听力原文: The World Health Organization today accused the tobacco industry of continuing t
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第1题
curity and employee benefits.
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ey show the most creativity. But it is easy to kill creativity by giving rewards for poor performance.
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ious General Electric auditorium in Crotonville, N. Y. , to meet with GE CEO Jeffrey R. Immelt and his team. The day was overcast and cold, but the discussion was about the warming climate. At one point in the meeting, David J. Slump, GE Energy's chief marketing executive, asked for an informal vote. How many of the 30 or so utility and GE business executives thought that, once President George W. Bush was no longer in office, the U. S. would impose mandatory curbs on the emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases linked to global warming? Four out of five of them agreed. "Forget the science debate," says Cinergy Corp. CEO James E. Rogers, who was at the meeting. "The regulations will change someday. And if we're not ready, we're in trouble."
The world is changing faster than anyone expected. Not only is the earth warming, bringing more intense storms and causing Arctic ice to vanish, but the political and policy landscape is being transformed even more dramatically. Already, certain industries are facing mandatory limits emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in some of the 129 countries that have signed the Kyoto Protocol. This month representatives of those nations are gathering in Montreal to develop post-Kyoto plans. Meanwhile, U. S. cities and states are rushing to impose their own regulations.
A surprising number of companies in old industries such as oil and materials as well as high tech are preparing for this profoundly altered world. They are moving swiftly to measure and slash their greenhouse gas emissions. And they are doing it despite the Bush Administration's opposition to mandatory curbs.
This change isn't being driven by any sudden boardroom conversion to environmentalism. It's all about hard-nosed business calculations. "If we stonewall this thing to five years out, all of a sudden the cost to us and ultimately to our consumers can be gigantic," warns Rogers, who will manage 20 coal-fired power plants if Cinergy's pending merger with Duke Energy is completed next year.
One new twist in the whole discussion of global warming is the arrival of a corps of sharp penciled financiers. Bankers, insurers, and institutional investors have begun to tally the trillions of dollars in financial risks that climate change poses. They are now demanding that companies in which they hold stakes (or insure) add up risks related to climate change and alter their business plans accordingly. For utilities like Cinergy that could mean switching billions in planned investments from the usual coal-fired power plants to new, cleaner facilities.
The pressure is forcing more players to wrestle with environmental risks, even if the coming regulations aren't right around the corner. As the debate over climate change shifts from scientific data t6 business-speak such as "efficiency investment" and "material risk," CEOs are suddenly understanding why climate change is important. "It doesn't matter whether carbon emission reductions are mandated or not," explains David Struhs, vice-president of environmental affairs at International Paper Co. "Everything we' re doing makes sense to our shareholders and to our board, regardless of what direction the government takes." The nation's biggest paper company, with $25.5 billion in sales, IP has upped its use of wood waste to 20% of its fuel mix, from 13% in 2002. That's cut both net CO2 output and energy costs.
What was the conclusion of the meeting of power company executives on Nov. 21?
第5题
their official and religious affairs. In addition, the forum was used as a meeting place.
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第6题
ecently, he was intrigued by the nonprofit's high-tech efforts to fight poverty and create jobs in Africa. But he wanted to learn more before shelling out money, so he scheduled a meeting with the founder. "I wasn't sure it was as good as it sounded," says Brewer, who lives in New York. Six months later, he boarded a plane for Kenya—at ApproTEC's behest—to check out their programs in person. "It turned out to be better."
Forget slide shows or annual reports. Charitable organizations are finding that field visits are far more effective marketing tools for deep-pocket donors looking for new experiences. The invitation—only travel programs allow donors, who typically don't mind paying their own way, to see firsthand what their money can accomplish. Such field trips—whether to AIDS orphanages in China, famine-relief programs in Sudan or earthquake-proof building sites in Indonesia—almost always result in increased awareness and bigger checks. Some donors become more active in the aid organization—Brewer now chairs ApproTEC's boardd—or throw fund-raising parties. "Lifetime passionate supporters means first they fall in love with the people and places that they meet," says Sherry Villanueva, Who started organizing trips two years ago as a board member of Direct Relief International, which supplies medical and financial aid to locally run health programs. "We're not sitting around on a fancy deck somewhere with waiters in white gloves."
