Word: ecosystems
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...environmental activists in the region. For Palestinians, reviving the river is a necessary part of establishing a national water system, vital for a future Palestinian state. For Israelis--with environmentalism replacing Zionism as a motivating ideology among idealistic secular Jews--learning to live with their dry country's fragile ecosystem is giving new meaning to the old imperative to "make the deserts bloom." And for all the communities that live along the Jordan, sharing its blessings is an opportunity to nurture the region's fragile peace...
...with fertilizer from farm runoff and from air polluted with tailpipe and smokestack emissions. When the algae die and sink to the ocean floor, bacteria there break them down, while consuming pretty much all of the available oxygen in the water. The bacteria also proliferate wildly, taking over the ecosystem and exacerbating the oxygen depletion. If conditions like strong currents, which are common in summer, prevent oxygen-rich water from the surface from mixing with lower layers, bottom-dwelling animals like lobsters, crabs and flounder in that area either flee or die. Relatively immobile animals such as oysters, clams...
...South Florida is having an ecological and hydrological meltdown, the legacy of a century of plumbing and dredging and growing without much thinking. The Everglades ecosystem now hosts 69 threatened or endangered species, and its rookeries and fisheries have crashed. Massive algal blooms are turning Florida Bay into pea soup. The region's reefs have lost up to 95% of their elkhorn coral; persistent red tides have made it tough for sunbathers to breathe at the beach...
...just gator-huggers who say that. Back in 1995, a 42-member commission stocked with bankers, farmers and developers released a unanimous report declaring South Florida unsustainable, warning that the ecosystem's destruction was hurting people as well as panthers by lowering water tables, increasing flood risks, fueling gridlock and replacing paradise with "mind-numbing homogeneity, and a distinct lack of place." In the words of the novelist and columnist Carl Hiaasen, the bard of Florida's decline, "You don't have to be a wacko enviro to want your kids to be able to swim in a lake...
That's why Democrats, Republicans, the sugar industry and environmentalists came together in 2000 to support a $12 billion plan to revive the Everglades, the largest ecosystem-restoration project in history. But the project has stumbled and stalled, which is why Crist's sugar deal is so exciting. It will essentially take Everglades restoration back to the drawing board, reviving hope for a free-flowing River of Grass and a stable water supply...