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The Informed Reader / Insights and Items of Interest From Other Sources

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Science:

Artificial Glaciers May Ease Water Deficits

Can artificial glaciers help compensate for the disappearance of naturally forming ones?

Scientists and aid agencies are studying communities in mountainous regions of India and Pakistan that have a long tradition of assembling glaciers by grafting together ice and snow masses. In these areas, glaciers serve as a regular and reliable source of water in the growing season. If their techniques can be verified, they could bring stability to communities in areas where climate change might have diminished glaciers, crimping the water supply and lowering crop yields.

According to legends, villagers in the Hindu Kush and Karakoram mountain ranges spanning the India-Pakistan border areas have been building artificial glaciers for centuries -- even using one to stop the advance of Gengis Khan in the 13th century. The artificial versions are far smaller than regular glaciers but can reach 800 feet in length. Usually, the glaciers are built in rocky areas 14,800 feet above sea level. Villagers pack ice and snow in the shadows of boulders. When winter arrives, snow bridges the areas between the ice and, over a few years, forms into a self-sustaining glacier.

Still, scientists have yet to systematically establish whether the intentionally assembled ice masses are behind those higher water flows. Ingvar Tveiten of the Norwegian University of Life Sciences thinks that glaciers would have formed anyway in such prime ice- forming locations. But other scientists believe that villagers' efforts have increased the stock of ice around them.

-- New Scientist -- Feb. 2

Canada:

Alberta's Oil Boom Drains

Some Towns of Workers

Western Canada's oil boom has given a huge boost to the economy, but the breakneck growth has had the unwelcome effect of draining some distant towns of workers, writes Sinclair Stewart in Canadian daily the Globe & Mail.

Many small Canadian communities long have depended on residents, especially men, who seek work far from home. But unlike past exoduses, many workers who leave to fill vacancies in Canada's oil sands aren't returning.

The demographic changes are perhaps most dramatic in Nova Scotia, thousands of miles from the oil sands in the western province of Alberta. The net migration from there to Alberta has tripled since 2004.

Not all the migration is permanent. Some union members work long- term in Alberta, but spend one week a month back home. Others travel to Alberta for a few months whenever they need cash. Still others, especially young men, never return home.

In the Nova Scotia town of New Waterford, which has a population of around 6,000, one pub is practically empty and another has closed down. The oil jobs might have helped dent the town's drug problems and certainly have reduced its welfare rolls. But John Whalley, a county economic development official, says the departures also have reduced the tax base, making it harder to fund care for the aging population. Meanwhile, children are being raised with only occasional glimpses of their fathers. Finding coaches for high-school teams is hard. Finding a plumber or electrician is next to impossible.

"Young people are going out and not coming back," lamented Frank Corbett, a member of the legislative assembly who has seen his constituency shrink 20% over the past decade. "We're seeing highly skilled people leaving on an education we paid for. Alberta is getting a great deal here."

-- The Globe and Mail -- Jan. 29

Iraq:

Policewomen Regain Guns

But Are Far From Equals

Policewomen in Iraq have won back their right to carry guns, although Tina Susman warns in the Los Angeles Times that the victory does little to advance equality in police ranks.

Late last year, she reported on a little-noticed order for policewomen to give up their guns, which Iraqi officials said was necessary to prevent women from giving the weapons to male relatives or selling them.

The policewomen themselves and a U.S. Army general who led a recruiting drive for female police officers attributed the decree to the rising influence of religious conservatives. Even with guns, policewomen say, continuing cultural pressures mean they stand little chance of leaving the desk jobs to which most of them have been relegated.

"In my two-plus years in Iraq, I have never seen any of the over 1,000-plus female Iraqi police performing law-enforcement duty," U.S. Army Brig. Gen. David Phillips told the newspaper in an email. "They are relegated to administrative roles and used as searchers of other females" entering government or other protected buildings.

-- The Los Angeles Times -- Jan. 31

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