Word: destructionism
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Efforts to stop the destruction run into moral as well as practical obstacles. How can developed nations demand onerous debt payments and ask the debtors to preserve their forests? How can countries worry about biodiversity when their people are concerned with feeding themselves?
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...
There were other forebodings of environmental disaster. In the U.S. it was revealed that federal weapons-making plants had recklessly and secretly littered large areas with radioactive waste. The further depletion of the atmosphere's ozone layer, which helps block cancer-causing ultraviolet rays, testified to the continued overuse of...
If the nations of the world take immediate action, the destruction of the global environment can be slowed substantially. But some irreversible damage is inevitable. Even if fossil-fuel emissions are cut drastically, the overall level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will still increase -- along with the likelihood of...
Man has always shown a great capacity for adjusting to change. Past generations have survived floods and ice ages, famines and world wars. But when dealing with the environment, there is a grave danger in relying on adaptation alone: societies could end up waiting too long. Many of the global...