-Newsclick.in Slope destabilisation, soil erosion and sequestered carbon loss have increased, according to Ravi Chopra. Noted Dehradun-based environmentalist Ravi Chopra recently resigned as the chairman of the Supreme Court (SC)-appointed High Powered Committee (HPC) overseeing the environmental impact of the Narendra Modi government’s Rs 12,000 crore 889-km Char Dham highway widening project in Uttarakhand.  The Char Dham project, one of the largest road-widening projects in the Himalayan region, intends to connect the four...

-TheThirdPole.net A new study suggests that Himalayan glaciers may be melting even during winter, when they were previously believed to remain stable In late winter 2020, glaciologist Sudip Thakuri visited Kalinchowk, a peak in the Himalayas around 144 km west of Kathmandu. He was surprised by what he saw. The destination, popular among Kathmandu residents seeking a sight of snow-covered mountains, wasn’t as thickly blanketed in white as in previous years. Later...

-TheNewsMinute.com Experts say that the narrative that a country must choose between environment and development itself is wrong. Merely days after the fatal landslide in Kerala’s Pettimudi in Idukki district in August last year, the spotlight was back on the Gadgil report on the Western Ghats. The report, submitted to the government of India in 2011, had designated the Pettimudi region among the most sensitive ecological zones in the Western Ghats and...

-PTI/ The Hindu The 2019 study, spanning 40 years of satellite observations across India, China, Nepal and Bhutan, indicates that climate change is eating the Himalayas’ glaciers, the researchers said. As a part of the Nanda Devi glacier broke off in Uttarakhand’s Chamoli district on Sunday, leading to massive floods, a study published in 2019 had warned that Himalayan glaciers have been melting twice as fast since the start of this century...

-Down to Earth The cumulative effect of hydropower projects projects has turned out to be more environmentally damaging than sustainable, given the current policy of the Uttarakhand govt Human activities profoundly affect the earth’s climate and mountains are a sensitive indicator of that effect. The mountain ecosystem is easily disrupted by variations in climate owing to their altitude, slope and orientation to the sun. Several scientists believe that the change occurring in the...