Every year, the summers get hotter and the winters get colder.

The stone itself is absolutely beautiful, sculpted by millennia of very tough winters up there.

14 See Alan Winters et al., Negotiating the Liberalization of the Temporary Movement of Natural Persons, Commonwealth Secretariat, March 2002.

The opening of the Nazi's siege was followed by one of the harshest winters in decades so cold the water in the canals froze solid.

Alan Winters et al., Negotiating the Liberalization of the Temporary Movement of Natural Persons, Commonwealth Secretariat, March 2002. See also, UNU WIDER, Efficiency Gains from the Elimination of Global Restrictions on Labour Mobility, 2003.

Cornelius Osgood, an American anthropologist, attributed Korean extremism to the peninsula s weather. He observed that the Korean temperament is a product of long, harsh Siberian winters and hot, humid summers, with only short springs and autumns.

And window farmers in Finland have been customizing their window farms for the dark days of the Finnish winters by outfitting them with LED grow lights that they're now making open source and part of the project.

Similarly, Americans keep two million of their fellow citizens in jail the cost of building the prisons and paying the jailers is also included in GDP. Professor Gordon also points out that America's more extreme climate colder winters (save in Florida and California) and hotter summers (save in Washington, Oregon, and California) must spend more on heating and cooling.

El Niño is a warm inshore current annually flowing south along the coast of Ecuador around the end of December and extending about every 7 to 10 years down the coast of Peru it can bring devastating weather to several global regions, including heavy rains and flooding as well as colder than normal winters across the United States, and severe droughts and dust storms in Australia.

If we are to lessen the horrors of the Syrian conflict and its consequences, we must think not only about emergency action to save lives, but also about meeting longer term needs that make those lives worth living. Bringing medical aid into conflict zones, setting up water and sanitation facilities, and protecting victims during harsh winters are crucial to saving lives but we must also think about how to safeguard the education and livelihoods of those who survive.