Word: ecosystems
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...South Florida is having an ecological and hydrological meltdown, the legacy of a century of plumbing and dredging and growing without much thinking. The Everglades ecosystem now hosts 69 threatened or endangered species, and its rookeries and fisheries have crashed. Massive algal blooms are turning Florida Bay into pea soup. The region's reefs have lost up to 95% of their elkhorn coral; persistent red tides have made it tough for sunbathers to breathe at the beach...
...just gator-huggers who say that. Back in 1995, a 42-member commission stocked with bankers, farmers and developers released a unanimous report declaring South Florida unsustainable, warning that the ecosystem's destruction was hurting people as well as panthers by lowering water tables, increasing flood risks, fueling gridlock and replacing paradise with "mind-numbing homogeneity, and a distinct lack of place." In the words of the novelist and columnist Carl Hiaasen, the bard of Florida's decline, "You don't have to be a wacko enviro to want your kids to be able to swim in a lake...
That's why Democrats, Republicans, the sugar industry and environmentalists came together in 2000 to support a $12 billion plan to revive the Everglades, the largest ecosystem-restoration project in history. But the project has stumbled and stalled, which is why Crist's sugar deal is so exciting. It will essentially take Everglades restoration back to the drawing board, reviving hope for a free-flowing River of Grass and a stable water supply...
...From 1980 until 1994, when Mosaic/Netscape emerged, Gates played a scratch game, parlaying his little "Micro- Soft" company into an empire that defined the PC Era. By opening up Windows to third-party developers, he created a platform that made many developers rich, and built out an ecosystem that put a desktop in almost every home...
...treasures, the Everglades. With characteristic ebullience, Crist describes the move like the post-ideological Republican he's become famous for since succeeding the more conservative and partisan Jeb Bush 18 months ago. The U.S. Sugar tract "is land God created as the natural filter for the Everglades ecosystem," Crist told TIME. "This is about getting back to basics and doing the right thing...