Why?

TURIN, Italy, December 8, 2003 (ENS) - The winter sports town of Kitzbuehl, Austria, frequented by the rich and famous, is just one low altitude resort that faces an uncertain future due to global warming. Declining amounts of snowfall and less frequent snows will result in economic hardship for low altitude resorts, experts at the University of Zurich have found.

 World Conference on Sport and the Environment in Turin, Italy, host city for the 2006 Winter Games, warned that 15 percent of Switzerland’s ski resorts already have unreliable levels of snowfall, a number that could go up to 56 percent in the future.

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NEW YORK, New York, June 17, 2003 (ENS) - Every year, vast patches of the Earth turn barren and unproductive, the consequence of drought and poor land management. This process - known as desertification - has far reaching costs to humanity,

Drought and desertification threaten the livelihood of more than 1.2 billion people in some 110 countries, with 135 million around the world at risk of being displaced.The world must start aggressively combating desertification, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said.

Human activities such as overcultivation, overgrazing, deforestation and poor irrigation practices are key factors in this trend, Annan said, and arable land per person is shrinking throughout the world.