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READING 1

Calling this "our generation's Sputnik moment" and a "time to win the future," Obama in
his State of the Union address urged a renewed emphasis on innovation. "Now it's our turn,"
Obama told a joint session of Congress. We need to out-innovate, out-educate and out-build the
rest of the world."

“…Yes, scientific innovation offers us a

chance to achieve prosperity. It has offered us
benefits that have improved our health and our
lives — improvements that we take too easily
for granted. But, it gives us something more.
At root, science forces us to reckon with the
truth as best we can ascertain it. Some truths
fill us with awe, others force us to question
long-held views. Science can’t answer every
question, and indeed it seems at times the
more we plumb the mysteries of the physical
world the more humble we must be. Science
cannot supplant our ethics, our values, our principles or our faith, but science can inform those
things, and help put those values, these moral sentiments, that faith, can put those things to work
— to feed a child, to heal the sick, to be good stewards of this Earth. We are reminded that with
each new discovery and the new power it brings, comes new responsibility. That the fragility, the
sheer specialness of life, requires us to move past our differences and to address our common
problems, to endure, and continue humanity’s strivings for a better world.” Barack Obama

READING 2

THE GREAT INNOVATION DEBATE

Jan 12th 2013
The Economist
Fears that innovation is slowing are exaggerated, but governments need to help it along
WITH the pace of technological change making heads spin, we tend to think of our age as
the most innovative ever. We have smartphones and supercomputers, big data and
nanotechnologies, gene therapy and
stem-cell transplants. Governments,
universities and firms together spend
around $1.4 trillion a year on R&D,
more than ever before.
Yet nobody recently has come
up with an invention half as useful as
that depicted on this page. With its
clean lines and intuitive user interface,
the humble loo transformed the lives of
billions of people. And it wasn’t just

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modern sanitation that sprang from late-19th and early-20th-century brains: they produced cars,
planes, the telephone, radio and antibiotics.
Modern science has failed to make anything like the same impact, and this is why a
growing band of thinkers claim that the pace of innovation has slowed. Interestingly, the
gloomsters include not just academics such as Robert Gordon, the American economist who
offered the toilet test of un-inventiveness, but also entrepreneurs such as Peter Thiel, a venture
capitalist behind Facebook.
If the pessimists are right, the implications are huge. Economies can generate growth by
adding more stuff: more workers, investment and education. But sustained increases in output
per person, which are necessary to raise incomes and welfare, entail using the stuff we already
have in better ways—innovating, in other words. If the rate at which we innovate and spread
that innovation slows down, so too, other things being equal, will our growth rate.
Doom, gloom and productivity figures
Ever since Malthus forecast that we would all starve, human ingenuity has proved the
prophets of doom wrong. But these days the impact of innovation does indeed seem to be tailing
off. Life expectancy in America, for instance, has risen more slowly since 1980 than in the early
20th century. The speed of travel, in the rich world at least, is often slower now than it was a
generation earlier, after rocketing a century or so ago. According to Mr Gordon, productivity also
supports the pessimists’ case: it took off in the mid-19th century, accelerated in the early 20th
century and held up pretty well until the early 1970s. It then dipped sharply, ticked up in late
1990s with computerisation and dipped again in the mid-2000s.
Yet that pattern is not as conclusively gloomy as the doomsayers claim. Life expectancy
is still improving, even in the rich world. The productivity gains after electrification came not
smoothly, but in spurts; and the drop-off since 2004 probably has more to do with the economic
crisis than with underlying lack of invention. Moreover, it is too early to write off the innovative
impact of the present age.
This generation’s contribution to technological progress lies mostly in information
technology (IT). Rather as electrification changed everything by allowing energy to be used far
from where it was generated, computing and communications technologies transform lives and
businesses by allowing people to make calculations and connections far beyond their unaided
capacity. But as with electricity, companies will take time to learn how to use them, so it will
probably be many decades before their full impact is felt.
Computing power is already contributing to dramatic advances far beyond the field of IT.
Three-dimensional printing may cause a new industrial revolution. Autonomous vehicles, like
the driverless cars produced by Google, could be common on streets within a decade. The
performance of human prosthetics is rapidly catching up with that of natural limbs.
And although it is too soon to judge how big a deal these inventions will turn out to be,
globalisation should make this a fruitful period for innovation. Many more brains are at work
now than were 100 years ago: American and European inventors have been joined in the race to
produce cool new stuff by Japanese, Brazilian, Indian and Chinese ones.
Spend a penny—or two
So there are good reasons for thinking that the 21st century’s innovative juices will flow
fast. But there are also reasons to watch out for impediments. The biggest danger is government.
When government was smaller, innovation was easier. Industrialists could introduce new
processes or change a product’s design without a man from the ministry claiming some

