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Concerns about declining water supplies from glaciers have become a critical concern with global warming, especially in the Andes where large desert cities rely on glacier runoff for water. In the Cordillera Blanca, various discourses about shrinking glaciers and dwindling water supplies emerged after the 1960s, when the state hydroelectric company—first the Peruvian Santa Corporation and then Electroperú—took over disaster prevention programs and began conducting glacier research. Discourse analysis of environmental narratives shows that by the 1980s and early 1990s, the economic (water use) emphasis of these evolving glacier narratives had helped turn retreating glaciers into vanishing water towers, which facilitated company control of Andean water management. Yet glacier hazards persisted during that same period. The "glaciers as vanishing water towers" narrative, however, helped transform glaciers from natural hazards to natural resources. Analyzing glacier science and discourse illuminates the relationship between environmental discourse and management.

In 1950, the Los Cedros glacial lake outburst flood destroyed the nearly constructed Cañón del Pato hydroelectric facility. President Manuel Odría responded by creating the Control Commission of Cordillera Blanca Lakes to prevent additional floods caused by climate change and glacier retreat in the Andes. The Lakes Commission achieved marked success in glacier science and glacial lake engineering during the 1950s and 60s, including a glacial lake inventory, lake classification system, and engineering projects to drain and dam glacial lakes. Government support for the Lakes Commission was often motivated by and facilitated coast-focused economic development initiatives through the Peruvian Santa Corporation rather than humanitarian concerns for vulnerable populations. These hazard mitigation programs ultimately made the state responsible for disaster prevention, and in the process facilitated nation building and gave the government more control over Andean space and resources, in part with local support because residents wanted to prevent floods.

As glacier retreat threatens people worldwide, this study raises crucial concerns about the successes, failures, and issues that societies might face as they grapple with climate change and shrinking glaciers. This case of climate change adaptation and hazard mitigation in response to glacier disasters over seventy years yields several broadly applicable conclusions. Residents living close to glaciers or in glacially fed watersheds endured the highest cost of glacier retreat because they lost their lives, families, and communities. Disaster responses brought new historical actors—scientists, engineers, water developers, tourists, the nation state, and most recently, the World Bank—to a region where these groups previously had little knowledge about or control over. Each group brought its own ideas about how to define, manage, and utilize the glaciated landscape. Power dynamics among the groups influenced environmental management policies and whose vision for the Andes, its glaciers, and its water ultimately won out.

This chapter introduces the subject of Peruvian responses to climate change and ensuing glacier catastrophes from 1941 to the present. In Peru's Cordillera Blanca mountain range, which towers above the Callejón de Huaylas valley in the Ancash Department, 25,000 people have died from glacier-related disasters (glacial lake outburst floods and avalanches). The chapter places this study within current historiography on climate history, the history of science and technology, environmental history, Peruvian history, Latin American history, disaster studies, and glacier-society relations both globally and in the Andean region. The chapter then demonstrates why glacier retreat in Peru's Cordillera Blanca mountain range is an ideal case study for understanding long-term human adaptation to climate change, as well as analyzing how science evolves in societal context following climate change and natural disasters. Responses to climate change, which brought scientists and engineers to the Cordillera Blanca, unleashed a process called disaster economics: the use of catastrophes or disaster mitigation programs to promote and empower a range of economic development interests in both the public and private sectors. Climate change triggered historical processes and scientific developments far beyond the immediate disasters caused by melting glaciers.

The Control Commission of Cordillera Blanca Lakes, which was established in 1951 to prevent glacial lake outburst floods caused by climate change and glacier retreat in the Andes, had far-reaching effects on the economic development of Ancash and the Callejón de Huaylas. Engineers who examined glacial lakes brought development interests that had long inspired Peruvian policymakers and developers. They hoped to exploit Andean natural resources to promote national economic development and modernization. Glacial lake flood prevention programs provided a springboard for the expansion of hydroelectricity, road building, tourism, and wage labor. This process whereby disaster spurred economic development is referred to as "disaster economics," which the Lakes Commission carried out after 1951. Economic development directly and indirectly followed the science, technology, engineering, and policies implemented after catastrophes to prevent additional disasters, thereby revealing the social construction of science and engineering.

