Climate change

500 Million People Will Be Displaced By Glaciers Melting In Greenland And The Himalayas

Forbes

6 September, 2011

The Greenland glaciers are very nearly melted altogether, reports Robert Purves, an Australian environmental consultant and board member of World Wildlife Fund Intl., whom I met last week in Lake Louise, Alberta, one of the wonders of the world and on the UNESCO list of protected places.  Purves had just tramped all over Greenland’s glacier area for 2 weeks before  touring the Canadian glacier area such as the Columbia Ice Field close by which includes 12 massive glaciers, and supplies 65% of Canada’s water supply.

Purves, a no-nonsense, matter-of-fact former entrepreneur in Australia, told me that the  sea around Greenland is so warm that up to 100 new species of fish have been found recently. “Greenland is at risk, “Purves warned me,” and the result will eventually be a rise in the sea’s level of 9 feet to 15 feet,” a change he believes could  ultimately very well threaten New York City. “We are playing with the climate,” Purves believes, in such a dangerous manner that “up to 500 million people around the globe could be displaced.”

Purves is very concerned about the glaciers in the Himalayan mountains that  are the main source of water for irrigation and drinking in China and India, well over 2 billion people. These glaciers have always acted  as a huge reservoir for the rivers running into India and China, where political tensions are already causing serious worries for the nation of India. The ice fields in the Himalayan mountains  have receded to 50% of their breadth and depth in the 1980s, according to the Australian environmentalist.

The expectation that the world’s population could rise 2 billion people to 9 billion– with 1 billion of the additional population in Africa, is terribly worrisome. It’s one thing to have  acquifiers in Greenland– with a tiny population– that are 1.6 miles deep- and the dry desert areas of sub-Saharan  areas where rainfall is necessary for water, and droughts can be most punishing.

“The globe’s reservoir of glaciers is retreating rapidly,” Purves told me last week at our hotel in Lake Louise. For example, he tells me “the ice in the Arctic have been reduced by 50%; the heat is going into t he sea and changing the temperatures  of the water by 4-5%.”

Purves, the chairman of Environmental Business Australia, has tried to alert  the important CEOs down under to the danger, but only Marcus Kloppers of BHP Billiton has responded positively. “The chairmen of the other Australian companies believe the discussion of climate change is equivalent to “attacking their life’s work,” Purves told me. He’s not optimistic  about breaking down this visceral reaction.