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regulation had been broken. It is a good thing that these days pharmaceuticals are stringently
tested and factory emissions controlled. But officialdom tends to write far more rules than are
necessary for the public good; and thickets of red tape strangle innovation. Even many
regulations designed to help innovation are not working well. The West’s intellectual-property
system, for instance, is a mess, because it grants too many patents of dubious merit.
The state has also notably failed to open itself up to innovation. Productivity is mostly
stagnant in the public sector. Unions have often managed to prevent governments even
publishing the performance indicators which, elsewhere, have encouraged managers to innovate.
There is vast scope for IT to boost productivity in health care and education, if only those sectors
were more open to change.
The rapid growth in the rich world before the 1970s was encouraged by public spending
on infrastructure (including in sewage systems) and basic research: the computer, the internet
and the green revolution in food technology all sprang out of science, where there was no
immediate commercial aim. Wars provide the sharpest example of the innovative power of
government spending: astounding new developments in drone and prosthetic technology—let
alone the jet engine—are a bittersweet testament to that. Even in these straitened times, money
should still be found for basic research into areas such as carbon capture and storage.
For governments that do these things well—get out of the way of entrepreneurs, reform
their public sectors and invest wisely—the rewards could be huge. The risk that innovation may
slow is a real one, but can be avoided. Whether it happens or not is, like most aspects of
mankind’s fate, up to him.

READING 3

ONWARDS AND UPWARDS

Dec 17th 2009 the Economist
Why is the modern view of progress so impoverished?
In the rich world the idea of progress has become impoverished. Through complacency
and bitter experience, the scope of progress has narrowed. The popular view is that, although
technology and GDP advance, morals and society are treading water or, depending on your
choice of newspaper, sinking back into decadence and barbarism. On the left of politics these
days, “progress” comes with a pair of ironic quotation marks attached; on the right,
“progressive” is a term of abuse.
The idea of progress forms the backdrop to a society. In the extreme, without the
possibility of progress of any sort, your gain is someone else’s loss. If human behaviour is
unreformable, social policy can only ever be about trying to cage the ape within. Society must in
principle be able to move towards its ideals, such as equality and freedom, or they are no more
than cant and self-delusion. So it matters if people lose their faith in progress. And it is worth
thinking about how to restore it.
Modern science is full of examples of technologies that can be used for ill as well as
good. Think of nuclear power—and of nuclear weapons; of biotechnology—and of biological
contamination. Or think, less apocalyptically, of information technology and of electronic
surveillance. History is full of useful technologies that have done harm, intentionally or not.
Electricity is a modern wonder, but power stations have burnt too much CO2-producing coal.
The internet has spread knowledge and understanding, but it has also spread crime and

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pornography. German chemistry produced aspirin and fertiliser, but it also filled Nazi gas
chambers with Cyclon B.
The point is not that science is harmful, but that progress in science does not map tidily
onto progress for humanity. In an official British survey of public attitudes to science in 2008,
just over 80% of those asked said they were “amazed by the achievements of science”. However,
only 46% thought that “the benefits of science are greater than any harmful effect”.
From the perspective of human progress, science needs governing. Scientific progress
needs to be hitched to what you might call “moral progress”. It can yield untold benefits, but
only if people use it wisely. They need to understand how to stop science from being abused.
And to do that they must look outside science to the way people behave.

READING 4

SMARTER PLANET

December, 19th 2011

Steve Hamm
Every year IBM predicts the future of technology via the IBM 5 in 5 initiative–our
forecast of five innovations that will help transform aspects of modern life, making the planet
smarter, within the next five years. We assess not just the availability of a new technology but
also the likelihood of its large-scale adoption.
This year’s predictions:
· People power will come to life
· You will never need a password again
· Mind reading is no longer science fiction
· The digital divide will cease to exist
· Junk mail will become priority mail
Making this kind of prediction is difficult. (In fact, to me, sadly, the one about
eliminating the digital divide seems impossible.) So, every year, IBM researchers stick out their
necks. Which is risky. “A lot of people wait for things to happen. It’s rare than an organization
says: this is a big change, and it’s coming,” says IBM Fellow Bernard Meyerson.
Why do they do it? In addition to the PR value, we complete this exercise annually
because it makes IBMers think hard about what’s possible and to strive to make it so. Simply
put, the process of choosing the predictions and defending them is good for us.
Meyerson, who plays a role in the annual exercise, says the most useful thing about the
process is that it requires IBMers to think holistically about innovation. They can’t consider
science and technology in a vacuum. They also have to think deeply about social trends, market
conditions the willingness of people to pay for cutting-edge technologies. That’s the kind of
thinking that can transform inventions into high-impact innovations.
We’ve been issuing the Next 5 in 5 predictions for the past six years. So, how are we
doing? Mindful of the difficulty, and considering the fact that for most of the predictions less
than five years have passed, we’ve done pretty well.
Two of the first year’s predictions, for instance, have pretty much come true:
We will be able to access healthcare remotely from just about anywhere in the world.
Today, through telemedicine, patients can connect with physicians or specialists from just about

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anywhere via inexpensive computers and broadband networks. Doctors can view x-rays and
other diagnostic imagery from thousands of miles away.
Technologies the size of a few atoms will address areas of environmental importance.
Nanotechnology is now used in countless fields and industries, including agriculture,
biotechnology and sensor networks, enabling us to understand and interact with the natural
environment like never before.
Predictions from other years have panned out as well. A couple of examples:
You will have a crystal ball for your health. Thanks to advances in genetic research and
high-performance computing it is now possible to affordably decipher an individual’s entire
genome. This makes it possible for physicians to alert people to medical conditions they might
fall prey to, and it clears the pathway, eventually, to truly personal medicine.
You will talk to the Web…and the Web will talk back. Today, speech recognition and
mobile communications technologies make it possible for people to talk to the Internet using
their computers or mobile phones, be understood, and listen to automated voices that are
responsive to their needs.
The Next 5 in 5 initiative got its start in an IBM Innovation Jam in 2006. The seed goal
was to get the entire company thinking about grand challenges. “If you give people a grand
challenge you push them to really innovate,” says Meyerson. “That’s when extraordinary things
can happen.”
IBM has played a significant role in each of these breakthroughs. So, it’s working.

