New UN Film: Revealed: The Himalayan Meltdown

The glaciers on the top of Mt. Everest are not yet melting, but the glaciers on his lower slopes are.

FCCT. Bangkok, Thailand. May 10, 2011. If anyone thinks that the deleterious effects of global warming are in the future, or that there's little current evidence of this tragic phenomenon, I suggest that they may want to watch a new 45-minute documentary film produced by the United Nations Development Programme titled "Revealed: The Himalayan Meltdown." Even if one has no interest in the subject, this film is a gorgeous travelogue of areas of Bhutan, China, India, Nepal and Bangladesh, all countries within the Himalayan Mountain Range.

The purpose of the film, as explained after its showing by two UNDP officials, was to put a human face on the effects of global warming on the lives of Asians who depend upon the Himalayan’s to sustain human live. It is not a film to make a case about the causes of global warming, because the only people left in the world who doubt that greenhouse gases are causing global warming, are American politicians and their so-called "bases." Nonetheless, rather than talking about "global warming," the film talks about "climate change," perhaps a more diplomatic phrase.

For me, the most telling and dramatic parts of the documentary were comparisons of photos from as far back as 80 and 50 years ago, with photos of those same areas today (this technique used by scientists is known as point-to-point comparisons), and you don’t need to be a scientist to see how the glaciers have disappeared. At the same time, the formation of 30,000 brand new lakes, some of those massive, created from the runoff from the melting glaciers, is yet more dramatic evidence of what is happening.

As for me, I've long-ago abandoned at hope that global warming will be stopped by joint political action of the nations of the world; in fact, because greenhouse gases remain in the atmosphere for decades, even if all new pollutants were ceased today, it would take several generations for mankind to benefit, an indication of how much damage we've already done. So, my belief is that our main efforts have to turn to adaptation, and this film shows several pilot projects that are demonstrating how affected people in Asia are mitigating the effects of climate change, such as constructing artificial glaciers (if you can believe it) and collecting drinking water from fog.

The film is now airing throughout Asia on the Discovery Channel. It will most likely be shown on cable TV in the US, also. It is worth watching. Look for the title: “Revealed: The Himalayan Meltdown”

(Picture Above)) Gernot Laganda (left) from the UNDA Asia-Pacific Reginal Centre in Bangkok; Martin Krause (right) UNDA Regional Climate, Environment and Energy team leader