustain economic growth. I am fighting to prevent both initial collapse and the repeated catastrophe that follows. However faint the hopes of engineering a soft landing – an ordered and structured downsizing of the global economy – might be, we must keep this possibility alive. Perhaps we are both in denial: I, because I think the fight is still worth having; you, because you think it isn't.
With my best wishes, George

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Dear George
You say that you detect in my writing a yearning for apocalypse. I detect in yours a paralysing fear.
You have convinced yourself that there are only two possible futures available to humanity. One we might call Liberal Capitalist Democracy 2.0. Clearly your preferred option, this is much like the world we live in now, only with fossil fuels replaced by solar panels; governments and corporations held to account by active citizens; and growth somehow cast aside in favour of a "steady state economy".
The other we might call McCarthy world, from Cormac McCarthy's novel The Road– which is set in an impossibly hideous post-apocalyptic world, where everything is dead but humans, who are reduced to eating children. Not long ago you suggested in a column that such a future could await us if we didn't continue "the fight".
Your letter continues mining this Hobbesian vein. We have to "fight on" because without modern industrial civilisation the psychopaths will take over, and there will be "mass starvation and war". Leaving aside the fact that psychopaths seem to be running the show already, and millions are suffering today from starvation and war, I think this is a false choice. We both come from a western, Christian culture with a deep apocalyptic tradition. You seem to find it hard to see beyond it. But I am not "yearning" for some archetypal End of Days, because that's not what we face.
We face what John Michael Greer, in his book of the same name, calls a "long descent": a series of ongoing crises brought about by the factors I talked of in my first letter that will bring an end to the all-consuming culture we have imposed upon the Earth. I'm sure "some good will come" from this, for that culture is a weapon of planetary mass destruction.
Our civilisation will not survive in anything like its present form, but we can at least aim for a managed retreat to a saner world. Your alternative – to hold on to nurse for fear of finding something worse – is in any case a century too late. When empires begin to fall, they build their own momentum. But what comes next doesn't have to be McCarthyworld. Fear is a poor guide to the future.
All the best, Paul

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Dear Paul
If I have understood you correctly, you are proposing to do nothing to prevent the likely collapse of industrial civilisation. You believe that instead of trying to replace fossil fuels with other energy sources, we should let the system slide. You go on to say that we should not fear this outcome.
How many people do you believe the world could support without either fossil fuels or an equivalent investment in alternative energy? How many would survive without modern industrial civilisation? Two billion? One billion? Under your vision several billion perish. And you tell me we have nothing to fear.
I find it hard to understand how you could be unaffected by this prospect. I accused you of denial before; this looks more like disavowal. I hear a perverse echo in your writing of the philosophies that most offend you: your macho assertion that we have nothing to fear from collapse mirrors the macho assertion that we have nothing to fear from endless growth. Both positions betray a refusal to engage with physical reality.
Your disavowal is informed by a misunderstanding. You maintain that modern industrial civilisation "is a weapon of planetary mass destruction". Anyone apprised of the palaeolithic massacre of the African and Eurasian megafauna, or the extermination of the great beasts of the Americas, or the massive carbon pulse produced by deforestation in the Neolithic must be able to see that the weapon of planetary mass destruction is not the current culture, but humankind.
You would purge the planet of industrial civilisation, at the cost of billions of lives, only to discover that you have not invoked "a saner world" but just another phase of destruction.
Strange as it seems, a de-fanged, steady-state version of the current settlement might offer the best prospect humankind has ever had of avoiding collapse. For the first time in our history we are well-informed about the extent and causes of our ecological crises, know what should be done to avert them, and have the global means – if only the political will were present – of preventing them. Faced with your alternative – sit back and watch billions die – Liberal Democracy 2.0 looks like a pretty good option.
With my best wishes, George

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Dear George
Macho, moi? You've been using the word "fight" at a Dick Cheney-like rate. Now my lack of fighting spirit sees me accused of complicity in mass death. This seems a fairly macho accusation.
Perhaps the heart of our disagreement can be found in a single sentence in your last letter: "You are proposing to do nothing to prevent the likely collapse of industrial civilisation." This invites a question: what do you think I could do? What do you think you can do?
You've suggested several times that the hideous death of billions is the only alternative to a retooled status quo. Even if I accepted this loaded claim, which seems designed to make me look like a heartless fascist, it would get us nowhere because a retooled status quo is a fantasy and even you are close to admitting it. Rather than "do nothing" in response, I'd suggest we get some perspective on the root cause of this crisis – not human beings but the cultures within which they operate.
Civilisations live and die by their founding myths. Our myths tell us that humanity is separate from something called "nature", which is a "resource" for our use. They tell us there are no limits to human abilities, and that technology, science and our ineffable wisdom can fix everything. Above all, they tell us that we are in control. This craving for control underpins your approach. If we can just persaude the politicians to do A, B and C swiftly enough, then we will be saved. But what climate change shows us is that we are not in control, either of the biosphere or of the machine which is destroying it. Accepting that fact is our biggest challenge.
I think our task is to negotiate the coming descent as best we can, while creating new myths that put humanity in its proper place. Recently I co-founded a new initiative, the Dark Mountain Project, which aims to help do that. It won't save the world, but it might help us think about how to live through a hard century. You'd be welcome to join us.
Very best, Paul

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Dear Paul
Yes, the words I use are fierce, but yours are strangely neutral. I note that you have failed to answer my question about how many people the world could support without modern forms of energy and the systems they sustain, but 2 billion is surely the optimistic extreme. You describe this mass cull as "a long descent" or a "retreat to a saner world". Have you ever considered a job in the Ministry of Defence press office?
I draw the trifling issue of a few billion fatalities to your attention not to make you look like a heartless fascist but because it's a reality with which you refuse to engage. You don't see it because to do so would be to accept the need for action. But of course you aren't doing nothing. You propose to stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood, and, er … "get some perspective on the root cause of this crisis". Fine: we could all do with some perspective. But without action – informed, focused and immediate – the crisis will happen. I agree that the chances of success are small. But they are non-existent if we give up before we have started. You mock this impulse as a "craving for control". I see it as an attempt at survival.
What could you do? You know the answer as well as I do. Join up, protest, propose, create. It's messy, endless and uncertain of success. Perhaps you see yourself as above this futility, but it's all we've got and all we've ever had. And sometimes it works.
The curious outcome of this debate is that while I began as the optimist and you the pessimist, our roles have reversed. You appear to believe that though it is impossible to tame the global economy, it is possible to change our founding myths, some of which predate industrial civilisation by several thousand years. You also believe that good can come of a collapse that deprives most of the population of its means of survival. This strikes me as something more than optimism: a millenarian fantasy, perhaps, of Redemption after the Fall. Perhaps it is the perfect foil to my apocalyptic vision.
With my best wishes, George

thatllUID: 2538832

奋起抗争以避免工业化大毁灭是否有意义？
简介：面对可能到来的工业文明的崩溃，人类力争寻求解决之道是否有意义？反全球化的环保人士保罗·金司诺思（Paul Kingsnorth）与《卫报》专栏作家乔治·蒙博（George Monbiot）就此展开了辩论。
文明的崩溃将带给我们一个更理智的世界－－保罗·金司诺思（Paul Kingsnorth）这么说。不！乔治·蒙博（George Monbiot）反对：我们不能让数十亿生灵涂炭。
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亲爱的乔治：

我面前的桌子上放着一组图。横轴代表了1750年至2000年。这组图表显示了不同的数据：人口数量，大气中二氧化碳浓度，渔业开发，热带森林的砍伐，纸张消耗，机动车数量，水的使用量，物种灭绝速度，以及人类国内生产总值的总和。

这组图表能抓住我的地方（图表通常都不能让我全神贯注）是，尽管这些图表现的事物异彩纷呈，它们的形状都几乎一致。一条线始自图表左侧，随着右移而逐渐上升。然后，就在差不多最后1英寸的时候——大概在1950年——它失去控制急剧上升，就像一个飞行员本以为前面是一团虚无的浮云，却突然浮现出一座悬崖峭壁时做出的倾斜大转弯。

造成所有这些趋势的根源是同一个：贪婪的人类经济迅速地将世界带到混乱的边缘。我们知道这一点，我们当中有些人甚至试图阻止这一切的发生。然而，所有的这些趋势都继续迅速恶化，也没有迹象表明这种趋势会很快改变。这些图表比任何其他事物都更明确地表明了残酷的现实：一场严峻的灾难将要来临。

然而，我们当中鲜有人愿意坦诚地面对现实正在对我们咆哮而出的这个讯息：那就是我们所属于的文明正以全速撞向各种缓冲器，要阻止这一切已为时过晚。我们没有正视现实，我们当中的大多数人——我在这也包括了很多主流环保运动——仍局限于把未来看成是现在的一个升级版本。我们仍相信“进步”，就象西方自由主义懒散地定义的那样。我们仍相信，只要我们能足够快地拥抱“可持续发展”，我们将能或多或少地继续相同的舒适生活（虽然会有更多的风力发电场和更节能的灯泡）；而且那样一来我们也能把这种生活方式带给其他30亿人，这些同在这个气喘吁吁的地球上的人们将很快加入我们。

我认为这种想法就是在否认问题。工业社会的末路已经无可更改，现在，再多的凭良知的购物方式或者充满决心的抗议活动都不会改变（工业文明的坍塌）。采取一种构建在人类是超然物外的神话上的文明，对“自然”拥有一种根深蒂固的文化态度，附之以对技术和物质进步的盲目相信；然后再用一种能源让这整个系统鼓足了劲 ——直到我们用这种能源把人口和欲求都扩大到积重难返的地步时，我们才发现它的破坏力是灾难性的。你得到了什么？我们正开始发现答案。

我们需要现实点。气候变化正在无法恢复的界点上徘徊，而我们的领导人却奋力鸣鼓以期更多的增长。我们所依靠的经济体制不靠崩溃不足以驯服，因为这种经济体系依靠增长来运作。再说又有谁想驯服它呢？富裕国家里的大多数人不经过一番争斗是不会放弃他们的汽车或节假日的。

有些人——也许包括你——相信即使是真的，也不应该说这些事情，因为说这些事情将让人丧失“希望”，而没有希望就不会有机会“拯救地球”。但是，虚假的希望比压根没有希望更糟糕。至于拯救地球——当我们急着在山上修建风能发电机，向政府部长们大喊大叫时，我们实际上在试图拯救的不是地球，而是我们对西方物质文化的依附，我们无法想象没有它怎么生活。

（我们的）挑战不是怎么用造波机和全球峰会来支撑一个摇摇欲坠的帝国，而是开始考虑这个帝国倒下后我们将如何存活，以及我们能从这个帝国的崩溃里学到什么。

一切顺利，保罗
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亲爱的保罗：

和你一样，我对于我们人类能否避免你所预测的灾难也越来越悲观。在过去的几年里，我一直保持着几乎是职业化的乐观，以激励人民继续战斗，我知道说没有希望就会让事实变得没有希望。我对于人类基于证据做出理性决定仍有一些信心。但这种信心正在减弱。

