Indian space scientists have, for the first time, warned that glaciers in the Himalayas – the highest mountain chain in the world - are melting due to global warming. Four glaciers in the Baspa river basin in Himachal Pradesh, a state in northwestern India , are beginning to vanish. As a front-page banner story in the Hindustan Times daily in Delhi reported, they are facing “terminal retreat”.

As many as 15 more glaciers in the same basin are in danger of losing their bulk. Alarmingly, they are shedding more ice in summer than gaining snow in winter. Scientists term this “negative mass balance”.

The inner core of these glaciers has begun to melt in the last few years. This was previously confined to the snow that fell in winter, leaving the core intact. The Delhi newspaper quoted Dr. Anil V. Kulkarni, Principal Investigator of Glaciology projects at the Space Applications Centre in Ahmedabad, as saying, “If climatic conditions remain the same as in 2000, then our models show that the four glaciers will disappear completely by 2040. But since we know that temperatures are rising, this process will be much faster.”

The scientists have used satellite pictures to track the changes in the mountain chain. The Himalayas are literally India ’s biggest lifeline, since the melt from glaciers is the source of most of the mighty rivers that flow in the northern and central belts. They also play a major role in blocking the moisture-laden winds that then fall as monsoon rains.

Devastating Impacts

Until now, nature has enabled India to depend on glacial melt as a perennially renewable source of water, which is the most precious resource in this dry country with the second largest population in the world. If the glaciers disappear, the consequences will be simply catastrophic.

Among other things, the specific situation in the Baspa basin will reduce the flow of the river, a tributary of the Sutlej , and this will affect the functioning of the hydroelectric projects downstream in Himachal Pradesh. India is acutely short of power, and hilly states such as Himachal can generate an enormous amount of electricity for the rest of the country.

According to the Hindustan Times, the glacial meltdown will also impact the ambitious plan to link the northern rivers, which supposedly have a surplus flow during the monsoons, with the perpetually deficient southern rivers. The scheme, which has the blessings of both President Dr A.P.J. Abdul Kalam and Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, will cost a staggering $124 billion over a couple of decades – a quarter of the country’s GDP. Environmentalists have criticized the scheme on several counts and this fresh evidence casts new doubts regarding it.

Considering the huge populations of northern Indian states like Uttar Pradesh and Bihar – several of which would qualify as countries in their own right in terms of numbers – the implications of a reduced flow in the key rivers are most alarming. The Indo-Gangetic belt, which encompasses these states, happens to be the breadbasket of the country, producing both wheat and rice.

The crisis that India faces illustrates the dilemma in which many developing countries find themselves. They are facing the prospects of climate change when they have not been primarily responsible for such impacts. Industrial countries are to blame for emitting greenhouse gases over generations and causing the earth’s temperatures to rise.

On the eve of the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg in 2002, the UN Environment Programme put out a report that there was “an Asian brown cloud”, consisting of dust particles and the like, which was hovering over the sub-continent and contributing to global warming. Indian scientists, however, criticized the report, claiming that climate change was a global phenomenon and could not be localized in this manner. There was a strong suspicion about the timing of the report before the environment summit: if accepted, these findings would have lifted some of the burden from rich countries for altering the climate.

Terrorism vs. Climate Change

The main offender in this regard, the United States, which contributes around one-fifth of the world's carbon dioxide emissions – the main greenhouse gas – could not have been comforted by the recent leak of a Pentagon document that the threat to the planet’s stability due to climate change is far greater than that of terrorism. President George W. Bush has refused to sign the Kyoto protocol, which seeks to curb such emissions.

A secret report, which has been suppressed for four months by US defense chiefs but obtained by The Observer newspaper in Britain, reveals that climate change could result in nuclear conflict, mega-droughts, famines and rioting in as little as 20 years. It predicts that disputes over access to natural resources – water, food and energy – could compel countries to deploy nuclear arms.

The report was commissioned by Andrew Marshall, an influential Pentagon adviser who was responsible for recommending sweeping changes to the US military under Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. The authors were Peter Schwartz, CIA consultant and former head of planning at Royal Dutch/Shell Group, and Doug Randall of the California-based Global Business Network.

Major European cities could be submerged by the rise in ocean levels, while Britain could find itself freezing in Siberian weather by 2020.  This betrays the Pentagon’s lack of concern for coastal cities in developing countries, which are much more populous and whose residents are too poor to withstand the impact of climate change.

The report grimly concludes that, “Disruption and conflict will be endemic features of life. Once again, warfare would define human life.”  The authors believe that climate change should not be relegated to a scientific debate – President Bush has for quite some time even denied its existence – but raised to a national security concern.

The former head of the Meteorological Office in the US , Sir John Houghton, who was the first to draw the parallel between climate change and the threat from terrorism, said: “If the Pentagon is sending out that sort of message, then this is an important document indeed.”

According to Bob Watson, the former American head of the Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change, which represents 2,500 scientists from around the world and is the most authoritative source on global warming, President Bush would have to act on this report, because the two groups the administration listens to are the Pentagon and the oil lobby.

The US government has already embarked on a damage limitation exercise. In early March, the State Department's Paula Dobriansky told the Federation of Austrian Industry in Vienna that the administration was "fully committed to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and shares its ultimate objective of stabilizing greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that will prevent dangerous human interference with the climate."

Doug Randall told The Observer that the national security threat posed by climate change was unique because “there is no enemy to point your guns at”.  He believed that the consequences for some nations would be “unbelievable” and recommended a reduction in the consumption of fossil fuels as inevitable.

Darryl D’Monte is the founder President of the International Federation of Environmental Journalists and is serving a second term until 2003. He is also the Chairperson of the Forum of Environmental Journalists of India (FEJI) and a syndicated columnist and freelance writer. He has published two books: “ Temples or Tombs? Industry versus Environment: Three Controversies”, Center for Science & Environment, New Delhi , 1985 and “Ripping the Fabric: The Decline of Mumbai and its Mills”, Oxford University Press, New Delhi , 2002. He was previously the Resident Editor of the “Indian Express” (1979-1981) and of the “Times of India ” (1988-1994) in Mumbai. Your emails will be forwarded to him by contacting the editor at: ScienceTech@islam-online.net

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