The world’s glaciers are melting faster [ark | more\ark] than any time in the past 5,000 years as a result of global heating. Huge population centers, particularly in South Asia and Latin America, depend upon glacial fed water sources [search]. As these glaciers melt we can expect hundreds of millions of people to be threatened with drying water sources, rising seas, failing crops, mass migration and resulting conflict.

Ecosystems [search] matter. To speak of economics, energy policy or other aspect of human endeavour is totally meaningless without them. Natural habitats and their ecosystems [search] provide not only water — but also soil, pollinators, carbon storage and many other processes — upon which life depends.

Loss of glaciers as a result of climate change is going to devastate river systems and their attendant watersheds and ecosystems. We have entered a vicious cycle where ecosystems are destroyed for resources, causing climate change, which results in more ecosystem destruction and so forth. To speak of additional resource utilization from dwindling ecosystems — such as biofuels from trees — is remarkably disconnected from what ecological science tells us regarding how the Earth System [search] works and threat it faces.