Word: toxication
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...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 fuels and fouled the air with their detritus. In the name of progress, forests have been denuded, lakes poisoned with pesticides, underground aquifers pumped dry. For decades, scientists have warned of the possible consequences of all this profligacy...
...Toxic waste and radioactive contamination could lead to shortages of safe drinking water, the sine qua non of human existence. And in a world that could house between 8 billion and 14 billion people by the mid-21st century, there is a strong likelihood of mass starvation. It is even possible to envision the world so wryly and chillingly prophesied by the typewriting cockroach in Donald Marquis' archy and mehitabel: "man is making deserts of the earth/ it wont be long now/ before man will have it used up/ so that nothing but ants/ and centipedes and scorpions/ can find...
...take immediate action, the destruction of the global environment can be slowed substantially. But some irreversible damage is inevitable. Even if fossil-fuel emissions are cut drastically, the overall level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will still increase -- along with the likelihood of some global warming. Even if toxic dumping is banned outright and that ban is strictly enforced, some lakes and aquifers will be tainted by poisons that have already been released. Even if global population growth could somehow be cut in half, there would still be more than 45 million new mouths to feed next year, putting...
...Soviet Union is anenvironmentalist's nightmare. The industrial city of Nizhni Tagil, some 700 miles east of Moscow, is sometimes wrapped in clouds of gaseous wastes so thick and toxic that drivers must turn on their headlights at noon and children walking home from school get skin rashes. Every year 700,000 tons of toxic substances are spewed into the city's air. Not only Nizhni Tagil but more than 100 other major cities, including Moscow, also have air-pollution levels ten times as high as the acceptable standards set by the Soviets...
...Idaho for "temporary" storage. But when it became clear that WIPP would not open on schedule, Governor Andrus sent one of the boxcars back to Colorado. There, outside the plant, it still sits, near six more boxcars and a yard full of drums and crates, all packed with toxic trash...