Word: soiling
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...kinds of insects, birds and monkeys. Then, beginning in the 1970s, came the swarms of settlers, slashing and burning huge swaths through the forest to create roads, towns and fields. They came to enjoy a promised land, but they have merely produced a network of devastation. The soil that supported a rich rain forest is not well suited to corn and other crops, and most of the newcomers can eke out only an impoverished, disease-ridden existence. In the process, they are destroying an ecosystem and the millions of species of plants and animals that live in it. An estimated...
...This year the earth spoke, like God warning Noah of the deluge. Its message was loud and clear, and suddenly people began to listen, to ponder what portents the message held. In the U.S., a three-month drought baked the soil from California to Georgia, reducing the country's grain harvest by 31% and killing thousands of head of livestock. A stubborn seven-week heat wave drove temperatures above 100 degrees F across much of the country, raising fears that the dreaded "greenhouse effect" -- global warming as a result of the buildup of carbon dioxide and other gases...
Shoumatoff's fourth trip took him to Madagascar, a spot that had intrigued him since childhood. Geologically torn from the mainland some 160 million years ago, the island once teemed with unique flora and fauna. Now, the author finds, forests are being leveled to grow crops, the soil is eroding, species are being crowded or poached out of existence. Shoumatoff does not underline his conclusion, but it is evident throughout the book: once an incubator of life, Africa today offers a panorama of possible deaths...
...scene would have been unimaginable just a few years ago: Andrei Sakharov, 67, for years one of the Soviet Union's most famous dissidents, on U.S. soil. The Nobel Peace prizewinner and ex-prisoner of Gorky arrived in Boston last week on his first trip outside the Soviet Union and declared himself a "freer man." A supporter of perestroika since his release from internal exile two years ago by Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, Sakharov was traveling with official approval and a blue VIP passport. At a press conference he urged the U.S. to back Gorbachev's reforms...
...states plagued by ethnic rivalries, like Florida, a move to make English the official language is very much framed by the "us/them" attitude. Frustrated in attempts to purge foreigners from their native soil--largely because the foreigners have made a great contribution to local prosperity--many citizens in Arizona, Colorado and Florida found making English the official state language the next best thing...