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Rising Temperatures Could Melt Most Himalayan Glaciers By 2100 (nationalgeographic.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The New York Times: Rising temperatures in the Himalayas, home to most of the world's tallest mountains, will melt at least one-third of the region's glaciers by the end of the century (Warning: source may be paywalled; alternative source) even if the world's most ambitious climate change targets are met, according to a report released Monday. If those goals are not achieved, and global warming and greenhouse gas emissions continue at their current rates, the Himalayas could lose two-thirds of its glaciers by 2100, according to the report, the Hindu Kush Himalaya Assessment. Under those more dire circumstances, the Himalayas could heat up by 8 degrees Fahrenheit (4.4 degrees Celsius) by century's end, bringing radical disruptions to food and water supplies, and mass population displacement. Glaciers in the Hindu Kush Himalayan Region, which spans over 2,000 miles of Asia, provide water resources to around a quarter of the world's population. One of the most complete studies on mountain warming, the Hindu Kush Himalaya Assessment was put together over five years by 210 authors. The report includes input from more than 350 researchers and policymakers from 22 countries.
Glaciers in the Hindu Kush Himalayan Region, which spans over 2,000 miles of Asia, provide water resources to around a quarter of the world's population.
A lot of Westerners wonder why India and China have such large populations. It's because of the Tibetan Plateau and Himalayas. Moist air flowing off the Indian Ocean gets pushed up into the atmosphere by the mountains, condenses, falls as snow, then melts as runoff to feed the Yellow and Yangtze rivers in China, and the Ganges, Indus, and Brahmaputra Rivers of the Indian subcontinent. These river valleys produce the agriculture that feeds and sustains those populations. If the Himalayas suffer, so do they.
But, you'll still need to convince both governments that it's a problem.
Either good science or huge conspiracy...
Given how difficult it is to sustain a huge conspiracy, what does Occam's Razor tell you?
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
... but they won't do nuclear power.
I find it difficult to believe that global warming is any real threat if the governments of the world cannot open a book just once and do some basic research on the solutions.
What is the lowest CO2 energy source available today? Nuclear power.
What is the safest energy source available today? Nuclear power.
What energy source requires the least materials for the most energy produced? Nuclear power.
So... Where's all the nuclear power plants being built to stop global warming?
Any complaints on the cost of nuclear power is nonsense. If global warming is the threat they claim it to be then the governments of the world should not find the expense of nuclear power as any kind of hurdle. I've seen nuclear engineers talk on the costs of building a nuclear power plant any where in the world and the major cost that they run into is regulatory. So, fix the regulations. Do something like France did and decide on one design and spread out the regulatory costs among many of the same design.
The global warming alarmists scream at everyone about how "the science is settled". Yep, I'll go with that, so long as they agree that the science is settled on nuclear power being part of the solution. If these people conclude that nuclear power is a greater threat to humanity than global warming then I conclude that global warming is such a minor threat that I have no reason to believe that I or anyone else need to change anything to avoid it. If there is no nuclear power in our future then I must conclude that there will be no global warming.
Which is it? Do we get nuclear power? Or, is global warming just a hoax? If we can't have nuclear power then I call global warming all a big fat lie. It's just a means to an end to get people to do things that they normally would not agree to do. Well, people would not normally agree to nuclear power. We get nuclear power then the threat goes away and it cannot ever be used as a threat again. I guess they will just have to create another false threat to push people to agreeing to the disagreeable.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
Occam's Razor is a philosophical precept, not a conspiracy.
Troll harder.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
Long-term storage of nuclear waste is a problem that other technologies do not face.
No, long term storage is not a problem. That is a problem that has been solved. What we have are people that fear the non-problem of nuclear waste over that of global warming. If it's the waste problem holding it up then they aren't trying hard enough.
Let's keep an open mind. But open to other alternatives besides nuclear energy.
Why? We have a long history of nuclear being inexpensive, reliable, safe, low carbon, and plentiful. Nearly a century of a history to prove this.
You speak of needing an open mind but you've closed your mind to nuclear power. Hypocrite.
Oh, and I made no call to abandon all but nuclear, only that nuclear must be part of the solution or we may be doomed to fail.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
So why should those governments be concerned, when they will be getting more water - not less?
Because the glaciers act as a reservoir, releasing a steady stream throughout the year. Without glaciers, you get floods and droughts depending on season and weather patterns.
The 'huge conspiracy' is the Dominionist types that poo-poo science, climate science in general, because it does not suit their agenda.
Except that is not what they did. Taking a ruler and drawing a tangent to a curve is drafting not science.
You're taking a second (or third, or worse) hand lay summary of what they did and using that to assume the original science was simply linear extrapolation. That seems pretty unlikely.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
This is nonsense and Slashdot should get its act together.
Why are they publishing a public relations piece? I believe in global warming. It has affected glaciers and will continue to do so, with consequences that are both good and bad. But this supposed scientific report... let's start with "Who are they and where is this published?"
Who are they? We don't know. All we have is the following: "the Hindu Kush Himalaya Assessment was put together over five years by 210 authors. The report includes input from more than 350 researchers and policymakers from 22 countries. " This appears to be the usual self-appointed group of experts. Again, they may be right or wrong- or more likely giving us the "This is horrible" bad news without the offsetting good news (more arable land, etc). Further tracking reveals all the four named authors are all from something called the "International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) Kathmandu Nepal" And who funds this? Good luck...
Where was it published? You follow the links in the article and they all lead to springer.com which says they are "Providing researchers with access to millions of scientific documents from journals, books, series, protocols, reference works and proceedings."
NO! I WANT TO KNOW WHERE IT WAS PUBLISHED. IS THIS A PEER REVIEWED JOURNAL ARTICLE OR NOT? The answer appears to be "not" . At https://link.springer.com/book... we finally get the following: "This open access volume is the first comprehensive assessment of the Hindu Kush Himalaya (HKH) region...". This is the usual non-profit funded PR piece trying to affect public opinion and through it public policy. I may agree with the conclusions or I may not but don't kid yourself, this is propaganda by one side of a policy debate and nothing more.
So thirty minutes of digging on my part yields "This is not science it is partisan BS"
Now back to the original question; Why is Slashdot publishing this? Are the Slashdot moderators and editors who select what appears here incompetent or are they so wound up in the left/liberal, phony moral outrage worldview that all an article has to do is agree with their moral posture to get into Slashdot?
Want to stop global warming? Well first stop flying around the world in jet planes, the biggest per-mile contributor to upper atmosphere pollution. Come on outraged snowflakes, forget the snowboarding trip to Colorado and do your part to save the planet. You are, after all, among the world's biggest polluters of the upper atmosphere. As for me, even knowing, I'll still head for Europe this summer. Dear snowflakes let me make it clear; I'm not claiming to be more moral, more pure than you, just less twitishly pompous.
And dear Slashdot moderators and editors; now could we get back to real news about technology for a change?