Word: leveller
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...interchange of ideas that was as freewheeling as it was productive. The meetings took place at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, whose staff helped plan the agenda. The Soviets were particularly open in what they revealed both about their country's environmental woes and on a personal level. At one point Thompson challenged Morgun to a game of eight ball on a barroom pool table in Juanita's, a Mexican restaurant. To his shock, Thompson not only got his match, but was soundly beaten...
...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 some global warming. Even if toxic dumping is banned outright and that ban is strictly enforced, some lakes and aquifers will be tainted by poisons that have already been released. Even if global population growth could somehow be cut in half, there would still be more than 45 million new mouths...
...technique known as "forecasting by analogy" to predict the effects on society of future climatic change. In a series of case studies, Glantz and his colleagues analyzed the response of state and local governments to actual environmental events across the U.S., from a 12-ft. rise in the level of Utah's Great Salt Lake to the depletion of the aquifer that supplies groundwater to eight Great Plains states...
...would societies respond, for example, if the oceans were to rise by 3 ft. to 5 ft. over the next century, as some scientists have predicted? One option would be to construct levees and dikes. The Netherlands, after all, has flourished more than 12 ft. below sea level for hundreds of years. Its newest bulwark is a 5.6-mile dam made up of 131-ft. steel locks that remain open during normal conditions, to preserve the tidal flow that feeds the rich local sea life, but can be closed when rough weather threatens. Venice is beginning to put into place...
...land and water are not in any better shape. The riverbed of the Neva, which meanders beside the magnificent Hermitage in Leningrad, is covered with a thick layer of oil. Ill-advised dam construction and inappropriate irrigation projects have caused the level of the Aral Sea to drop 40 ft. It is possible that this body of water, the world's sixth largest sea, will not exist in 20 years. Siberia, once pristine, is laced with wastes from steel, chemical and coal industries. Worrisome numbers of dead sturgeon are floating atop the polluted Volga River, threatening the Soviets' prestigious caviar...