The Roof of the World

The roof of the world is melting, turning large parts of China into a desert. The Chinese Academy of Sciences says the glaciers of the Tibetan plateau are melting so quickly that they are getting 50% smaller every 10 years. Meanwhile, here in the US, the Society of Landscape Architects wants everyone to have a green roof. This doesn’t mean you should put green shingles on your house?it means that you should grow plants there.

Geoffrey Lean writes in the Independent that global warming is turning large areas into desert. As China gets drier, more dust begins to blow, in a country already famous for its treacherous dust storms.

Can the earth survive without the glaciers that bring water to China and Tibet? The glaciers that keep the dust down now cover almost 60,000 miles and are the largest area of ice outside the poles?about one-sixth of the earth’s total.

CNN reports that the LSA has created a leafy rooftop for its own building in the heart of a big city, Washington, D.C. The plants cool the building and absorb rainwater, keeping city sewers clearer.

Green roofs were first used in Germany in the 1950s and are now being used in many other places, including China. of the American Society of Landscape Architects building in downtown Washington is a model of the techniques used increasingly to cool temperatures, filter air, and lessen the burden on sewers by absorbing rainwater.

Art credit: freeimages.co.uk

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