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Global Warming Threatens Ruins

Even ancient history isn’t safe from the ravages of global warming.

According to a recent report from the Stockholm Environment Institute and the United Nations Environment Program, priceless archeological sites and culturally important places are being damaged by environmental changes brought on by a warming planet.

In northern Thailand, 600-year-old ruins were recently harmed by floods attributed to global warming. In Belize, warmer climes are bleaching the barrier reef. And in Spain, rising sea levels are washing damaging salts into the wetlands of Donana National Park. In Kenya, officials worry that an encroaching ocean could eventually engulf the remains of a 12th century ancient civilization on Lamu Island.

The threat to ruins that have survived centuries of wars, looting and natural disasters is just one more reason among many why people should care about global climate change. Extreme weather, famine caused by hotter temperatures and increasing droughts, and the spread of disease from unchecked mosquito populations threaten our present and future. Now it appears that climate change can also destroy the past.

To read more about this story in the Washington Post, click here.

For information about what you can do to reduce global warming, go to www.fightglobalwarming.com.

To read more about this and other environmental health issues, go to: www.environmentalhealthnews.org, www.ourstolenfuture.org, or www.healthandenvironment.org