READING 5

COMPUTERS AND TECHNOLOGY

Has the present lived up to the expectations of the past? Throughout the ages people have
tried to predict what life in the twenty-first century would be like. Many science-fiction writers
did manage to predict the influence the computer would have on our world. Some even imagined
that it would take over our lives, develop a personality, and turn on its creators.
To some extent they were right,
especially when it comes to children and
cyber addiction. One constant prediction was
that, thanks to computers and machines, the
time devoted to labour would diminish. Even
in 1971, in his book Future Shock, Alvin
Toffler envisaged a society awash with 'free
time'. The author noted that time at work had
been cut in half since the turn of the previous
century and wrongly speculated that it would
be cut in half again by 2000.
However, our gadget-filled homes are
a tribute to the various visions of the future:
the microwave oven, internet fridges with ice-
cube dispensers, freezers, video monitors, climate control, dishwashers, washing machines,
personal computers, wireless connections and cupboards full of instant food. These may no

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longer be considered cutting-edge but they have matched, if not surpassed, visions of how we
would live. The domestic robot never quite happened, but if you can phone ahead to set the
heating and use a remote control to operate the garage door, they may as well be redundant.
The car, of course, has failed to live up to our expectations. It has been given turbo
engines, DVD players and automatic windows, but its tyres stick stubbornly to the road. Why
doesn't it take off? The past promised us a flying car in various guises. In 1947 a prototype
circled San Diego for more than an hour but later crashed in the desert. Some 30 patents for
flying cars were registered in the US patent office last century but none of these ideas has been
transformed into a commercially available vehicle.
At least communication technology in this digital age hasn't let us down. Even in the
most remote areas people have access to some form of communication device. The introduction
of the telephone last century changed our world, but today's mobile phones and the virtual world
of the Internet have revolutionised it.

READING 6: SUMMARISING

THE FUTURE IS NOW

By Joel Achenbach
April 13, 2008; The Washington Post

The most important things happening in the world today won't make tomorrow's front
page. They won't get mentioned by presidential candidates or Chris Matthews or Bill O'Reilly or
any of the other folks yammering and snorting on cable television. They'll be happening in
laboratories -- out of sight, inscrutable and unhyped until the very moment when they change life
as we know it.
Science and technology form a two-headed, unstoppable change agent. Problem is, most
of us are mystified and intimidated by such things as biotechnology, or nanotechnology, or the
various other-ologies that seem to be threatening to merge into a single unspeakable and
incomprehensible thing called biotechnonanogenomicology. We vaguely understand that this
stuff is changing our lives, but we feel as though it's all out of our control.
What's unnerving is the velocity at which the future sometimes arrives. Consider the
Internet. This powerful but highly disruptive technology crept out of the lab (a Pentagon think
tank, actually) and all but devoured modern civilization -- with almost no advance warning. The
first use of the word "internet" to refer to a computer network seems to have appeared in this
newspaper on Sept. 26, 1988, in the Financial section, on page F30 -- about as deep into the
paper as you can go without hitting the bedrock of the classified ads. The scientists knew that
computer networks could be powerful. But how many knew that this Internet thing would change
the way we communicate, publish, sell, shop, conduct research, find old friends, do homework,
plan trips and on and on?
It's not just us mortals, even scientists don't always grasp the significance of innovations.
Tomorrow's revolutionary technology may be in plain sight, but everyone's eyes, clouded by
conventional thinking, just can't detect it. So where does that leave the rest of us? In
technological Palookaville.
Science is becoming ever more specialized; technology is increasingly a series of black
boxes, impenetrable to but a few. Americans' poor science literacy means that science and