如果要这么久才能让各国政府开始讨论改革常规的渔业政策，如果这些政府甚至拒绝做出石油峰值的应急计划，那还有什么希望建立一个稳定状态的经济，更不用说最终需要采取的为了避免气候崩溃或重要资源枯竭的自愿经济紧缩？

有一个有趣的，而且可能是区分我们两者的问题是：要到什么程度，我们才应该欢迎可能到来的工业文明的崩溃？或者更准确地说：到何种程度，我们会认为，工业文明的崩溃也会带来一些好处？

我在你的著作以及我们的交谈中发现一种对这种大灾难的着迷——甚或几乎是一种渴望，从某种意义上说，你把这场大灾难看作是一场清污除垢的大火，它将为世界攘除一个病患的社会。如果这是你的看法，我不能苟同。我相信我们都同意大崩溃的直接后果将是可怕的：让我们大多数人存活的系统将倒塌；将有大规模饥荒；将爆发战争。这些后果无疑给了我们抗争的充足理由，无论我们的机会显得多渺茫。但是，即使我们不知何故能把这种大崩溃的景象从我们的脑海剔除出去，我仍相信，盲目无知可能导致的后果将比我们目前的解决办法更加糟糕。

这里有三个观察所得的观点：1我们人类这个物种（不同于灵长类的大多数成员）是坚韧而能重新振作起来的； 2当文明崩溃时，心理变态者就取而代之；3我们很少从别人的错误中学习。

从第一种观察所得引申出：即使你对人类的命运是铁石心肠，你也肯定能看到，我们人类这个物种在没有造成其他物种几乎都灭绝前是不会灭绝的。无论我们摔得有多惨重，我们仍能恢复到再给生物圈来一次重击。我们将继续这样折腾直到地球不剩下什么甚至连人类都无法再存活。这就是拥有出色智能、有适合抓握物体的手指，并能理解并开发几乎所有可利用资源的物种的生态命运——这个物种缺乏政治克制。

从第二和第三个观察所得可引申出：和由幸福的家庭组成的自由集体不同，大崩溃的幸存者将听命于谋求垄断剩余资源的人类意志。这种意志将很可能通过暴力实施。政治问责制将成为一个遥远的记忆。在这种情况下，保护任何资源的机会几乎是零。第一个全球性崩溃的人类和生态后果很可能会持续很多代人，也许会贯穿我们人类物种在地球上的幸存时间。想象工业文明的非自愿失败可能带来的好处也是屈从于否认现实。对你的问题的回答——我们将从这次崩溃中学到什么？——什么也学不到。

这也就是为什么我会不顾一切持续抗争。我不是抗争以维持经济增长。我抗争以防止最初的大崩溃和接踵而至的重复灾难。无论软着陆的希望有多渺茫——建立一个有序的和结构缩小的全球经济——我们必须保持这种可能性的存在。也许我们两个人都在否认现实：我拒绝是因为我认为值得斗争；你拒绝现实是因为你认为不值得斗争。

致以我最良好的祝愿，乔治
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亲爱的乔治：

你说你在我的文章里发现一种对大灾难的渴望。我则在你的文章中发现一种让你瘫软的恐惧。

你让自己相信对人类而言未来只有两种可能。一种可称之为新版的自由资本主义民主，这显然也是你的偏爱之选，它很象我们现在生活的这个世界，只是用太阳能板取代了化石燃料；积极的公民们让政府和企业担负起责任；为了“稳定状态的经济”，增长也在某种程度上被弃置一旁。

另一种人类的未来可称之为麦卡锡世界，这个词来自科马克·麦卡锡（Cormac McCarthy）的小说《路》（The Road ），这个故事发生在一个极其丑恶的世界末日后的世界里，这个世界中万物寂灭，唯独人类尚存，而人类也堕落到食啖童稚。不久前，你在一篇专栏文章中说，如果我们不继续“战斗”，迎接我们的可能就是这种未来。

你的信件则在继续挖掘这一霍布斯哲学的传统。我们必须“战斗”因为如果现代工业文明毁灭的话，心里变态者将会接管世界，而且会有“大规模饥荒和战争”。先不说心里变态者似乎已经在操控局势一个事实，以及数百万人目前由于饥饿和战争身陷困境，我认为让现代工业文明不倒塌是一个错误的选择。我们两人都来自一个有着根深蒂固的（预言）大灾难传统的西方基督教文化。你的眼界似乎很难逾越这个传统。但我并没有“渴望”什么典型的世界末日，因为那不是我们所要面临的。

我们面临的是约翰·迈克尔·格里尔（John Michael Greer）在他同名著作中的所谓的“长久侵袭”：由我在我第一封信中所谈及的那些因素所带来的一系列持续的危机，这些危机将结束我们强加给地球的消费至上的文化。我确信消费至上文化的结束“会带来一些好处”，因为那种文化是大规模杀伤性毁灭事件的一件利器。

我们的文明将无法以任何一种目前的形式维系，不过我们至少能有目标地稳步后撤，回到一个更理智的世界。你的选择——坚持培养担心发现更糟糕局面的惊恐之心 ——无论在哪种情况下讲都晚了一个世纪。当古代帝国开始溃败时，他们建立各自的丰碑。但接下来发生的并不必然是麦卡锡世界。惶恐不安是通向未来的一个无用向导。

祝一切顺利，保罗
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亲爱的保罗：

如果我对你的理解正确的话，你在主张不做任何事情去防止可能的工业文明的崩溃。你相信不要试图用其他能源来源取代化石燃料，我们应该让这个系统塌下去。你接着说我们不应该担心这种结果。

你认为世界上有多少人会支持取消矿物燃料或没有替代能源的等同投入？有多少人在失去现代工业文明时能存活下去？20亿人？10亿人？在你的远见之下，数十亿人将灭亡。而你告诉我我们没什么可担心的。

我很难了解你如何能不为这一前景所动。我以前曾指责你在否认；你的这种态度看起来更像推卸。在你的文章里我听到一种对冒犯你的哲学思想的刚愎自负的回应：你男人气概地断言，我们对于崩溃无须任何恐惧，这种说法映照了另一种男人气概的说法，对于无休止的增长我们没有什么可害怕的。这两种想法都显示了拒绝同物理现实相一致。

你的推卸是由一种误解造成的。你坚持认为，现代工业文明“是一种星际大规模毁灭性武器”。任何了解旧石器时代（人类）对非洲和欧亚巨型动物的屠杀，或美洲大型野兽的灭绝，或新石器时代毁林所造成的大规模碳脉冲的人也必须能够看到大规模星际毁灭性武器不是当前的文化，而是人类的文化。

你会以数十亿生命的代价来清除地球的工业文明，却只能发现你并没有带来“一个更理智的世界”，结果只是另一个阶段的破坏。

这看起来很奇怪，一个当前解决方式的拔掉了尖牙的的稳态版本可能会为人类提供迄今为止最好的避免崩溃的前景。在人类历史上，我们首次对我们生态危机的程度和根源有了充分的了解，知道应该做什么以避免这些危机，我们也有全球化手段——只要有政治意愿——来阻止这些危机。面对你的选择——坐视数十亿人死亡——自由民主2.0版本看起来象个相当不错的选择。

致以我最良好的祝愿，乔治
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亲爱的乔治：

男子气概的？我？你一直在以迪克·切尼（Dick Cheney）的频率使用“斗争”这个词。现在，我缺乏战斗的精神让我做为大规模死难的同谋受到指控。这似乎是个相当男子气概的指控。

也许我们分歧核心所在可以在你上封信的一个句子中找到：“你主张不做任何事情去防止可能的工业文明的崩溃。”这句话引发我的一个问题：你觉得我能做什么呢？你又觉得你能做什么呢？

你好几次提到数十亿人的可怕死亡只是重组现状的唯一选择。即使我接受这个似乎旨在使我看起来像一个无情法西斯的强加给我的断言，这也不会把我们带到什么地方，因为重组现状是一种幻想，甚至你接近于重组现状。我的反应并不是“什么都不做”，我建议从这场危机的根源找到一些看问题的视角——这不在于人类，而在于人类运行其间的诸种文化。

各种文明都在它们的创始神话中生生死死。我们（工业文明）的神话告诉我们，人类独立于所谓的“自然”，自然是一种供我们使用的“资源”。这些神话告诉我们，人类的能力是无限的，而且技术、科学和我们无法形容的智慧可以解决一切问题。首先，这些神话告诉我们，我们处于主宰控制地位。这种对控制的渴求支撑着你的解决办法。如果我们能够足够快地说服政治家去做这件事，那件事和那件事，我们就将幸免。然而，气候变化向我们显示，无论是在生物圈还是摧毁生物圈的制度模式，我们都不处于控制地位。我们最大的挑战就是接受这一事实。

我认为，我们的任务是尽可能地平缓地度过要到来的侵袭，同时创造新的摆正人类位置的神话。最近我与人共同创立了一个新的举措“黑暗山项目”，该项目旨在促成以上任务。这个项目不会拯救世界，但它可能帮助我们思考如何渡过一个艰苦的世纪。欢迎你加入我们的行列。

诚挚问候，保罗
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亲爱的保罗：

是的，我用词是激烈的，但你的词语则是奇怪的中立。我注意到，你没有回答我的到底世界上有多少人会支持没有现代能源形式和现代能源维系的系统的问题，不过有20亿人肯定是十分乐观的。你把这种大规模人口剔除描述为“长久侵袭”或者“回到更理智的世界”。你有没有考虑过在国防部新闻办公室工作？

我提出引起你关注的数十亿人死亡的琐碎问题不是为了要让你看起来像一个无情的法西斯，而是因为这是一个你拒绝审视的现实。你不看这个事实，因为这么做就必将采取行动。当然，你也不是什么都不做。你建议绷紧肌肉，鼓起血脉，和，呃... “从这场危机的根源找到一些看问题的视角”。是嘛：我们做什么都是有些视角的。但是，如果没有行动——信息充足，重点突出，快速迅捷——危机将会发生。我同意成功的机会很小。但是，如果我们开始前就放弃了，这些机会是不存在的。你把这种行动比成“渴望控制”。我则把它看成存活下去的尝试。

你能做什么？对此你和我一样知道答案。加入团队，抗议，建议，创建。这个过程混乱，无休止，也不确保成功。也许你自视不庸人自扰，但这是我们现在和曾经所拥有的一切。而且，有时（民众斗争）也能奏效。

