Focus on Arts and Ecology

The big environmental stories in the Chinese media this week (14-20 August) 

A team of Chinese scientists have covered 500 square metres of a Sichuan glacier with a cloth blanket to test its effectiveness in slowing ice loss.
 
Scientists from the Chinese Academy of Sciences' Cryosphere Science laboratory were running experiments at Dagu Glacier in Sichuan province, according to the Sichuan Daily. Starting from 5 August, the scientific team have been measuring the speed of glacial melting in the blanketed and surrounding areas every 15 days to gauge the effectiveness of the intervention. 
 
Wang Feiteng, deputy director of the Cryosphere Science laboratory, told Sichuan Daily that glaciers in China are retreating rapidly under the pressure of global warming, unlocking “a chain reaction” of geophysical and hydrological impacts. In light of the accelerating melting, the Dagu Glacier Administrative Office joined forces with the Cryosphere Science lab to conduct China’s first glacial geoengineering experiment. Huang Shihai, director of the administrative office, told the reporter that they would scale up the intervention if the pilot was successful.
 
Scientists in other parts of the world, including Switzerland, Italy and Germany, have been experimenting with similar measures. Swiss glaciologist David Volken has suggested that the “simple fix” intervention may reduce melting by up to 70%. More “high tech” ideas, such as blowing reflective artificial snow across the glacial surfaces, are also being proposed.
 
With scientists and policymakers increasingly looking at geoengineering as a potential solution to tackling climate change, the challenge of properly governing such artificial interventions into nature has emerged as a pressing issue. Scholars at Oxford University have come up with a set of proposed principles to regulate the practice.