| Each day this week, The New Yorker is publishing new articles in Bottlenecks, a special issue about must-solve problems in the fight against climate change. As environmentalists, scientists, and policymakers race to keep the planet habitable, a key area of concern is ice, including glaciers, which can unleash immense destructive power as they melt. In “A Heat Shield for the Most Important Ice on Earth,” Rachel Riederer explores efforts to keep Arctic ice frozen by coating it with tiny glass bubbles. It’s a promising plan in theory, she writes, but one that also risks serious unintended consequences. In 2016, the staff writer Dexter Filkins published “The End of Ice,” for which he travelled to Chhota Shigri, a glacier that makes a return appearance in Riederer’s piece. Situated on the Indian side of the Himalayas, Chhota Shigri could provide climatologists with significant data about the speed and impact of climate change—but it was also, one scientist said at the time, part of an informational “black hole,” owing to a lack of research funding and other obstacles. As Filkins follows a team of glaciologists up the mountain range and onto the glacier, he documents the challenges faced by the researchers, and how the fate of Chhota Shigri affects and intersects with that of the planet. At one point, the glaciologist Farooq Azam, a former bodybuilding champion, recounts getting disoriented and lost on a previous trip to the formation. “What I learned,” he tells Filkins, “was nature is always stronger.” | 
No comments:
Post a Comment