Word: restful
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...isolated island was bleak. It had been among the poorest nations in Europe for centuries, and a smoky haze choked Reykjavik, thanks to the coal inhabitants burned during the interminable winters. In the 1930s, Icelandic engineers successfully diverted underground water to heat an elementary school, and the rest of the capital slowly followed suit. When the global oil crisis hit in the 1970s, efforts to turn this local resource into electricity - by drilling holes into underground heat pockets and reservoirs to release pressurized steam that then runs turbines - moved into high gear. Today, if it's not raining or snowing...
...world's electricity is used for lighting, and most of it is squandered. Traditional ? incandescent light bulbs invented more than a century ago remain the norm, but they are horribly inefficient. Only about 5%-10% of the energy they consume is used to produce light, while the rest is burned off as useless heat...
...reason for the world's growing water woes is evident in the numbers. The planet fairly sloshes with water--326 quintillion gal. of it--but only 0.014% of that is available for human use. The rest is nonpotable ocean water or inaccessible freshwater, most of it frozen in polar caps. And the available water we do have is far from evenly distributed. About 1.1 billion people have no access to clean water, and half the planet lacks the same quality of water that the ancient Romans enjoyed. And while the amount of water on the planet remains fixed, the number...
...same is true for the rest of us. In the past century, we treated water as if it were inexhaustible. But that illusion has dried up. The only way to thrive in a warmer, thirstier world will be to learn to get more out of less. "We have the time to change," says Scripps' marine geophysicist Barnett. "Do we have the will to change? I don't know...
...thigh at a Manhattan nightclub, New York Giants wide receiver Plaxico Burress, 31, was charged with two counts of felony weapons possession. If convicted, Burress--who lacked a permit to carry his firearm--faces at least 31/2 years in jail. He has been suspended by the Giants for the rest of the season...