by Paulette Redemske

Created on: February 08, 2008

Is global warming a threat of an opportunity? It's a bit both. To those in denial of global warming it is an opportunity to develop new things, to profit from those that believe it is a threat.

However to those people that believes it is a threat it's still an opportunity and a challenge; to save the land, to help the planet, to stop deforestation, to clean up the planet and to educate people. It would be not only an opportunity but a challenge to be innovative in finding renewable forms of energy.

Temperatures change, seas rise and fall. The ice caps melt reforming to their original shape. There have always been El Nino and La Nina. True they are a phenomenon but none the less, they have been around for along time.

Usually these events equate out to about .05 degree increase in temperature, recently however they are more often, with temperatures rising as much as 3 degrees. WOW! This doesn't sound like much, but it doesn't take much in fragile ecosystem.

Yes, we live in a very fragile eco-system, whether you like to believe it or not. When you think of it, two thirds of this planet called Earth, is covered by water. Both caps are desolate ice and snow caps. This actually means that we really don't have that much of a land mass to live on.

Carbon dioxide is used by plants, their by product is oxygen that we need. Every time we cut down trees, clear a jungle we are adding carbon dioxide into our atmosphere. There along with other gases, such as water vapor, methane combined with chlorofluorocarbons all act and react keeping heat in. The Earth creates is own heat, beside the heat that comes in from the sun. This also holds true for radiation also.

The poles are melting, so is the Siberian bog lands. Permafrost which has been intact for 11,000 years; it has started to thaw about 3 to 4 years ago. So what has this to do with Global Warming as a threat or opportunity? These frozen bog lands hold methane gas which is 22 times more powerful than carbon dioxide. This compounded with the methane gases released from the ocean depths, from hot mud and volcanic activity can be a mega disaster as it rises into the stratosphere. The ice caps, once lush and green, are retreating; the rotted mass beneath is also methane gas.

We have already witnessed wet lands drying up; higher elevations are now being invaded by mosquitoes and other insects that were abundant in only low lands. Insects hatching earlier, along with flowers blooming earlier.

It sounds like we'll have a warmer climate,

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