The Ice Builders (or How to Create your own Glacier)

In the Himalayan mountains of Northern India, life has never been easy.  However, there are new pressures on the traditional life of the Zanskar valley, coming from external sources. As the narrator of The Ice Builders says, the Tibetans are “the first victims of climate changes” but adds “very soon, you will all be victims too.” This is said in a very matter-of-fact way and not as a threat – but something inevitable.

The people of Zanskar, part of the Ladakh region, depended on the glaciers, at the bottom of which they built their villages.  Over the past 15 years, however, the local people have been forced to not count on the presence of the glaciers for their water anymore.  They have disappeared.  This film, directed by Francesco Clerici and Tommaso Barbaro focuses on how the Ladakhi people (particularly Sonam Wangchuk – activist and engineer) have responded to this.

The solution has not been to give up, pack their bags and move away. Stories from the past inspired these people to build artificial glaciers. Of course, the methods used to create them had been lost to time so today’s Ladakhi have had to reinvent the wheel, as such.   Using modern science, Wangchuk’s solution has been to create what he calls “stupas of ice”.  And they are spectacular.

Watch the video below – a testament to human ingenuity in the face of adversity.

Eskimal

Eskimal and his seal friend Morsa live on the great glacier.  Yet the impact of industrialization is having a profound effect on their habitat.  Can the two save their world? Created by Homero Ramirez and his team this animated short shows the impact that our over population and dash for resources at whatever cost is having on our planet, particularly for those who still live effectively carbon neutral lives.

Climate Change – Are We Bothered?

The journal Nature Climate Change has today published new research about the threat of global warming. They call a lack of international will the main reason that bringing global warming under control may be slipping out of reach. In other words, we as a species cannot be really bothered about doing something collectively about this issue.

The industrialized nations need to institute a swift cut in their emissions if we want global temperatures to remain at less than 2C higher than before we discovered oil and steam power. The target had been previously agreed at the 2009 UN conference in Denmark. However, this target now seems unlikely to be met because we simply cannot organise ourselves on a global basis.

Another study in the same journal suggests that this threshold may well be crossed within thirty years and places the date between 2040 and 2060. That is, of course, if we haven’t bred ourselves out of existence by then – and pushed other species out of the way by so doing.

That brings me to these amazing pictures by artist David Blackwell who draws attention to the plight of these species in a way that a thousand words could not. Perhaps some international environmental agency could ask him if they could use these – it might help, even just a little.

Sayonara

Global warming has taken its toll and all that seems to be left of dry land is a tiny, tiny island. Upon it two strange friends come to terms with their respective fates and say good bye to each other.

This rather special animation was made by Eric Bates while he was studying at the Kyoto University of Art and Design. As a result the Japanese influence bleeds through every cell of this animation and as a whole it relates to Bates’ experiences of his time in Japan.

As a not, keep watching after the credits – it has a little coda which might cheer you up!