Manmade glaciers help secure water supply

Added: 2026-05-25

[00:00:05]Strap yourselves in, El Nino is coming.

[00:00:08]It's one of the Earth's most unstable features of the climate system.

[00:00:13]Predictions are this one will be [music] intense. I'm Marco Werman. Today, the history of El Nino and why experts are concerned. Meanwhile, [music] in the mountains of Kyrgyzstan That is the sound of the water from the artificial glaciers reaching this village in this huge underground reservoir. Yes, artificial glaciers bringing water [music] to thirsty communities. Plus, a heated moment in Jamaica's parliament.

[00:00:37]>> Mickey told this afternoon when I made my first sectoral speech from my portfolio A lawmaker breaks the rules by speaking in a language prohibited [music] in parliament. All those stories and more coming your way today here on The World.

[00:00:53]>> [music] >> This is The World. I'm Marco Werman.

[00:01:00]It's good to be with you on this Friday.

[00:01:02]A powerful weather pattern is brewing in the Pacific, El Nino. It's a warming event triggered by a shift in wind patterns that allows warm ocean water to persist and spread and then trigger all kinds of mayhem. Droughts, heat waves, floods, famines. It's wet then it's dry, cold then hot. Well, brace yourselves.

[00:01:21]Meteorologists are predicting this could be one of the strongest El Ninos in history. That's where we begin our show.

[00:01:27]Kim Cobb directs Brown University's Institute for Environment and Society.

[00:01:31]When we spoke today, she began by describing one El Nino for the record books back in 1877. We see the impacts of El Nino written across the entire tropical belt, in particular in India.

[00:01:45]Of course, a widespread famine, you know, just killing scores and scores, hundreds and thousands of people. And so, landslides and other impacts across South America very well documented as well. And so, that event was probably one of the strongest in 100 years or so.

[00:02:03]So, this year, Kim, I understand El Niño could rival some of these historic events. Some experts are already seeing what they're calling a code red scenario, which does not sound good. So, given the history of El Niño that we're currently discussing and what we're currently seeing with 2026, are you able to extrapolate from the evidence what we are likely to see? Well, it is somewhat early in the year and in this 2026 year that we're we're trying to predict wintertime temperatures uh, in the tropical Pacific Ocean. However, there are quite a few signs that are pointing to a significant event at this point.

[00:02:43]So, for those uh, systems, communities, uh, nations that are exceptionally vulnerable to El Niños, now is the time to start planning. Even if we still remain somewhat uncertain with respect to the ultimate size of this event.

[00:03:01]And is there any way of knowing how variable the impacts could be for different parts of the world?

[00:03:06]Well, certainly, we have a trove of information from uh, 50 years of of exceptionally great satellite information. And so, yes, we can look to some of those and see quite a bit of consistency baked into each El Niño event. Now, the regions that are most predictable in their responses are those regions that are closest to the tropical Pacific. So, usually, El Niños start very close to the coast of South America. So, uh, Ecuador, Chile are some of the places that are hit first and often times worse in terms of the early phases of the event. As warming continues, it spreads across the western part of of the Pacific basin, so that it'll extend to the date line and sometimes just beyond in terms of that large expanse of warm water. And you know, people don't normally stare at a map of our globe without, you know, a piece of land in the middle of it cuz that's our interest, but the Pacific Ocean covers half the planet if you look at it from that side of the world. And so you're talking about an enormous expanse of water heating up and cooling down. So there are many island nations that are extend across that zone, too, that are walloped. You know, French Polynesia will be extremely vulnerable.

[00:04:29]Uh Hawaii has its own spate of impacts as well. And then Australia is heavily impacted. Um Indonesia, Malaysia, heavily impacted. So we get the seesaw effect across the Pacific basin where the countries, um in South America, for example, uh can get extremely wet driven by this presence of warm water off their coast.

[00:04:54]And these are places that are normally very dry. And then vice versa, the places that are normally very wet, Indonesia, Malaysia, these rainforest regions, um can can get uh pushed into extreme drought and they typically will experience wildfires so bad that they have wildfires. Australia likewise.

