The World Is Changing

Climate change has become a global phenomenon.

Barley is growing in Greenland for the first time since the Middle Ages. Warmer waters have brought jellyfish in record numbers to Europe's shores.

Holland, recognizing the inevitable, will strategically flood 500,000 hectares and the people living there will be moved to floating homes.

Last summer Spain and Portugal experienced record tempuratures and searing drought; this year that drought expanded into central and Northern Europe.

In the Horn of Africa droughts have culled theregion's wildlife and disrupted the migrations across the Masa Mara and the Serengeti. Herdsmen in Kenya have been driven to war over the few cattle that have survived the drought.

Alaska has suffered millions of dollars of damage to buildings and roads caused by permafrost melting. Rising sea levels have forced the relocation of Intuit villages, while the region has seen the world's largest outbreak of spruce bark beatles, normally confined to warmer climates.

Most distubing of all may be the record drought in the Amazon basin. Last year the Amazon was reduced to a tricle by unprecedented drought. The Amazon's rain forests, the world's largest carbon sink, are in danger.

In Asia, rivers are disappearing from drought and overuse. In the Himalayas, melting glaciers threaten to dry up major rivers as far away as China, India and Vietnam.

Climate changes is here, now. We have precious little time to do anything about it.