Climate change 'is ravaging Everest'

The sons of the first men to scale Mount Everest warned on July 6 that climate change was ravaging the mountain. Speaking prior to the Live Earth concerts this weekend, Sir Edmund Hillary's son, Edmund, and Tenzing Norgay's son, Jamling, said the lives of millions of people who rely on Everest's glaciers for drinking water were being put at risk. They said so much ice on the world's highest mountain had melted that their fathers would no longer recognize the terrain. The pair -- who have both climbed Everest themselves -- said the base camp where Sir Edmund and Norgay began their historic ascent was now 40 meters lower than in 1953, while the mountain's glaciers were melting so fast that it could be barren rock by 2050. "Climate change is happening," Hillary said. "This is a fact. Base camp used to sit at 5,320 meters. This year it was at 5,280 meters because the ice is melting from the top and side. Base camp is shrinking each year. "For Sherpas living on Mount Everest, this is something they can see every day, but they can't do anything about it on their own." The glacier where Sir Edmund and Norgay pitched their base camp before reaching the summit on May 29, 1953 has retreated three miles over the past 20 years. "The glaciers have receded a great deal since my father's time," Norgay said. "There are many things he wouldn't recognize today. The glacier on which base camp sits has melted to such a degree that it is now at a lower altitude. I think the whole face of the mountain is changing." The Himalayas have warmed by almost 1C since the 70s -- almost twice the global average rise in temperature -- according to the UN environmental program. More than two-thirds (67 percent) of the glaciers in the mountain range are in retreat, and the melting snow and ice has created huge lakes, raising fears among scientists that they could overflow into each other in a cascade effect. If this happened, thousands of people could be killed, while Nepal's agricultural industry -- on which 80 percent of the population relies -- would be devastated. The loss of the glaciers would also reduce water flow to major rivers such as the Ganges and the Indus. Hilary, who has twice reached Everest's summit, likened the effect of glacial lakes bursting their banks to the impact of an atomic bomb, saying it was "just catastrophic." "It is like an atomic bomb has gone off," he said. "Everywhere is rubble. The floods of the past are unfortunately nothing compared with the size of what we are currently threatened with." Their comments follow a recent campaign by environmental groups for the UN to protect six World Heritage sites, including Mount Everest, from the impact of climate change. Organizations including Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace and the Climate Justice Program have petitioned the UN's world heritage committee to list the sites as being "in danger." The campaign is backed by Sir Edmund and the naturalist Sir David Attenborough. The sites the groups want to see added to the endangered list are the Great Barrier Reef, in Australia; Sagarmatha National Park (which includes Mount Everest), in Nepal; the Belize Barrier Reef; Huascaran National Park, in Peru; Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park, on the US-Canadian border, and the Blue Mountains, in Australia. This is the sixth time the coalition of environmental bodies has petitioned the UN to protect the world heritage sites. The committee has rejected taking action five times.