我们这场辩论让人好奇的结果是：我开始是个乐观者，你开始是个悲观者，最后我们却角色互换了。你似乎认为，虽然不可能降服全球经济，却有可能改变我们的创始神话，其中一些神话比工业文明早几千年。你还认为，剥夺大多数人口生存手段的大崩溃会带来好处。这种远远超越乐观的论调让我震惊：这也许是一个在世界沦陷后得到救赎的千禧年幻想。也许是我的世界末日远见的完美衬托。

致以我最良好的祝愿，乔治

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加油吧，哥们～

thatllUID: 2538832

【好文章，共欣赏】
[size=0.8em]Barack Obama's health-care speech
The art of the possible
[size=0.7em]Sep 10th 2009
A fine, measured piece of oratory from the president. But there is still tough work to do

measured：
1 : marked by due proportion
2 a : marked by rhythm : regularly recurrent *a measured gait* b : METRICAL
3 : DELIBERATE, CALCULATED *a measured response*

[size=0.8em]“I AM not the first president to take up this cause, but I am determined to be the last.” Thus Barack Obama, late in the day, took his quest to reform America’s expensive and flawed health-care system to the floor of Congress with a mighty speech that will surely stand as one of the defining moments of his presidency, whether it leads to eventual triumph or disaster. His is a bold ambition indeed; but this week the president looked a bit closer to fulfilling it.
[size=0.8em]Politics, as everyone knows, is the art of the possible; and there have been times over this ill-tempered summer when the idea of tackling a system that costs almost twice as much as any other rich country’s, yet yields substandard results and leaves tens of millions of people with no health insurance at all, has seemed simply impossible. Mr Obama has to find a package of policies that is fiscally（财政上） and politically moderate enough to win over a vital few Republicans to his side (and also prevent the defection of nervous conservative Democrats). But at the same time he has to keep the support of the leftish Democratic Party base, which wants to see a more expansive and costly set of reforms. He may well fail. But on September 9th the president for the first time laid out in some detail what such a plan might look like. Cleverly borrowing good ideas from both sides of the party divide, his proposals at least look like a plausible basis for agreement (seearticle).
[size=0.8em]
[size=0.8em]The plan obliges everyone to take out health insurance while creating a tapering subsidy for poorer families to help them afford it. It also requires insurance companies to end various nefarious practices, such as refusing to insure people with existing conditions or cancelling their coverage just when they need it most. To pay for these long-held liberal goals (the cost is put at $900 billion over ten years), the president has committed himself to several policies that Republicans, if only they could remove their partisan spectacles, should applaud.
[size=0.8em]There is, for instance, a tax on insurance companies that offer “Cadillac” plans to richer individuals; since this will inevitably be passed on to consumers, it is a useful step towards making individuals aware of the cost of their coverage. He has made a cast-iron（严格的，铁铸的） pledge that he will not sign a health bill that increases the deficit, and has promised automatic spending cuts if savings do not materialise. He wants to set up a new technocratic committee that could mandate changes to the hugely expensive Medicare system of health care for the elderly (an idea that cleverly takes such difficult decisions out of the hands of politicians, who have displayed a lamentable failure to grapple with them). And the president also promised conservatives reform of America’s mad tort system. The risk of being sued pushes up costs, obliging doctors to practise “defensive medicine” in the shape of needless tests and procedures.
Give me public options, but not now
[size=0.8em]Still up in the air is the trickiest question of all: whether the government should create a “public option”, its own insurance provider, which people could use if they dislike what the free market has to offer. Medical insurers and most Republicans say a public plan would enjoy unfair advantages and destroy competition. Liberal Democrats say the insurers will not cut prices without it. Both sides have a point. This newspaper still thinks the best solution would be to keep the public option as a threat: to set up a formal provision in the bill whereby a public plan would be introduced in, say, five years’ time if certain targets were not met. In his speech Mr Obama hedged his bets, sticking with the public option but signalling a willingness to compromise. This may come back to haunt him. But overall, this performance was a big step forward.

thatllUID: 2538832

像一颗树那样生活
----汪建中----2009-09-12 11:29

我总觉得，投生为人，是我今生最大的错。


因为，世间万物，并非只有人才活得有意义。你能说一只蚂蚁就活得没有意义吗？你能说一头黑熊就活得没有意义吗？还有树，你能说一棵树也活得没有意义吗？


也许你会说，树是活得很有意义的，尤其是那些参天大树和名贵树木，比如黄花梨、小叶紫檀、金丝楠、香樟树、红杉树等。不错，这些树都很有价值，很受人青睐。它们的意义在于，它们是名木，而非随便一种什么树。


活到今天，我终于明白，其实我应该像一颗树那样活着。


像一颗树，静静地生长在山野，扎根大地，一步不移，默然地迎接春风，默然告别秋雨，一辈子只做一件事：努力往天空伸展枝叶、迎接阳光、拥抱山岚、吸纳雨露，把整个一生都活得蓬蓬勃勃，翠绿欲滴。即便倒下，那也是树，犹如胡杨，在漠风中获得千年不朽之躯。


一棵树，它没有言语，也不会言语，从而也就避免了祸从口出。它没有思想，也不会思想，为此也就免遭了株连九族。它没有情欲，也不会情欲，这样也就少却了世间的儿女幽怨、爱恨情仇。因此，像一颗树那样生活，是真正的好。


但是，我不想成为一颗参天大树或名贵之树。因为，这样的树，到头来必定要招致斧锯之灾，注定要被一块一块地肢解。而且，被肢解后的残骸，还被当做稀世名木被人买来卖去……所以，我以为，名贵者，到头来，就连死，也死得那么凄凉与悲惨。


为此我想，我最好是像一棵不成材的树那样活着。因为不成材的树，才能保全终生，才能真正寿终正寝。我还想，不仅是一颗不成材的树，更应该是一颗不成器的树。不成器了，就无所谓被不被器，也无所谓被不被用。不才、不器而又无用，这才是一棵树规避大凶大险最好的武器。在这世界上，没有谁为一棵不成器的树而大动斧锯的，更没有谁为一棵不成材的树而撒尽千金。


不成材的树，通常就是那些灌木丛。它的枝条很细小，它的叶片很微薄，它如丝如缕，却又遒劲依然。灌木丛的个头不高，但它的根系却是异常发达。为了能在乱石堆里生存，它的根系必须发达。它发达的根系，是为了在不能站立的地方站立一生，是为了在没有养分的地方生活一世，是为了让生长出地面的枝条能像一棵树，或者，是为了它不太像一棵树。


在像树与不像树之间，灌木丛在荒凉的山野里活着，它无意与身边的乔木争夺阳光，也懒得与脚下的小草抢夺露水，它就这么没有争执地活着，枝条干瘪而扭曲，叶片单薄而微小。这样的灌木，蜜蜂不会光顾，因为它没有花朵；雄鹰不会停在上面，因为它不够高大；猢狲们不愿攀援，因为它没有坚挺的力量。但是，在看似完全无用的时候，灌木丛自有它了不起的一面——由于它有浓密的枝叶作掩护，那些野兔和小鸟，才免遭猎鹰的捕杀和恶狼的追击。


在树的大家族中，灌木丛的确显得微不足道，但又有谁能说它不是树木？应该说，灌木丛具有树木的基因，又兼具茅草的本色；它保持了树木的风采，又洋溢着禾苗的潇洒。它永远都不会成器，但它能够绿一片山野，翠一片天地，涌一堆祥云。它无心成为栋梁，无意支撑大厦，它只想一生一世为这天地人间释放几缕清新之气，装点一下裸露的山脊。


因此，我认为，像一棵灌木那样生活，才是最好的好。没有花就没有吧，没有果就没有吧，没有花果，绝不等于它就无后。我深信，这世界数量最大的，不是挺拔的乔木，不是珍贵的名木，而是丛生于千山万水间的那些灌木。


所以我想，如果能再一次选择投生，那我一定选择做一棵树却又没有树那样一种悲惨结局的小小灌木。


2009年9月12日于弄月斋

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【好文章，共欣赏】
Stern: Rich nations will have to forget about growth to stop climate change

[size=1.33em]Economic expansion cannot be achieved forever if greenhouse gases are to be curbed, warns the leading economist and author of the UK's government's report on climate change

Rich nations will need to reconsider making growth the goal of their societies, according to the leading economist who wrote the government's report on climate change.
Lord Stern said that although robust expansion could be achieved until 2030 while avoiding dangerous levels of greenhouse gas emissions, rich nations may then have to consider reining in growth.
"Will other restraints kick in? Probably, they will," said the former World Bank chief economist and author of the 2006 Stern review on the economic costs of climate change. "At some point we would have to think about whether we want future growth. We don't have to do that now." The priority, he told the Guardian, was to break the link between carbon emissions and economic output.
In a speech at People's University in Beijing, Stern said the world's challenge was to reduce total carbon emissions from just under 50 gigatonnes now to 35 by 2030 and 20 by 2050. By that time, he said, the average for each of the predicted 9 billion people in the world would be two tonnes. If done equitably, this would require a cut by the US of more than 90% – each American now uses 25 tonnes of carbon a year.
To meet Stern's goals, the world's big economies, including China, would have to halve carbon emissions relative to GDP in each of the next two decades.
Stern said there was a good chance of agreement at the UN climate talks in Copenhagen in December on a framework to set a total carbon target for 2050 and a series of steps towards reaching that goal. "We probably won't do all the work in Copenhagen, but I think we can at least get the framework of a deal," he said.
He praised recent moves by Japan and the US to set more ambitious carbon reduction targets and Gordon Brown's proposal that rich nations set aside $100bn (£60bn) a year from 2020 to help developing nations deal with climate change. However, he said twice this figure would probably be necessary to help those countries mitigate greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to more frequent extreme weather, rising sea levels and other consequences.
"The world has moved strongly in a good direction but … it is not moving fast enough," Stern said. A former lecturer at People's University, he said China's role would be crucial. The country is on course to meet its latest five-year target to improve energy efficiency by 20%. Stern said he expected Beijing to set even stronger goals in the next plan from 2011.
Though China's national per capita emissions are far lower than the US and Europe, Stern said 13 Chinese provinces had higher per capita carbon emissions than France. Six of them are higher than Britain's.
"China is so big that unless China does that, this is not going to work," said Stern, referring to efforts to curb greenhouse gases from human activity, especially carbon dioxide from fossil fuels. "This is never going to work unless developing countries are involved," he said.
Stern, now a professor at the London School of Economics, said Beijing should shift the economy away from heavy industry, manufacturing for exports and other high-emission activities. Instead, he said it should focus more on domestic consumption, service industries and low-carbon technology.
Stern added that the global situation is now worse than he set out in the Stern review in 2006. The pace of climate change has outstripped predictions, prompting the economist to revise his estimate of the amount of money governments should spend on countermeasures from 1% to 2% of GDP.
"Emissions were higher than forecast. Also the ability of the planet, particularly the ocean, to absorb carbon was less than we assumed. The effects of climate change were also coming faster ... so I argued more should be done," he said. "But even at 2% of GDP, it would still be way way below the cost of inaction."

