Word: ecosystems
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...thousand cuts." An individual polluter says, "What I alone am doing is not harming this river," which may be so. But Kennedy and Cronin insist the plants that we passed--four in five minutes--are working together, even if they adhere to EPA standards, to slowly destroy the estuary ecosystem...
...some die from PCBs, it won't be noticed. But humans are also affected when they eat fish contaminated by PCBs; the chemicals can cause cancer and disrupt the functioning of hormones in the body. Other forms of pollution, like nitrate and phosphate runoff from farms, kill the ecosystem by starving fish. These nutrient pollutants are found in fertilizer and in sewage, and they cause excessive growth of aquatic plants when they hit the water. Algae, during their natural course of life, die and sink to the bottom, where they are devoured by bacteria, which use oxygen. Too many algae...
...problem is that most of Colorado's biggest mountains don't have well-defined trails to the top. So hikers scramble up the slopes any way they can, disrupting the natural drainage systems and trampling the fragile ecosystem--which includes tundra rarely seen in such abundance outside the Arctic. Where once there were rock jasmine and alpine forget-me-nots, there are now deep gullies, muddy lagoons and widespread erosion. "We are loving the Fourteeners to death," laments former Colorado Governor Dick Lamm, who has scaled 49 of them...
...place names attest to this once bucolic setting: the Yard used to actually be a "yard," Cambridge Common a shared pasture where sheep and cattle were grazed. As Harvard matured, red brick replaced the briars, and asphalt smothered up the asphodels. But in spite of the modernization, a modest ecosystem still survives. It cycles away out of sight, invisible, until a hawk swoops down and jolts us from our reverie...
...deeper issue, of course, is what the forests are for. A resource for timber and mining companies? A wilderness where people can hunt, fish or hike? Or an ecosystem supporting the web of life? Dombeck hopes a plan being developed by a committee of scientists will offer a model of multipurpose, sustainable forest management. But pushing that plan through Congress and finding a way to finance it may be jobs so big that even Paul Bunyan couldn't pull them...