Shrinking Glaciers Have Put Tibetans in the Path of Climate Chaos

By Christina Larson, Christian Science Monitor Posted on January 22, 2009, Printed on January 27, 2009 http://www.alternet.org/story/121871/

For Tenzin Dorje, the road home keeps getting longer. Each year the Tibetan shepherd must walk farther to find streams where his sheep can drink.

"I am an old man," he says, clutching the neck of his cane. Sometimes he trudges six hours a day, twice his old route. He has contemplated learning to ride a motorbike like his grandson, but fears it might be too discomfiting for an 80-year-old man.

The problem is that streams in the province of western China where he lives are drying up, receding into the mountains.

As recent years have brought higher temperatures and altered how snowmelt trickles down from glaciers on the Tibetan-Qinghai plateau, water is becoming scarce.

Mr. Tenzin lives in a small village nestled amid dramatic mountains peaks. Strings of Tibetan prayer flags flap against a still-brilliant blue sky. Yet this apparent purity and timelessness masks another
reality: He is living on the frontier of climate change.

Tenzin's village is on the slopes of the rugged Qilian mountains in western Gansu province. Glaciers on the mountains are the primary source of water for humans, farms, and industry in his village of Baijiaowan and for others north and south of the range.

The streams distinguish the landscape, including a string of oasis towns along the Old Silk Road, from the abutting Gobi Desert. Today, the desert is expanding.

"The climate is changing," says Zhang Mingquan, a professor of earth and environmental sciences at Lanzhou University, in the provincial capital.
"Snow is the source of the stream water, and now the stream water is less than before."

Recent years have seen higher temperatures and less precipitation. As a result, mountaintop ice is receding.

The Chinese Academy of Social Sci­ences estimates that the glacial area on the Tibetan-Qinghai plateau, the world's largest ice sheets outside the poles, is shrinking about 7 percent each year.

It might seem that melting glaciers would bring more water in the short term. But that isn't necessarily the case, says Michael MacCracken of the Climate Institute in Washington.

"Glaciers and snow on mountains serve as a storage mechanism for water, holding it for later," he says. "The area of the glaciers is an indication for how well that system is working." Think of glaciers as a bowl, and snowfall as rice – a shrinking bowl holds less rice. Receding glaciers capture less annual snowfall.

"Without the glaciers, snow and rainfall tend to seep into the soil – usually mountain soil is quite porous – and then it later evaporates,"
says Dr. MacCracken.

In nearby Minqing county, instead of walking farther for water, farmers dig deeper. Fifty years ago, wells tapped groundwater at 50 feet. Now they must drill 100 feet or more. With less snowmelt, groundwater is not fully replenished.

Glaciers stretching across the towering Tibetan-Qinghai plateau sustain all the great rivers of Asia – the Yang­­tze and Yellow Rivers in China; the Ganges, Indus, and Brahmaputra in India; the Mekong and Salween in Southeast Asia.

"With climate change, all these rivers will have greatly reduced flows,"
says Carter Brandon, director of the World Bank's China environment program in Beijing. "There will also be much more seasonal variation – when flow is more dependent on rainfall, as opposed to the steady inflow of snowmelt from glaciers."

The glacier system delivers water to more than 300 million people in China – and 1 billion across south Asia.

The region is among the globe's most rapidly warming. Average annual temperatures on the "rooftop of the world" have climbed 2 degrees F. in two decades.

Chinese scientists expect the total area of the glaciers to halve every 10 years. By 2100, they predict, the glaciers may have largely vanished.

Those hit first and hardest by climate change, like Tenzin Dorje, tend to live in poor communities on the margins, on mountaintops or by the sea. Typically they have contributed little to global carbon emissions.

There is now a new push to address their concerns. In 2007, the Rockefeller Foundation established a five-year, $70 million "climate-change resilience initiative" to assist developing countries.
In December 2007, during climate talks in Bali, Indonesia, United Nations negotiators drafted a framework for a new "adaptation fund" to aid poor countries and communities.

The critical issue of what practical measures can be taken remains. A team of scientists in Switzerland has begun to research the possibility of shielding glaciers from rising summer temperatures with blankets of insulating foam. But such investigations are only preliminary.

Other research on addressing global water shortages includes promising (if costly) ways to desalinize seawater and recycle wastewater. But such approaches will work better in coastal areas and cities, not landlocked villages like this.

Research into solutions is attracting more attention from scientists and policymakers today. "Now we're beginning to focus more seriously on these issues," says MacCracken, the climate scientist.

