The Last Snows Of Kilimanjaro - BBC

[hatrack]

EDIT

Kilimanjaro, literally the "mountain of snow" is a place where God was said to live, a provider of water for the local Chagga people and, today, the single largest source of tourist dollars in a struggling economy. But the ice is melting and once it is gone there is a real concern that the 20,000 tourists who come to climb the mountain each year will be gone too. After all a mountain without snow in Africa is just another mountain.

The exact reasons for the glacier's shrinkage are not known but deforestation and global warming are commonly blamed.

Phil Ndesamburo, the MP for the area, remembers the mountain of his childhood covered in snow. Now in his seventies, Phil shared his concerns for the future. "Without this mountain we cannot live. It provides water for the coffee and banana plantations at the base of the mountain and without water there is no life," he said.

EDIT

Professor Lonnie Thompson, a glaciologist at Ohio State University has been studying the ice cores his team took from the mountain in 2000. The cores are a frozen archive with 12,000 years of climatic history locked in the ice. His research shows that over 80% of the ice cover has been lost since 1912, and given the current rate of decline he predicts that the glacier will be gone completely in the next 15 years."

EDIT

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4362561.stm

[MikeG]

1. Kick

[Strelnikov_]

2. Idiot GOP'er Ros-Lehtinen Has No Idea Of Significance

On Maher last night he displayed historic and current pictures of Mt. Kilimanjaro to show how the 'Snows of Kilimanjaro' are no more.

The GOP idiot asks "Why don't you show the picture of the volcano in Hawaii or Mt. St. Helens, why are you just showing . . . global warming here but not global warming there?"

Then Maher had to explain that Kilimanjaro has had snow for 11,000 years +.

What do these idiots have against admitting that there is global warming. Are they afraid that if the curtain is pulled back on one of their charades, the whole house of cards will come crashing down.

[Wilms]

3. A Freeper (otherwise nice guy, really)...

...deadpans, "It's a volcano. The ground is getting warm and melting the snow." Said he heard it on CNN.

Perhaps Jesus can get through to them. :shrug: