Conicet scientists ask Congress to vote against the reform of the Glacier Law

Scientists from Conicet and the National University of Cuyo (UNCuyo) who have been studying glaciers and the periglacial environment of the Andes sent a letter to the Chamber of Deputies of the Nation to express their “concern” and “rejection” of the proposed changes in the so-called Glacier Law that the “Bases” project entails. The new bill contains modifications that go against the protection and care of strategic reserves of solid-state water in Argentina,” warn the text signed by 17 specialists. The reforms contained in the Bases bill “only propose to protect one of their characteristic elements, the glaciers from ‘active’ debris, leaving out the rest of the ice bodies that make up this environment.” Climate change is affecting every region of the planet. In the Andes Mountains, rising temperatures and decreased solid rainfall have led to decreased river flows, reduced glacier size, and degraded mountain permafrost,” they said. For this reason, they ask the legislators “to arbitrate the means to not make room for the proposed modifications in Law No. 26,639, offering our collaboration to provide more information.” Researchers from CONICET and the National University of Cuyo sent a letter to the Deputies requesting that the Glacier Law that we worked so hard to achieve not be modified. Always on the side of Argentine science,” said the environmental group Youth for the Climate, through a message in Twitter.La Law 26,639 on the protection of glaciers establishes the minimum budgets for the protection of these reservoirs and the periglacial environment in order to preserve them as strategic reserves of water resources for human consumption. for agriculture and as water providers for watershed recharge.

Original source in Spanish