China's water supply could be cut off as Tibet's glaciers me
China's water supply could be cut off as Tibet's glaciers melt
By Clifford Coonan in Jiuzhaigou National Park
Published: 31 May 2007
Independent UK
The clear water of the Min river in the Jiuzhaigou National Park is a candidate for the cleanest in China. It is filtered by 108 lakes as it makes its way down from the glaciers of this vast nature reserve before feeding into the Yangtze river.
Back up through the mists, along a spectacular cliff-lined valley, there is Long Lake, a blue glacial expanse of water, while higher up in this mountainous park you can find corrie glaciers. Waterfalls line the route, azure pools brim over with fresh water.
Yet this beautiful park, completely defined by water, is threatened by climate change. Normally a winter wonderland, there was no snow at all last year. The glaciers will get warmer and melt, the rivers will have less water, although rainfall makes up much of the water flowing through the park.
With one eye on the attempt to forge a climate change pact at the forthcoming G8 meeting in Berlin, the environmental group Greenpeace has warned that the melting of Tibet's mountains could choke off water sources vital for large parts of China.
Sichuan province in south-western China relies on water from the Tibetan peninsula. At Kanding, several hundred kilometres away from Jiuzhaigou, there are valley glaciers which are seriously imperilled by rising temperatures. All across the Qinghai-Tibet highland that spans much of western China, global warming is speeding the retreat of glaciers, stoking evaporation of glacial and snow run-off, and leaving dwindling rivers that are dangerously clogged with silt, says Greenpeace in a report on climate change in the region.
Chinese government research shows that global warming is melting the plateau at 7 per cent annually. These glaciers account for 47 per cent of the total coverage in China. Water from the mountain region feeds the Yellow, Yangtze and other rivers that feed hundreds of millions of people across China and South Asia, said Li Yan of Greenpeace's Beijing office.
"Climate change is the major factor leading to the overall ecological degradation in this region while localised human activities, such as industry and agriculture, have aggravated the situation," the Greenpeace report says.
The Qinghai-Tibet plateau covers 2.5 million square kilometres - about a quarter of China's land surface - at an average altitude of 4,000m above sea level. "The river itself is under threat from this deterioration in its birthplace," the report says of the Yellow river. The environmental group cited one forecast that 80 per cent of the glacial area in Tibet and surrounding parts could disappear by 2035. It is still unclear exactly how quickly the glaciers will melt.
Conservationists working in the region say the issue is climate change, which can mean both warming and cooling, although they say the impact of both could be immense on rain and snowfall.
Multiplying pools of water accumulating from melted glaciers are building up and then bursting, endangering people living downstream, Ms Li said.
Greenpeace researchers who surveyed the slopes of Mt Everest this year and last to document glacier retreat said that local herders were not seeing more abundant water from the melting. Instead increased evaporation and accumulation in unstable glacier lakes were making water flows less predictable and more dangerous, Ms Li said.
In a video shown by the Greenpeace team, a Tibetan monk who has lived on the lower slopes of Everest for many years, said: "Now the winter is as hot as summer. The weather change is obvious."
miniTAX wrote:"Climate change denial, I discovered at the Hay festival, shares the same characteristics as religion.
George Monbiot "
Ha ha. Monbiot must be negligent in his rhetorics.
CC denial CAN'T be a religion since he kept saying there is almost no deniers left. It's may well be a sect then. The mainstream "religion" is by all standards Climate Change Doom with its dogma, its priests and followers and Monbiot is himself one of its prominent predicators. In the past, if it can be of any hint for the future, religious doomers were always wrong: the proof of it? We're still here and well.
Monbiot has obviously gone off the deep end - he can't even see that "climate change" could be for warmer OR for cooler, so that "denial" is impossible, unless delta T is very small in which case the climate can stay the same. Truly nonsensical observations.
Btw, if Walter reads this post, pls refer to my post for you on previous page here - tks!
Re: China's water supply could be cut off as Tibet's glacier
The glacier grossly exagerated scare is yet another red herring.
If the glaciers melt, water will be cut off. If the glaciers DON'T melt, water will also be cut off. We are doomed in any case ... to the sensationalist media.
In Japan, Taiwan, Indonesia, Vietnam... all densely populated areas, they don't have glaciers. They don't even know it was a water supply
Re: China's water supply could be cut off as Tibet's glacier
miniTAX wrote:The glacier grossly exagerated scare is yet another red herring.
If the glaciers melt, water will be cut off. If the glaciers DON'T melt, water will also be cut off. We are doomed in any case ... to the sensationalist media.
In Japan, Taiwan, Indonesia, Vietnam... all densely populated areas, they don't have glaciers. They don't even know it was a water supply
Oh no, it's much, much, worse than that. Recently published official (official!) Chinese statistics show that 10% (ten percent) of the Yellow River - one of the most major rivers on the planet - is sewage effluvia.
These are their numbers, and satellite pictures indicate they may be optimistic.