[00:05:13]Um and then of course [clears throat] we have uh reaching into the Indian Ocean, uh Indian monsoon, extremely vulnerable to their cousins of El Niños. Um East Africa, Kenya, um they also uh will experience extreme rainfall uh departures from El Niño events. So Brazil will be very vulnerable um without average drier conditions following El Niño. So really again I'm I'm citing all these equatorial countries because those are where the impacts are most reproducible.

[00:05:44]No one's left unscathed, it sounds.

[00:05:47]Well, this is a global climate phenomenon and again, it's something that you can see in in meteorological and climate records from almost every corner of the world because it is such a strong signal.

[00:05:59]Uh but again, the key the most important impacts are are going to be localized uh closer to the tropical Pacific.

[00:06:07]We're in a very different global context than we were in those uh examples from the 1800s with industrial agriculture, widespread global supply chains. We are less vulnerable to a singular weather change, but the planet's also more exposed because of climate change. How do these factors affect what may happen in the coming months?

[00:06:26]Well, I think it's important to note that many places are already experiencing a variety of different stressors related to ongoing climate change. But then you have this pile-on effect of El Niños and La Niñas that uh add a huge amount of stress to a system that's already under stress. We can think about that also with respect to ecological systems as well. Um the corals that I've been working with for decades in the Republic of Kiribati, these extremely El Niño sensitive zones, um these regions have been experiencing huge amounts of warming in recent decades that have taken these reefs uh right to the edge of bleaching and mortality. And so what we're seeing is that these are the tipping point stressors for ecological systems and of course as we depend on those on the human systems, too, um that are are increasing the vulnerability of climate change because you have these extreme superimposed. I think that's the important thing for folks to remember, even if El Niños aren't getting worse with climate change, although I think there's some evidence to suggest that they are getting worse, but even if they aren't, uh it's occurring on this baseline, the shifting baseline, which is pushing communities and ecosystems and countries in some cases uh closer to the brink of of disaster. And then you have these these push over the edge, if you will.

[00:07:57]And so these are very vulnerable uh communities, very vulnerable ecosystems.

[00:08:02]And um that's why it's important to take all the time that we can this year when we have a emerging forecast for an El Niño to think critically about where are the sensitive points, um you know, within the communities that are most impacted. Where are those and and how can we begin to prepare to mitigate the damage? Well, I was going to ask you, Kim, how are countries preparing for this?

[00:08:28]Well, there are scientific connections and channels that are pushing this information out right now um into the world, into the hands of policy makers um who are trying to in turn to think about what it means for their freshwater resource management, for their uh planting season, um for farmers, you know, losses and potential risk factors.

[00:08:52]Uh but in many places, there is not the infrastructure to take these forecasts and translate it on the ground. And you know, many places that are the most El Niño vulnerable across the global south and the equatorial zone, the these are places where an El Niño and uh La Niña events can really um whipsaw uh the entire community uh quite quickly. And there are public health overlays to that, too, with uh waterborne and vector-borne illness often times. And so um that's really an important role for scientists working with policy makers um at the international level to try to um you know, make sure that we are putting these forecasts to work in the places that need them the most. Kim Cobb is director of Brown University's Institute for Environment and Society. We have more climate coverage today on the show, a story about villages that rely on glaciers for their water. Natural glaciers are melting, so some communities are making new ones. It might just work. That's later in the hour.

[00:10:01]>> [music] [music] >> Police today raided the office of a former Spanish Prime Minister looking for proof of corruption. Jose Luis Zapatero was a socialist who led Spain from 2004 to 2011. He's being investigated for influence peddling and profiting from a questionable public bailout of an obscure airline. From Barcelona, the world's Jerry Hadden has more. The Spanish airline called Plus Ultra sent out an SOS during the COVID pandemic in 2020. It needed rescuing.

[00:10:41]Its planes were grounded, or to be precise, its one operational plane was grounded. At the time it owned a total of four. As airlines go, Plus Ultra was barely on the radar. And yet in 2021, Spain's government gave it more than 60 million dollars in rescue money.

[00:10:58]At the center of the unusual payout, says an investigative judge, was former PM Jose Luis Zapatero. He has been summoned for questioning in court next week.

