Tibetan Glacier
Image:alvaresin
So, the complex and extensive Himalayan glacial system is not now, it would appear, under imminent threat of accelerated retreat, with the associated ecological devestation predicted by environmentalists. The anxiety which surrounded this subject can it seems be sourced to a 2007 report from the Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) which cautioned that the total area of the Himalayan glaciers would reduce from a current size of 500,000 to 100,000 square kilometers by 2035.
However, the Sunday Times (January 17) revealed that claims of glacial retreat were founded entirely upon speculative comments made by an Indian scientist, Professor Dr Syed Iqbal Hasnain, in 1999 during an interview with the New Scientist magazine. The Times quoted Hasnain as saying that the claim was “speculation” and not supported by any formal research.
See article: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6991177.ece
According to a report in the Asia Times (January 20):
“Jean-Pascal van Ypersele, the IPCC’s vice chairman, on Tuesday conceded that the claim was an error and would be reviewed. The IPCC had claimed in 2007 that resulting water shortages and climate change from the retreat of the Himalayan glacier could affect up to a billion Asians across Bangladesh, China, India and Nepal, Pakistan and Tibet.” More details here: http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/LA21Df05.html
The concept of melting Himalayan glaciers, and catastrophic water shortages for countless millions across Asia, due to a claimed massive reduction in water flow within Asia’s great rivers (most of which have their source inside Tibet), was seized upon by communist China to cynically add a veneer of scientific respectibility to conceal its policies of forcibly removing Tibetan nomads from areas of high grazing. The Chinese regime, and some of its uncritical supporters, had claimed that such activitity was resulting in ecological damage, supposedly adding to fears of increased melting of glacial regions. It was very disappointing to observe environmentalists so consumed with the concept of global warming that they became willing consumers of Chinese propaganda on Tibet’s ecology and supposed glacial melting. Perhaps the allure of research and academic opportunities obscured their ability to recognize the fact they were dealing with a totalitarian regime that has for decades deceived and oppressed? Take this glossy example: http://ourworld.unu.edu/en/high-and-dry/
Such claims were of course a very duplicitous facade that masked Beijing’s desire to erode further Tibetan culture and exert great control over areas which yield huge mineral and fossil fuel reserves. As environmentalists and Tibet supporters consumed the dramatic notion of a Hiamlayan meltdown, China continued to force Tibetans off their lands and into concentration camps, no doubt very thankful that intetrnational attention was being misdirected to an issue which in reality had not been scientifically confirmed. See: http://tibettruth.com/2009/11/02/beware-environmentalist-at-work/
There are major lessons here for the Tibet movement, representatives of whom appeared at fringe events at the Copenhagen Climate Summit and asserted the fiction of glacial melting to criticize China’s environmental record in occupied Tibet. By all means expose China’s callous exploitaion of Tibets ecology, the deforestation, radioactive and other pollution of rivers, and its Nazi-like oppression of Tibetan nomads, but do consider the advice to make sure all your facts are in place before opening fire.
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