Two glacier avalanches from Mount Huascarán killed 4,000 people and destroyed the town of Ranrahirca and killed 15,000 people and devastated the city of Yungay in 1970, making it the most deadly glacier disaster in world history. Because these avalanches were unpredictable and uncontrollable, the Peruvian government tried more forcefully than it had during previous decades to implement hazard zoning to reduce disaster vulnerability in the Callejón de Huaylas. Local residents with different risk perceptions, however, successfully resisted zoning plans. In the process, glacier and glacial lake science became contested knowledge that various social groups sought to control. Ironically, locals opposed zoning to limit state intervention in their communities. But by inhabiting hazard zones they ultimately became even more dependent on state programs to monitor Cordillera Blanca glaciers and drain glacial lakes. As glacier experts tried to protect populations, they mediated between the centralized state and various local populations.

Neoliberal reforms during the 1990s transformed natural resource access and environmental management worldwide. In Peru, hydroelectricity privatization allowed Duke Energy to consolidate control over the Cañón del Pato facility on the Santa River, which is fed largely by Cordillera Blanca glacier runoff. Once Duke Energy Egenor began management in 1997, the state's hydroelectric company, Electroperú, ended its glacier monitoring and glacial lake engineering programs. This was the first break in continuous glacier disaster prevention programs since 1951. Neoliberal privatization thus heightened climate change vulnerability while simultaneously making Duke Energy a major but highly contested stakeholder in the Santa River waterscape that extended up to Cordillera Blanca glaciers. Meanwhile, threats from glacier retreat and the 1997 El Niño event continued. In 2003, fears of another glacial lake outburst flood at Lake Palcacocha above Huaraz spurred government programs to manage glacier hazards and bolstered popular protests against Duke Energy.

This chapter describes the physical, chemical, and biotic features of the main types of ice-based aquatic ecosystems. Dark-coloured sediments on and in ice enhance absorption of solar radiation, promote melting, and the formation of habitats of varying sizes and longevity. These range from ‘bubbles’ within glacial and perennial lake ice (~10^-2 m diameter), cryoconite holes (~10^-1 -10⁰ m diameter) on ice surfaces to large melt lakes (~10¹ - 10² m diameter) and rivers on ice shelves and ice sheets. For the most part, the development of ice-based aquatic ecosystems depends on liquid water. Communities are predominantly microbial, with cyanobacteria and algae dominating the phototrophs, while microinvertebrates with stress-tolerate strategies (rotifers, tardigrades, and nematodes) are also present. The chapter argues that ice-based ecosystems represent important biodiversity elements within polar landscapes, and would have been essential refugia from which polar region ecosystems recovered after periods of extended glaciation.

This chapter discusses microbial presence and diversity in glacial ice habitats. Topics covered include life in the interior of polar ice sheets and glaciers, life at the margin, and the snow alga community.

The chapter summarizes the current understanding of the kelp forest ecosystems of Alaska by focusing on the key role that otters, killer whales, and man have played in the ecological organization of this ecosystem. The role of kelp, the effect of anti-predator chemistry, and sea urchin interactions are discussed. The history of the ecosystem as well as the science is covered and includes a discussion of the debate on the role of whaling in influencing otter–killer whale interactions, which may be further changing the ecology of this ecosystem.

This chapter discusses the creation and early management of Glacier National Park. The eastern half of Glacier National Park was once part of the Blackfeet reservation, and the tribe has long maintained that an 1895 agreement with the United States permanently reserved certain legal rights within the park area. On May 11, 1910, the Glacier National Park Bill became law, and made no mention of the rights reserved to the Blackfeet in 1895 land-cession agreement. Nevertheless, there is no evidence that any Indians opposed the creation of the national park; a few strongly supported the new park, particularly those members of the tribal business council who saw it as potential noon to the reservation's economy.

In this chapter, Thomas E. Lovejoy reports on the documented impacts of climate change on biotas. Massive releases of greenhouse gasses by humans have altered the climate. Rapid global warming is responsible for abiotic changes such as receding of glaciers and increase in wildfires. Increased CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere have acidified the oceans. Populations, species, and ecosystems are responding to these climatic conditions. Urgent actions are needed to reverse the climatic changes.