[00:11:13]In the meantime, Zapatero's trying to keep in front of the story. This week he released this video. I want to reaffirm, he says, that I never had any dealings with any government ministry or office to facilitate the rescue of the Plus Ultra airline. That may turn out to be technically true, but there's more to it. Since leaving office, Zapatero has become a risk consultant for various companies. One client is a partial owner of the Plus Ultra airline. Said client has paid Zapatero's consultancy several hundred thousand dollars since the airline bailout for a handful of written reports and Zoom meetings. It's also paid a similarly large sum to a certain marketing company owned by Zapatero's two daughters.

[00:11:55]>> [music] >> Their firm is called What the Fob.

[00:12:01]This is from their online reel on YouTube. It's unclear what What the Fob actually did to earn the money under investigation, says Ian Mount, a Spain-based investigative journalist and founder of the online news site The Bubble. But Mount says things don't look good for the Zapatero family. This is starting to feel as the days go by that there is really something here, and a lot of money was moving through Emirati shell companies and companies that didn't do any work that anyone can see.

[00:12:28]Suddenly we're getting checks for several hundred thousand or and then passing that money on to other shell companies or to his kids. Political witch hunts in Spain are not unheard of, Mount points out, and Zapatero has yet to be formally charged, but opposition politicians have pounced, predictably.

[00:12:44]Alicia Garcia is a senator with the center-right Popular Party. At a hearing in Madrid this week, she said the airline scandal isn't just about Zapatero. It also implicates the current prime minister, socialist Pedro Sanchez.

[00:12:57]Plus Ultra no podía ser rescatada porque tenía deudas con la seguridad social. A judge had already ruled that Plus Ultra could not be rescued due to its public debt, she said. And then Zapatero meets with the head of the Bank of Spain, an ally of Sanchez, and abracadabra, the bailout goes through. Sanchez, she said, basically opened the public coffers for Zapatero and said, "Take whatever you want."

[00:13:21]Upping the intrigue here, Zapatero has long had a second gig as informal intermediary between Spain and up until recently the authoritarian regime of Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela. Turns out some Maduro cronies are shareholders in Plus Ultra and they're accused of using the rescue fund to launder some of their own funny money. Spanish investigators believe Zapatero had to have known this.

[00:13:45]Zapatero's possible role in all of this has Spaniards dismayed and surprised, says Ian Mount. Zapatero, he says, was always seen as one of Spain's few politicians with clean hands. His government was not known for corruption.

[00:13:58]You know, you could either disagree with him on on policy and on on ideology, but he was not known for this. But it appears that in at least in recent years he may have gotten rather wealthy. If it turns out that that wealth was illicitly gained, Zapatero would be criminally charged. That would be the first time in Spain's modern history that a former head of state was put on trial. And Mount says it'd be a blow to the public's faith in elected leaders. Yeah, we're you know, we're sort of knee-capping ourselves. Zapatero appears before Spain's National High Court on June 2nd. So far he still has the support of Prime Minister Sanchez and their Socialist Party.

[00:14:34]For The World, I'm Jerry [music] Haden, Barcelona.

[00:14:41]We'll be [music] right back. You're with The World.

[00:14:50]This is The World. I'm Marco Werman. In Jamaica last week a lawmaker used the local language, Jamaican Patois, and got reprimanded. Madam Speaker make it up this afternoon for make me first sectoral speech for my portfolio Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. Standing orders.

[00:15:08]And I think you are fully aware. And if I have to stop you again during your presentation, you will not get any additional time. The official language of Jamaica is English and it's the only language allowed in the country's parliament. The episode a conversation about the status of the Jamaican Patois language in the country and how the English language is seen as a legacy of British colonialism. It's a debate that our next guest is very much a part of. Joseph Farkas on is a senior lecturer at the University of the West Indies and joined us from the capital Kingston. He started by explaining how some in Jamaica are actually trying to move away from calling the language Patois due to historic connotations of the word.

[00:15:48]The language emerged in the context of slavery and colonialism.

[00:15:53]And so it has been referred to as Patois, but then it came with all of this historical baggage because the word Patois comes from Old French where in Old French it means something like clumsy speech, rural speech, in essence hillbilly speech.

[00:16:11]>> Mhm.

[00:16:12]So [snorts] its roots are stigmatized, pejorative. And so uh many linguists and other activists have suggested, why not just refer to it using the national name? It is the language used by Jamaicans. So let's call it Jamaican in the same way that the language used by English people is English, Spanish people Spanish.