So now Bush is talking about a global plan to set targets to cut man-made greenhouse gases, about setting a framework until 2008 that would reduce the production of CO2....
Quote:Bush calls for climate change talks, new target by 2008
U.S. President George W. Bush has called for a meeting of major greenhouse gas emitting countries by the end of the year and a global emissions target by next year.
In a speech delivered Thursday, Bush proposed a meeting of 15 countries identified as major emitters of greenhouse gases, including the U.S., China and India. The meeting could take place as early as this fall, said Bush.
He called on countries to hold a series of meetings, starting within months, to reach a global emissions target by 2008. Each country then would have to decide on how to achieve the goal, said Bush.
"Each country would establish mid-term management targets and programs that reflect their own mix of energy sources and future energy needs," Bush said.
"In the course of the next 18 months, our nations will bring together industry leaders from different sectors of our economies, such as power generation, and alternative fuels and transportation."
...
Interesting.
Yes, very interesting. His proposal is far more serious and substantial than the goofy Kyoto agreement that would have exempted China, India and the entire former Soviet empire from any action for the entire period of the treaty, and thereby created a lasting and seriously disruptive and dangerous imbalance in the world economy during a period of rapid change.
On the other hand Europe doesn't appear to be meeting the obligations it so self-righteously assumed under Kyoto, so perhaps one shouldn't take them seriously.
I'm hoping we won't be taking these folks too seriously, either.
OXFAM TO U.S.: PAY HALF OF GLOBAL WARMING TAB
As in, let's just not pay it and see what happens.
I would ask at this point is anyone anywhere listening and or believing anything our doofus president has to say?
Not sure why people expect freaking NASA, sclerotic bureaucracy that it is, to have anything to do with global warming.
Want to do a climate study from space, need a satellite lofted? Okay, they do that. What else do you want? It's not like they can replace rocket engines with freakin' hybrids!
Shoot, next they'll be yelling at the CIA and the Department of the Treasury that they're not showing the proper commitment to opposing global warming. "Look, this is not my job" is a perfectly valid response when you get asked a goofball question, no?
Avatar ADV wrote:Not sure why people expect freaking NASA, sclerotic bureaucracy that it is, to have anything to do with global warming.
Want to do a climate study from space, need a satellite lofted? Okay, they do that. What else do you want? It's not like they can replace rocket engines with freakin' hybrids!
Shoot, next they'll be yelling at the CIA and the Department of the Treasury that they're not showing the proper commitment to opposing global warming. "Look, this is not my job" is a perfectly valid response when you get asked a goofball question, no?
Laser-based rocket propulsion systems, man - way of the future.
Cycloptichorn
Sheyeah, sure, once you get up the well and can string up a huge sail in zero-G. Nowhere near enough thrust to get UP the well, which is what we do these days.
How is the fact of so many leftist losers getting sucked into such a stupid piece of junk science (global warming) supposed to ain't be happy news? I mean, it (having inept opposition) makes ME happy.....
Well now the Bush administration accepts AGW.
Steve 41oo wrote:Well now the Bush administration accepts AGW.
Steve - perhaps you would be kind enough to read what the Bush administration says before quoting it. The wording mentions "climate change" - you're aware the planet's climate tends to change, are you? - and not "A", nor "GW", or "AGW"! Precision, please
Steve 41oo wrote:Well now the Bush administration accepts AGW.
But evidently not enough (or not in the fantastic versions advocated by some) to advocate the imposition of external authoritarian rules & enforcement structures that apparently so attract the soft-headed zealots who are so eager to surrender their freedoms. This strantge malady appears to be particularly pervasive in Britain.
That's not quite fair, George, Germany seems even more afflicted. Reading some pronouncements by Chancellor Merkel (herself a nuclear physicist!) is enough to make you wonder if they're all sitting in "vertigo chairs" - for those unfamilian an explanation follows:
http://www.faasafety.gov/SPANS/event_details.aspx?eid=15077
Anyway, Mrs Merkel at least has the intelligence and technical expertise to promote nuclear energy whereas Blair is only uttering panicky squeals - possibly the original assessment about the Brits was correct after all....
High Seas wrote:
Anyway, Mrs Merkel at least has the intelligence and technical expertise to promote nuclear energy whereas Blair is only uttering panicky squeals - possibly the original assessment about the Brits was correct after all....
I knew you would finally come around to my thinking on the matter. :wink:
I think there is a bit of a self-serving element in Merkel's reaction, in that Germany's Kyoto goal performance appears relatively good (or less bad), mostly because of the boost they got from shutting down the wasteful and highly polluting industrial complex of the former GDR. In a similar vein Russia looks very good, mostly because the old Soviet economy collapsed after the 1990 reference year.
On this matter though the British appear to be in a class by themselves. Perhaps soon they will begin the export of modern day environmental Calvanist Inquisitors (the metaphor is mixed, but meaningful) to stamp out the non carbon-neutral among us.
