London has become a cycle-friendly zone after the launch of a new bike hire scheme.{#blank#}1{#/blank#}

   {#blank#}2{#/blank#}First you have to sign up to the scheme to be sent a key. The key will unlock one of the bikes, which are kept at docking stations in and around central London. You have to pay an access fee for the key and then you pay as you go, for the length of time you use the bike.

    Transport for London, which runs the scheme, are hoping to have 6,000 bikes and 400 docking stations in place by the end of the year. {#blank#}3{#/blank#}London Mayor Boris Johnston launched the scheme and said London has been “filled with thousands of gleaming (发光的) machines that will transform the look and feel of our street and become as commonplace on our roads as black cabs and red buses”.

{#blank#}4{#/blank#} On the first day some people found they couldn't dock their bike properly and their usage of the bike had not registered. Transport for London did admit they had been expecting a few “teething problems” and have said they would not charge for the first day as a “gesture of goodwill”. Some other people have criticized the lack of docking stations and locks for the bikes as well as the price it costs to hire the bicycles.

    {#blank#}5{#/blank#}“My crusade for the capital to become the greatest big cycling city in the world has taken a great pedal-powered push forwards.”

A. So how does it work?

B. How do you like it?

C. However, there have been a few problems since the scheme was launched last Friday.

D. Despite the comments, the green-thinking London Mayor still says with certainty.

E. However, the London Mayor is confident of the scheme.

F. It has been designed to encourage more people to cycle in and around central London.

G. The new hire system is hoping to ease congestion(拥挤) in London and is expected to create up to 40,000 extra cycle trips a day into the city centre.

    How would you like to have been born without any ability to feel pain? There are such people. One of them is being studied by doctors at a hospital in New York City. He is a 22-year-old clerk who really does not know the meaning of pain. But he wishes he did.

    Not long ago a packet of matches flared up(骤然烧起) in his hand. Luckily the burn was not serious. It caused large blisters(水泡) but still did not bother him. He said the burn felt like a fly crawling(在……上爬行) on his fingers. It has been the same story as far back as he can remember. He has never had headaches or sore(疼痛的) muscles. Bee stings, cuts and bruises(疼痛的) do not hurt.

    Being free from pain is not as wonderful as you may think. The young man has had to have rotted teeth pulled because he never felt toothache warnings. A sudden attack of appendicitis(阑尾炎) could be deadly. Life without pain is as risky as trying to run a cruise ship without fire alarms.

Wilderness

    "In wilderness(荒野) is the preservation of the world." This is a famous saying from a writer regarded as one of the fathers of environmentalism. The frequency with which it is borrowed mirrors a heated debate on environmental protection: whether to place wilderness at the heart of what is to be preserved. 

    As John Sauven of Greenpeace UK points out, there is a strong appeal in images of the wild, the untouched; more than anything else, they speak of the nature that many people value most dearly. The urge to leave the subject of such images untouched is strong, and the danger exploitation(开发) brings to such landscapes(景观) is real. Some of these wildernesses also perform functions that humans need—the rainforests, for example, store carbon in vast quantities. To Mr.Sauven, these "ecosystem services" far outweigh the gains from exploitation.

    Lee Lane, a visiting fellow at the Hudson Institute, takes the opposing view. He acknowledges that wildernesses do provide useful services, such as water conservation. But that is not, he argues, a reason to avoid all human presence, or indeed commercial and industrial exploitation. There are ever more people on the Earth, and they reasonably and rightfully want to have better lives, rather than merely struggle for survival. While the ways of using resources have improved, there is still a growing need for raw materials, and some wildernesses contain them in abundance. If they can be tapped without reducing the services those wildernesses provide, the argument goes, there is no further reason not to do so. Being untouched is not, in itself, a characteristic worth valuing above all others.

    I look forwards to seeing these views taken further, and to their being challenged by the other participants. One challenge that suggests itself to me is that both cases need to take on the question of spiritual value a little more directly. And there is a practical question as to whether wildernesses can be exploited without harm.

