It was reported that the Philippines, and maybe some parts of the Southeast Asian region, will have a wet summer this year due to La Nina. But that doesn’t stop people from their exodus to the beaches and show off their winning forms only frequent visits to gym or maybe popping of Orovo diet pills can make possible. Temperatures during the past summers have been increasing and not even La Nina can dampen it. The obvious answer is global warming.
Now, while switching through cable channels, I stumbled upon this recent National Geographic feature on Greenland, a Danish territory and the world’s largest island four times the size of France. Ice sheets on this frozen region is melting three times faster than what was recorded in the last five years. Grasslands are emerging and forests are waking up from deep slumber. What used to be a frozen land of potatoes is now growing brocolli, cabbage and cauliflower. The greening of Greenland offers opportunities to develop agriculture, livestock, commercial fishing, roads and infrastructure, oil and mining industries. Greenland is headed to an economic boom as investors are starting to scramble over the untapped wealth of the island.
The rapid thawing of Greenland also has its downside. The island’s wildlife will be endangered and their distribution altered by the thinning down of ice sheets and short periods of snowfall. Ringed seals and polar bears will move far north. This particular change has also been felt across the globe as sea-levels rise 2.8 millimeters a year. (About 0.5 millimeter is contributed by Greenland.) Studies show that cities located at sea-level and countries like Maldives and huge parts of Bangladesh will be submerged should the present rate of meltdown persists.
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