Word: coal
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Japanese worried about their country's direction, the depressed city of Yubari on the northern island of Hokkaido provides an ominous worst-case scenario. Once a thriving coal-mining town of 130,000, Yubari has shrunk to 13,000 people, with 40% of them 65 years old or over. In the 1980s and '90s town officials tried to stanch the economic decline by borrowing hundreds of millions to remake the city as a tourist destination, only to fail miserably-as Yubari's shuttered amusement park, melon museum and robot museum testify. After racking up over $500 million in debt-roughly...
...Pollution Surprisingly, the report suggests that by reflecting solar energy, visible airborne particles like sulfates from coal-burning power plants could actually have a cooling effect. But while better filters are reducing visible air pollution around the world, invisible-and harmful-carbon emissions are on the rise...
Surprisingly, the report suggests that by reflecting solar energy, visible airborne particles like sulfates from coal-burning power plants could actually have a cooling effect. But while better filters are reducing pollution's protective haze, invisible--and harmful--carbon emissions are still on the rise...
...even in Communist China, but those who worked in it did not receive higher pay or enjoy better working conditions than factory workers or teachers. The function of an actress was primarily to entertain the masses, so besides appearing in films, she often gave performances in factories, rural communes, coal mines and oil fields, traveling with her unit all over China. It was an arduous life, but she believed she was rendering service to her country and its people. Now, as she munched her sandwiches, she told me about the day's events at her film studio. ''I spent...
...been the municipal government, and half of its 300 workers will soon be leaving or facing salary cuts of up to 70%. The film festival has been cancelled, and the city-run tourism facilities have closed until they can be purchased by private companies that would consider a coal history museum in a depressed and snowbound mountain town to be a winning investment. (Interested parties can contact Keiji Hosokawa, who runs tourism promotion for Yubari - at least until his department is eliminated in March.) Even as it raises taxes, the city is closing schools, libraries and nursing homes...