MELTDOWN

We hear about pieces of ice the size of continents breaking off of Antarctica rapidly melting glaciers in the Himalayas and ice sheets in the Arctic crumbling to the sea but does it really matter Will melting glaciers change our lives Absolutely Glaciers are built and destroyed during ice ages and interglacial periods These massive ice bodies hold three quarters of our freshwater yet we don t have laws to protect them from climate change When they melt they increase sea levels alter the Earth s reflectivity wreak havoc for ocean and air currents destabilize global ecosystems warm our climate and bring on floods that swamp millions of acres of coastal land The critical ecological role they play to keep our global climate stable and the environmental functions they provide wither And as climate change warms glacier cores collapsing glacier ice triggers tsunamis that send deadly massive ice blocks rocks earth and billions of liters of water rushing down mountain valleys It has happened before in the Himalayas the Central Andes the Rockies and Western Cascades and the European Alps and it will happen again In his new book Meltdown Jorge Daniel Taillant takes readers deeper into the cryosphere connecting the dots between climate change glaci