Word: planting
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Great Plains has been the only large synfuels plant to start production. Most other projects were halted in the planning stage, before construction began. The industry's increasing troubles have had the most serious repercussions in the West. In Colorado, the residents of four counties that sit atop shale-oil deposits still speak of May 2, 1982, as "Black Sunday." On that day, Exxon and Tosco pulled out of their Colony Oil shale project after having invested about $1 billion. Home prices in Mesa County tumbled by as much as 50%. Unemployment climbed to 15%, and now stands...
...California condor, the Maryland darter, the Florida panther and other animals struggling to survive are not the only endangered species. Largely because of man's encroachment, many, perhaps dozens of American plant species are disappearing each year. Indeed, botanists estimate that some 3,000 of the 22,000 species of higher plants native to the U.S. may be facing extinction. Around the world, as many as 40,000 plant species are in trouble...
...help is on the way, at least for America's vegetation, in the form of the Center for Plant Conservation, which has its headquarters at Harvard University's Arnold Arboretum. With seed money of $500,000, the center has begun an unprecedented program, by far the most comprehensive to date, that aims to preserve every kind of threatened plant...
...spend money and energy to save, say, the frostweed or the small whorled pogonia? Medical benefits alone, says Thibodeau, could justify the center's efforts: "Well over a quarter of all prescription medicines in the U.S. are based on plant products." He points, for example, to antitumor alkaloids found in the Madagascar periwinkle that are now used in the treatment of childhood leukemia and Hodgkin's disease. "The question," says Thibodeau, "is whether you're willing to bet that there isn't another important drug out there among those 3,000 plants or whether you're willing to hold...
...ensure the preservation of most or all of the 3,000 threatened species, the center hopes eventually to create a $15 million endowment. "That works out to about $5,000 per species," says Thibodeau. "In fact, for $5,000 we will be delighted to save an endangered plant in your name." --By Jamie Murphy. Reported by David Bjerklie/New York