Rapid melting of high mountain glaciers is jeopardizing livelihoods as well as global food supplies, according to a new report released by the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP).
The report notes that South American and Alaskan glaciers are among the most rapidly melting, followed by North America, then Asia. As approximately 50% of the world's population inhabits watersheds of major rivers originating in high-altitude glaciers and snow, this accelerating melt rate is posing widespread threats to social stability and food supplies.
UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner stated, “Changes in the intensity and timing of rains, added to variable snow and glacier melt will increasingly challenge food security and the livelihoods of the most vulnerable… This report underlines a global trend, observed over many decades now in some parts of the globe, which has short and long- term implications for considerable numbers of people.”
Our thanks, Executive Director Steiner and United Nations Environment Program, for alerting us to the potentially severe survival-related ramifications of climate change. We pray this information is understood and catastrophe avoided as people rapidly adopt the planet-saving vegan solution.
During an August 2010 teleconference with Supreme Master Television staff in Los Angeles, California, USA, Supreme Master Ching Hai urged for both physical and spiritual efforts to minimize the calamities of climate change and save lives.
Supreme Master Ching Hai : You see disaster more and more all the time now. Yes? Shortage of food, shortage of water, disasters everywhere; people are suffering so much, so much that you could not even bear to think about it even.
Right now we need to meditate more, everybody, to purify the Earth's atmosphere and to elevate the people and the beings on this planet, so that there is less suffering, more enlightening and more security, more goodness and benefits to everybody. It's very important right now, more than ever.
If people turned to veganism this time, it's to save the planet. That means to save lives, not only animals' lives, but the Earth's life and the humans' lives, billions of us.
http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=36983&Cr=climate+change&Cr1=ID:295046 http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900sid/VVOS-8BWRCZ?OpenDocumentID:294728http://www.france24.com/en/20101207-un-warns-glacier-meltdown