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technology exist in a walled garden, a geek ghetto. We are a technocracy in which most of us
don't really understand what's happening around us. We stagger through a world of technological
and medical miracles. We're zombified by progress.
Our ability to monkey around with life itself is a reminder that ethics, religion and old-
fashioned common sense will be needed in abundance in decades to come. How smart and
flexible and rambunctious do we want our computers to be? Let's not mess around with that
Matrix business.
Every forward-thinking person almost ritually brings up the mortality issue. What'll
happen to society if one day people can stop the aging process? Or if only rich people can stop
getting old?
It's interesting that politicians rarely address such matters. The future in general is
something of a suspect topic . . . a little goofy. Right now we're all focused on the next primary,
the summer conventions, the Olympics and their political implications, the fall election. The
political cycle enforces an emphasis on the immediate rather than the important.
And in fact, any prediction of what the world will be like more than, say, a year from now
is a matter of hubris. The professional visionaries don't even talk about predictions or forecasts
but prefer the word "scenarios." When Sen. John McCain, for example, declares that radical
Islam is the transcendent challenge of the 21st century, he's being sincere, but he's also being a
bit of a soothsayer. Environmental problems and resource scarcity could easily be the dominant
global dilemma. Or a virus with which we've yet to make our acquaintance. Or some other "wild
card."
Some predictions are bang-on, such as sci-fi writer Arthur C. Clarke's declaration in 1945
that there would someday be communications satellites orbiting the Earth. But Clarke's satellites
had to be occupied by repairmen who would maintain the huge computers required for space
communications. Even in the late 1960s, when Clarke collaborated with Stanley Kubrick on the
screenplay to "2001: A Space Odyssey," he assumed that computers would, over time, get bigger.
We have built into us an idea that tomorrow is going to be pretty much like today, which is very
wrong.
The future is often viewed as an endless resource of innovation that will make problems
go away -- even though, if the past is any judge, innovations create their own set of new
problems. Climate change is at least in part a consequence of the invention of the steam engine
in the early 1700s and all the industrial advances that followed.
Look again at the Internet. It's a fantastic tool, but it also threatens to disperse information
we'd rather keep under wraps, such as our personal medical data, or even the instructions for
making a fission bomb.
We need to keep our eyes open. The future is going to be here sooner than we think. It'll
surprise us. We'll try to figure out why we missed so many clues. And we'll go back and search
the archives, and see that thing we should have noticed on page F30.

Palookaville is a 1995 motion picture about a pair of trio burglars and their dysfunctional
family of origin. It is a comedy about bumbling buddies who decide to live a life of crime. But
there's a problem: the only thing they know about being criminals is what they've seen on TV so
you can imagine the problems they encounter when planning their big score

READING 7

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The term GM foods or GMOs (genetically-modified organisms) is most commonly used

to refer to crop plants created for human or animal consumption using the latest molecular
biology techniques. These plants have been modified in the laboratory to enhance desired traits
such as increased resistance to herbicides or improved nutritional content. The enhancement of
desired traits has traditionally been undertaken through breeding, but conventional plant
breeding methods can be very time consuming and are often not very accurate. Genetic
engineering, on the other hand, can create plants with the exact desired trait very rapidly and
with great accuracy. For example, plant geneticists can isolate a gene responsible for drought or
cold tolerance, pest or disease resistance and insert that gene into a different plant. The new
genetically-modified plant will gain these traits as well.
The world population has topped 6 billion people and is predicted to double in the next
50 years. Ensuring an adequate food supply for this booming population is going to be a major
challenge in the years to come. GM foods promise to meet this need.
Environmental activists, religious organizations, public interest groups, professional
associations and other scientists and government officials have all raised concerns about GM
foods, and criticized agribusiness for pursuing profit without concern for potential hazards, and
the government for failing to exercise adequate regulatory oversight. It seems that everyone has a
strong opinion about GM foods. Most concerns about GM foods fall into three categories:
environmental hazards, human health risks, and economic concerns.
Genetically-modified foods have the potential to solve many of the world's hunger and
malnutrition problems, and to help protect and preserve the environment by increasing yield and
reducing reliance upon chemical pesticides and herbicides. Yet there are many challenges ahead
for governments, especially in the areas of safety testing, regulation, international policy and
food labeling. Many people feel that genetic engineering is the inevitable wave of the future and
that we cannot afford to ignore a technology that has such enormous potential benefits. However,
we must proceed with caution to avoid causing unintended harm to human health and the
environment as a result of our enthusiasm for this powerful technology.

READING 8

YOU ARE SURVIVORS!

(for those born some time ago)

You were born before television, before penicillin, polio shots, frozen foods, Xerox,
plastics, contact lenses, DVDs and Frisbees. You were before radar, credit cards, split atoms,
laser beams and ball point pens; before dishwashers, tumble dryers, electric blankets, air
conditioners … and before man walked on the moon. You got married first and then lived
together (how quaint can you be?). You thought ‘fast food’ was what you ate at Lent, a ‘Big Mac’
was an oversized raincoat and ‘crumpet’ you had for tea. You existed before house husbands,
computer dating, dual careers, and when ‘sheltered accommodation’ was where you waited for a
bus.
You were before day-care centers, group homes and disposable nappies.

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You never heard of FM radio, key boards, artificial hearts, yoghurts and young men
wearing earrings. For you ‘time sharing’ meant
togetherness, a ‘chip’ was a piece of wood or a fried
potato, hardware meant nuts and bolts, and software
wasn’t a word.
‘Made in Japan’ meant junk, pizzas,
McDonalds and instant coffee were unheard of. In
your day, cigarette smoking was ‘fashionable’,
‘grass’ was mown, ‘coke’ was kept in a coal house,
and a ‘joint’ was a piece of meat. ‘Rock music’ was
grandmother’s lullaby, ‘Eldorado’ was an ice cream,
a ‘gay person’ was life and soul of the party and
nothing more, while ‘aids’ just meant beauty
treatment, wooden legs or help for someone in
trouble.
You, who were born a long time ago, must be
a hardy bunch when you think of the way in which
the world has changed and the adjustments you have
had to make. But … by the grace of God … you have survived!!