[00:16:37]Right. So for the rest of this conversation, I'll use Jamaican to refer to this language. Oh, great.

[00:16:41]>> The MP in question, Nukisha Burchell, why was her use of Jamaican such a big deal in parliament? So to start out, you mentioned earlier that Jamaica has this long history with colonialism.

[00:16:57]And a part of the legacy of colonialism is that English was bequeathed to us as the language. It's the language of public administration.

[00:17:09]It's the language of that's used in formal contexts, etc. And so in the nation's parliament, it is also the language that representatives are expected to use. And that's not just an unwritten expectation. The standing orders of parliament, both for the upper house, referred to as the Senate, and the lower house, the House of Representatives, says that the language of the house is the English language.

[00:17:40]And so, that is why her use of Jamaican caused [snorts] such a stir because it's not expected.

[00:17:47]>> Mhm.

[00:17:48]Well, the part we didn't hear was MP Burchell continuing then in English and questioning the legacy of British colonialism. So, do you see this moment as more than just breaking the rules of parliament? For MP Burchell, she did say that she wanted to shine the spotlight on the regulation. But she was also doing a presentation, which would talk a lot about Jamaican culture, Jamaican heritage, and both of those things are inextricably linked to Jamaican language. Because Jamaican language is the language of the nation, not English.

[00:18:27]So, English is the language of public administration.

[00:18:31]When one thinks [snorts] about nationalism, Jamaican is what comes to mind. So, Joseph, you said that finally, over time, Jamaican has been seen as a separate language. But today, is it equal alongside English in Jamaica?

[00:18:45]>> Oh, definitely not. Um all languages are created equal, but some languages are more equal than others.

[00:18:53]>> [laughter] >> Think about it. If for generations you have been told that this thing is bad, and if for generations you have not seen upward social mobility tied to the language. So, for example, the majority of job ads that come out ask for a good command of the English language. They don't ask for a good command of Jamaican. That telegraphs to people that English is valuable, Jamaican is not. If you speak Jamaican, people treat you in a lesser way than if you speak English. So, all of that comes together to say to speakers, and I'm talking about people who use this as their normal everyday way of talking, they have indicated to them that this language is not valuable. And so, no, it's not treated equally.

[00:19:53]Joseph, would you like to see this English-only rule abandoned in Parliament and allowing Jamaican to be spoken?

[00:20:00]So, there is no intention. I know absolutely nobody who wants Jamaican to replace English as the language of Jamaica. The calls are for full recognition of the language of the majority of Jamaicans, giving it co-official status with the English language. And so, the country would have two official languages, both English and Jamaican. And that means that people would be entitled to accessing services of the state in whichever language they prefer. And we think that would do a great service in education, in the health care system, in the legal system, where so many people are disenfranchised because all of those systems interact with them in a language that they either do not control or that they only control to a certain extent.

[00:21:02]I don't know if you can answer this, Joseph, but beyond the English language that's decreed in Parliament in Jamaica, If I was to enter a Parliament building, what other reminders are there that this political body is still very much rooted in the traditions of Westminster in London, many thousands of miles away?

[00:21:18]Well, several weeks ago, it wasn't the language that was the hot topic. It was the mace, which is a ceremonial object that is used during sittings of Parliament. And it it has to be in place for legal proceedings to take place. And you know, it's removed at the end of the sitting of Parliament. An opposition member, in protest because he didn't think that she was being given the sort of attention she expected by the speaker, she dislodged the mace. And that [snorts] caused a whole debate to about, you know, rules and obeying the rules, etc. That comes from way back and could be seen as a part of our colonial legacy. You know, so there are other reminders. The king is still Jamaica's head of state and is represented in Jamaica by a governor-general. Now, the king doesn't really set our laws and so on. It's ceremonial more than anything else. But symbols matter, especially for young Jamaicans who want to feel that they are in a nation that is where Jamaicans are fully in control. And that, you know, they have this right and also these hopes to contribute to a nation that is fully independent. Joseph Ferguson is a senior lecturer at the University of the West Indies and joined us from the capital, Kingston.

[00:22:48]>> [music] >> More global stories coming your way.

[00:22:51]Stay with us. You're with The World.

[00:23:00]This is The World. I'm Marco Werman.

