Global warming is an accepted fact: Dr VC Thakur

Providing more confirmation to the phenomenon of global warming, former director of the Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology at Dehradun, Dr VC Thakur on Thursday shot down the report of the ministry of environment and forests that said that some Himalayan glaciers had stopped melting.

Talking to DNA on the sidelines of a conference on luminescence and electron spin resonance dating at the Physical Research Laboratory, Ahmedabad, he said there was no question of any glacier having stopped melting, including the Siachen Glacier, which lies in the rain-shadow area.

“Global warming is an accepted fact. To say that Siachen is retreating is rather difficult. All glaciers are receding; we have scientific data to prove this after years of study, with papers published in international publications. If the ministry has certain findings, it should support this theory with data and write a paper on it and discuss it, rather than making controversial statements,” Dr Thakur said.

Dr Thakur is an expert on the Himalayas, with special focus on climate change and glaciers. He is working as an emeritus professor at the Wadia Institute.

The report released by the ministry has drawn much flak for the minister of state for forests and environment, Jairam Ramesh, in the countdown to the Copenhagen climate change summit in December. Ramesh’s earlier statement conceding that India should support European countries’ proposal to quash the Kyoto Protocol had also drawn much flak from the Greens.

“There is no debate that the world is going through a warm period. The only thing that has to be determined is the anthropogenic impact of this warming,” Dr Thakur said.