Evidence of dramatic effects of global warming now apparent in Alaska

Packed ice along the Arctic Ocean and Bering Strait has retreated hundreds of miles and decreased in thickness more than 40 percent in the past 50 years. Native American villages are crumbling into the sea, and the biological heart of the Arctic that is home to populations of polar bears, caribou, migratory birds and other wildlife are caught in this dangerous recipe for disaster. Millions of acres of forests have died because of insect outbreaks caused by a warming climate, and are now burning. These troubling effects, when paired with the threat of further habitat destruction by oil and gas drilling, mean Alaska's wild places are doubly imperiled.