EcoHearth: Come Home to the Earth

My Tibetan friend, Tsultrim Gyatso, recently invited me to the opening of his documentary film, Blood of the Earth—Colorado River. He founded the Tibetan Ecology Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to environmental education and conservation of the Tibetan plateau. Gyatso shrunk 20 hours of his own footage into a thoughtful, hour-long historical survey of the Colorado River. Through interviews with diverse water-policy experts, the film journeys from the river’s headwaters in Rocky Mountain National Park through the circulatory system that makes life in the American West possible.

Gyatso’s film is laudable as a comprehensive examination of a river that irrigates seven western states and is also required to deliver allocations to Mexico. He has had it translated into Tibetan and Chinese, and wants to use the film as a tool to prepare people of the Tibetan plateau for imminent water shortages. The Himalayan glaciers are receding at an average of 10-20 meters per year, some as fast as 44-45 meters. The seven major rivers that drain out of the world’s highest peaks provide more than half the drinking water to 40% of the world’s population.

If you are not yet convinced that global warming is real, think about this: Sherpas at Mount Everest’s base camp—at 5,360 meters or around 17,000 feet elevation—are now being pestered by house flies. Britain’s Guardian featured a recent article that describes how swiftly melting glaciers cause glacial lakes to fill up too quickly. When they burst their banks, glofs (floods) occur that can have the effect of a mountain tsunami, wiping out trekking trails and potentially destroying villages. The summit of Everest used to be large enough to accommodate up to 50 people. Now it holds only 18. I envisage a take-a-number doohickey at the Hillary Step.

The Siachen Glacier is found at 20,000 feet elevation in disputed Kashmir and feeds the headwaters to the tributaries that flow into the Indus, now at risk of becoming a seasonal river. It has been dubbed the world’s highest battlefield. A key resource for the economies of both Pakistan and India, the glacier has shrunken to half its size over the past three decades. Both countries have maintained military personnel at this unforgiving altitude since 1984. Thousands of lives have been lost in the conflict due mostly to severe weather, not enemy fire.

Before long, our own concern over water may be far weightier than choosing between bottled or tap. As global warming threatens to dry up water in the American West, we should keep a watchful eye on water policy developments downstream from the roof of the world. Wealthy countries may be inclined to see this moment of truth as the great divider—separating those who can afford to cope from those who cannot. But we might do better to see the melting Tibetan plateau as the great equalizer. It is a pivotal driver of global atmospheric circulation to which we, on the other side of the globe, are intricately connected.

Comments (1)

Subscribe to this comment's RSS feed

Write comment