"I used to think adaptation subtracted from our efforts on prevention,"
former vice president Al Gore recently told the Economist magazine. "But I've changed my mind. Poor countries are vulnerable and need our help."

But who will foot the bill? According to the UN, by 2015 approximately
$86 billion annually will be needed for adaptation efforts.

The small home of Zahxi Rangou is perched on a mountainside overlooking a snowy valley and a white pagoda temple. He is one of 15 lamas residing on the grounds of the Tibetan Midi Temple, tucked in the Qilian mountains in Gansu province. The young monk has two rooms: One is warmed by a stove for visitors. One is cold and full of books and a computer.

Here he spends his days in prayer and study. He has Internet access, and is well-read on climate science.

"The glacier is depleting," he says matter-of-factly. "It's melting in the summer. And the weather is getting drier." His knowledge is power, but there are limits on how he can use that power. Tibetans, an ethnic minority in China, are closely watched by the government. It is difficult for leaders of his community to organize around environmental or other issues in China.

He says he doesn't use e-mail, because it can so easily be monitored.
Many Internet news sites are blocked.

At nearby Zhuanlong Temple, no one answers a knock at the door. The lama there has left on a special mission this winter: He will spend two weeks praying at the source of each stream for its bountiful return.

Christina Larson is a journalist focusing on international environmental issues. Her reporting has brought her to seven provinces across China, as well as cities and villages in Cambodia, Vietnam, Thailand, and Greece. She now divides her time primarily between Washington, DC and Beijing. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, The New Republic, Christian Science Monitor, China Environment Series, and The Washington Monthly, where she is a contributing

Is the American Southwest Running Dry?

By Tara Lohan, AlterNet
Posted on January 23, 2009, Printed on January 23, 2009
http://www.alternet.org/story/121535/