斯特恩：发达国家须放弃发展，保护环境
英国政府气候变化报告的作者、著名经济学家斯特恩勋爵警告说，要想遏制温室气体的排放，就不能无限制地发展经济。

根据曾撰写英国政府气候变化报告的一位著名经济学家的论述，富裕国家需重新考虑以发展为其社会目标的政策。

斯特恩勋爵（Lord Stern）表示，虽然直到2030年为止，在保持温室气体排放低于危险水平的同时，富裕国家还能实现强劲的经济增长，但到时它们可能需要控制增长。

“到时这些发达国家还会实施一些其他限制性措施吗？可能他们会的，”《2006年斯特恩气候变化之经济成本评估报告》的作者、前世界银行首席经济学家斯特恩说，“在未来某一时刻，我们将不得不考虑是否要继续保持增长。我们并不需要现在就考虑这个问题。”他在接受《卫报》记者采访时指出，我们的首要任务是消除碳排放和经济产出之间的关联。

在中国北京的人民大学发表演讲时，斯特恩说，世界正面临的挑战是：将碳排放总量从目前的500亿吨减少到2030年的350亿吨，及2050年的200亿吨。他说，到那时，对于预计的世界90亿总人口来说，人均碳排放量将为2吨。如果要公平地达成这一目标的话，这就需要美国减排90％以上——美国目前的人均碳排放量为25吨。

为了达到斯特恩提出的目标，包括中国在内的世界各大经济体在未来连续的两个二十年内（即到2030年及2050年），必须将单位产值的年碳排放量值相继减半。

斯特恩表示，今年12月于哥本哈根召开的联合国气候变化谈判会议，很有希望能达成一项框架性协议，制定2050年碳排放目标及一系列实施这一目标的措施。他说：“在这次哥本哈根峰会上，我们可能无法完成所有的工作，但我认为，我们至少可以达成一项框架性协议。”

最近，日本及美国纷纷设立了更为雄心勃勃的碳减排目标，以及英国首相布朗提出建议，要求富裕国家从2020年起每年拨款1000亿美元（合600亿英镑），用来帮助发展中国家应对气候变化。对于这些举措，他深表赞赏。不过他表示，布朗提议的这1000亿美元的数额还不够，需要增加一倍，才可能帮助那些发展中国家减少温室气体排放，并适应将会愈加频繁面临的极端恶劣天气、海平面上升和其他气候变化带来的后果。

斯特恩说：“世界已开始积极向好的方向进展，但是...还不够快。”曾在人民大学任职讲师的他指出，中国的作用至关重要。中国正在努力实现其最新的五年目标——能源强度减少20％。斯特恩表示，预计中国政府将为2011年起的下一个五年计划设立更大的目标。

斯特恩表示，虽然中国的人均碳排放量远远低于美国和欧洲，但是，中国有十三个省份的人均排放量高于法国，其中有六个省份的人均排放量高于英国。

“中国如此之大，所以除非中国行动起来，否则无法实现全球减排的目标，”斯特恩说到。他话中所指的行动就是要尽力限制人类活动造成的温室气体排放，尤其是矿物燃料产生的二氧化碳排放。他说：“除非发展中国家积极参与减排，否则永远达不成我们的减排目标。”

斯特恩现在是伦敦经济学院教授，他表示，中国政府应该将经济的侧重点从重工业、出口制造业及其他碳排放高的经济活动中转移。他说，作为替代，中国的经济应更加侧重于国内消费、服务行业及低碳技术。

斯特恩还表示，全球目前的情况比2006年他在《斯特恩评估报告》中设立减排目标时更为糟糕。气候变化的速度已远远超过预期，促使他这位经济学家不得不修正他所估计的各国政府实施对策所需花费的资金数额——从原先估计的GDP的1%修正为GDP的2％。

“碳排放高于预期。此外，地球——尤其是海洋吸收碳的能力远远低于我们的假设。气候变化的影响也来得更快...因此，我认为应该加大减排力度，”他说，“但即使花费GDP的2％，这也远远低于不采取行动将会造成的损失。”

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5 College Majors That Can Help You Get a Job
THE JOB HUNT MAY seem far away for college students now heading back to campus, but the process of making yourself an appealing candidate actually begins during school – and as early as when you choose your major.

This year, as college students wrestle with a decision that once guided only post-baccalaureate small talk, they now may want to consider not only whether it will increase their chances of landing a promising job after graduation, but also whether it will help them enter a field that’s growing. With the unemployment rate near a 26-year high and once-steady industries (e.g., autos, finance, housing) in flux, the conventional wisdom that it doesn’t matter what you studied as an undergraduate might seem a little less wise.

Some majors, like those in the science and engineering departments, lay the groundwork with the basic information that’s needed to work in expanding industries like health care, software development and the environmental sector. In contrast, students interested in liberal arts or humanities majors – often linked to industries like education and media, which aren’t growing – will have to take internships and be more aggressive in networking to prepare themselves for their job search.

SmartMoney examined data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) and the Milken Institute, an independent economic think tank, to find fields of study that may help upcoming job applicants. Here are five majors that are closely tied to growing industries.

Engineering
By 2020, U.S. manufacturers will need as many as 10 million new skilled workers, according to a June report by the Milken Institute. Mechanical and software engineers will make up a huge portion of those workers, says Perry Wong, a senior managing economist at the Milken Institute.

Mechanical engineers are already needed in almost all manufacturing firms, including those in aerospace, aircraft and defense, shipbuilding and computer-hardware design, he says.

“One of the biggest challenges for manufacturers is they can’t find enough mechanical engineers, in part because we don’t have a lot of American students going into this major,” he says. Mechanical engineer jobs typically involve designing and creating equipment and transferring a prototype from paper to physical machinery.

Software engineers are already in demand. The product life cycle of computers and electronics continues to advance, says Wong. The industry needs new engineers who can create original programs and update older ones.

Life Sciences
As baby boomers age and Congress nears an overhaul of the nation’s health system, the health-care sector appears unlikely to shrink any time soon.

By 2016, employment of registered nurses is expected to increase by 23.5% and dental hygienists and pharmacy technicians are projected to rise by 20%, according to the BLS.

The U.S. is a couple hundred thousand nurses short, and hospitals are starting to recruit nurses from overseas, says Joe Kilmartin, the managing director of compensation consulting at Salary.com, a human resources and consulting company. “That’s only going to get more critical over the next two to 10 years.”

If any version of President Obama’s health-care reform comes to fruition, we’re likely to see a bump in demand for health-care technicians, as well as more positions for information processing and digitizing health records, says Wong. The life sciences major is tailor-made for the broad health-care industry; majors go on to become health-care practitioners, administrators or pharmaceutical engineers, he says.

The BLS projects employment in health-care support services will increase by 27% between 2006 and 2016. The aging population will increase demand for rehabilitation centers and physical therapy facilities and spur growth in pharmacology research, says Linda LaTendresse, the assistant director of employer relations and recruiting at the University of California, Riverside. Demand for home care will increase, as will social work and counseling, says Jody Queen-Hubert, the executive director of co-op education and career services at Pace University.

Statistics
Statistics majors tend to be highly sought-after graduates and are often hired into lucrative positions straight out of college, Wong says.
Companies from all sectors look for statistics experts, including pharmaceutical and insurance companies and Wall Street firms. Pharmaceutical companies are especially interested in biostatistics majors who can create models to test drugs. Wall Street turns to statistics experts for their quantitative skills and large-scale modeling. However, these positions often require a PhD.

“You need statistical analysis to do anything regarding research and to assess various alternatives, whether it’s in alternative energy or health care,” says Stephen Leeb, chief investment officer of Leeb Capital Management in New York.

Environmental studies
The stimulus package that passed in February provides roughly $70 billion for the nation's energy sector; most of it is earmarked for green energy jobs and development.

More universities are starting to offer majors in environmental design and technology for students interested in entering the green sector, Wong says. Coursework focuses on new ways to generate power and includes engineering elements (e.g., how to improve a product’s efficiency) and applied science (e.g., how to reduce a carbon footprint). Jobs in the green sector include hybrid car engineering, solar panel production and sales, wind farm design, hydroelectric and geothermal power management and pollution control jobs among the nongreen sectors.

“Green-related jobs are certainly going to be a growing sector of the economy,” says Leeb. “We’re going to need to find alternative energies, either for environmental reasons or because energy fossil fuels are becoming shorter in supply.”

Companies in these industries will look for environmental, science or technology majors, but they’re also going to fill positions in accounting and sales to sell their products, says Trudy Steinfeld, the executive director at the New York University Wasserman Center for Career Development.

Demand for jobs in the traditional energy sector will also continue to grow, especially for petroleum geologists and engineers who can find better ways to extract the earth’s remaining fossil fuels, Kilmartin says.

Finance
Since early 2008, Wall Street has witnessed the end of Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers, as well as thousands of layoffs. Still, options remain for students who major in finance, Wong says.

The investment banks aren’t hiring to the levels that they hired two years ago, and those who can’t land a job on Wall Street should look into opportunities at smaller banks, says Sally Pinckard, the associate director of undergraduate career services in the Olin Business School at Washington University in St. Louis. Middle-market banks, community banks and credit unions are relatively unscathed after the market downturn and are hiring. Consulting firms are also hiring, she says.

Financial scandals that surfaced over the past year are creating demand for more auditors, LaTendresse says. That means promising job prospects for accounting majors.

Students should also think broadly about what other sectors they may apply their finance expertise, Pinckard says. Almost all sectors need financial analysts and chief financial officers, she says.

