Word: reasonableness
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...species did not significantly affect flowering plants, according to Harvard biologist E.O. Wilson. But these plant species are disappearing now, and people, not comets or volcanoes, are the angels of destruction. Moreover, the earth is suffering the decline of entire ecosystems -- the nurseries of new life-forms. For that reason, Wilson deems this crisis the "death of birth." British ecologist Norman Myers has called it the "greatest single setback to life's abundance and diversity since the first flickerings of life almost 4 billion years...
...many species and environments threatened? The main reason is that throughout the tropics, developing nations are struggling to feed their peoples and raise cash to make payments on international debts. Many countries are chopping down their forests for the sake of timber exports. In Central America forests are giving way to cattle ranches, which supply beef to American fast-food chains. The pressures on forests have led Janzen, who has spent 26 years struggling to save Costa Rica's woodlands, to conclude that "everything outside parks will be gone, and everything inside the parks is threatened...
...reason is not so much the sheer numbers, though 40,000 babies die of starvation each day in Third World countries, but the reckless way in which humanity has treated its planetary host. Like the evil genies that flew from Pandora's box, technological advances have provided the means of upsetting nature's equilibrium, that intricate set of biological, physical and chemical interactions that make up the web of life. Starting at the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, smokestacks have disgorged noxious gases into the atmosphere, factories have dumped toxic wastes into rivers and streams, automobiles have guzzled irreplaceable fossil...
...main reason American industry has lost competitiveness," Higashi observes, "is because of distrust. I said to American management on this we must go down the stairs to the people. They won't come...
...European aerospace consortium still loses money on every plane it sells, but its British, French, West German and Spanish co- owners have been willing to subsidize costs in order to develop a robust European aircraft industry. Airbus is eclipsing Douglas as the world's second largest jetmaker. One reason: the manufacturer outfits its jet cockpits with advanced flight-control systems that are not yet available on most U.S.-made , airliners. By constantly monitoring flight conditions, the Airbus onboard computers help cut maintenance and fuel costs...