Word: ecosystems
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...growing parts of California. And the worries extend all the way to Montana, where a delegation from the U.N. agency UNESCO last week toured the site of a proposed mine just 2 1/2 miles from Yellowstone National Park. Environmental groups oppose the project as hazardous to the park's ecosystem, and President Clinton has imposed a moratorium on new mining in the area, which could impede the project's start-up. Among the danger signs: contamination of two nearby creeks with poisons, including arsenic, from previous gold mines. The critics want UNESCO to add Yellowstone to its list of endangered...
...environmental disaster in Siberia. As a student in Magadan, Siberia, I witnessed leaky oil refineries, toxic-waste dumps at the headwaters of rivers, scrapyards of twisted metal and swaths of clear-cut land: grim testimony to the failure of the Soviet system to care for Siberia's fragile ecosystem. Industrial society seems to lead inexorably to devastation of the earth's northern lands. On America's own arctic frontier, the U.S. Congress stands poised to allow oil exploration of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska, something a soon-to-be-released Interior Department report says would cause "irreparable harm...
Yakutia, which suffered horribly from radioactive fallout from nuclear tests and chemical pollution during the Soviet era, has shown itself to be farsighted in dealing with some environmental issues. The delta of the Lena River lies atop reserves of oil and gas. It is also a diverse ecosystem created in part by the meeting of the great tectonic plates that lie under North America and Eurasia. Mindful of Siberia's sorry record of leaky oil pipelines and catastrophic spills, the republic was hesitant to open this vulnerable area to drilling. Says Vasili Alekseev, the Minister of Ecology: "Since there...
...explore. Oceans cover nearly three-quarters of the planet's surface--336 million cu. mi. of water that reaches an average depth of 2.3 miles. The sea's intricate food webs support more life by weight and a greater diversity of animals than any other ecosystem, from sulfur-eating bacteria clustered around deep-sea vents to fish that light up like New York City's Times Square billboards to lure their prey. Somewhere below there even lurks the last certified sea monster left from pre-scientific times: the 64-ft.-long giant squid...
...Nations can recover from loss, but there is no hope for recovery from a destroyed ecosystem," he said...