最好找工作的5个专业
简介
这是美国smart money网站上刊登的文章，是综合多方意见得到的目前美国就业前景最好的五个专业。对中国是不是也有一定参考价值呢？

考虑找工作的问题对许多选择继续深造的同学来说似乎为时过早，但是要想让自己成为人才市场上的抢手货，就要及早着手——从选择专业开始。

与以往不同，今年的大学生们在选择专业时，不仅考虑要在毕业后找到一份不错的工作，还会权衡该专业能否把自己带入一个不断发展壮大的行业中。目前的失业率几乎达到了26年以来的最高，那些看似屹立不倒的行业——比如汽车、金融、房地产——也节节败退。于是，“本科学什么专业无关紧要”的说法开始遭到质疑。

专业与科学、工程相关的学生开始走俏，在校所学的知识能够帮助他们进入一些正在壮大的产业工作，比如：卫生保健、软件开发和环境部门。与之形成对比的是人文艺术类专业的学生，受到教育和媒体行业停滞不前的影响，他们不得不到处找实习、扩展人脉来提高自己的竞争力。 Milken研究所是一个独立的美国经济智库，SmartMoney网站研究了这里和劳动统计局提供的数据，得到了5个值得推荐的专业，它们都与那些极具发展潜力的产业密切相关。希望此项研究能为将来找工作的同学们提供一些帮助。

工程技术：

Milken研究所6月份的一份报告指出，到2020年为止，美国的制造业将为技术人才提供一千万个就业岗位。该研究所的高级管理经济学家Perry Wong认为，机械工程师和软件工程师将占据其中的大部分，制造业的所有公司几乎都需要机械工程师，航空、飞机船舶制造、电脑硬件设计等领域也不例外。

他同时指出，制造业面临的最大挑战之一就是机械工程师的数量不能满足需要。在美国，选择学习该专业的学生较少在一定程度上导致了了这种局面。机械工程师的工作中，设备的设计和创新、依据图纸制造模型都是必不可少的。软件工程师也是抢手货。Perry Wong说，电器、计算机行业在不断发展，因此这个行业不断需要新的工程师来进行程序上的更新换代。

生命科学：

随着“婴儿潮”一代的老去和医疗改革计划的推行，卫生保健行业的衰退目前几乎是不可能的。按照劳工统计局的估计，截止到2016年注册护士的就业岗位将增加23.5%，牙科保健员和药剂师的工作机会也将增加20%。Salary.com的赔偿咨询总经理 Joe Kilmartin表示，美国国内的护士缺口有几十万个，医院甚至要从国外招聘护士，而这种情况在今后2-10年中还将加剧。

Perry Wong说，如果奥巴马总统的任何一版医疗改革计划能够取得实质性的进展，那么医护保健人员将迎来一个就业高峰，进行医疗信息的数字化和数据处理的岗位也将增加。生命科学专业就像为医疗保健行业量身定制的一样，从这些专业走出来的学生将走向这个行业的一线工作岗位和管理岗位，也可能成为制药工程师。

劳工统计局预计从2006年到2016年在医疗保健服务领域的就业岗位将增加27%。Linda LaTendresse是加州大学河滨分校负责招聘与公司关系的副董事，她认为不断增加的老龄人口将需要大量的康复中心和治疗仪器，也会促进药理研究的发展。而Jody Queen-Hubert，佩斯大学负责合作教育和事业指导的执行董事，认为家庭护理、社工和咨询服务的需求将增加。


统计学：

据他表示，统计专业的毕业生将会受到极大的追捧，一毕业就可以到获益颇丰的岗位工作。

包括制药、保险行业和华尔街公司在内的各行各业都在寻找优秀的统计人员。制药公司期待生物医学统计专业的学生来建立模型、检验药物效果。华尔街也被统计专业人员的数量分析和建模能力所吸引。然而，这样回报丰厚的职位通常是为博士生准备的。

纽约Leeb资金管理公司的投资总监Stephen Leeb这样表示：不管在能源还是卫生领域，在进行研究探索和分析各种可能性时，统计分析能力都是不可或缺的。

环境学：

二月份通过的一系列刺激计划为能源行业注入了大约700亿美元的资金，其中大部分将用于开发清洁能源与提供有关就业岗位。///// Perry Wong表示，越来越多的大学也开始设立与环境设计、工艺相关的专业，为更多有志于环保事业的学生提供平台。就连课程作业也是鼓励同学们寻找能源开发的新方向，其中也需要一些工程和应用科学的知识，比如：怎样提高产品效率，怎样降低碳质残留物等。这个行业可供选择的工作范畴很广，例如：混合动力汽车开发、太阳能电池板的生产和销售、风力农场设计、水力地热能源的利用以及一些非“绿色”行业的污染控制等。

Stephen Leeb认为，考虑到环境现状和能源短缺，寻找新能源势在必行，因此与环保和清洁能源相关的工作将成为新的经济增长点. 而纽约大学沃瑟曼职业发展中心的执行董事Trudy Steinfeld指出，这些公司在寻找环境科学专业毕业生的同时，也一样会需要销售、会计人才来帮助他们推销产品。传统能源领域的就业形势也很乐观，Joe Kilmartin表示，该领域的企业十分需要精通石油地质和工程的人才来帮助他们从地球上所剩无几的化石燃料中最大限度地发掘财富。

金融：

自2008年初开始，华尔街就先后见证了贝尔斯登和雷曼兄弟的破产以及由此引发的数千人失业。然而，Perry Wong认为金融专业的学生并没有那么被动。Sally Pinckard 是华盛顿大学圣路易斯分校商学院负责本科生职业发展的副董事。她建议，在投行招聘人数大不如两年以前的时候，挤破头进不了华尔街的同学们不妨把目光转向规模稍小的银行。中等规模的银行、社区银行和储蓄互助社受到市场萎靡的影响较小，依然在招募新人员，当然咨询公司也值得一试。

LaTendresse认为，前几年引起社会关注的财务丑闻可能会增加审计人员的需求，进而为会计专业学生带来更多机会。Pinckard则建议毕业生们要开阔求职思路，不要局限于银行等领域。毕竟，每家公司都需要财务人员。

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For Today’s Graduate, Just One Word: Statistics

By STEVE LOHR
Published: August 5, 2009

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — At Harvard, Carrie Grimes majored in anthropology and archaeology and ventured to places like Honduras, where she studied Mayan settlement patterns by mapping where artifacts were found. But she was drawn to what she calls “all the computer and math stuff” that was part of the job.

“People think of field archaeology as Indiana Jones, but much of what you really do is data analysis,” she said.
Now Ms. Grimes does a different kind of digging. She works at Google, where she uses statistical analysis of mounds of data to come up with ways to improve its search engine.
Ms. Grimes is an Internet-age statistician, one of many who are changing the image of the profession as a place for dronish number nerds. They are finding themselves increasingly in demand — and even cool.
“I keep saying that the sexy job in the next 10 years will be statisticians,” said Hal Varian, chief economist at Google. “And I’m not kidding.”
The rising stature of statisticians, who can earn $125,000 at top companies in their first year after getting a doctorate, is a byproduct of the recent explosion of digital data. In field after field, computing and the Web are creating new realms of data to explore — sensor signals, surveillance tapes, social network chatter, public records and more. And the digital data surge only promises to accelerate, rising fivefold by 2012, according to a projection by IDC, a research firm.
Yet data is merely the raw material of knowledge. “We’re rapidly entering a world where everything can be monitored and measured,” said Erik Brynjolfsson, an economist and director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Center for Digital Business. “But the big problem is going to be the ability of humans to use, analyze and make sense of the data.”
The new breed of statisticians tackle that problem. They use powerful computers and sophisticated mathematical models to hunt for meaningful patterns and insights in vast troves of data. The applications are as diverse as improving Internet search and online advertising, culling gene sequencing information for cancer research and analyzing sensor and location data to optimize the handling of food shipments.
Even the recently ended Netflix contest, which offered $1 million to anyone who could significantly improve the company’s movie recommendation system, was a battle waged with the weapons of modern statistics.
Though at the fore, statisticians are only a small part of an army of experts using modern statistical techniques for data analysis. Computing and numerical skills, experts say, matter far more than degrees. So the new data sleuths come from backgrounds like economics, computer science and mathematics.
They are certainly welcomed in the White House these days. “Robust, unbiased data are the first step toward addressing our long-term economic needs and key policy priorities,”Peter R. Orszag, director of the Office of Management and Budget, declared in a speech in May. Later that day, Mr. Orszag confessed in a blog entry that his talk on the importance of statistics was a subject “near to my (admittedly wonkish) heart.”
I.B.M., seeing an opportunity in data-hunting services, created a Business Analytics and Optimization Services group in April. The unit will tap the expertise of the more than 200 mathematicians, statisticians and other data analysts in its research labs — but that number is not enough. I.B.M. plans to retrain or hire 4,000 more analysts across the company.
In another sign of the growing interest in the field, an estimated 6,400 people are attending the statistics profession’s annual conference in Washington this week, up from around 5,400 in recent years, according to the American Statistical Association. The attendees, men and women, young and graying, looked much like any other crowd of tourists in the nation’s capital. But their rapt exchanges were filled with talk of randomization, parameters, regressions and data clusters. The data surge is elevating a profession that traditionally tackled less visible and less lucrative work, like figuring out life expectancy rates for insurance companies.
Ms. Grimes, 32, got her doctorate in statistics from Stanford in 2003 and joined Google later that year. She is now one of many statisticians in a group of 250 data analysts. She uses statistical modeling to help improve the company’s search technology.
For example, Ms. Grimes worked on an algorithm to fine-tune Google’s crawler software, which roams the Web to constantly update its search index. The model increased the chances that the crawler would scan frequently updated Web pages and make fewer trips to more static ones.
The goal, Ms. Grimes explained, is to make tiny gains in the efficiency of computer and network use. “Even an improvement of a percent or two can be huge, when you do things over the millions and billions of times we do things at Google,” she said.
It is the size of the data sets on the Web that opens new worlds of discovery. Traditionally, social sciences tracked people’s behavior by interviewing or surveying them. “But the Web provides this amazing resource for observing how millions of people interact,” said Jon Kleinberg, a computer scientist and social networking researcher at Cornell. For example, in research just published, Mr. Kleinberg and two colleagues followed the flow of ideas across cyberspace. They tracked 1.6 million news sites and blogs during the 2008 presidential campaign, using algorithms that scanned for phrases associated with news topics like “lipstick on a pig.”
The Cornell researchers found that, generally, the traditional media leads and the blogs follow, typically by 2.5 hours. But a handful of blogs were quickest to quotes that later gained wide attention.
The rich lode of Web data, experts warn, has its perils. Its sheer volume can easily overwhelm statistical models. Statisticians also caution that strong correlations of data do not necessarily prove a cause-and-effect link.
For example, in the late 1940s, before there was a polio vaccine, public health experts in America noted that polio cases increased in step with the consumption of ice cream and soft drinks, according to David Alan Grier, a historian and statistician at George Washington University. Eliminating such treats was even recommended as part of an anti-polio diet. It turned out that polio outbreaks were most common in the hot months of summer, when people naturally ate more ice cream, showing only an association, Mr. Grier said.
If the data explosion magnifies longstanding issues in statistics, it also opens up new frontiers.
“The key is to let computers do what they are good at, which is trawling these massive data sets for something that is mathematically odd,” said Daniel Gruhl, an I.B.M. researcher whose recent work includes mining medical data to improve treatment. “And that makes it easier for humans to do what they are good at — explain those anomalies.”
Andrea Fuller contributed reporting.

