Word: sloping
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...kind of ecological disaster that environmentalists had been warning about since oil first began flowing from Alaska's North Slope twelve years ago. And eerily, it struck last week, on the very day that the 3,100 residents of Valdez had planned to commemorate the 25th anniversary of another disaster: the great Alaska earthquake of 1964, which sent a towering tidal wave smashing into Valdez, killing 131 people. After taking on 1.2 million bbl. of crude at the Valdez terminal, the southern end of the 800-mile Trans- Alaska Pipeline, the 987-ft. tanker Exxon Valdez headed out through Prince...
...down. She reached the top alone, dulled and sluggish, and stayed about five minutes, not bothering with photos. As she started down, she realized her unprotected eyes were going snow blind. What she did not realize was that she had run out of oxygen. And on a steep slope just below the summit, she leaned over to try to see a foothold through the blazing retinal glare. The empty oxygen tank overbalanced her. She somersaulted downward...
Heavy steel equipment in the North Slope oil fields turned icily brittle and snapped into pieces. Military operations were disrupted. Most of the 26,000 Army, Air Force and Coast Guard personnel taking part in Operation Brim Frost, an Arctic training mission, were told to stay in their barracks. The Kusko 300, one of the state's major dog-mushing events, had to be postponed...
...elimination. Among the troubled areas: Madagascar, where more than 90% of the original vegetation has disappeared; the monsoon forests of the Himalayan foothills that are being denuded by villagers in search of firewood, building materials and arable land; New Caledonia, 83% of whose plants occur nowhere else; the eastern slope of the Andes, as well as forests in East Africa, peninsular Malaysia, northeast Australia and along the Atlantic coast of Brazil...
That Bryant did not rush headlong down this slippery ecological slope is in part testimony to Costa Rica's commitment to its dwindling natural resources. The country has more than 20 national parks, wildlife preserves and other protected areas covering 2,577 sq. mi., or 13% of the land. Moreover, the nation's stable democracy has attracted hundreds of scientists and ecologists, making Costa Rica a laboratory for finding out what is possible in terms of sustainable development in the tropics...