READING 9

DEMOGRAPHY AND CLIMATE CHANGE

Jan 21st 2012
the Economist print edition
There is now little doubt that climate change has become a reality. Glaciers are melting
all over the world. Weather patterns are becoming more erratic. The IPPC forecasts increases of
global mean temperatures of up to 5.8 degrees Celsius* this century and sea level rises of up to
one meter. Half the world's people live within 50 km of seashores and their lives will be severely
affected by flooding. Up to a million
species of plants and animals could be
extinct due to climate change.
The combination of growing
populations and increasing levels of
resource consumption is degrading and
depleting the natural resource base. The
world's population stood at 850 million
at the onset of the industrial age and has
grown more than eight times to 7 billion
since then. At the same time burgeoning
population and industry and the ensuing
pollution have demonstrated how easily
delicately balanced ecological
relationships can be disrupted.

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In recent years, the depletion of natural resources has become a major focus of
governments and organizations such as the United Nations (UN). This is evident in the UN’s
Agenda 21 which outlines the necessary steps to be taken by countries to ensure sustainability of
their natural resources. Despite mounting efforts over the past 20 years, the loss of the world's
biological diversity, mainly from habitat destruction, over-harvesting and pollution has
continued. Urgent and decisive action is needed to conserve species and ecosystems, with a view
to the sustainable management and use of biological resources.
*Celsius and Fahrenheit cause confusion because they are so different. 25 o Celsius is
lovely, while 25o Fahrenheit is dreadful. 100o Fahrenheit is hot, while 100o Celsius would kill
you instantly.

To convert from Celsius to Fahrenheit, you multiply by 9/5 and add 32.
To convert from Fahrenheit to Celsius you subtract 32 then multiply by 5/9.

SOME OF THE FIGURES ARE WORTH REMEMBERING:

 Water freezes at 32 degrees Fahrenheit

 Water boils at 212 degrees Fahrenheit
 The commonly accepted average core body temperature is 37.0 C (98.6 F).
 In Russia, the commonly quoted value is 36.6 C (97.9 F)
 1 km is 0.6 mile (100kph=60mph)
 1 mile is 1.6 km (50mph=80kph)
 1 meter is 3.3 feet
 1 foot is 30.48 cm
 1 kilo is 2.2 pounds
 1 pound is 453 grams

READING 10: Global Warming vs. Global Cooling

TEXT 1
CLIMATE CHANGE RESEARCH
Stefan Bronnimann
Institute of Geography, University of Bern, Switzerland
…The questions of whether and how climate changes and whether and how man
influences climate have been debated by scientists at least since Theophrastus in the 4th century
B.C. His works were translated into Latin in the Renaissance period and were influential to the
thinking of scientists at that time. Two important lines of debate in the discussion on climatic
change up into the 19th century concerned the impact of land-use changes on climate and
progressive climate changes. In the early and mid-18th century, climate change was a subject
treated by the philosophers of the enlightenment period such as Montesquieu and Hume. More
scientific approaches to climate change research started in the second half of the 18th century, in
line with efforts in agricultural, forestry and medical research and further advanced by scientific
travelling and exchange and the availability of meteorological instruments.
A milestone in the history of climate change research and its public awareness was the
theory of ice ages which had important implications for climate research in general. It required

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mechanisms able to explain a large change in mean temperature. This challenge was a trigger for
many climate change theories, some of which have influenced the discussion until today. The
theory of the CO2 greenhouse effect originated, at least partly, in the debate on the causes of ice
ages. Some scientists speculated that lower concentrations of atmospheric carbon dioxide could
have caused ice ages.
The processes considered in the 19th century to cause shorter-term climate changes were
mainly solar influences and anthropogenic activity, but volcanic forcing and the melting of ice
sheets and glaciers were also discussed. Among the anthropogenic influences on climate, the
oldest topic is the effect of land-use changes. The debate on this topic became more and more
popular during the 19th century when in many European countries deforestation and
desertification became politically relevant. Effects of anthropogenic fossil fuel combustion on
weather and climate have been considered since the 19th century. By the end of the 19th century,
the debates about climate change and anthropogenic influence on climate was not confined to the
scientific community, but also included political institutions and was carried out in public.

TEXT 2
THE DISCOVERY OF GLOBAL WARMING
Spencer R.Weart The Johns Hopkins University, the Eugene Lang College and Princeton
University
February 2011
Since 2001, greatly improved computer models and an abundance of data of many kinds
strengthened the conclusion that human emissions are very likely to cause serious climate
change. Most scientists and ever larger number of individuals, corporate entities, and
government agencies at every level decided that something had to be done. They found that
effective steps could be taken right now that are not only cheap and effective, but will actually
pay for themselves. For example, coal-fired power plants could be taxed in proportion to their
emissions. This could be compensated by an equal decrease in other taxes, leaving government
revenue unchanged. (A market-based "cap and trade" system of selling permits to emit pollution
can be designed to have an equivalent effect.)
The most effective way to reduce the impact of greenhouse gas emissions and at the same
time advance prosperity is to develop better technologies and practices. One of such technologies
is carbon capture and storage (CCS), (carbon capture and sequestration), which is aimed at
preventing the release of large quantities of CO2 into the atmosphere from fossil fuel use in
power generation and other industries. It is a potential means of mitigating the contribution of
fossil fuel emissions to global warming. The process is based on capturing carbon dioxide (CO2)
from large point sources and storing it where it will not enter the atmosphere. But a technology
does not magically grow by itself - it can effectively be accelerated by direct government
support.
In 2007 the IPCC reported that scientists were more confident than ever that humans
were changing the climate. Although only a small fraction of the predicted warming had
happened so far, effects were already becoming visible in some regions — more deadly heat
waves, stronger floods and droughts, heat-related changes in the ranges and behavior of sensitive
species. But the scientists had not been able to narrow the range of possibilities. Depending on
what steps people took to restrict emissions, by the end of the century we could expect the
planet’s average temperature to rise anywhere between about 1.4 and 6°C (2.5 - 11°F).