当今大学生的关键词：统计学
加利福尼亚芒廷维尤—哈佛大学的 Carrie Grimes主修专业是人类学和考古学，她去过很多地方。在洪都拉斯，她通过绘制古文物发现地的地图来学习玛雅人的居住模式。然而她要面对的“都是计算机和数学的内容”，这是工作的一部分。
她表示：“人们认为野外考古学就像印地安娜·琼斯（影片《夺宝奇兵》主角）一样，可实际上，我们的很多工作都是进行数据分析。”
现在 Grimes在从事一项不同的“挖掘”工作。她目前就职于谷歌公司，运用统计方法对海量的数据进行分析，设法改进谷歌公司的搜索引擎。
互联网时代的统计学家颠覆了该领域原本死板的形象， Grimes正是其中一员。他们发现自己正逐渐成为抢手货——甚至是稀缺人才。
“我一直在说，统计学家会是未来10年里的‘性感职业’，”谷歌公司首席经济师 Hal Varian表示。“这可不是玩笑。”
一位获得博士学位的统计人员进入顶尖公司工作后，第一年就能挣到12.5万美元。正是近年来电子数据量的飙升使得统计学家身价倍增。在一个又一个行业中，计算机和网络的应用都开辟出了新的数据领域—传感信号，监控录像，社交网络对话，公共活动记录等等。调查公司 IDC的预计，今后电子数据量的增长势必加快，到2012年将达到现在的5倍之多。
然而数据本身只是信息的原材料。“我们正飞速迈入一切都将被监控和测算的时代，”麻省理工学院电子商务中心的经济师兼主任 Erik Brynjolfsson表示，“但最大的问题在于人们是否有能力利用、分析数据，并让数据有实际意义。”
新一代的统计学家让这一问题迎刃而解。他们利用强大的计算机和复杂的数学模型在数据海洋中探寻有意义的模式和内容，并将其广泛应用于各领域：改善网络搜索和在线广告，采集基因序列信息进行癌症研究，分析传感器和位置数据来处理食物装载的优化问题。
近期落下帷幕的Netflix竞赛——任何能让公司电影推荐系统得到显著改善的人都将获得10亿美元——便是一场有悬赏的比拼，武器便是各种现代统计方法。
尽管统计学家身处战场的前沿，但在这支浩浩荡荡的数据处理大军中，他们只是很小的组成部分。专家表示，计算机和数学技能远比学位管用。新一代数据领域的福尔摩斯需要有经济、计算机科学和数学等多重背景。
近年来，这些人才理所当然深受白宫的青睐。白宫管理及预算办公室主任彼得·奥斯泽格在五月的一次发言中表示 ：“客观、有力的数据是预估长期经济需求及制订关键政策的起点。”随后，他又在博客中表示关于数据重要性的言论是“发自内心的”。
IBM公司在数据搜寻服务中发现了商机，四月他们创建了商业分析和优化服务小组。该小组将在他们的调查实验室中觅入超过200名数学家、统计学家和其他数据分析师—相对于IBM计划在整个公司中培训或新招超过4000分析师来说，200名这个数字并不够。
从其他方面也能看出人们对该领域的兴趣正日益渐浓。据美国统计协会表示，本周在华盛顿举行的统计年会上出席人数预计将达6,400人，超过了往年的5,400人。与会的男女老少看起来与在华盛顿的一群群游人毫无区别，只不过他们全神贯注讨论的话题是随机性、参数、回归和聚类。数据的爆发式增长也提升了一些职业的地位，例如为保险公司计算期望寿命的精算人员等。他们的工作成果看不见摸不着，也不能产生立竿见影的获益，因而在之前并未得到应有的重视。

32岁的Grimes于2003年获得斯坦福大学的统计学博士学位后进入谷歌公司工作，现在她是250名数据分析师小组中的一员，利用统计建模来改进公司的搜索技术。
举例来说，谷歌的搜索器软件不断更新网络的搜索索引，而 Grimes的工作就是对该软件的算法进行微调，以增加捕捉到频繁更新的网页的机会，并减少对静态网页的访问过程。
Grimes解释说，对计算机和网络使用的效率有细微的提高就已完成目标。“即使是百分之一或二的改善就已很不错了，因为同样的事情你操作100万次，在谷歌公司的我们就要做上10亿次。”
网络巨大的数据量为调查发现开辟了一片新天地。从传统角度来看，社会科学通过访问或调查来获取人们的行为活动。“但网络提供了令人惊叹的大量资源，让我们能观察数百万人是如何互动的。”康奈尔大学的计算机科学家、社交网络研究者 Jon Kleinberg表示。
例如，在刚发布的一项调查研究中，Kleinberg和他的两位同事通过网络空间中信息流进行跟踪分析。在2008年总统大选期间，他们利用搜寻与“涂在猪嘴上的口红”相关短语的方法，捕捉到了160万新的网站和博客。
康奈尔大学的调查人员发现，通常传统媒体发布信息后，博客跟进的时间一般在2.5小时。然而有一些博客会迅速捕捉并引用媒体新发布的信息，这样就能获取广泛的关注度。
专家警告称，网络数据数量巨大也有其弊端。庞大的数据量很容易使统计模型在应用中的效果不尽人意。统计学家也告诫称数据间的相关性强并不足以证明两者有因果关系。
例如，乔治华盛顿大学的历史学家和统计学家 David Alan Grier 表示，在20世纪40年代后期脊髓灰质炎的疫苗出现之前，美国的公共卫生专家注意到该病的增长与冰激凌和软饮料的消费量增长是同步的，于是建议避免冰激凌和软饮料的食用。事实上，炎热的夏天正是脊髓灰质炎的高发期，而人们也会食用更多的冰激凌，这才造成了两组数据间的相关性。
如果说数据量的剧增放大了统计学中长期遗留的问题，那它同时也开辟出了一片新的阵地。
IBM调查员 Daniel Gruhl 最近肩负着挖掘医疗数据中的信息以改进医疗质量的任务，他表示：“关键是要让电脑和人都各司其职，计算机擅长处理大量数据，并从数学角度发现其独特之处，而人类只需对这些异常加以解释。计算机的配合使人们的工作大大轻松。”
PS：此文是以jqstudio的翻译版本为主体，补充了两个段落中漏掉的内容。我是统计专业的学生，所以结合相关知识对一些地方加以修改，还有一些地方与原来的译者理解不同，因此也做了一些改动。第一次翻译文章，请大家多指教。

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7 Thoughts That Are Bad For You

By Jeanna Bryner, LiveScience Senior Writer
posted: 12 September 2009 10:54 am ET

Our personalities do more for us than determine our social circles. Temperament can impact a person's physical health.
"The idea that behavior or personality traits can influence health is one that's been around for a long time. We're just now getting a handle on to what extent they do," said Stephen Boyle of Duke University Medical Center in North Carolina.
From those with a chill demeanor to the completely frazzled types, mental factors are ultimately tied to physical health. And while a highly neurotic person might deteriorate more quickly than others, not every character trait will kill you. Some might even boost lifetimes.
No. 7: Cynicism
Cynics who tend to be suspicious and mistrustful of others, a character trait that scientists refer to as hostility, may have an increased likelihood of developing heart disease. "These aren't necessarily hot-headed people, but people who are more likely to read into people's behavior as some hostile motive," Boyle said during a telephone interview.
In a study of more than 300 Vietnam veterans who were healthy at the study start, Boyle found that those who scored high on measures of hostility were about 25 percent more likely to develop heart disease.
Boyle and his colleagues think that hostile individuals might experience more stress, which can cause spikes in an immune-system protein called C3 that has been linked with various diseases, including diabetes. In fact, the participants with higher scores on hostility showed an increase in these proteins while the non-hostile men showed no such increase.
No. 6: Lack of meaning
If you lack a sense of purpose, your stay on Earth could be truncated. A study involving more than 1,200 elderly participants who didn't have dementia at the study's start found that those who indicated having a high purpose in life were about half as likely to die over the study period, which lasted up to five years. The results, published in the June 15 issue of the journal Psychosomatic Medicine, held regardless of a person's age, sex, education and race, along with level of depression and neuroticism.
"Persons with high purpose readily derive meaning from and make sense of the events of their lives, and likely engage in behaviors and activities that they deem important," said study researcher Patricia Boyle of the Rush Alzheimer's Disease Center in Chicago.
Some other research has suggested that people with a higher sense of purpose may have different levels of stress hormones, better heart health or improved immune systems, though more research is needed to firm up any of these biological mechanisms, she said.
The opposite also holds: "The findings from our study suggested that people who no longer set and work actively toward goals or enjoy their day-to-day activities (how they spend their time) are those with greater mortality risk," Boyle told LiveScience.
No. 5: Fretting
People who are highly neurotic — constantly worried and anxious, and prone to depression — die sooner on average than their chill counterparts. And a recently reported study of nearly 1,800 men followed over a 30-year period suggests that's partly because neurotics are also more likely to smoke. Perhaps having a cigarette eases anxiety, said study researcher Daniel Mroczek of Purdue University in Indiana, adding that such a short-term payoff might not be worth it if it kills you down the line.
No. 4: Lack of self-control
Late for appointments? Can't keep your desk organized? No self-control? These seeming benign qualities could take a toll on your health.
A review of more than 20 studies and nearly 9,000 participants revealed people who are conscientious — organized, self-disciplined, as opposed to impulsive — live two to four years longer than others. Study researcher Howard S. Friedman of the University of California, Riverside suspects the boost in lifetime can be attributed partly to the fact that highly conscientious individuals are less likely to smoke or drink to excess, and live more stable and less stressful lives. The study is detailed in a 2008 issue of the journal Health Psychology.
No. 3: Anxiety
The jitters can put a strain on your noggin, research suggests. Compared with the highly frazzled, Individuals with a mellow demeanor who are outgoing may be less likely to develop dementia, which can be caused by Alzheimer's disease and other illnesses. The claim is based on a study that followed more than 500 elderly individuals for five years. Among the outgoing extroverts, dementia risk was 50 percent lower for participants who were calm compared with those who were prone to distress.
No. 2: Gloom and doom
The gloomy, inhibited person is not just at a disadvantage socially, but also physically.
A preliminary study of more than 180 patients suffering from peripheral arterial disease (plaque buildup in the arteries) showed participants with so-called type D, or distressed, personality, had an increased odds of dying sooner than other people. Type-D people are more likely to experience negative emotions while at the same time hold in their feelings.
The researchers, who detail their work in the August issue of the journal Archives of Surgery, suggest the personality type is linked with the body's immune system as well as stress response system.
No. 1: Stress
Whatever you do, don't let this list worry you! Research is showing that prolonged stress can be deadly, and if it doesn't do you in, workplace stress can increase your chances of heart disease, flu virus, metabolic syndrome and having high blood pressure.
A study of nearly 700 Israeli workers found that those who experienced job burnout (when work stress becomes unmanageable) were nearly twice as likely to develop type 2 diabetes, in which a person's body becomes resistant to the sugar-regulating hormone called insulin.
And while a job promotion might boost your income, it also stresses you out. British researchers recently found that when people get promoted, they suffer on average about 10 percent more mental strain and are less likely to find time to go to the doctor.

