Word: vast
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...used for cooking and as a food additive. Growing it has long been a big business in Southeast Asia. But it can also be used in the production of a relatively clean-burning alternative fuel: biodiesel. As oil prices have soared in recent years, Indonesian companies have been converting vast tracts of forests and peat bogs into palm-oil plantations to feed a rapidly expanding biodiesel industry; between 1995 and 2005, the amount of Indonesian land being used to grow oil palms increased by some 8.6 million acres (3.5 million hectares), more than doubling total plantation area, according...
...even if the government signs on to the program, ordinary Indonesians might not. Indonesian authorities in the past have found it difficult to control illegal logging and land-clearing because much of it takes place in remote areas of the vast Indonesian archipelago, beyond the reach of the law. "Even if you have money coming in, how [is the government] going to be able to assert control in these frontier places?" asks Rod Taylor, WWF International's forests program director. Indonesia's Minister of Forestry, M.S. Kaban, says this problem has been solved. "The burning is stopped. Our people...
Alaska has a lot of wilderness, which is unsurprising since it’s the westernmost, easternmost, and northernmost state. (We would be the southernmost state, but we’re worried about the implications of this on our language skills.) Given its vast northern wild lands, Alaska also has a lot of glaciers. These help a globally warming Earth to stay cool...
...Ultimately, despite the fact that the vast majority of differences are between parties and not within them, the candidates on each side do vary in character, background, and ideology. Since nobody truly knows who the best candidate would be for each party politically, we should actually vote for the person we like the best. A radical suggestion, I know...
...were ushered into a European parlor and sat stiffly on the ornately carved green-leather chairs sipping ice-cold umeshu, a sweet plum cordial. A maid came to conduct us to our table, which was set in a private tatami room and big enough to seat 20. The vast, minimalist space was fit for a state dinner (in fact, the former Prime Minister had once stopped by for lunch). But if there were any other guests, we saw no sign of them. Our privacy was almost daunting...