The long lines forming (and long wait times) at the cable ride of Jade Dragon Snow Mountain is more proof that China's middle class is growing, getting flush with extra cash, and using it to see the world.But with economic prosperity comes increased concentrations of heat-trapping greenhouse gases. Worldwide average atmospheric temperature rise and diminished monsoonal rains are causing Asian glacial ice to melt and retreat.
According to China expert Orville Schell, Baishui Glacier No. 1 on the flanks of Jade Dragon Snow Mountain has receded more than 800 feet in two decades. It is also visibly dirty from aerosols spewed by wood and coal burning in surrounding Lijiang County.
The Chinese tourists are mostly educated and aware of what's happening, but few seem overly concerned about the future of their mountain glaciers which have existed for thousands of years. One woman told me, "we have more." After all, there are an estimated 18,000 more glaciers in the Tibetan-Himalayan region, all feeding rivers as diverse as the Irrawaddy, Mekong, Yellow, and Yangtze.
But facts and projections are scary. One Chinese glaciologist says at the current rates of above average temperatures, warming and melting, two-thirds of the region's glaciers could be gone by 2050.
This is no minor development for what's called "The Third Pole," the perennial Asian land ice that ranks in size behind the Arctic and Antarctica. As many as two billion users rely on water that originates from The Third Pole and they could be fighting scarcity wars in the coming decades.
What struck me as a cavalier attitude by the woman from Shanghai actually reflects a realistic calibration of personal and national culpability in the crisis of climate change. That's because while Chinese factories and coal plants are churning out huge volumes of carbon dioxide emissions (driven by U.S. and European demand for Chinese products), the present crisis is the cumulative legacy of the industrializing West.
It's not too far off to suggest that the current crisis might bear the label "Made in the U.S.A."
Check out Orville Schell's piece:
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