Green Daily

Hey, guess what? More bad news about global warming. According to the World Glacier Monitoring Service, there is "extremely strong" evidence that glaciers around the world are melting at a faster rate than anytime in the last 5000 years. Experts who've been watching 30 glaciers since the 1970's say that the most recent data (2006) show the largest loss of ice ever, with the melt rate tripling between 2000 and 2006 alone.

Glaciers are scenic but cold and inhospitable to human life; not the kind of place you'd want build a subdivision - that's not why this sucks so much. Turns out that the annual glacier melt is the source of much of the water that humans use to drink and grow crops, and without it, we're looking at some mighty dry years. The problem will be particularly pressing in areas of China and India, where more than 700 milllion people rely on crops irrigated by glacier runoff. With food shortages already looming, the report is especially unwelcome news.

Just this week European Union leaders warned of the likelihood of millions of environmental refugees seeking new homes as a result of drought and other consequences of climate change.

There are stopgap measures - this week Peru announced plans to begin desalinating seawater to replace supplies of fresh water from dwindling glaciers. While technologies like this are part of the solution, desalination is an expensive and energy-intensive process, and neither practical nor affordable on the scale that will likely be necessary.

The real answer? Reduce your emissions, folks.