The scientific community's response to the Argentine law that allows the exploitation of glaciers, already under threat due to climate change

The reform that the Argentine parliament has just passed allows, for the first time in over a decade, the opening of mines in glacial areas that, until yesterday, were fully protected. And here’s the absurd thing: just as Argentina’s glaciers are already losing nearly half of their area in less than thirty years, instead of taking action to protect them, the government decides to further reduce safeguards. It is generally believed that an environmental law serves only to strike a balance between development and nature, but here, the opposite is true: the law removes protection from an ecosystem that is already in distress. The official argument of the Milei administration is that, without these reforms, Argentina will not be able to attract mining investment and will fall behind in the race for resources such as lithium, copper, and gold. However, those who study glaciers closely, such as Federico Ponce from the CADIC in Ushuaia, see it in a completely different light. Ponce, who has been monitoring Patagonia for twenty years using satellites and field expeditions, states unequivocally: “You don’t need to be a scientist to see that the Martial Glacier is disappearing before our very eyes.” And he adds a fact you wouldn't expect: over the past 25 years, the surface area of Argentina's glaciers has shrunk by an average of 45–50%, and at least twenty have already disappeared forever. The old 2010 law prohibited any mining in glacial and periglacial areas, but the new reform leaves it to individual provinces to decide which glaciers to protect and where, instead, to give the green light to mining. And here’s the trick: Who decides whether a glacier is “relevant” for water? The very same provinces that hope to collect money from mining concessions. A conflict of interest as big as a mountain, literally. Behind the numbers, there are stories of scientists who return to the same mountains every year and find streams where there used to be ice, and of hundreds of people who came from all over Argentina to protest in front of the parliament. On the day of the vote, seven Greenpeace activists were arrested. And at the public hearings, over 100,000 citizens tried to voice their opposition, but the reform was passed anyway. Certain details make it clear that the issue is not just technical or economic: the so-called “lithium triangle” – Argentina, Chile, and Bolivia – holds nearly 60% of the world's reserves of this mineral, which goes into every battery, but the price to be paid is often invisible. Water from the Andes is used to wash minerals and no longer reaches the valleys, where it is needed for fields and cities. And the risk, as lawyer Cristian Fernández warns, is that water will cease to be a right and will become merely a raw material for industry. Another aspect that is rarely discussed is the fragility of the periglacial environment, which is made up of rocks, soil, and ice that is gradually melting. The reform limits protection to just a few formations and leaves out entire water systems that, once polluted, will never fully recover. There is also a geopolitical aspect: Driven by the need for dollars and competitiveness, Argentina risks accepting the role of a “supplier of raw materials,” just as the rest of the world is beginning to realize that water could be worth more than gold. And if you think the protests are just coming from a few environmentalists, you should know that the legal battle has only just begun: Greenpeace and other organizations have already announced appeals, and the Supreme Court may be called upon to rule. But the bottom line is this: nearly 17,000 glaciers, an area thirty-six times the size of Buenos Aires, and a law that, instead of saving them, risks wiping them out even faster. Tomorrow’s water is being decided today, between the benches of a parliament and the silence of melting mountains. If today a law can turn glaciers into resources to be exploited, tomorrow we may discover that we have given away our water supply for a handful of copper. If this story matters to you, on Lara Notes you can press I'm In – it's not a like; it's your way of saying: This idea is mine now. And if you happen to talk about it with someone, perhaps sharing what is happening to Argentina's glaciers, on Lara Notes you can mark it with Shared Offline — because a genuine conversation deserves to be remembered. This was from Wired Italia, and with this Note, you've saved yourself over ten minutes of reading.