Word: verdant
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Sorrento Pointe, Calif., does not look like the setting for the death of the American Dream. From outside the tasteful guardhouse stationed at the entrance of this gated community about 23 miles from downtown Los Angeles, all seems peaceful. The manicured lawns are a verdant oasis within the surrounding sun-scorched mountains. The only sound disturbing the quiet is the gentle swish of luxury cars - Mercedes, BMWs and Porsches - as their drivers turn homeward...
...driver of extinction is habitat loss and degradation, which affects 40% of the world's mammals. That can be seen clearly in the deforestation afflicting much of the tropical world, including Madagascar, where 90% of the country's original forest cover has been lost. Vast stretches of the once verdant island, where I traveled with Mittermeier last month, are eroded wastelands, capable of supporting few animals or people. Though the rate of deforestation has been reduced sharply in recent years, thanks in part to a greener government, Madagascar's protected areas are still threatened by new mining projects and simple...
...Antananarivo - a sprawling, diesel-soaked city that earns the adjective "teeming" - we leave by car for Andasibe, a former logging village that is now home to a burgeoning ecotourism trade. On the winding road we see the result of centuries of tavy, traditional slash-and-burn agriculture. The verdant forests that once covered much of Madagascar have been burnt or torn down, replaced by muddy rice paddies and secondary shrubs. This loss of habitat is the primary driver of extinction on Madagascar. The trees support a web of life, from the hefty indri to dazzlingly tiny frogs that...
Consider the silver Volvo 940 station wagon, getting on in years and miles, but not yet spent. At certain moments—full of folks, lacing homeward through more or less verdant New England highlands—it seems almost joyful, purring the meaningful purr of a world-weary cat. Now, consider the capped and casual New Hampshire state trooper perched alongside Interstate 89 who, with a radar gun and a wave of his mighty hand, might snare that family vehicle just as Tony Soprano might spear a bit of veal on the end of a fork. We live...
...that the "hyper-manicured lawn" is looking increasingly out of date. In the 1950s, when suburbia first began to sprawl, a perfectly trimmed front yard embodied the post-war prosperity Americans aspired to. Today, amid rising fuel costs, food safety scares and growing environmental awareness, a chemically treated and verdant but nutritionally barren lawn seems wasteful, he says...