Word: endless
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...have served to stock our antibiotics, anticancer agents, pain killers and blood thinners. The biochemistry of the vast majority--millions--of other species is an unfathomed reservoir of new and potentially more effective substances. The reason is to be found in the principles of evolutionary biology. Caught in an endless arms race, these species have devised myriad ways to combat microbes and cancer-causing runaway cells. We have scarcely begun to consult them for the experience stored in their genes...
...those funds would be a matter of endless debate. Should local communities be entitled to set the agenda, or should outside experts take control? Should limited hunting be allowed in parks, or should they be put off limits? Mistakes will be made, the landscape will keep changing, and species will still be lost, but the difficulty of the task should not lead us to abandon hope. Many of the planet's natural habitats are gone forever, but many others can be saved and in time restored...
Though the oceans' woes can seem overwhelming, solutions are emerging and attitudes are changing. Most people have shed the fantasy that the sea can inexhaustibly provide food, dilute endless pollution and accept unlimited trash. In 1996 the U.S. passed the Sustainable Fisheries Act, which mandates rules against overfishing--a recognition that protecting sea life is good business. Some fish, such as striped bass and redfish, are recovering because of catch limits. Alaskan, Falkland, Australian and New Zealand longline boats are taking care not to kill albatrosses. Turtles are being saved by trapdoors in shrimp nets...
Maybe it's just a response to endless complaints about suburban traffic jams, but U.S. politicians are starting to pay attention to the sprawl problem. Presidential candidate Al Gore has raised the subject, and Maryland Governor Parris Glendening sounds downright alarmed. "Every time we cut down one more forest or sell off another acre of farmland, we have permanently lost more of our finite natural resources," says Glendening. "Sprawl costs taxpayers dollars to support new infrastructure, costs natural resources that we know are not unlimited, and costs us as a society in lost opportunities to invest in our existing communities...
...economists go, German-born Ernest F. ("Fritz") Schumacher was an oddball. He didn't believe in endless growth, mega-companies or unlimited consumption. His 1973 book with the bumper-sticker title Small Is Beautiful became an eco-bible (worldwide sales: 4 million copies). Urging the West not to foist fuel-gulping technologies on poor nations, he instead favored "appropriate" solutions--oxen, say, rather than job-eliminating tractors. In posthumous tribute, even the World Bank now agrees that small-scale aid projects, relying mainly on the people themselves, are indeed beautiful...