Stumble it!An Endangered River
posted in Global Warming by themaiden |This is why I worry about global warming.
“This may be the first place on Earth where global warming could hurt our very religion. We are becoming an endangered species of Hindus,” said Veer Bhadra Mishra, an engineer and director of the Varanasi-based Sankat Mochan Foundation, an organization that advocates for the preservation of the Ganges. “The melting glaciers are a terrible thing. We have to ask ourselves, who are the custodians of our culture if we can’t even help our beloved Ganga?”
A Sacred River Endangered by Global Warming - washingtonpost.com
Why am I worried about the destruction of a religion? That doesn’t sound like me. The collapse– the rapid collapse– of a religion due to outside forces rather than to willful abandonment of the faith by the faithful would cause some nasty disruption which would effect all of us. Besides, that global warming could catastrophically effect a religion is an angle I hadn’t considered. But I am more worried about this:
More than 100 cities and countless villages are situated along the 1,568-mile river, which stretches from the foothills of the Himalayas to the Bay of Bengal, and few of them have sewage treatment plants.
But recent reports by scientists say the Ganges is under even greater threat from global warming. According to a U.N.46 climate report, the Himalayan glaciers that are the sources of the Ganges could disappear by 2030 as temperatures rise.
The shrinking glaciers also threaten Asia’s supply of fresh water . The World Wildlife Fund in March listed the Ganges among the world’s 10 most endangered rivers. In India, the river provides more than 500 million people with water for drinking and farming.
A Sacred River Endangered by Global Warming - washingtonpost.com
Five hundred million people look to be losing their water supply in 23 years time. That is two-fifths again the population of the United States. Throw in Canada and you are up to about 335 million people. Throw in central America and you are still about 70 million shy. Now try to imagine the chaos that would follow if North America et al. lost its water supply. If that is too much of a stretch, imagine if the Mississippi alone were to dry up.
The bright spot, if you can call it that, is that the 500 million people who depend upon the Ganges will only lose about 70% of their water and only for part of the year– the hot part.
Bush apparently doesn’t care. While he has admitted that humans are a significant cause of global warming, he won’t get behind any meaningful programs to address the situation for fear of damaging the US economy. I guess killing one person is murder, killing hundreds of millions is economics.
India, ironically and irritatingly, is taking an equally idiotic stance.
While India is one of the world’s top producers of greenhouse gas emissions — along with the United States, China, Russia and Japan — it argues that the United States and other developed countries should reduce their own emissions before expecting developing nations to follow suit.
A Sacred River Endangered by Global Warming - washingtonpost.com
Humans… humans are stupid. I don’t know how else to put it. We, as a species, are putting economic growth above bloody staying alive. We are playing Russian roulette with hundreds of millions of lives and the only good reason for it is cash. That is why I worry. Even if we are wrong about global warming, betting on it is the right bet.
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