SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Submitted via IRC for Bytram
The world has a third pole – and it's melting quickly
Khawa Karpo lies at the world's "third pole". This is how glaciologists refer to the Tibetan plateau, home to the vast Hindu Kush-Himalaya ice sheet, because it contains the largest amount of snow and ice after the Arctic and Antarctic – the Chinese glaciers alone account for an estimated 14.5% of the global total. However, a quarter of its ice has been lost since 1970. This month, in a long-awaited special report on the cryosphere by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), scientists will warn that up to two-thirds of the region's remaining glaciers are on track to disappear by the end of the century. It is expected a third of the ice will be lost in that time even if the internationally agreed target of limiting global warming by 1.5C above pre-industrial levels is adhered to.
Whether we are Buddhists or not, our lives affect, and are affected by, these tropical glaciers that span eight countries. This frozen "water tower of Asia" is the source of 10 of the world's largest rivers, including the Ganges, Brahmaputra, Yellow, Mekong and Indus, whose flows support at least 1.6 billion people directly – in drinking water, agriculture, hydropower and livelihoods – and many more indirectly, in buying a T-shirt made from cotton grown in China, for example, or rice from India.
Joseph Shea, a glaciologist at the University of Northern British Columbia, calls the loss "depressing and fear-inducing. It changes the nature of the mountains in a very visible and profound way."
Yet the fast-changing conditions at the third pole have not received the same attention as those at the north and south poles. The IPCC's fourth assessment report in 2007 contained the erroneous prediction that all Himalayan glaciers would be gone by 2035. This statement turned out to have been based on anecdote rather than scientific evidence and, perhaps out of embarrassment, the third pole has been given less attention in subsequent IPCC reports.
(Score: 3, Informative) by janrinok on Thursday September 19 2019, @06:05PM (1 child)
How long is a piece of string? Even the law is imprecise on how much is fair use and how little might be viewed as plagiarism. The short answer is that you needn't worry about it. SN is responsible for ensuring that the stories that we publish comply with our understanding of the law. The job is actually the role of the editors and we sometimes disagree with just how much we can publish. When we have such discussion we usually, in fact almost always, tend to err on the side of caution. We have not had a an instance of 'pushing the boundary' for at least 3 years to the best of my recollection.
What we require from a submission is an interesting article that is usually based on something published by someone else. In this way we are reporting what somebody else has reported - if they have made an error then we are not legally liable for any of the consequences. We are merely pointing out what somebody has said and. as long as we can prove it by quoting the source reference, then we think that we are OK.
When we receive a submission we all have our individual ways of processing them. But, they always contain the following elements. We compare the source with the submission - you might be surprised to hear that we have had, on occasion, a submission that intentionally misquotes a source in the hope that it is published. We have to make a judgement on how much of the source is quoted. In most cases this is relatively easy to assess but, as I have said, we do sometimes have differences of opinion. Every story should be viewed by at least 2 editors to prevent any one editor from pushing his/her own personal views rather than reporting what is actually being said by the source, and to ensure that we are not publishing more than could be described as 'fair use'. And we also get on with the usual tasks associated with editing. This probably also explains why we repeatedly stress that multiple editors read every submission.
If, however, the submission is not one that we feel justifies publication it might be rejected and, if the submitter is not an AC, we might suggest that it be placed in the submitter's journal. We are not responsible for the content of journals and we hope that we have made this clear.
So, make your submissions, and don't worry. Most times you will be within what is considered acceptable. If not, we are happy to adjust it and to help with formatting etc - after all, that is our role. Follow the submission guidelines and remember to keep your personal views separate from the factual report. You can always express your own opinion in the comments later, which is where your views should be.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 19 2019, @09:36PM
Thanks for explaining.