是什么毁了我们的生命？
简介
是什么毁了我们的生命？你可能不以为意，但这七种不良想法对身体产生的危害确实不可小视。如何避免那就看你的了。
相对于决定我们的社交圈来说，性格对我们身体的影响更大。一个人的气质确实能够影响他的身体健康。
“一个人的行为或气质能影响他的健康这种观点已经存在了很长时间了，现在我们在了解它们到底影响到了什么样的程度，”北卡莱罗纳州杜克大学医学中心的Stephen Boyle说。
在那些从气质冷峻到完全疲惫类型的人中，心理因素被认为依赖于身体健康，但是同时一个高度神经焦虑的人可能比其他人病情恶化得更快。不是每一个性格特质都会对你有害，有些甚至有利于生命。
七：愤世嫉俗，冷嘲热讽
”愤世嫉俗者通常倾向于对他人充满怀疑和不信任，这种性格特征科学家称之为敌意，他们在很大程度上有可能发展成为心脏病患者。这些人不必然是急躁热血的人，而是那些更愿意把别人的行为理解成为怀有敌对动机的人。“Boyle在一次电话采访中这样说。
在一次研究中，Boyle挑选了300名越战老兵，这些参与者在研究开始时都是健康的。他发现占总数四分之一的敌意测量值的高分获得者更容易患上心脏病。
Boyle和他的同伴们认为那些怀有敌意的个人会受到更多的压力，这会导致一种叫做C3的免疫系统蛋白质的陡升，而这种蛋白质与各种各样的疾病有联系，包括糖尿病。事实上，敌意测试得分高的参与者表现出了C3蛋白质的升高，而没有敌意的参与者没有出现这种升高。
六：缺乏意义
如果你没有目标的意识，那你在人世上停留的日子就缩短了。一项持续了五年的研究有1200名上了年纪的，研究开始前没有痴呆的老人的参与，这项研究发现那些表现出有一个高度的目标意识的参与者在研究进行期间死亡的可能性低了一半，这项研究的结果发表在6月15号《身心医学期刊》的一篇文章上。这项研究没有刻意的选择一个人的年龄，性别，受教育程度，种族，包括他们的抑郁水平和神经过敏程度。
”那些有强烈目标意识的人更容易从自己日常生活中发生的事中寻求并且找到意义，也更容易投身到那些他们确信重要的事情当中。“芝加哥拉什老年痴呆症中心的一名研究员Patricia Boyle说。 "
另外的一些研究也暗示出那些目标意识强烈的人拥有不同水平的压力荷尔蒙，更健康的心脏或者改善了的免疫系统，尽管这当中的每一个方法都需要更多研究来支持。"她说。
对照组的表现也支持这个观点：“我们研究的结果暗示着那些不再计划着并且朝着目标热情工作的人或者说喜欢他们天天充实的工作的人也是那些拥有更高死亡率的人。”Boyle对LiveScience说。
五：烦躁
那些高度神经过敏的人，经常持续性的担心和焦虑并且倾向于消沉的人平均比他们同行死亡的早。一项针对将近1800位男性的持续了超过三十年的研究得出结论说这一部分上也是由于消沉的人更可能去抽烟，可能抽一支烟会舒缓焦虑吧。来自Indiana州普渡大学的一名研究员Daniel Mroczek这样说，同时他又补充道如果和它所带来的危害相比抽烟所带来的短期缓解并不值得。
四：缺乏自控
约会迟到？桌子上又是一片混乱？没有自控能力？这些表面上看起来无害的习惯可能对你的健康造成损耗。
通过对超过20项研究的回顾，还有对将近9，000人的参与的分析显示出，那些勤奋的也就是说有组织的，自律的，反对冲动的人，比其他的人多活2到4年。加州大学的研究员Howard S. Friedman猜想，寿命的延长可能部分的归因于那些非常勤奋的个人过度抽烟饮酒的机会更少，而拥有一个安定缓和的生活。这项研究的具体细节发表在the journal Health Psychology 2008 年的一篇文章上。
三：焦虑
事前的焦虑会给你的大脑带来压力，研究表明，和那些疲惫不堪的人相比，具有成熟的举止而且还开朗的个人更不容易患上痴呆这种能带来阿尔茨海默病和其他疾病的病症。这个声明基于一项历时五年的参与者有500位老人的研究。在那些性格外向的人中，倾向于镇定的人患痴呆的风险比那些倾向于困窘的人低50%。
二：沮丧和放弃
沮丧的，羞怯的人不仅仅是在社交上，而且是在身体素质上都处于不利地位。
一项针对患有外周动脉疾病（动脉中的斑块积聚）疾病的人的初步研究表明，拥有这种所谓的D型，或者说忧郁类型性格特征的人和其他人相比，早死亡的机会更大。在同一时间D类型的人更容易体验到情绪中的负面因素。
这些研究者把他们的工作在八月份的上一篇文章中作了详细的报告，报告暗示说个人的性格类型与个人的身体免疫系统以及压力反应系统有关。
一：压力
不管你是做什么的，不要因这个列表而担心！有研究表明长期的压力会是致命的，如果你没有出现这种情况，工作场合的压力还是会使你患心脏病，流感，代谢综合征还有高血压的机会。
一项对700名以色列工人的研究发现那些有过筋疲力竭经历（工作压力变得很难处理）的人患2型糖尿病的几率高了两倍，这种病人开始抵制胰岛素这种糖代谢荷尔蒙。
当然，工作上的提升会给你的财务水平带来提升，但它也有可能将你踢出局。英国的一项研究发现，当人们得到提升时，他们的精神压力增加了百分之十，而他们看医生的时间也减少了。

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【听力---SSS---August 26, 2009-----September 15, 2009】

Tour Our Oblate Spheroid with The Geek Atlas
The Geek Atlas describes 128 mostly out-of-the-way（偏远的，偏僻的） tourist destinations for people who love science, technology and their history.

Still have some vacation time to burn, but tired of reading bad novels on the beach? Try a book written especially for people who’d rather go to the planetarium（天文馆） than to Planet Hollywood（好莱坞星球）. It’s called The Geek Atlas: 128 Places Where Science and Technology Come Alive, by John Graham-Cumming. Each venue’s writeup（地点的详细描写） explains its relevant science and history.

For example, if you’re in Paris, stop by the Institut Pasteur and visit the museum commemorating（纪念） the life and science of the man whose name is on your milk container.

The U.K. is teeming with sites of scientific interest, including the Eagle Pub in Cambridge where Watson and Crick modestly announced that they had found the secret to life. There’s the home and museum of physicist James Clerk Maxwell in Edinburgh. And there’s the British Airways Flight Training center, where visitors can operate the same training simulators that pilots use.

Here in the States, you can really get your geek on at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, Calif. Or get your bearings in Gaithersburg, Md., at the International Latitude Observatory. Walk proudly in these hallowed and historic places. Because the geek shall inherit the Earth.

*geek: an enthusiast or expert especially in a technological field or activity  *computer geek*

New Exoplanet Shouldn't Exist
A report in the journal Nature cites the discovery of a new planet, WASP-18b, which challenges assumptions about tidal interactions--it's too close and orbiting too fast not to have collided with its star, according to current knowledge.

A planet has been discovered about 325 light-years away. But what’s really interesting is that it shouldn’t exist. The planet is called WASP-18b, because it was observed by a project called WASP, the Wide Area Search for Planets. It has 10 times the mass of Jupiter, and orbits its star in less than one earth day. Because it’s crazy close to its star, only 1.4 million miles. We’re 93 million miles from the sun.

orbit：
transitive verb  
1 : to revolve in an orbit around  : CIRCLE
2 : to send up and make revolve in an orbit  *orbit a satellite*
intransitive verb   : to travel in circles
crazy：副词: EXTREMELY, WILDLY  *crazy good*

Tidal interactions（潮汐作用） should have stretched the star and slowed the planet to the point where they smashed into each other a long time ago. The research is in the August 27th issue of the journal Nature. [Scientific American is part of the Nature Publishing Group.]
WASP-18b is part of a class of planets called “hot Jupiters,” which are thought to have formed a great distance from their home stars and then migrated inward.
Researchers say this particular planet has been around for about a billion years. We may have caught it in its death throes（死亡挣扎）. Or, there are unknown factors keeping the star and planet from colliding. So astrophysicists intend to keep a close eye on WASP-18b, to either catch the orbit decaying or figure out why it isn’t.

Fido's Fur Fated by 3 Genes
A study in the journal Science finds that just three genes control the wide variety of fur types found on all different breeds of dogs.

You can’t judge a book by its cover. But you can judge a dog by its coat. You can even read right through to its genes. Because a study in the August 27th online issue of Science shows that just three key genes govern the length and texture of dog fur.

Domestic dogs come in a stunning variety of shapes and sizes, and different breeds wear different coats. They can have short hair or long hair, or fur that’s straight, wavy, curly, wiry or smooth. To find the genes responsible for this furry rainbow（皮毛的彩虹）, scientists scanned the DNA of a thousand individual dogs from 80 different breeds. And they found that every coat’s appearance boils down to three simple traits: length, curl and texture. And that each of these traits is controlled by just one gene.

So, a long-haired Golden retriever has one variant of a gene called FGF5, whereas a short-haired lab has another. By mixing and matching variants of these three genes, you get everything from a curly-haired poodle to a wire-haired Scottie with bushy eyebrows and a droopy moustache.

Which is probably more than you’ll ever need to know about the hair of the dog that bit you.

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Astronauts Rose from Humble Starts
Astronauts Kevin Ford, Jose Hernandez and the rest of the STS-128 Discovery space shuttle crew have fascinating life stories and solid science and engineering educations.

The space shuttle Discovery, mission STS-128, is in orbit right now. With some fascinating people on board. Pilot Kevin Ford became interested in flying when he was a kid and read the book Carrying the Fire,by Michael Collins, command module pilot on Apollo 11. When he was old enough to take flying lessons, Ford paid for them with money he earned bagging groceries.
Mission Specialist Jose Hernandez was born in California, into a family of migrant farm workers. He spent his childhood shuttling between Mexico and California, working in the fields and speaking little English. But during the school year, his parents, who possessed only third-grade educations, had him and his siblings attend school full time and help with the work only on weekends. His second-grade teacher in California convinced his parents to set down roots for the sake of the children’s educations. In high school, Hernandez was inspired by astronaut Franklin Chang-Diaz, and set his course on becoming an astronaut himself.
The whole crew has great life stories—and degrees in engineering or science. Check them out at www.snipurl.com/sts128

Recession: Just What the Doctor Ordered?
A study in the Canadian Medical Association Journal finds that recessions in wealthy countries can lead to better health habits, as people spend less on alcohol, tobacco and rich food.