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It is now very nearly certain that global warming is upon us. It is prudent to expect that
weather patterns will continue to change and the seas will continue to rise, in an ever worsening
pattern, through our lifetimes and on into our grandchildren's. The question has graduated from
the scientific community: climate change is a major social, economic and political issue. Nearly
everyone in the world will need to adjust. Citizens will need reliable information, the flexibility
to change their personal lives, and efficient and appropriate help from all levels of government.
So it is an important job, in some ways our top priority, to improve the communication of
knowledge, and to strengthen democratic control in governance everywhere. The spirit of fact-
gathering, rational discussion, toleration of dissent, and negotiation of an evolving consensus,
which has characterized the climate science community, can serve well as a model.

TEXT 3
U.N. PANEL SAYS WEATHER DISASTERS ARE NEW NORM
March 29, 2012
Associated Press
Global weirding' means nations should prepare for more extreme events
Global warming is leading to such severe storms, droughts and heat waves that nations
should prepare for an unprecedented onslaught of deadly and costly natural calamities, an inter-
nal panel of climate scientists says in a report issued yesterday.
The greatest danger from extreme weather, which some scientists are starting to call
"global weirding", is in highlу populated, poor regions of the world, but no corner of the globe
— from Mumbai to Miami — is immune. The document by a Nobel Prize-winning panel of
climate scientists forecasts stronger tropical cyclones and more frequent heat waves, deluges and
droughts.
In the past, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, founded in 1988 bу the
United Nations, has focused on the slow inexorable rise of temperatures and oceans as part of
global warming. This report is the first to look at the less common but far more noticeable
extreme weather changes, which recently have been costing on average about $80 billion a year
in damage. It blames the scale of current and future disasters on a combination of man-made
climate change, population shifts and poverty.
While all countries are getting hurt by increased climate extremes, the overwhelming
majority of deaths are happening in poorer, less developed places. That, combined with the fact
that richer countries are generating more greenhouse gases from the burning of fossil fuels,
makes the issue of weather extremes one of fairness.
Some aspects of the climate situation are clear from earlier research. As the planet warms,
many scientists say, more energy and water vapor are entering the atmosphere and driving
weather systems. The IPCC report confirmed that a strong body of evidence links global
warming to an increase in heat waves, a rise in episodes of heavy rainfall and other precipitation,
and more frequent coastal flooding.
But, while the link between heat waves and global warming may be clear, the evidence is
much thinner regarding some types of weather extremes. Scientists studying tornadoes are
plagued by poor statistics that could be hiding significant trends, but so far, they are not seeing
any long-term increase in the most damaging twisters. And researchers studying specific events,
like the Russian heat wave of 2010, have often come to conflicting conclusions about whether to
blame climate change.

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Scientists who dispute the importance of global warming have long ridiculed any attempt
to link greenhouse gases to weather extremes. They claim that the weather is very dynamic,
especially at local scales, so that extreme events of one type or another will occur somewhere on
the planet every year.
Meanwhile, mainstream scientists agree that global warming is a problem to be taken
seriously but sometimes they are in too much of a rush to attribute specific weather events to
human causes.
Some of the documented imbalances in the climate have certainly become remarkable.
United States government scientists recently reported, for instance, that February 2012 was the
324th consecutive month in which global temperatures exceeded their long-term average for a
given month; the last month with below-average temperatures was February 1985. This March,
the United States set nearly 6,800 high temperature records. When you start putting all these
events together, it's pretty hard to deny the fact that there's got to be some climate signal. No
doubt, the extreme weather is one of the major and important types of what we would call 'global
weirding.'

READING 11

PATIENT EARTH
Thomas E. Lovejoy January 19, 2007
Even though we should know better, it is natural to regard what we grew up with as the
normal state of affairs. Indeed, every generation has a different view of "the good old days." This
is particularly troublesome with respect to the environment and nature. Without some perspective
of what might be "normal," it is hard to understand the impact we have had on our planet and
what to do about it.
At the time I turned my hand to environment and conservation, the number of endangered
species worldwide was modest. To be sure there were the first signs of more pervasive problems
heralded in Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring," but they seemed amenable to straightforward and
simple fixes. Hole in the ozone layer? Find a substitute for chlorofluorocarbons. Acid rain and
acid lakes? Reduce sulfur emissions and do it economically by creating a market for sulfur
trading. An endangered rainforest? Create a protected area.
To be truly effective in most endeavors, including environmental work, it is important to
lift one's gaze from the particular to assess periodically the overall state of the exercise. That can
determine whether and how to alter strategy as new environmental problems emerge and
understanding deepens.
Current indicators can only tell us about the moment, whereas we need to be cognizant of
shifting environmental horizons — what could well become future baselines unless action is
taken. Doing so, one can only conclude that the environmental profession has changed from one
in which simple and often local interventions would work, to one in which we have become
planet doctors. In the oceans and on land it is impossible to find a place unaffected by human
activities. We live in a chemical soup of our own making. Even in the Arctic and Antarctica,
animals accumulate toxic compounds in their tissues. Rainforests and virtually all other natural
habitats are in retreat. The number of endangered birds, mammals and plants is soaring from
multiple causes.