[00:23:02]Climate change is melting glaciers. That is a problem for the billions of people who live in places where a significant part of the water supply comes from glaciers. One of the most promising solutions is not new. For this week's installment of The Big Fix, profiling ambitious projects to confront the climate crisis, reporter Levi Bridges takes us to Kyrgyzstan in Central Asia.

[00:23:22]In the town of Sumbula, people are cutting down apple trees.

[00:23:30]I just what local farmer named Turaly Toichubayev leads me through an old apple orchard with just a couple trees left. Old gray stumps stick out of the earth.

[00:23:44]He says the apple trees died. The land has dried up. Water used to pour down from mountain glaciers this time of year. It filled a gushing stream, but now there's barely more than a trickle.

[00:23:57]That's because of climate change.

[00:23:58]Glaciers everywhere are shrinking, and the water supply here is dwindling. So, a couple years ago, Toichubayev and other locals built their own glacier.

[00:24:13]Packed into a tiny Russian 4x4, Toichubayev takes me up into the mountains where I spot what looks like the actual tip of an iceberg popping up from a green meadow.

[00:24:26]We follow a stream toward a mound of ice gleaming in the midday sun. It's about the size of a tiny house.

[00:24:34]The main thing to know about how they built this glacier is that it's relatively simple, cheap, and you don't even need electricity.

[00:24:42]Water just flows through a pipe from the stream and sprays out of a sprinkler into the air. It makes this metallic hum.

[00:24:54]And then it freezes, slowly creating a tower of ice.

[00:25:00]50 m tall.

[00:25:02]Wow. Burshubayev says in winter, this thing can get up to around 50 ft tall.

[00:25:08]The idea is you make a glacier every winter. Come spring, it melts.

[00:25:17]A handful of towns here get a lot of their water from artificial glaciers.

[00:25:22]The water flows downhill through huge pipes into reservoirs and underground storage tanks.

[00:25:29]I shimmied down a manhole inside of one to take a look. And actually seeing the mechanics of it kind of blew my mind.

[00:25:40]That is the sound of the water from the artificial glaciers reaching this village in this huge underground reservoir.

[00:25:50]This is modern plumbing in the age of climate change.

[00:25:57]This system could help grow crops even as the climate warms. Olday Guchgeldiyev is the Kyrgyzstan representative for the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization.

[00:26:07]He says artificial glaciers work best when combined with other water-saving techniques like drip irrigation. By this system, I think we will be able to use water more efficiently and improve human production in agriculture. Artificial glaciers are kind of in right now, but they've been around for a while. Nishant Tiku is a researcher at the University of Vermont. He says humans first built artificial glaciers in the mountains of South Asia more than a thousand years ago. Legend has it when Genghis Khan and his army was trying to come towards India and Pakistan, uh people made these artificial glaciers to block the high altitude passes so that the army can't move from here to there. Taku is improving the design with modern technology. The [snorts] biggest challenge is keeping the pipes from freezing in winter. Taku has figured out how to do it though with little temperature sensors that send data back to a computer about the size of your hand. Temperatures below a certain point signal mechanical changes that get the water moving. The whole thing is powered by a little solar panel. Basically, I am doing the exact same thing that was done in 10th century. We are just changing the form a little bit. Function is the same. Researchers around the world are excited. Engineers in Chile are trying to see if this tech can stop a real glacier from melting. In Canada, they're looking into building artificial glaciers to create water reservoirs to fight wildfires, but the approach has its limits. Surya Bala Subramanian is the founder of Acres of Ice, a startup in India working to improve man-made glaciers. He says, "This is a band-aid.

[00:27:53]The world still needs to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to save the real glaciers." So, it's just a way of providing more time for these communities to adapt to the reality that they are facing with climate change.

[00:28:10]I got a better sense of what he means visiting Kok-Tash, another village building glaciers. Wow, they're much smaller. I visited in early spring and the glaciers had almost fully melted.

[00:28:22]Kyrgyzstan didn't have a real winter this year. Umatkul Halmatov, a local villager here, says it was just too warm.

[00:28:35]He says hundreds of people are leaving town, including his three sons, because there's not enough water to support agriculture. The glaciers here provide just enough water for drinking. Almatov says if winters get any warmer, then they'll just build 10, maybe 15 little glaciers.

