The Towers of Ladakh

Overheard at National Geographic

National Geographic

Science, Society & Culture

4.5 • 10.1K Ratings

🗓️ 16 June 2020

⏱️ 19 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

A mechanical engineer teams up with an unlikely band of students who use middle school math and science to create artificial glaciers that irrigate Ladakh, a region in India hit hard by climate change. For more information on this episode, visit nationalgeographic.com/podcasts/overheard. Want More? Read Arati's story about Sonam Wangchuk and his artificial glaciers in this month's issue of the magazine. It's not just Ladakh that's facing a water crisis. Learn more about India's struggles with water infrastructure, with more reporting by Arati Kumar-Rao. You can read about the complicated history of Kashmir, an area that's witnessed two wars and a longstanding insurgency. Also explore: Check out photos of Sonam's solar-powered school built from mud. You can also make your own pledge to live simply by visiting the I Live Simply movement's website. If you like what you hear and want to support more content like this, please consider a National Geographic subscription. Go to natgeo.com/exploremore to subscribe today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	I went right up to the stupa and that's when it hit me.
0:08.2	It felt almost spiritual.
0:11.6	In 2019, Arti Kumar Rao was in the north of India on one of the highest plateaus in the
0:17.2	world, standing before a massive cone of ice.
0:21.6	And I was just thinking, my god, you know, this is a temple in a very different way, but
0:27.8	it is a temple because water is everything, water is life for these people.
0:32.4	The cone of ice was called an ice stupa.
0:35.6	An artificial glacier made by villagers and named after a type of sacred Buddhist structure.
0:42.0	You feel it, you know, you feel the gravity of the situation of what's happening and why
0:48.3	this needed to be built and then the love with which the people have built this.
0:53.5	It's not something that they've done out of duty or out of, you know, it was not a ritual
0:58.4	or anything.
0:59.4	This they did out of love because they wanted to help their village, they wanted to survive.
1:04.7	Arti says this monstrous cone of ice was a surprising solution to a problem that seems
1:10.2	intramalable.
1:11.6	I'm Peter Gwynn and this is overheard at National Geographic.
1:18.2	A show where we eavesdrop on the wild conversations we have here at NatGeo and follow them to the
1:23.4	edges of our big, weird, beautiful world.
1:27.0	This week, how villagers in the mountains of Northern India are dealing with water shortages
1:32.1	caused by shrinking glaciers?
1:35.5	More after this.
1:40.1	We're all built different, so we all sleep different.
	...

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