Indeed, donor trips tend to mix fun with the fund-raising. Miracle Comers of the World, which provides small-business training and housing for young adults in Tanzania, will host its first donor trip in August, with a safari in addition to the ribbon—cutting ceremony at its new housing project. Last month, the London-based International Childcare Trust cycled 300 kilometers in southern India to raise money for children orphaned by the tsunami. The Philanthropy Workshop, a program cosponsored by the Rockefeller Foundation that acts as a boot camp for new donors, recently sent 14 participants to Uganda for a week to look at innovative school reform. for girls and sustainable farming—as well as some gorillas in the bush.
While some critics argue that charities should focus on honing their mission statements instead of organizing adventure trips, others say only a field visit can change a donor's view of the world. "I had a lot of ideas of how to fix Africa before I went over—and all of them were wrong," says Brewer. "I felt very humbled." Roderic Mast, the founder of Conservation International's donor travel program, CI-Sojourns, which enables top supporters to investigate endangered ecosystems around the globe, says he owes the rise in million-dollar-plus contributions to the growing popularity of his nature trips, up from three in 2000 to 13 this year. On one recent trip, Mast recalls how he left a donor and his wife on a beach in Michoacan, Mexico, at night to watch a nesting sea turtle. At breakfast the next morning, they marveled over how the mother gently covered her eggs and then spread sand over a wide area to obscure their location. "The experience was so moving, he cried," says Mast, a marine biologist, of the donor. "No amount of direct mail is ever going to achieve that."
What does the author want to tell us from the example of Jeffrey Brewer, the philanthropist?
第7题
he global economy. The headlines of the business press tell the story, "Compaq buys Digital"; "WorldCom buys MC1"; "Citibank merges with Travelers"; "Daimler-Benz acquires Chrysler" Yet when we look beneath the surface of all merger and acquisition activity, we see signs of a counter-phenomenon: the disintegration of the large corporation.
Twenty-five years ago, one in five US workers was employed by a Fortune 500 company. Today, the ratio has dropped to less than one in 10. Large companies are far less vertically integrated than they were in the past and rely more and more on outside suppliers to produce components and provide services. While big companies control ever larger flows of cash, they are exerting less and less direct control over actual business activity. They are, you might say, growing hollow.
Even within large corporations, decisions are increasingly being pushed to lower levels. Workers are rewarded not for efficiently carrying out orders but for figuring out what needs to be done and doing it. Many large industrial companies have broken themselves up into numerous independent units that transact business with one another almost as if they were separate companies.
What underlies this trend? The answers lie in the basic economics of organizations. Business organizations are, in essence, mechanisms for co-ordination. They exist to guide the flow of work, materials, ideas and money, and the form. they take is strongly affected by the co-ordination technologies available. When it is cheaper to conduct transactions internally, within the bounds of a corporation, organizations grow larger, but when it is cheaper to conduct them externally, with independent entities in the open market, organizations stay small or shrink.
The co-ordination technologies of the industrial era—the train and the telegraph, the car and the telephone, the mainframe. computer and the fax machine—made internal transactions not only possible but advantageous. Companies were able to manage large organizations centrally, which provided them with economies of scale in manufacturing, marketing, distribution and other activities. It made economic sense to control many different functions and businesses directly and to hire the legions of administrators and supervisors needed to manage them. Big was good.
But with the introduction of powerful personal computers and broad electronic networks— the coordination technologies of the 21st century—the economic equation changes. Because information can be shared instantly and inexpensively among many people in many locations, the value of centralized decision-making and bureaucracy decreases. Individuals can manage themselves, co-ordinating their efforts through electronic links with other independent parties. Small becomes good.
In one sense, the new co-ordination technologies enable us to return to the pre-industrial organizational model of small, autonomous businesses. But there is one crucial difference: electronic networks enable these microbusinesses to tap into the global reservoirs of information, expertise and financing that used to be available only to large companies. The small companies enjoy many of the benefits of the big without sacrificing the leanness, flexibility and creativity of the small.
In the future, as communications technologies advance and networks become more efficient, the shift to e-lancing promises to accelerate. Should this happen, the dominant business organization of the future may not be a stable, permanent corporation but rather an elastic network that might sometimes exist for no more than a day or two. We will enter the age of the temporary company.
Why does the author say "the big companies are growing hollow" ?
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ns? (para. 5)
第9题
d. In most World Cups the home team, or the team from the host country, usually plays better than most people expect. In 1966,1974 and 1978, the home teams of England, West Germany and Argentina all won the World Cup. However, since the Cup began, all of the winning teams have been from Europe or South America. Teams from Asia or Africa Mways do well, but they haven't yet won.
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第10题
imes 240 kilometers per hour ripped up the roofs and left at least 1 person dead and more than 100 injured.
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