    This is a topic that calls for not only free expression of feelings, but also the guidance of reason. What position wilderness should enjoy in the preservation of the world obviously deserves much more serious thinking.

    Skeptics are a strange lot. Some of them refuse to admit the serious threat of human activities to the environment, and they are tired of people who disagree with them. Those people, say skeptics, spread nothing but bad news about the environment. The “eco-guilt” brought on by the discouraging news about our planet gives rise to the popularity of skeptics as people search for more comforting worldviews.

    Perhaps that explains why a new book by Bjorn Lomborg received so much popularity. That book, The Skeptic Environmentalist, declares that it measures the “real state of the world” as fine. Of course, another explanation is the deep pockets of some big businesses with special interests. Indeed, Mr. Lomborg's views are similar to those of some Industry-funded organizations, which start huge activities through the media to confuse the public about issues like global warming.

    So it was strange to see Mr. Lomborg's book go largely unchallenged in the media though his beliefs were contrary to most scientific opinions. One national newspaper in Canada ran a number of articles and reviews full of words of praise, even with the conclusion that “After Lomborg, the environmental movement will begin to die down.”

    Such one-sided views should have immediately been challenged. But only a different review appeared in Nature, a respected science magazine with specific readership. The review remarked that Mr. Lomborg's “preference for unexamined materials is incredible(不可信的)”.

    A critical (批判的)eye is valuable, and the media should present information in such a way that could allow people to make informed decisions. Unfortunately, that is often inaccessible as blocked by the desire to be shocking or to defend some special interests. People might become half-blinded before a world partially exhibited by the media. That's a shame, because matters concerning the health of the planet are far too important to be treated lightly.

News 1

    Yuan Longping, the father of hybrid rice, won the World Food Prize on Monday. Yuan developed the world's first popular and widely known hybrid rice. Hybrid rice plants can make more rice than regular ones.

News 2

    Have you ever got angry at books that are full of mistakes? Don't worry, things will get better soon. Last week, China started checking textbooks, dictionaries and children's books all over the country. The government said the results of the check would come out at the end of June.

News 3

    People will see a new "star" in the sky soon. China plants to send a satellite into space by December 2006.It will stay in space for one year. It will go around the moon and take pictures. It must be very expensive, right? That's for sure; 1.4 billion yuan!

News 4

    Have you ever thought of being able to fly around the world in a few hours? One day, maybe you can. Last Saturday, the American X­43A airplane made its first flight. It reached a speed of 8,000 kilometers per hour. This makes it the fastest plane in the world. X­43A is only three to four meters long, but it's very heavy. It weighs 1,270 kilograms.

    If you think can-do, and you're creative and persistent, it's amazing what you can accomplish. During college, I remember being told that to fulfill my language requirement, I would "have to" take a class that I had no interest in and was meaningless to me. Instead of taking this class, however, I decided to create my own. So I put together a list of books I would read and the assignments I would do and found a teacher to sponsor me. I then went to the dean of the school and presented my case. He bought into my idea and I completed my language requirement by taking my self-built course.

    American aviator Elinor Smith once said, "It has long since come to my attention that people of accomplishment rarely sat back and let things happen to them. They went out and happened to things."

    It's so true. To reach your goals in life, you must seize the initiative. If you're feeling bad about not being asked out on dates, don't just sit around and sulk, do something about it. Find ways to meet people. Be friendly and try smiling a lot. Ask them out. They may not know how great you are.

    Don't wait for that perfect job to fall in your lap, go after it. Send out your resume, network, volunteer to work for free.

    If you're at a store and need assistance, don't wait for the salesperson to find you, you find them.

    Some people mistake can-do for being pushy, aggressive, or obnoxious. Wrong. Can-do is courageous, persistent, and smart. Others think can-do people stretch the rules and make their own laws. Not so. Can-do thinkers are creative, enterprising, and extremely resourceful.

    George Bernard Shaw, the English playwright, knew all about can-do. Listen to how he said it: "People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don't believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and if they can't find them, make them."