Twisting through seven states before reaching Mexico, the Colorado River is the lifeline of the American Southwest. But with increasing population, thoughtless development and the added pressures of climate change, the river -- and the region -- are in dire straights.
In the documentary The American Southwest: Are We Running Dry?, filmmaker Jim Thebaut looks at the state of the Southwest's water and if there will be enough to go around. He examines stressed water sources like the Colorado River, the Rio Grande and the Sacramento-San Joaquin river system in California, as well as Lake Powell, which straddles Utah and Arizona on the Colorado River, and Lake Mead, also on the Colorado, between Nevada and Arizona.
With interviews from policymakers, congressional members, scientists and water experts, Thebaut issues a wake-up call for not just the Southwest, but the whole country. The film takes a critical eye to cities like Los Angeles, Phoenix, Las Vegas, Albuquerque and Palm Springs, Calif. There is also a special focus on Native American communities, which are particularly hard hit by our country's poor water management and environmental oversight. Lacking political leverage, many Native American communities lack adequate clean, safe drinking water.
The film was inspired by the book, Tapped Out: The Coming World Crisis in Water and What We Can Do About It, published by the late Sen. Paul Simon in 1998. And Thebaut attempts to not just paint a grim picture of reality, but to offer some solutions. Thebaut is a veteran filmmaker who produced the film Running Dry about the global water crisis. He has a background in planning and therefore pays close attention to development and the ways in which water policy should be intertwined with our plans for growth.
Thebaut is a strong advocate for a comprehensive national water policy that brings all parties to the table. And he has called the Bush administration's approach to water management "borderline immoral."
Tara Lohan: So what inspired you to do this?
Jim Thebaut: It goes way back. I have a degree in landscape architecture and planning. And for a few years I was a planner in the Northwest, and I used to do environmental impact statements for planning studies. I also used to produce environmental documentaries in Seattle. When I first became aware of Sen. Paul Simon's work and read his book, Tapped Out, it just seemed like a natural for me to put something together. It is an overall project to educate everyone about the global, humanitarian water crises. That's why I've gone about as I have, with two different documentaries and versions of each.
TL: What was one of the most shocking things you learned about water in the Southwest while working on this?
JT: The gravity of the problem. The fact that the Colorado is the lowest level it has ever been, and that chances are there is not going to be enough water to generate energy at the Hoover Dam. The ramifications of that are pretty profound. Just imagine that the water is so low in the Colorado that it cannot support our agriculture community, that it cannot support our energy systems, and just suppose that, like in some developing countries, that water is only available every two or three days. And just imagine there would be communities that will not get any water all. And I'm really worried about the Native American community.
And then the other big deal is our depletion of groundwater. That is the reason I did this documentary. I did Running Dry, which was to alert the world to the global water crisis. But as I was rolling it out across the U.S., I became quickly aware that the American public have an odd way of looking at the rest of the world. They don't relate to it as being part of their world. And when I present the reality that every 15 seconds a child dies from a lack of water or water-related diseases, they always think, "that's over there, it doesn't have anything to do with us."
So, my goal was to bring the crises home to everyone's front doorstep.
TL: Do you think folks are starting to get it?
JT: Well, it depends on the community. People are so overwhelmed by crises. We are in the midst of this horrifying economic crisis, we got people losing their houses and their jobs. It is hard to grasp the reality of some other crises coming down the path. There has been a lot of media, but we need to educate the body politic, educate public policymakers. They've been somewhat receptive. But we've got to keep the hammer down.
TL: In the film, you interview a lot of politicians. Who are the best at taking on this issue?
JT: All folks in the film are receptive. And mostly all of them are the Southwest, except (Rep. Edward J.) Markey, D-Mass., who is also acutely aware. (Sen. Jeff) Bingaman, D-N.M., and (Sen. and our next Interior Secretary Ken) Salazar, D-Colo., and (Sen. Jon) Kyl R-Ariz., were all former attorneys general and water lawyers, so they are also able to provide a lot of insight into the issue.
Another one is (Rep. Mary) Bono Mack, R-Calif., in Palm Springs where there are global-warming issues that will affect that area, and she is very aware of that. All those people, I think are all aware and have a level of expertise. They all said the same thing, whether Republican or Democrat, it transcends political ideology, it is a people issue.
TL: Are any of them making any effort to combat this with legislation?
JT: There are some efforts with legislation. I just wrote a paper with Dr. Eric Webb, who now works at Sandia National Labs. We have 20 agencies in the federal government that all deal with water. So essentially, our shots are being scattered. We thought it was important to have a central office under the White House to deal with these issues -- something that would be under the office of Counsel of Environment Quality.
The past administration has been beyond negligent -- borderline immoral in that they haven't addressed these issues. We have infrastructure problems. We lose 40 percent of our water in some of our major cities because the infrastructure is 100 years old.
Being an environmental planner, I'm a land-use person, and I think we need a paradigm shift in the way we live our lives and plan our communities.
TL : As a planner, does looking at the way Southwest communities are growing make you crazy?
JT: We do have uncontrolled growth, but it's not just in the Southwest.
Is Seattle making the same mistakes L.A. is making? I produced my first documentary called the Tale of Two Cities, which looked at L.A. and Seattle. And Seattle is, actually, making many of the same mistakes. I think there has been some growth management in the Northwest, it is a different ethic. But I worry about uncontrolled growth and sprawl. The other thing, is that we just hit 300 million people, we are getting big. It is projected that by the middle of this century we will be well over 400 million, and much is projected for the Southwest. We need to plan how to deal with this incredible growth so that we don't compromise the integrity of the environment.
We have to be smart and creative and elect people who get it and have an ethic around water issues.
TL: What are the solutions?
JT: There are so many issues -- every region needs to be self-sufficient. I'm an advocate for reuse but that takes a lot of education. We need to look at the whole issue of public good versus private land ownership. We can't continue to allow people to be able to just mine groundwater. We need education. We need to educate citizens on the gravity of the problem.
We need to look at land-use planning and how we are going to build in the future. The days are over for sprawling everywhere. When we are building, we need to be thinking about how we build and the kinds of materials. And water is so tied into energy. We need more conservation. Conservation is good economics. We need to look at technology and look at alternative energy systems. I think we need to go into areas of solar and wind and new, creative kinds of approaches.
Then there is desalination. I think desalination has a place in the future, but I don't think it is silver bullet. It costs a lot of money, uses tremendous amounts of energy and has a significant environmental impact. But there might be ways that we can use new technology that will help desalination not use so much energy.
I think mostly, we need to start looking at water issues as part of the big picture -- we need big-picture plans regionally and nationally.
We need to adhere to the laws we have, like the National Environmental Policy Act. It always boggles my mind, even environmental organizations don't understand the gravity of the greatest environmental law ever created. If we use it effectively for decision-making, it would solve a lot of problems.
TL: What about a national water policy?
JT: We don't have one. We need to get everyone around the table to help come up with one and implement it. I think we need to start prioritizing what needs to be done. We need regional and local policy, and we need an national overview. The Southwest has its own issues, but so does the Midwest and the Southeast. Infrastructure is one of the main things, and so is groundwater. Many states, like California and Texas, have no laws dealing with groundwater issues. We need to educate people on the issues related to the depletion of groundwater.
I picked on Phoenix a little. But water goes there at the expense of the rest of the state, and it is de-watering the rivers and the ecosystems. We need to look at issues from an environmental perspective. Too often we look at supply but do so at the expense of natural systems. You can't come up with good water policy without looking at land-use planning. Planning with nature is really an important issue. You have to plan within an ecological system, and education is an important part of that.
We need curriculum for schools and to help get teachers to focus on these issues. And on the relationship between energy and water, as well as agriculture and water.
We need to solve our own problem in our country to have credibility in the rest of the world. And we have to be able to help our Native Americans. If we don't help our indigenous people, what kind of credibility do we have with the rest of the world?
Whatever solutions we come up with, everyone needs to be at the table -- Native Americans, the environmental community, activists, engineers, scientists and policymakers.
TL: We recently saw Atlanta nearly run out of water completely. Does any state or region seem to have a backup plan for severe drought and overuse?
JT: No one has a plan, that's why we need to plan now. The "Global Trend 2025" study on the CIA Web site shows that certain regions of the world will really be affected by climate change, and the American Southwest could be a dust bowl. Is there a Plan B? No. We need to start planning a national water policy that looks at each region and what we can do to mitigate. And we gotta do it now.

