Among my own posts, I feel the need to showcase Authentic leaders that I come across, in my life, in the news, and those referred to me. Please feel free to refer anyone you might know.
The person who gets the honours today is Chewang Norphel, 76 years, a retired Indian engineer. Came across an article on him at Silicon india.
Chewang Norphel has built 12 new glaciers already and is racing to create five more before he dies, and by then he hopes to train enough new 'icemen' to continue the work he is doing to save the world's 'third icecap' from being transformed into rivers.
The Himalayan glaciers, including Kashmir's Siachen glacier, feed the region's most important rivers, as they irrigate farm lands in Tibet, Nepal and Bangladesh and throughout the Indian subcontinent. The acceleration in glacial melting has been blamed as the reason for the increase in floods that have destroyed homes and crops.
But Chewang Norphel, the "Iceman of Ladakh", believes that he has an answer.
By diverting melt water through a network of pipes into artificial lakes in the shaded side of mountain valleys, Norphel states that he has created new glaciers.
A dam or embankment is built to keep the water in, which freezes at night and remains frozen in the absence of direct sunlight. This water remains frozen until March, when the start of summer melts the new glacier and releases the water into the rivers downside.
His glaciers have been able to each store up to one million cubic feet of ice, which in turn can irrigate 200 hectares of farm land. This can make the difference between crop failure and a bumper crop of more than 1,000 tons of wheat for the farmers.
Norphel says that he has seen the effects of global warming on farmland as snows have become thinner on the ground and ice rivers have melted away.
His work has now been recognized by the Indian government, which has given him 16,000 pounds to build five new glaciers. "I'm planning to train villagers with instruction CDs that I have made, so that I can pass on the knowledge before I die," he said.
3 comments:
I am in awe of Chewang Norphel's ability to recognize a problem, go to a route cause, devise a solution, and organize the implementation of the solution. On top of that he has already begun to leave a legacy of continuing success.
I am also charmed by that example he is setting other seniors to get out there and start contributing!
amazing....guess the ministers who keep jetting off to Kyoto and other summits would do well to follow this gentleman
Feeling old and blue? Green tea may help
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Elderly men and women who sip on several cups of green tea a day may be less likely to have the blues, hint findings of a study from Japan.
Dr. Kaijun Niu, at Tohoku University Graduate School of Biomedical Engineering in Sendai, and colleagues found men and women aged 70 and older who drank four or more, versus one or fewer, cups of green tea daily were 44 percent less likely to have symptoms of depression.
Several prior studies have linked green tea consumption to reduced levels of psychological distress. This led Niu and colleagues to look at associations between drinking green tea and symptoms of depression in 1,058 relatively healthy elderly individuals.
About 34 percent of the men and 39 percent of the women had symptoms of depression, according to a report in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. These symptoms were severe in about 20 percent of the men and in about 24 percent of the women.
Overall, 488 participants said they drank four or more cups of green tea a day, 284 said they downed two to three cups daily and the remaining 286 reported having one or fewer cups daily.
According to the investigators, the apparent protective effect of greater green tea consumption on symptoms of depression did not fade after they factored in social and economic status, gender, diet, history of medical problems, use of antidepressant medications, smoking, and physical activity.
By contrast, there was no association between consumption of black or oolong tea, or coffee, and lower symptoms of depression.
A green tea component, the amino acid theanine, which is thought to have a tranquilizing effect on the brain, may explain the "potentially beneficial effect" shown in the current study, Niu noted in an email to Reuters Health.
However, further studies are necessary to confirm whether greater green tea intake actually has antidepressant effects. Therefore, Niu shied away from recommending greater green tea intake to minimize depression among the elderly.
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