TIBETAN SHEPHERDS WELCOME CLIMATE CHANGE
Global warming is melting the snows and glaciers — and the peasant farmers of the Tibetan plateau are delighted.
While much of the world worries about the impact of climate change, for these hardy Himalayan shepherds, battling the elements in the world's highest mountains, a gentler climate can only be good news.
"Yes, it's definitely getting warmer," said Tsawang Dumi, 56, a Tibetan shepherd watching over a flock of 60 sheep and goats amid the winter snows of a Himalayan hillside. "Fewer animals died of the cold this winter."
Mr Tsawang lives on the side of the 23,600ft massif of Nozing Kangtsang, between the Tibetan capital Lhasa and Mount Everest to the south.
The glacier that falls from its peak has shrunk by nine per cent in recent years.
But as he surveys the dazzling peaks surrounding him and counts his flock, it is hard to persuade Mr Tsawang that this is a problem. "Things are getting better and better," he said. So far this year I have only lost seven sheep."
"I have heard of global warming, though I don't really understand what it means," said Tashi, 30, another shepherd, watching his sheep lower down the mountainside.
alfiesmum
I don't know if it has anthing to do with global warming, but we had a mini earthquake last night ( about 2.3 on the riochter scale) beside a road about 7 kilometers from the house.
The house shook like crazy - we thought at first a plane had crashed into one of the hills. Are we such an insignifant point on the map, that there was absolutely nothing on the news (not even the Scottish news) about our earth tremor?
Or does such thing happen so often that it doesn't rate a mention?