035 Save for Someone's Summer
Hey Glacier, you hold the winter's snow and give it back as meltwater in the hot, dry months, when the rivers need it most.
Do we save anything for somebody else's dry season?
Do you save anything for somebody else's dry season?
High in the Himalayas, under the winter sky, snow falls and falls and does not melt. Year after year, it packs into ice.
Months later and hundreds of kilometres away, in the heat of summer, a farmer opens a canal and river water flows into his field.
What really happens
Glaciers store snow from cold seasons as ice.
In the hot, dry months, they melt and release that water into rivers, just when the plains below need it most. Many rivers of North India depend on this meltwater.
How we know: Glaciologists study how Himalayan glaciers feed rivers such as the Ganga and Indus; many glaciers are now shrinking as the climate warms.
The turn
We often think about saving for ourselves.
The glacier saves for others: people it will never meet, in a season far away.
Three takeaways
- Some of the best saving is for others.
- What we store today can be someone else's water tomorrow.
- Plenty is the time to prepare for someone else's drought.
Hold the winter. Give it back in the summer.
The wealth of men who love the 'fitting way,' the truly wise, / Is as when water fills the lake that village needs supplies.