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Perhaps as many as one quarter of all amphibian species are endangered through a
strange combination of factors, including a fatal fungal disease. With no tadpoles, some streams
have turned bright green from unconstrained algal growth. The great global cycles of carbon and
nitrogen are badly distorted, producing, among other things, climate change and acidifying
oceans from greenhouse gases plus multiple dead zones in estuaries and coastal waters. The
rising temperatures are already stressing coral reefs. In some parts of Siberia, the thawed
permafrost bubbles with methane like a Yellowstone hot spring.
While there is enough on the planet's environmental horizon to make us all want to throw
up our hands, as planet doctors we know diagnosis is just prelude to treatment.
There is a tremendous amount that can be done to right the imbalance without wrecking
the global economy. Indeed the recent Stern report on climate change, whatever its flaws, clearly
demonstrates that the implications of a deteriorating environment are more serious for the
economy than the cost of addressing it. Action is required in all segments of society:
Government needs to put the right incentives in place to encourage, for example, the right kinds
of biofuels and other alternate energy sources. Individual human aspiration needs to be provided
choices that are environment-friendly.
Clearly, there is an enormous role for the private sector. Happily, there are many signs
that some companies view this as an opportunity. The aluminum company Alcoa, in one of the
most energy-intensive industries, is seeking to make its Brazilian operations carbon-neutral and
sustainable in other ways as well. Generators made by Caterpillar run on methane from landfills.
Time magazine has analyzed the carbon in its product life cycle from tree harvest to disposal.
This is not the first time in our history that humanity has faced a huge and unprecedented
challenge. Environmental degradation is largely avoidable. It only requires us to take the
planetary diagnosis as seriously as our own individual annual checkups, and rise to the challenge
with all of our innate creativity.

READING 12: ENERGY EFFICIENCY

TEXT 1
ENERGY SECURITY 'MORE IMPORTANT THAN CLIMATE CHANGE'
Alok Jha, green technology correspondent
Guardian.co.uk
17 September 2008
Securing the country's supply of electricity is more important than tackling climate
change, a new report from energy analysts has claimed. It warned that the UK's economy could
be wrecked if there was no action to plug the energy shortfall predicted for the next decade, with
businesses going bust and hundreds of thousands of people losing their jobs.
But the report, led by Ian Fells, a veteran energy policy analyst, has been dismissed as
"naive" by Greenpeace, and "overstated" by the energy secretary. Environmentalists argued that
the report's recommendation for new coal-fired power stations went against the advice of
scientists and that the rest of the world was forging ahead with renewables.
The report said the government had to consider extending the lifespan of the UK's ageing
coal and nuclear power stations to meet the impending shortage. Otherwise, Fells warned, the
UK would be hit by repeated power cuts that would shut down public transport, reduce hospital
services and cause chaos in supermarkets and offices. "Electricity is the life blood of civilisation.
Without it we spiral down into anarchy and chaos."
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Fells criticised proposed renewable energy schemes as being too optimistic in their
promises and highlighted a long-term need for new nuclear power stations and coal-fired stations
that were ready to fit carbon-capture technology to maintain future energy security in the UK.
The impending energy gap will be caused by the closure of the UK's ageing nuclear and
coal-fired power stations over the next decade. The report estimates the UK will lose a third of
electricity generating capacity in this time. Candida Whitmill, a co-author of the report, said:
"Nuclear will not be ready, renewables will not be able to cope. Gas is getting politically and
geographically dangerous to rely upon. Security of supply must take priority over everything
including climate change."
Fells said the situation was like "watching a slow-motion train crash" because
government plans to plug the energy shortfall, such as rolling out huge wind farms, were
impractical and filled with wishful thinking. Successive governments, said Fells, had failed to
come up with any solutions and criticised the current UK energy policy as "not fit for purpose",
warning that there could be severe consequences for the economy.
Fells who has long been a proponent of nuclear power, said that the upcoming crisis
required some "unpalatable" short-term fixes. "We will have to keep current nuclear power
stations going long past their sell-by date. We will probably have to keep coal-fired stations that
are coming to the end of their life. And that's no good for the environment." He also advocated
building new gas-fired power stations that could be built quickly to shore up the supply and said
that the controversial coal-fired plant in Kent would also be needed, though he said this should
be made ready to fit technology to capture carbon dioxide and store it underground.
Greenpeace chief Scientist Doug Parr criticised Fells' report for its "long standing love
affair with the technologies of the 20th century, but as time goes by [Fells'] fetish for coal and
nuclear power looks increasingly naïve. All over the world jobs are being created in the
renewable energy sector, but Britain has been left behind for too long by the negative, white flag
approach to climate change that this report represents. By proposing projects such as new coal
fired power stations and the large scale conversion of coal to liquid fuel for use in aeroplanes,
Fells has finally lost the backing of the scientific community."
Responding to the report, energy secretary John Hutton said: "Ensuring we have enough
clean and secure energy is a national priority and fundamental to our future existence and
prosperity. Ian Fells overstates the risk of the energy gap, but he also understates what the
government's already doing to secure our future supplies and increase our energy independence -
such as a tenfold increase in renewables, a renaissance of nuclear energy in the UK, and backing
clean coal technology."
He added: "That's not to underestimate the task we've got on our hands. Securing future
energy supplies for the UK is a matter of national security and so we're not going to rule out any
radical options. That's why we keep our energy infrastructure under constant review, and will
continue to take the tough decisions needed to ensure that we have reliable energy supplies in the
decades ahead."
Fells' report also suggested laying transmission lines to Norway, Germany and Denmark
and also an additional line to France. "That would mean we were properly connected up to
Europe. That would add a great deal of comfort and security, provided there was someone there
to make decisions." Greenpeace have backed a similar North Sea grid proposal.
Over the longer term, Fells wants the UK to build more nuclear power stations and also
give the go-ahead for the Severn Barrage, a tidal generation system that could produce up to 5%

