by Kevin Numerick

Created on: September 02, 2010   Last Updated: September 03, 2010

Global warming is both a threat and an opportunity, but as time continues without any clear action to confront global warming, it has become more of a threat than an opportunity. Unfortunately, after the United States senate failed to pass any legislation to address global warming, it is abundantly clear that the failure was the loss of an unprecedented economic opportunity where millions of jobs could have been created. Additionally, investors such as the Bank of Denmark, who had several billion dollars to invest in a clean energy sector in the United States, has stated that they will take their money elsewhere and invest it into a country that is serious about a clean energy future.

Though I am sure it is not too late to hop on board and fight to be the leaders in the clean energy race, the United States is falling behind. Worse yet, the threat of global warming is intensifying. In 2010, a year on track to be the hottest on record, we’ve had major disasters from weather patterns that fit perfectly into the predictions of a warming world.

Tennessee’s astounding flood was just the beginning. The recent problems in Russia where a quarter of the country was on fire, forcing them to close down their wheat exports to the rest of the world is just another example. Russia is the world’s largest wheat exporter, so shutting down their exports means an increase in wheat prices everywhere. The drought in Russia resulted in unheard of wild fires, devastating most of the country, if not from the fire directly, then the smoke that was being caught in the cities, which caused many deaths. Russians had to wear face masks to even go outside because the smoke was so thick and dangerous.

Asia is being ravaged by downpours of rain and landslides, destroying entire villages. In Pakistan upwards of 20 million people are being affected by the monsoon type rains. Earlier in the year Pakistan had the highest temperatures ever recorded in history too. A double impact of sorts, high temperatures followed by uncanny rain fall are destroying the northern part of the country. The crisis has been stated as worse than the 2010 Haitian earthquake, the 2005 Kashmir earthquake, and the 2004 Tsunami combined.

In early August an enormous chunk of ice, 97 square miles, broke off the northwest coast of Greenland, posing potential threats to shipping to Canada. These unequivocal incidents are just examples of what will quite possibly, and at the rate in which the world is moving,

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