BBC reports that a "fabled tropical ice field in Africa could disappear in two decades because of climate change, a study says." The article continues, "The Rwenzori Mountains straddle the border between Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda. They are home to one of four remaining tropical ice fields outside the Andes and are renowned for their spectacular and rare plant and animal life."
But what makes this more than just another in such a long stream of melting-ice stories that many of us have become, you should excuse the expression, numb to them is that this particular ice field truly is fabled. As BBC explains, "Their legendary status may stretch back to a reference by the 2nd Century AD Greek geographer Ptolemy, who wrote of snow-capped equatorial peaks that fed the Nile: 'The Mountains of the Moon whose snows feed the lakes, sources of the Nile'.
Some researchers think conceptual maps prepared by Ptolemy are a good fit for the Rwenzori, which feeds Lake Albert, which in turn feeds the White Nile."
Ptolemy. These ice fields were mapped and described by Ptolemy. They'll be gone in a few decades at this rate. It makes me very sad.
2 comments:
The ice fields of the Mountians of the Moon. The great glaciers of Northern Asia. The Arctic ice pack. Glacier National Park.
As I turned 60 this year, I may still see their melting away to near nothing--or nothing.
The effects of the melting of the Northern Asiaa glaciers will affect all the large river systems of Eastern Asia--and result in increasing desertification and large and more frequent sand and dust storms.
Sad--and deadly. What will future generations think of us?
jawbone
Your post above on oil ties nicely into this. The two major contested resources in the next century or so are going to be oil and water. Water probably more so than oil, actually.
Tangentially but relatedly, I ran across an image while searching for something else. Somewhere in Israel, in the midst of what appears to be a desert, there is a sign that says, "This is where the shore of the Dead Sea was in 1967." One can't even see the current shoreline from where the sign is -- all you can see, basically, is sand and salt flat. The equatorial ice fields and great glaciers are melting, the Dead Sea is drying up (in no small part because its watershed has been extensively dammed), and the political consensus is still not accepting climate change?!
(CDN PM Stephen Harper announced that his government is going to defund the Energuide home energy efficiency grant programme, that allowed homeowners to install energy- and water-saving appliances at a subsidised cost. Incidentally, his government scrapped the entire budget for the portion of the programme that provides grants specifically to low-income homeowners. We're also apparently scrapping the Kyoto Protocol, in favour of "voluntary, made-in-Canada solutions." *groan*)
Post a Comment