One of the hottest of hot-button topics in recent years is Global Warming. Politicians and special interest groups have made considerable hay over the existence or non-existence of this phenomena. While there is substantial argument over the scientific basis as to what constitutes global warming and climate change, there is little doubt that it is time for humankind to take steps that address the conditions that have emerged.

And, like the rest of the world, those changes are beginning to be felt across Latin America in ways that will eventually affect the economic bottom line. The very 'global' nature of what is happening makes seemingly unrelated issues vitally linked. For example, the receding Polar ice cap.

Regardless of the reason behind it, the fact is it's now possible to take a swim at the North Pole. And, as a result, the once-sought Northwest Passage has now become a reality each year during a short period in the summer. That provides an opportunity for vessels headed between Europe and Asia to cut more than 4,000 kilometers off the journey now used through the Panama Canal.

While there is doubt whether the Northwest Passage will ever to become a northern version of the Panama Canal there is sufficient demand in global shipping to see efforts to capitalize on the new route. And the uncertainty extends to the impact the new route will have on the canal's ambitious $5.25-billion expansion. Shippers have already stated their unhappiness with the increase in tolls to pay for the projects and voiced their their intention to find their own alternatives.

Canada has taken steps to capitalize on this blossoming trade corridor by bolstering its military presence in the passage and has stated its intention to construct a deepwater port in the region. That has rankled the U.S. which claims the passage is international waters and regularly sends navy vessels and submarines through the strait.

The polar ice cap isn't the only place seeing glacier's disappear, the high-altitude ice-sheets across the Andean mountain range are melting at a similar precipitous rate. The world's glaciers have been stable or in slow retreat for more than a century the rate of melting has accelerated dramatically since 1980.

The visual evidence of disappearing glaciers such as the Quelccaya ice cap in the Peruvian Andes can be dramatic and startling. The glacier, which covers 44 square kilometers, is the world's largest tropical ice mass. Ohio State glaciologist Lonnie Thompson estimates that the ice sheet could lose half its mass in 12 months and could be gone five years from now.

A similar situation exists up and down the Andes, like in Bolivia, where millions depend on the glacier runoff for their drinking water, it is estimated the ice sheets will be gone in two decades.

The good news? The surplus of water has been a boon for hydropower which generates 70 percent of the country's energy needs. It has also created a largess of drinking and agriculture-use water for the bone-dry coastal region where two-thirds of the country's population lives.

The bad news? It can't last.