Glacier threat to Bolivia capital

[Judi Lynn]

Source: BBC News

Page last updated at 12:02 GMT, Friday, 4 December 2009
Glacier threat to Bolivia capital
By David Shukman
Environment correspondent, BBC News, La Paz, Bolivia

Vanishing glaciers imperil La Paz

Fears are growing for the future of water supplies in one of Latin America's fastest-growing urban areas - Bolivia's sprawling capital of La Paz and its twin El Alto.

Scientists monitoring the glaciers high in the Andes mountains - a key source of water - say the ice is showing signs of shrinking faster than previously forecast.

Faced with a booming population and a combination of glacial retreat and reduced rainfall, the governor of the La Paz region is even contemplating moving people to other parts of Bolivia.

Water is already in short supply among the poorest communities and has become a cause of tension.

Read more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8394324.stm

[Shadrach]

1. This has been a fear for a while

I wonder what all the climate change deniers have to say about this.

[clear eye]

2. Those jerks don't deny climate change,

they just say people have nothing to do w/ it.

[Peace Patriot]

3. "Water...a cause of tension." Bechtel Corp was the cause of the "tension"-massive protests-

in 2000--when they privatized the water in Cochabamba, in collusion with the rich elite who were then in power, and then started raising the price of water to the poorest of the poor, even charging poor peasants for collecting rainwater! Indeed, Betchtel's radical corpo-fascist troublemaking and profiteering was one of the major issues of the pueblo organizing to throw out the rightwing government and elect Evo Morales.

http://wapedia.mobi/en/2000_Cochabamba_protests
http://www.democracyctr.org/bolivia/investigations/water/the_water_war.htm

The second link above is an excellent narrative of "the water wars" in Bolivia, by an insider. As one adviser to the community says, "The revolt over water was a revolt over everything." Water was the spark. The revolt was against all manner of US global corporate predator interference in Bolivia--the World Bank/IMF, and other corps out to strip Bolivia of its public services and its resources and to further impoverish its people to enrich the super-rich. Bechtel was charging $20 a month for water to families making $60 a month in total wages! The results of this "war" not only changed Bolivia forever--with the election of the first indigenous president of Bolivia (a largely indigenous country), a man with the stature and vision of Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela--it inspired a worldwide revolt against "neo-liberalism." Bechtel was thrown out of Bolivia by the citizens of Bolivia--indeed by its poorest citizens, through their courage, organization, solidarity and persistence.

How very bitterly ironical that Bolivians, having won their independence from the industrial powers of the world who have polluted our planet so seriously that the glaciers are melting, and having suffered extreme poverty and violence from those same powers, would now suffer this, in the midst of their new-won control of their own resources.

[stevedeshazer]

9. Excellent post

:)

[amborin]

4. yes,and i think lake titicaca is receding. very scary!

[Uncle Joe]

5. Kicked and recommended

Thanks for the thread, Judi Lynn.

[Judi Lynn]

7. Thank you for your posts, Uncle Joe. n/t

[Uncle Joe]

6. Kicked for the night crowd, the video is well worth watching.

This is another canary in the coal mine.

[malaise]

8. Another kick

Important thread

[slipslidingaway]

10. knr nt