It sounds paradoxical, but in wealthy countries, there's nothing like a recession to boost the population's health. According to a report in the September 1st Canadian Medical Association Journal, when our paychecks（薪水支票，薪水） get lighter, we do more than tighten our purse strings—we also cinch our belts, kick bad habits and manage to lower our mortality rates.

paycheck：
1 : a check in payment of wages or salary
2 : WAGES, SALARY
cinch：
1 : a girth for a pack or saddle
2 : a tight grip
3 a : a thing done with ease  b : a certainty to happen  *it's a cinch he'll break the record*
transitive verb  
1 a : to put a cinch on  b : to fasten (as a belt or strap) tightly
2 : to make certain  : ASSURE  *the goal that cinched the victory*
intransitive verb   : to tighten the cinch----often used with up

purse strings：pl.n.
Financial support or resources, or control over them: the politicians who control federal purse strings; tightened the corporate purse strings.

Economic growth is usually associated with increased life spans, but the report says that’s only true for very poor countries. Researchers looked at data from dozens of 20th century international health studies and found that, once per-capita income passed $5,000, recessions actually helped health. During lean times, people in relatively wealthy countries drink and smoke less and stop overeating. They also go out less, which means fewer trips in the car. It all adds up to fewer deaths from things like lung cancer, liver disease, heart attacks and car crashes.

lean：
1 a : lacking or deficient in flesh b : containing little or no fat *lean meat*
2 : lacking richness, sufficiency, or productiveness *lean profits* *the lean years*
3 : deficient in an essential or important quality or ingredient: as a of ore : containing little valuable mineral b : low in combustible component ? used especially of fuel mixtures
4 : characterized by economy (as of style, expression, or operation)

The researchers say that fewer hours in the office can also mean more time with family and friends. These close social interactions lead to less stress and better health. Of course, some people may find more family time to be like a lot of good medicine—hard to swallow.

Making Music for Monkey Minds
A study in the journal Biology Letters finds that music based on monkey's own calls has similar effects on them that human music has on us.

Music is known to make us happy, or calm, or sad. But do other animals respond to dulcet tones, as well? In studies, our primate cousins prefer silence to our music. But maybe we were playing the wrong tune.

dulcet：
1 : sweet to the taste
2 : pleasing to the ear  *dulcet tones*
3 : generally pleasing or agreeable  *a dulcet smile*

Psychologist Charles Snowdon and musician David Teie teamed up to show that South American monkeys called cotton-top tamarins do respond to music: their own. The study was published in the journal Biology Letters.
With actual monkey calls in mind (MONKEY SOUNDS) Teie composed monkey music. (THREAT MUSIC) That tune was based on calls signifying anxiety. This one represents a happy, safe condition. (CALMING MUSIC) Snowdon played the compositions to tamarins. They became agitated hearing the threat song. And the more upbeat（ : CHEERFUL, OPTIMISTIC  *I'm feeling upbeat today*） music put them in a mellow mood.

agitate：
transitive verb  
1 a obsolete   : to give motion to  b : to move with an irregular, rapid, or violent action  *the storm agitated the sea*
2 : to excite and often trouble the mind or feelings of  : DISTURB
3 a : to discuss excitedly and earnestly  b : to stir up public discussion of
intransitive verb   : to attempt to arouse public feeling  *agitated for better schools*
mellow：
1 a of a fruit   : tender and sweet because of ripeness  b of a wine   : well aged and pleasingly mild
2 a : made gentle by age or experience  b : rich and full but free from garishness or stridency  c : warmed and relaxed by or as if by liquor  d : PLEASANT, AGREEABLE  e : LAID-BACK
3 of soil   : having a soft and loamy consistency

Much of what we communicate does depend on tone, not just words. This study suggests that what Snowdon calls the musical elements of speech has a deep evolutionary history. Just goes to show that music can “soothe a savage breast”—as long as it’s species appropriate.

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[size=1.1em]September 14, 2009,9:15 PM
Good Night and Tough Luck

[size=1.4em]Getting a good night’s sleep is actually a lot more complicated than one would think.

[size=1.4em]

[size=1.4em]Usually the trouble starts with my having to use the bathroom. Even though I am 38 years old, I still find myself hoping the urge will just pass. Which it doesn’t.

[size=1.4em]Another terrible nuisance: midnight hypochondria. In the light of darkness, I have diagnosed many a sore throat as some dreadful disease that will soon turn my wife into a widow.

[size=1.4em]Next up: a visitor from the kids’ room. They start all sweet and cuddly, but their little bodies become more brazen by the minute.

[size=1.4em]To make things worse, our kids always insist on sleeping ON TOP of our blanket, creating a whole new set of problems.

[size=1.4em]After weeks of sweet-talking, serenading and heartbreakingFerberizing, we think we have reclaimed our bed. Until a short trip or a quick flu undoes everything again.

[size=1.4em]I hate mosquitoes.

[size=1.4em]What with all that buzzing and itching, the hubbub they cause is disproportionate to the microdrop of blood they make away with. Besides, I am the world’s most formidable mosquito hunter. I have brought to justice every single mosquito that has ever attacked me (except when I spend nights in rooms with patterned wallpaper, which makes mosquito hunting impossible).

[size=1.4em]If there are any mosquitoes reading this: I would like to offer you a deal. I’ll volunteer an ounce or two of my blood each Memorial Day. This should be enough to get you and some of your pals comfortably through the season, and you can spare all of us a lot of suffering.

[size=1.4em]The opposite of a mosquito is spooning: mosquitoes are awful, whereas spooning is super. The one thing I haven’t really figured out is where the person in the back is supposed to put that bottom arm.

[size=1.4em]The second most wonderful thing about sleeping is the sensation of your cheek meeting the cool half of the pillow after you’ve turned from one side to the other. I found that it takes about 45 minutes for the other end to completely cool down again so the procedure can be repeated.

[size=1.4em]Winter is coming, and slipping into a cold bed is tough. But believe it or not, sometimes when I go to bed before my wife does, I will offer her the half that I have just warmed up.
I obviously love her very, very much.

[size=1.4em]To summarize what we’ve learned so far:

[size=1.4em]

[size=1.4em]Finally, the kids are back in their own room, the mosquitoes are on the cover of The New Yorker, the bed is well tempered and I can finally go back to sleep, which brings me to the most annoying aspect of sleeping: dreams.

[size=1.4em]

[size=1.4em]Just one recent example: last Tuesday, I had at one point studied a map of Queens with my sons. Later that day I spilled some yogurt. Sure enough, I ended up having a feature-length dream the following night about getting a yogurt stain in the shape of Queens on my pants. Worse, my dreaming self found this very upsetting, and I woke up all exhausted.

[size=1.4em]But even if a night doesn’t work out, I can always rely on sleep’s wonderful little sibling: the daytime nap!

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5 Bad Health Habits (And How To Break Them)

By Dr. Mark Liponis


To improve your health, make up your mind that you are ready to change. Then choose a successful strategy that will work for you and the habit you want to break.

•
Cold turkey
This is a good choice for people who are determined to change and don’t want to mess around any longer. It’s best for true physical addictions and for people who tend to have trouble moderating their behavior.

•
Substitute
In many cases, you can substitute a healthy behavior for an unhealthy one.

•
Set limits
For some people, putting a time or quantity limit on a behavior works.

Sugar

Cold turkey
is the ticket. You may experience cravings and withdrawal symptoms, but most people find they disappear after two weeks. One healthy
substitute
is 2 to 3 ounces of dark chocolate daily, which may have some antioxidant benefits when eaten in moderation.  

Smoking

All three strategies can succeed.
Cold turkeyis the toughest but quickest route. Choose a time when stress is at a minimum and you have a support network. A nicotine
substituteis another option. They come in a variety of strengths and delivery methods, including gum, patches, sprays, and lozenges. If you’re not ready to quit,
set limits
on the times you allow yourself to smoke, or cut down on the number of cigarettes.

Eating Too Fast

Americans eat while driving, watching TV, or standing in front of the fridge. This encourages us to eat too fast and often too much. Slowing down improves digestion, allows us to recognize when we’re full, and provides more enjoyment from our food.
Set limits
by putting down your fork between each bite.

Snacking At Night

Munching after dinner can add up to hundreds of extra calories. First, eat a good breakfast with both fiber and protein. Shifting calories to earlier in the day cuts your appetite later.
Set limits
on the amount of sna

Sleep Deprivation

Too little sleep leads to loss of productivity and even may raise blood pressure.
Set limits
by picking a bedtime and sticking to it. Sleep is a learned behavior, and getting into a routine helps the process.

打破5个不良生活习惯
简介
下定决心改变五种坏透了的习惯，来提高你的身体健康吧——不吃糖、戒烟、别吃太快、不吃夜宵、不做夜猫。

为了改善您的健康状况，赶快下决心准备改变自己吧。为您和您想要打破的习惯选择一个适合的能够成功的策略。
•突然完全戒除。这对那些决心改变并不想耗费很长时间的人来说是个不错的选择。而对于那些上瘾和节制能力较差的人则是最好的选择。
•寻找代替品：很多时候，你可以用一个健康的习惯来代替不健康的习惯。
•设立限制：对于一些人来说，控制时间和数量能够起到一定效果。

Sugar吃糖
突然完全戒除很适合于它。你可能会非常想吃糖，也可能会经历一些断瘾症状，但是大多数人都会发现这些状况过上两周就消失了。你可以用每天吃2到3盎司黑巧克力来替代吃糖，这是健康的，适量的黑巧克力有抗氧化作用。

Smoking吸烟
上面讲到的三种策略对吸烟都可以奏效。突然完全戒除最难然而最快。选择压力最小的时候，此外还要有周围的人支持你。而寻找尼古丁的替代品也是一种选择。它可以是各式各样的，包括口香糖、药膏、喷雾剂和含片。如果你还没准备好要彻底戒烟，那么可以限制抽烟的时间或者减少吸烟的数量。

Eating Too Fast进食过快
美国人有时候开着车吃饭，有时候看着电视吃饭，也有的时候直接站在冰箱前吃饭，这些情况都会促使我们吃的过快、过多。放慢进食速度有助于消化，而且能够及时产生饱腹感，并且能够让我们更充分的享受食物。可以给自己设立限制每吃一口就放下一次刀叉。

Snacking At Night晚上吃零食
晚饭后再吃东西会增加额外的卡路里。首先，早餐要吃好，要有丰富的纤维和蛋白质。早上吃进去的这些卡路里会降低你在这一天里其他时候的食欲。限制你家里面零食的数量。并且每天晚上把厨房“关起来”。

Sleep Deprivation睡眠不足
睡眠不足会导致新陈代谢减慢，甚至会引发高血压。限制一个固定的上床时间，并要坚持下去。睡眠是一种习得行为，养成习惯会有助于这一过程。