Earth Equity News

Melting Glacier Change Italy-Switzerland Border. By Peter Popham, Independent (UK), March 24, 2009. "Global warming is dissolving the Alpine glaciers so rapidly that Italy and Switzerland have decided they must re-draw their national borders to take account of the new realities. The border has been fixed since 1861, when Italy became a unified state. But for the past century the surface area of the 'cryosphere,' the zone of glaciers, permanent snow cover and permafrost, has been shrinking steadily, with dramatic acceleration in the past five years. This is the area over which the national frontier passes and the two countries have now agreed to have their experts sit down together and hash out where it ought to run now."