By Pincas Jawetz (PJ@SustainabiliTank.info)

New York City, August 11, 2005

Many British papers report on the observations by Sergei Kirpotin from
the
Tomsk University, and Judith Marquand from Oxford University, that an
area the
size of Germany and France combined, in the western Siberia, is rapidly
turning
into watery landscape of shallow lakes. Experts fear it will release
billions
of tonnes of methane trapped in the frozen peat.

This happens because the coat of snow and ice that covered the
permafrost has
melted away as part of the global warming effect. Now the release of
the
methane, which is 20 times more potent in terms of global warming then
the C02,
will have this spiraling effect that may lead to abrupt climate change
- that is
a runaway global warming effect.