As talks get under way in Copenhagen to strive for a deal to slow the pace of climate change, people around the world are experiencing environmental destruction in myriad ways, some subtle, others devastating.
Here are a few examples from recent months:
KILIMANJARO, Tanzania - Zakaria Kessy, a mountain guide standing at Kilimanjaro's base camp as a group of German tourists arrived to down to a congratulatory bottle of champagne, has seen big changes in his 18 years on the job.
"The snow used to start at 3,600 meters when I started, but now it's only at the very top," he said. The mountain, Africa's highest, rises 5,896 meters high.
Images of the snow cap adorn rusting zinc shacks and beer-bottle labels at the base, but according to one recent U.S. scientific study, the cap may disappear by 2033.
The disappearance of forests in the past 30 to 40 years on the lower slopes -- cut down by villagers for charcoal and open farmland -- is just as much to blame as rising temperatures worldwide, said Jo Anderson, director of Ecological Initiatives, an environmental consultancy based in northern Tanzania.
Forests trap moisture and bring rain.
Batilda Burian, Tanzania's environment minister, told Reuters the east African country was losing 91,500 hectares (226,100 acres) of forest a year, of its 33 million hectare total.
"Because of a four-year drought, 345,000 of our 1 million livestock here in Tanzania have been killed, most of them in one area, challenging the livelihoods of the people," she said.
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JEDDAH - Standing in brown sludge outside his house, Qassim Mohsin still gasps at the power of the flash floods that churned through the Saudi port city 10 days ago, killing at least 116 people.
"We climbed to our roof and saw things we only see on television in other countries. Cars were rolling around in the water as if they were in a blender," said the Yemeni resident of the Quwaiza district, where flood waters rose over three meters.
Rare torrential rains caused the destructive surge of water in the desert kingdom.
The torrent swept away most of Mohsin's belongings, leaving only a useless heap of soggy furniture and electrical goods.
Saudi civil defense forces are still rummaging through the debris, tallying the damage and searching for bodies. They say the floods damaged 8,092 homes and crushed 7,143 vehicles in the worst natural disaster anyone in the Red Sea city can recall.
Now angry residents are asking who is to blame for factors that may have amplified the devastation -- such as urban sprawl in low-lying areas and the absence of a city-wide drainage system.
(Reporting by Asma Alsharif in Jeddah; Katrina Manson in Kilimanjaro, Tanzania; compiled by Sara Ledwith)