Causecast

by JEFF FOSTER, Stand-Up Comedian and Editor of TheLean.org

For most of us, global warming is something we basically have to take sitting down. Sure, it’s important to use energy-efficient appliances, take the bus, and bring your own shopping bag, but we always wonder just how much of an impact installing one fluorescent light bulb will make, and the effort may feel futile sometimes. We do what we can, but we never know if our collective effort will actually make a meaningful impact.

Well, most of us don’t, anyway. Chewang Norphel, a 76 year old civil engineer in India, wanted to make sure he saw a positive difference in his lifetime, so he figured out a way to replace some of the rapidly melting Himalayan glaciers, which are heavily relied upon for runoff during the growing season and feed the region’s most important rivers. Global warming has caused a noticeable increase in their depletion rate, which has been tied to a rise in the occurrence of devastating floods.

Norphel has already created 12 new glaciers by using a pipe system to divert melting glacier water into areas shaded from direct sunlight by mountains, where it remains frozen throughout the winter and melts into the river system in the spring.

Despite some limited financial support and recognition from the Indian government, Norphel must rely on local villagers to continue his work after his death, so he has created training CDs to pass on his knowledge.

A year after his retirement, Norphel became Watershed Development Project Manager for Leh Nutrition Project, a non-governmental organization that addresses the irrigation crisis currently facing the Ladakh region, which receives only about 50 mm of rainfall per year.

Unilateral glacier-building may not be up everyone’s avenue, but we can all do a little more than slap an "At Least the War on the Environment is Going Well" bumper sticker on our Hummer. In fact, reforestation is a hot area to volunteer in right now. Since forests absorb carbon and release oxygen, they are an essential defense against global warming. Check out VolunteerMatch for opportunities.

You can also make your voice heard. Greenpeace is circulating a massive petition asking world leaders to make an effective global climate treaty at the 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen. Sign it!

Photo by wildxplorer, flickr.