The following plan describes the method and management disposition of the glacier sectors that must be removed during the life of Pascua Lama, as the open pit area is extended towards the position of the glaciers in the Rio El Toro river basin. It is estimated that 10 hectares [25 acres] of glaciers must be removed and adequately managed to avoid the instability of slopes and environmental impacts. The thickness of the glacier sectors that must be removed is estimated at 3 to 5 meters [10–16 ft]. … mining equipment shall be employed as needed for each glacier sector to be managed (basically bulldozers and/or front loaders). … If necessary, controlled explosives shall be used, of small size, to remove the ice. . . . —From Barrick Gold’s “Glacier Management Plan” —the Pascua Lama Mining Project (Argentine-Chilean border; Environmental Impact Study, Annex B, 2001; unofficial translation from the original text in Spanish). . . On September 6, 2006, Romina Picolotti, Argentina’s Secretary of Environment and a career environmentalist, sat reviewing briefing documents to prepare for a meeting regarding the world’s first binational gold mining project straddling the border between Argentina and Chile. Barrick Gold, the world’s largest gold mining corporation, had discovered a massive gold and silver reserve in one of the highest, coldest, most desolate and remote areas of the Americas, the Central Andes mountain range, running from Venezuela, through Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, and down to the southernmost tip of the Americas shared by Argentina and Chile. The Andes are among the highest mountains in the world, with the tallest peaks in both the Southern and Western Hemispheres. Peru’s ranges surpass well above 6,000 meters above sea level (nearly 20,000 ft), whereas the highest mountain of the Americas (the Aconcagua) in Argentina towers at nearly 7,000 m (nearly 23,000 ft). At 6,960 meters (22,835 ft), the Aconcagua, which means “stone sentinel” in the precolonial Quechan native tongue, is covered in snow in the winter and surrounded by massive glaciers year round, some of which are up to 8 km (5 mi) long.

Climate change is accelerating glacier melt. In the same month that this book first went to the editors, scientists reported the irreversible collapse of a massive portion of the West Antarctic ice sheet at Thwaites Glacier. Thwaites Glacier had already been news years earlier when a massive piece of ice 50 km (31 mi) wide, nearly 150 km (93 mi) long, and 3 km (1.8 mi) thick—that’s more than thirty city blocks of ice stacked on top of each other—broke off into the ocean and became Thwaites iceberg. Imagine an ice cube about seventy-five times the size of Manhattan Island floating away into the ocean. With the new reported collapse, the entire West Antarctic ice sheet has now entered into a rapid and irreversible melting phase (Figure 6.1). Thwaites Glacier, as well as others in the Amundsen Bay sector, such as the Pine Island Glacier, form part of a massive ice sheet on Antarctica that is falling to pieces. This is an ice sheet larger than France, Spain, Germany, and Italy combined, and it contains nearly 30 million cubic kilometers of ice (that’s about seven million cubic miles; Gosnell, 2005, p. 109). As these colossal ice bodies fall into the warmer ocean, they will begin to melt away, eventually raising global sea levels by about 1.2 meters (4 ft) (Figure 6.2). The breakdown has come much more quickly than expected and has now entered into an irreversible “runaway process.” What should have taken thousands of years in the natural evolution of things will now be complete in just centuries or less. The Pine Island Glacier is a long, flowing ice stream in the northeastern part of Amundsen Bay, and it is the world’s greatest contributor of ice to the oceans through melting and calving processes. It is also another of the glaciers at risk of collapsing entirely into the ocean. Thwaites Glacier’s collapse is an indicator that the whole ice sheet may be in imminent danger.

The idealization of uninhabited landscapes and establishment of the first national parks reflect important developments in late-nineteenth-century Indian policy. Although the creation of the first national parks coincided with efforts to restrict Indians to reservations and assimilate them into American society, native use and occupancy of park lands often continued unabated. This book argues that uninhabited wilderness had to be created before it could be preserved, and this type of landscape became reified in the first national parks. It also focuses on the policies of Indian removal developed at Yosemite, Yellowstone, and Glacier national parks from the 1870s to the 1930s.

This chapter discusses the issue of Blackfeet rights and their claims on Glacier. The issue of Blackfeet rights in the park became a protracted battle that involved various federal and state agencies, touched on key constitutional issues, and captured the attention and energy of leading preservationists. The legal complexities of the conflict that arose between the park service and the tribe and the radically different meanings that Indians and non-Indians attached to the park landscape created a unique and potent arena of contention that continues to defy resolution.

This chapter demonstrates that Yosemite Valley remained home to a permanent, relatively autonomous Indian village. While native residence in the valley stands in the marked contrast to other early parks, it also presents an important comparison with the experiences of Indian peoples at Yellowstone and Glacier. Such differences shed important light on Yosemite's unique history and reveal the processes by which this park was eventually made to fit the standards of the national park ideal.

If cooperation on cultural issues further tribal efforts to exercise some control over national park lands, this could revolutionize the way all Americans experience the wilderness. At Glacier National Park, for instance, full recognition of Blackfeet claims would make plain that the American preservationist ideal is predicated on Indian dispossession. Rather than idolize wilderness as a nonhuman landscape, where a person can be nothing more than “a visitor who does not remain,” national parks might provide new lessons about the degree to which cultural values and actions have always shaped the “natural world.”