Lately, I’ve been studying the climate-change-induced melting of glaciers in the Greater Himalaya. Understanding the cascading effects of the slow-motion downsizing of one of the planet’s most magnificent landforms has, to put it politely, left me dispirited. Spending time considering the deleterious downstream effects on the 2 billion people (from the North China Plain to Afghanistan) who depend on the river systems–the Yellow, Yangtze, Mekong, Salween, Irrawaddy, Brahmaputra, Ganges, Indus, Amu Darya and Tarim–that arise in these mountains isn’t much of an antidote to malaise either.