Word: humanization
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Dates: during 1990-1990
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...state of India's water supply is just one sign of what could become a global disaster. From the slums of Mexico to the overburdened farms of China, human populations are outstripping the limited stock of fresh water. Mankind is poisoning and exhausting the precious fluid that sustains all life...
...Camouflaged by its very familiarity, the water problem has crept up on a world distracted by fears of global warming and other emergent environmental threats. Yet water could be the first resource that puts a limit on human population and economic growth. Shortfalls of water will mean shortfalls of food, since up to three-quarters of the fresh water that humanity uses goes for agriculture. Moreover, contaminated drinking water in heavily populated areas endangers the health of hundreds of millions of people. According to the United Nations, 40,000 children die every day, many of them the victims...
Whatever the human consequences of the crisis, it has an even greater effect on many other living things. Fish, birds and countless creatures are crowded out, marooned or poisoned as industry, agriculture and municipalities reroute rivers, dry up wetlands, dump waste and otherwise disrupt the normal functioning of delicate ecosystems. The world is learning that there are limits to mankind's ability to move water from one place to another without seriously upsetting the balance of nature...
...Human activities have also disrupted the delicate natural systems that maintain water supplies. To obtain wood and clear land for homes and farms, mankind is chopping down forests at an unprecedented rate. But vegetation traps water, reducing runoff and replenishing groundwater supplies. Throughout the world, tree cutting has led to floods, mud slides and soil erosion during rainy seasons and acute water shortages during dry periods...
...government was already accusing me in April and May of being part of a handful of people who controlled the movement, because I have a long record ((of human-rights activism)). So I stayed away. Of course, I knew many of the student leaders before the protests began, including at least three among the 21 on the most-wanted list. They often came to my home in the days before the movement began. But afterward, they didn't want to have contact with me, because they wanted to show that their ideas were their own and not simply given...