?Mountain Living Near the Last Glaciers
As people living in alpine areas throughout the world have noticed, the glaciers are melting. They have, in fact, been melting at a much slower rate for many centuries. It was not, however, until the industrial revolution that the pace of melting began to increase. From glaciers with a long recorded history, a record of melting traces the beginnings of increased melting to about 1750 when the first industrial coal-driven applications were being devised half a world away.
The entire ecosystem near these formerly glaciated areas has changed. Areas at the top of the world were also the first to feel the effects of a damaged ozone layer. This led to increases in rates of skin cancers among mountain people world wide, but especially those near the poles. They are also the first places on earth that noticed something odd about honeybee behavior, as it was first reported in the mid 1990s – long before colony collapse disorder in North America.
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