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of the UK's electricity needs. He defended his point that energy security was more important
than climate change: "You can't go on doing all the right things environmentally speaking if the
whole of your system has crashed - it's more important."
TEXT 2
A BLOW TO COAL
Mar 31st
Economist print edition
New rules look set to speed the move from coal to natural gas
Presidents like to say that they have an “all of the above” energy policy. But it is hard to
see how one fuel, at least, has much of a future under the restrictions on emissions of greenhouse
gases from new power plants set out by his administration this week. The proposed limit, of
454kg of carbon dioxide per megawatt hour of electricity generated, would in practice bar the
construction of any new facilities powered by coal.
In theory, the rules make an effort to accommodate future coal-fired plants, by allowing
them to exceed the emissions cap for the next ten years, provided that they subsequently make up
the difference by installing especially effective pollution controls. That is a bureaucratic way of
admitting that the technology needed to limit emissions, by extracting carbon dioxide from
power plants’ smokestacks and storing it underground, is not yet commercially viable.
The problem is that carbon capture and storage (CCS), as the technology is known, is not
likely to be commercially viable in ten years’ time either. Thanks to new techniques that have
made it possible to extract natural gas relatively cheaply from shale beds in recent years,
America’s domestic gas supply has increased dramatically and prices have slumped. Gas is also a
less climate-threatening fuel than coal: efficient new gas plants can easily meet the proposed
carbon-emissions standard. That makes the already questionable economics of CCS seem
downright implausible.
Lobbyists for the coal industry immediately declared that the current administration was
“driving up energy prices and destroying jobs”. In fact, low gas prices, along with sluggish
demand for electricity in the aftermath of the recession, have kept power prices subdued (petrol
prices are another matter). For some time now utilities, faced with falling gas prices and the
prospect of stricter environmental regulation, have been favouring gas over coal anyway. So the
new rules will only formalise a shift that had already been under way, with little immediate
economic impact.
Yet, the White House, having determined that greenhouse gases are a threat to “public
health and welfare”, is now obliged under to follow through. In addition to the rules about new
power plants, it will soon have to produce an emissions policy for existing facilities.

TEXT 3
ALTERNATIVE ENERGY COSTLY, INEFFICIENT
March 26, 2012
Thomas Ryan, Guest Columnist

Despite the pleas coming from both the left and right calling for further government
intervention in the energy industry, green and alternative energy sources are still unable to
compete with coal and natural gas. Alternative energy sources have proven to be unsustainable,
costly and detrimental to the economy, especially for working-class families.

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When it comes to most issues, liberals and conservatives seem to be at odds with one
another, but for some strange reason, they both seem to be on the same side of the aisle when it
comes to our country’s energy efficiency. But why should politicians force taxpayers to invest
more in an industry that has already cost us billions and produces very little?
This obviously feeble industry, despite being propped up through subsidies, is still very
unattractive to profit hungry capitalists. The common misconception that oil tycoons are just
greedy and do not care about the environment is a gross example of benightednes. In reality, any
industrialist in a market economy would be more than happy to find, own and produce a cost-
efficient alternative to coal and oil. Any energy industry entity that discovers this alternate
resource would become immensely wealthy while reducing our oil dependency and increasing
our standard of living.
But wind, solar and biomass plants have proven to not be the answer, despite their
governmental free ride. Renewable Portfolio Standards, mandated in 24 different states, create
quotas regarding how much production must be dedicated toward alternative energy at
production plants.
RPS increases the cost of energy production resulting in higher utility costs. Combining
that with skyrocketing gas prices, it becomes obvious that the green movement is detrimental to
lower income households. It is time for the state to get out of the energy industry and let market
forces and consumers decide how we will power our homes and cars. The push for green energy
has proven to be costly, inefficient and harmful to a financially healthy environment.

GRADUATION COURSE Ekaterina D. Prodayvoda