Word: absorber
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Experience has shown the Third World that destruction of forests can have disastrous consequences. Forests are vital watersheds that absorb excess moisture and anchor topsoil. Deforestation contributed to the recent droughts in Africa and the devastating mud slides in Rio de Janeiro last year. In Costa Rica topsoil eroded from bald hills has greatly shortened the life of an expensive hydroelectric dam. Alvaro Umana, Costa Rica's Minister of Industry, Energy and Mines, estimated that the surrounding watershed might have been protected 20 years ago for a cost of $5 million. Now the government must reforest the watershed...
Dirty air? Look outside the window. There stands the most efficient antipollution device ever made: trees. "They absorb carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide and give out oxygen. What could be more desirable? And they look good in the bargain. Stop chopping down the rain forests and plant more saplings...
...Strategic stability is the holy grail to defense planners," says former National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski. Hopes of achieving national military superiority disappeared in the radioactive clouds over Hiroshima; today nuclear deterrence is built on the shaky assurance that either the U.S. or the Soviet Union could absorb an attack and still devastate its enemy in response. By this logic, a first strike would never be attempted...
...that entitlements, or government outlays for people qualified by law for financial assistance, today absorb 11% of the gross national product. Which do you consider the most egregious of them...
Unlike businesses, which can pass on a change in their tax payments to customers, the clubs' endowments had to absorb the additional losses...