Satellite images have shown that the polar ice cap is melting. This will have repercussions on the global climate and environment. From this web site:
http://www.nrdc.org/globalwarming/qthinice.asp
Average temperatures in the Arctic region are rising twice as fast as they are elsewhere in the world. Arctic ice is getting thinner, melting and rupturing. For example, the largest single block of ice in the Arctic, the Ward Hunt Ice Shelf, had been around for 3,000 years before it started cracking in 2000. Within two years it had split all the way through and is now breaking into pieces.
The polar ice cap as a whole is shrinking. Images from NASA satellites show that the area of permanent ice cover is contracting at a rate of 9 percent each decade. If this trend continues, summers in the Arctic could become ice-free by the end of the century
Melting glaciers and land-based ice sheets also contribute to rising sea levels, threatening low-lying areas around the globe with beach erosion, coastal flooding, and contamination of freshwater supplies. (Sea level is not affected when floating sea ice melts.) At particular risk are island nations like the Maldives; over half of that nation's populated islands lie less than 6 feet above sea level. Even major cities like Shanghai and Lagos would face similar problems, as they also lie just six feet above present water levels.
Rising seas would severely impact the United States as well. Scientists project as much as a 3-foot sea-level rise by 2100. According to a 2001 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency study, this increase would inundate some 22,400 square miles of land along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts of the United States, primarily in Louisiana, Texas, Florida and North Carolina.
(end of quotes) Now, just logically thinking, with asthma and cancer rates at all time highs and the knowledge that the earth has limited resources, doesn't it make sense to conserve what we have and work toward cleaner air whether you believe the whole global warming theory or not? I drive by a factory every day that pumps out orange smoke ...yeah, orange. People are all worried about second hand smoke from cigarettes and transfats in restaurants but nobody does anything about this orange smoke pumping factory. Nobody can convince me that an orange smoke pumping factory is a good thing.
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