Green | April 27, 2008 | 6 comments

Town in the Andes faces crisis as glaciers melt

source: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/04/23/MNSDVIN7E.DTL

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JanforGore
An abandoned alpine lodge is all that remains of Bolivia's renowned Chacaltaya ski resort, the world's highest at 17,388 feet above sea level. Today, the expansive 150-foot thick glacier, which once attracted thousands of tourists, has been reduced to a lone patch of ice about 9-feet deep, visited only by gawkers and concerned scientists.

Throughout the Andean mountain range, high altitude glaciers are melting faster, altering eco-systems, and turning countries such as Peru, Ecuador and Bolivia into test cases for climate change. The U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warns that rising temperatures could melt most of Latin America's glaciers by 2022. And as temperatures rise, some experts predict the disappearing glaciers will create water shortages and social unrest.

Edson Ramirez, a hydrologist at San Andres University in La Paz, predicts the Tuni-Condoriri glacier system - which includes Chacaltaya - will be gone within 20 to 30 years.

"There's no doubt we're facing a crisis," he said. "And what's worse, we simply don't have the capacity to deal with it."

The effect of diminishing glaciers is most evident in El Alto, an indigenous community of 800,000 people perched above the capital of La Paz. Waves of mostly Aymara immigrants - the satellite city is growing at between 5 percent and 10 percent a year - arrive daily, fleeing the poverty of their native highlands. With the disappearance of glacial water supplies and a decrepit and poorly managed water company, the city could soon suffer a severe water shortage, experts say.
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6 comments // Town in the Andes faces crisis as glaciers melt

  • johnlocke
    • 0
      johnlocke  

    • we here i America coul learn from this by developing more efficient ways to clean the waters we are polluting to ensure what water is left is still ptable and available to humans as well as nature's animals

    • 4 years ago
  • JanforGore
    • 0
      JanforGore  

    • It is not so much about the "tourists" as it is about the RESIDENTS and the glacier and its warning to the planet which is experiencing this on a global basis. That is the trouble with skeptics... their vision is very much tunnelled. And it does also go back to moral will which seems to be lacking on a global scale as well. That is really the big picture here. Did you find me defending tourists here? So why are you interjecting something into this that isn't there? Water scarcity and glacier melt is a worldwide crisis now which this plainly shows. And yes we do need to plan for the future, which is why I post these items.

    • 4 years ago
  • JanforGore
  • huntre
    • 0
      huntre  

    • I love JanforGore.
      In an Eco-Friendly way, of course.
      She covers this worldwide catastrophe with great passion and true sense of purpose.
      I learn much from her posts.

    • 4 years ago
  • JanforGore
  • JanforGore
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