Aside from the description having the answer, I'm just going to pretend it's an onion article.
With the answer being something like "the US doesn't deserve it" or "people will buy it anyway (and the health crisis is bad enough without new delicious flavors causing regulators to be further on their case), whereas in other countries they need to work a little harder to make sales (they're a bit too healthy)"
"Think of it like ration chocolate, if it tasted too good you might eat it before you need to" one historian added.
To explain what’s going on requires an actual reading of the article, but a quick summary (as best as I understand) would be…
Villages in Pakistan near high altitudes need high altitude ice (glaciers and mountain ice) to build up over the winter, and slowly melt in the summer to provide water for farming and daily life.
Due to climate change, the ice on the mountains aren’t building up as much in the winter, and are melting too fast in the summer.
There is a tradition in those villages to move ice to higher altitudes on the mountain, and mix it with rock and coal. This does a few things, it provides a seed that captures rain and creates a foundation for the glaciers to form, and slows the melt so they build up bigger over time.
There seems to be some question about if this actually works, or if it’s just ritual, but since the claim is that it takes decades for the process to work, we don’t really have a lot of evidence either way yet.
These villages are losing members because they can’t farm anymore, this feels like a last ditch attempt based on old customs to get their way of life back. It’s unclear on the amount of physical effort vs. impact, but it would be interesting to see if this can be applied elsewhere.
mildlyinteresting
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