Al Jazeera recently posted an article entitled, "Arctic Ice melt alarming," based on a report issued by the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Program (AMAP), an agency of the Arctic Council of nations, which includes the U.S. According to the article, the last six years have been the warmest in history in the Arctic, and the Arctic ice cap is melting much faster than previously projected. Within 30 to 40 years, the Arctic will be nearly ice free during the summer with dramatic consequences for the global environment. This is not just a concern for a few tree-hugger types who have a "thing" for polar bears. The Arctic melt-off is going to contribute to an equally dramatic rise in the sea level, which already threatens to sink coastal areas around the world and thus create hundreds of millions of climate change refugees in the decades to come.With all of the attention global terrorism has received recently, it's worth noting that terrorism poses nowhere near the threat to the future that we are facing in global warming. The social dislocation will be massive. Yet, somehow, we just cannot come to grips with it all; and is so often the case, those who have the power and wealth to deal with the challenge are those who are least affected by its consequences.