Global Impact Of Climate Change On Biodiversity

ScienceDaily (Jan. 21, 2009) — When three undergraduates set off on an expedition in 1965 to trap moths on Mount Kinabalu in Borneo, little did they realise that they were establishing the groundwork for a study of the impacts of climate change.
New research led by the University of York has repeated the survey 42 years later, and found that, on average, species had moved uphill by about 67 metres over the intervening years to cope with changes in climate.
This is the first demonstration that climate change is affecting the distributions of tropical insects, the most numerous group of animals on Earth, thus representing a major threat to global biodiversity.
University of York PhD student I-Ching Chen – first author of the new study – said: “Tropical insects form the most diverse group of animals on Earth but to-date we have not known whether they were responding to climate change. The last Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change AR4 Report showed a gaping hole in the evidence. Our new study is good in that it increases the evidence available, but it is potentially bad for biodiversity.”
Professor Thomas added: “Large numbers of species are completely confined to tropical mountains, such as Mount Kinabalu: many of the species found by the expeditions have never been found anywhere else on Earth. As these species get pushed uphill towards cooler conditions, the amount of land that is available to them gets smaller and smaller. And because most of the top of the mountain is bare rock, they may not be able to find suitable habitats, even if the temperature is right. Some of the species are likely to die out.”
The New Expedition in 2007 was joined by Henry Barlow, one of the members of the original survey, whose life-long enthusiasm for moths helped I-Ching Chen, who is from Taiwan, to come to terms with the sheer diversity of moths she had to identify.
Jeremy Holloway, a Research Associate at the Natural History Museum in London, and another member of the 1965 expedition, devoted his career to the identification (taxonomy) of moths from South East Asia, enabling the research team to identify the new samples. Armed with the data from 1965, moth-trapping equipment, tents, sleeping bags and rations, I-Ching and colleagues set out to repeat the original survey.
“Photographs from the 1965 expedition led us back to exactly the same sites sampled 42 years ago”, said Dr Suzan Benedick, expedition member, and Universiti Malaysia Sabah entomologist.
The new survey involved climbing the mountain and catching moths up to an elevation of 3,675 metres above sea level. Once all of the specimens had been caught and identified, then the team compared the heights at which each species had been found in 1965 and again in 2007. The results revealed a highly statistically significant shift, indicating that the moths are now found higher on the mountain than previously.
There is a more positive note, however. As the highest and coolest location between the Himalaya and New Guinea, Mount Kinabalu represents an extremely important “climate change refuge”. Species that begin to find conditions too hot (or dry) in the surrounding lowlands may be able to find suitable conditions by moving upwards on the slopes of this mountain. “The critical thing is to protect the forests surrounding the mountain, so that the lowland species are able to reach the cooler conditions that they may need,” said Dr Jane Hill, expedition member, and one of I-Ching Chen’s advisors.
I-Ching Chen, Hau-Jie Shiu, Suzan Benedick, Jeremy D. Holloway, Vun Khen Chey, Henry S. Barlow, Jane K. Hill and Chris D. Thomas. Elevation increases in moth assemblages over 42 years on a tropical mountain. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA, (in press)

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/01/090121091239.htm