Word: aridity
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Located about eight miles southwest of Maui, the 45-sq.-mi. Hawaiian islet of Kahoola we consists mostly of arid red earth and barren rock. It is inhabited only by about 400 wild goats. To the U.S. Navy, the island is an ideal target range; since 1941, pilots have blasted it with millions of tons of bombs, shells and rockets. But to native Hawaiians, Kahoolawe is sacred ground, home of the gentle rain goddess Hina...
...arid fields and shrunken water catches that Jimmy Carter saw in California's San Joaquin Valley last week are a common, heartbreaking sight throughout the American West this spring. From the Pacific to the eastern slopes of the Colorado Rockies, the winter's near-record drought meant dry riverbeds and a snowpack that in some areas was less than a fifth of the usual level. In a region where more than three-quarters of the fresh water normally comes from the spring runoff of the snowpack, the water-supply outlook for the summer months is ominous. April brought...
...simple moralism that many real science fiction fans may not buy, and in sci-fi terms Star Wars is strictly softcore. Lucas, a fan himself, has evoked images from some of the best-known writers in the field. Tatooine, for example, is much like the arid planet Arrakis in Frank Herbert's famed Dune trilogy; that resemblance carries even to the skeleton of one of Herbert's giant sand snakes in the background of a Tatooine scene. The barroom sequence, with its remarkable array of extraterrestrial freaks, is reminiscent of scenes written by Robert Heinlein and Samuel Delaney...
Detroit has more industry and less charm than any other large American metropolis, and its downtown is not regarded as one of the world's great garden spots. Businesses have been fleeing for years to the northern arid western suburbs, with the result that the city center has become little more than a financial hub by day, a graveyard at night. Fortunately, Henry Ford II decided five years ago to preside over an enviable rebirth on the Detroit River. The big "catalyst," as Ford put it, would be construction of the $337 million Renaissance Center, consisting of shops, offices...
...will have to spend millions rebuilding deteriorated roadbeds to bear the added weight of the coal shipments. One widely touted solution is to use slurry pipelines, which would pump pulverized coal and water to users throughout the country. Fine, but who will supply the water? "This is an extremely arid region," says David Freudenthal, Wyoming's state planning coordinator. "It's not that we are opposed to pipelines, but we are opposed to shipping our water out of state...