Life would change without glaciers, but nature would survive

Deutsche Welle has made a short film that tries to answer the question: can we survive without glaciers? The answer is just about.

Casablanca and Dubai would be flooded. Mumbai would be under water. But humanity could find alternatives to glaciers as water stores (more dams) and rivers as transport routes (more railways).

South-to-north migration would accelerate and expanding populations would have to co-exist on a shrunken landmass, but at 2 degrees of warming above pre-industrial levels people – and some glaciers – would survive. At 5-8 degrees all glaciation would be gone, including the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets. Then sea levels would rise by 50 metres.

Not coincidentally, the International Court of Justice ends two weeks’ deliberation tomorrow on the obligations of states to fight climate change. It will send an advisory opinion to the UN next year