Because not all of us care about Paulina…

Everyone should know that the human body can only function for a few days without water. That the human body is blah-% water. In other words, water is life. Water is important. However, frozen water is probably even more important.

Glaciers are huge sheets of ice. Similar to the iceberg that we all saw in Titanic, except glaciers reside on land and slowly cut a path through the land they rest upon. They’re remnants of the last ice age, water trapped on land, isolated from the bodies of water they came from. The bodies of water they’d like to return to… Why are they so important?

Currently, most of the glaciers in South America, tropical glaciers, are steadily declining in mass. (As are most of the tropical glaciers around the word.) They’re getting smaller. Which shouldn’t be a big deal, right? After all, they’re just ice, right?

The thing is, that for the people who live near these glaciers, i.e. everyone who doesn’t live in the huge already over-populated big cities of South America, the slow melt of glaciers provides the only source of fresh water. Water used for drinking and for sustaining agriculture. Glaciers have been sustaining life in the valleys of the Andes Mountains for thousands of years, melting in the summers, irrigating the fertile land, and regaining their mass during the winter months. A perfect system.

However, as the Guardian Unlimited reports:
Andean glaciers are melting so fast that some are expected to disappear within 15-25 years, denying major cities water supplies and putting populations and food supplies at risk in Colombia, Peru, Chile, Venezuela, Ecuador, Argentina and Bolivia.

The culprit is a rise in temperature. Global warming.

The end result: this melt will not only effect the Andean populations in South America, but also the large coastal cities such as Lima and Santiago de Chile. Less water, coupled with the daily contamination of Andes from mining, such as this gold mining project taking place on the Chilean/Argentine border–a project that involves the removal of three glaciers–could lead to an extinction of our Andean peoples, and even denser populations in the big cities. The latter which would result in even poorer living conditions in our big cities. (As if the slums could get any worse.)

It’s up to us to do something about this. Less electricity. Less air conditioning. Walk some more. Plant those trees. Plant wheatgrass on your windowsill. Write to your congresspeople, your president. Buy less gold. The valleys of the Andes Mountains are worth it.

Image via / Lee Chai ©2004 (Siula Glacier / Perú)
News via / BBC News and The Guardian Unlimited and The International Press Service News Agency