OK. I may not be a tree-hugger, but I have a very, very soft spot in my heart for water, rivers, lakes, and - ultimately - glaciers.
Glaciers are enormous storages of water: as the glaciers melt, they release the water to fill the streams which come together to make up the rivers mankind depends on. Glaciers are the storehouses of water rivers depend on outside the rainy season. During the rainy season, there's enough water, and often more, to go around. When the rains end, that's when you have to tap those mighty frozen kegs of water.
Glaciers are equivalent to dams and the lakes created by dams: same effect of storing water and slowly releasing. Then there are the natural stores of mighty lakes, like Lake Superior: if it does not snow enough over the winter to replenish the stores of water in Lake Superior - the ultimate source of Great Lakes water - then water levels will be low for the rest of the year.
Natural water stores are cheap compared to man-made ones. That's why I weep for glaciers. When the glaciers have left the Himalyas, the Ganges and the Indus will be wadis, seasonal rivers flowing in the rainy season, and with whatever water comes from the aquifers through fountains and groundwater infiltration.
All the Earth is changing before my eyes.
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Yes. The Earth is changing, and it's too obvious to deny. But, believe it: there are hundreds of thousands of people who say the melting of glaciers has nothing to do with a general warming of the earth.
Well, I think we are well past arguing about causes. We merely have to find ways to live with it - one of which will most probably include GM crops that grow at higher temperatures.
And how to pay for everything.
Actually, they are finding the increased CO2 is causing increased growth of trees and local flora, which may lead us to an intense type of husbandry for trees and other plants that scrub CO2 from the atmosphere...
I think that's safer than the ideas of creating enormous crabon sinks somewhere and storing the carbon "safely" away ( such as at the bottom of the sea, thereby creating enormous dead zones in the ocean!).
You're right. But don't you think the global warming deniers will be the very people who will oppose solutions?
Yes, they'll be complaining right up to the end.
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