The Chill Sets In

Seventy-five per cent of the worlds fresh water is stored in glaciers and scientists predict climate change will cause some of the largest glaciers to melt completely by 2030.

A filmmaker highlights the plight of the Himalayan glaciers

Seventy-five per cent of the worlds fresh water is stored in glaciers and scientists predict climate change will cause some of the largest glaciers to melt completely by 2030. What effect will this have on our daily lives? It was this question that drove Delhi-based documentary filmmaker Rohit Gandhi,38,to trek to the glaciers of Northeast India and Gomukh in the Northern Himalayas last June. Most of the glaciers have been severely damaged and they will not last for more than 20-30 years, says Gandhi. The trek fuelled his latest documentary,On Thin Ice,which explores how climate change will affect the global population. The one-hour film premiered on PBS in the US on Monday,and Gandhi hopes for an all-India release later this summer.

With help from S.I. Hasnain,the chief glaciologist of the Sikkim Commission,Gandhi trekked the length and breadth of the Rathong glacier that starts somewhere between Nepal and Bhutan.

Using maps,we traced the shift of glaciers and assessed the amount of damage caused to them, says Gandhi,who later travelled to Gomukh and saw the same situation unfold there. If your share price goes up or down,it affects only a select few. But if Delhis temperature goes up 5 degree Celsius in the summer,we will all be hurting, says Gandhi,who has made three other documentaries on the environment in the past,apart from the Emmy-nominated Who Cares About Girls.

This January,his film about Kabul and the environment was screened at the UN governing council.

Currently,Gandhi is headed back to Afghanistan where he is shooting a documentary on the social life of the Afghan people. As a case study,Afghanistan contains every issue you want to talk about. If we want to bring peace in the world,we cannot ignore Afghanistan in its entirety, he says.

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The Chill Sets In

Seventy-five per cent of the worlds fresh water is stored in glaciers and scientists predict climate change will cause some of the largest glaciers to melt completely by 2030.

Seventy-five per cent of the worlds fresh water is stored in glaciers and scientists predict climate change will cause some of the largest glaciers to melt completely by 2030.