Screening of Him Ganga Hum

December 10, 2009

http://www.weeklyblitz.net/347/screening-of-him-ganga-hum

HIM Ganga HUM, a film jointly produced with Green Peace. A Documentary on climate change and its impact on Glaciers and Ganges, produced by Gauhar Raza was screened on December 8, 2009 at Pess Club of India, Raisina Road, New Delhi.

Synopsis:

The 30 minute documentary 'Him Ganga Hum' begins with Ganga telling her story to the viewers. It explores the impact of Global Warming on glaciers that feed to Ganga-System. Visually it covers large Gangetic region that includes shots from Gaumukh, Gangotri, Haridwar, Kanpur, Allahabad, Varanasi and other important places. The documentary has interviews of both, experts and ordinary people who depend on Ganga for their survival.

The documentary asserts that in the last 100 years forests have been all but wiped off the face of the earth. The greed for profits, parading in the name of progress, has led to the creation of a maze of factories all over the world. The bombs, explosives, chemical weapons that have rained over Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Lebanon, Palestine, Iran, Iraq and Bosnia have merged with industrial pollution and CFC gases produced primarily by the advanced world have enveloped the globe.

The ever rising global temperatures lead to slowing down of snow formation and speeding up of snow melting. Chaukhambha- the lofty snow clad peaks- are home to many glaciers. The melting snows of the Mainnadi, Kirti, Gangotri, Meeru, Chaturangi glaciers melt to become the Bhagirathi and the same freezing waters rushing down the mountain slopes, merge into the Alakhnanda.

In the last 30 years the Gangotri has retreated by 30 meters every year, In 1976 the Gaumukh was almost a kilometre downhill from where it is today. The average global temperature has increased by point 0.74 degrees Celsius, enough to melt thousands of tons of the snow, that shape the Ganga. These snows are not likely to be recovered ever again.

Some Scientists have estimated that the Ganga will dry up in the next 40 years, others believe that it will last for another 400 years. All are, however, in agreement on one thing – The Ganga will surly disappear if the global temperatures continue to rise like this. There is a real danger of large lakes overflowing or bursting through their retaining walls, of wide spread floods in some parts and equally destructive droughts in others. The lakes will burst on the mountains and in glaciers and the plains will face the deluge that will sweep and drown all before it.

As the glaciers disappear rivers will dry up and rainfall greatly reduced, this will unleash the scourge of drought. Hundreds of millions of lives will be seriously threatened if not extinguished totally.The race for super profits has pushed Ganga towards annihilation. Mother Nature authored the story of creation of Ganga and it will be human beings, apparently the finest product of nature, who will write the epitaph.

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