[00:28:55]That will buy his town more time until they can find a better climate change solution.

[00:29:01]For the world, I'm Levi Bridges, Batken Region, Kyrgyzstan.

[00:29:05]In some cultures, grief is very private, and funerals in those cultures are strictly for family and friends.

[00:29:11]Strangers stay away out of respect. They certainly don't cry out loudly. But in some places, emotional strangers are welcome at funerals. We don't have to be related to the the person.

[00:29:23]We only have to get the feeling that a human being is dead.

[00:29:26]That's Willis Amonde. He leads a group of professional mourners in Kenya.

[00:29:32]>> [screaming] >> Amonde leads the mourners in a series of wails, a mix of lyrical song and passionate cries.

[00:29:42]This funeral is in Kenya's western Luo region, where the mourning profession thrives. Georgina Atieno is the niece of the man being buried. In our culture as Luos, we believe that if somebody is dead, if you don't give him a good send-off, his spirit might hover around and maybe um haunt some people like the the children or maybe even the [music] family members. So if we give him a good send-off, we believe that the spirit is is happy. The professionalization of mourning is relatively new, but for those who have just lost someone they love, they appreciate the comfort of people paying respect to the deceased.

[00:30:20]As for the mourners that make a living on this, they say it's a good steady job that anyone can do at just about any age.

[00:30:28]>> [music] [music] >> Just when you thought it was safe to bring the kids to a flower show. Hello, I'm James Whiting and [music] I'm here to show you around Love Honey presents Aphrodite's Hot House.

[00:30:51]Aphrodite's Hot House is a racy display at the Chelsea Flower Show. The show itself is an elite event in one of London's swankiest neighborhoods. So, the theme of this exhibit is somewhat surprising. The Royal Horticultural Society website bills Aphrodite's Garden as the ultimate pleasure garden, lush, fragrant, and just a little bit naughty.

[00:31:11]Floral designer James Whiting, who created the garden, gives a video tour.

[00:31:15]Aphrodite is our inspiration. She's our main character on stage. This is like the her tunnel of love of her mythical garden [music] and it's all about the romance of finding love. Yeah, love is doing a lot of work in that sentence. This garden is pretty explicit. It's sponsored by what the Brits call an adult toy company.

[00:31:35]Whiting says the exhibit has four stages or themes. First, the birth of desire.

[00:31:40]Next, flirtation and temptation.

[00:31:42]Butterflies in the stomach [music] moments of love.

[00:31:44]>> Third stage, lust.

[00:31:48]It's also where visitors see not just suggestive sculptural blooms, but also sex toys displayed. You know, there was a time when garden gnomes were too wild for the Chelsea Flower Show. So, sex toys, quite the leap. But as Whiting told the AFP news team, flowers are [music] all about sex.

[00:32:08]Yeah, maybe you don't want to mention that story while gardening with the family [music] this weekend. Speaking of which, it's Memorial Day weekend here in the US and we've got a special edition of the show in store for Monday. What I'm walking to every single day is other people.

[00:32:20]>> [music] >> There's goodness there. There is something really powerful about following our virtues. Life is way too short to waste it on stuff that you don't believe in. We are gathering [music] inspiration from visionaries and peacemakers. Don't miss that on Monday.

[00:32:37]The world is produced by GBH and PRX broadcasting weekdays from the Nan and Bill Harris studio in Boston. You can find us online anytime [music] at the world.org. There's also more of our reporting on YouTube. Our channel is @theworldnewsGBH.

[00:32:50]I'm Marco Werman. [music] We'll see you back here on Monday. Until then, have a great weekend.

[00:32:59]The world is supported by the Carnegie Corporation of New York. Working to reduce political polarization [music] through philanthropic support for education, democracy, and peace.

[00:33:10]More information [music] at carnegie.org.

[00:33:13]By the Lumina Foundation, committed to a fair, universal system for learning beyond high school that offers [music] every American the chance for a better life. luminafoundation.org By the PRX [music] Ambassador Council, whose members include Elizabeth Hedden and Gerald Isaac, the KRPL family [music] in Singapore, Roman Mars, and the Kelson Foundation. [music] The world's theme music is composed by Ned Porter. The world is a co-production of GBH Boston and PRX.

[00:33:54]>> [music] >> PRX