Michael Zhao, a graduate of the U.C. Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, is a documentary producer at the Asia Society's Center on U.S. - Relations. Orville Schell, former dean of the U. C. Berkeley Graduate School ofJournalism, is currently the Arthur Ross Director of the Asia Society's Center on U.S. -China Relations and author of 14 hooks, nine of which are ahout China.

Tibet: Plateau in Peril Michael Zhao and Orville Schell

Over the past six months, demonstrations China triumphantly capped the success- in Tibetan ethnic areas of China and the on- ful Beijing Olympic Games by winning the going negotiations between representatives most gold medals of any country. But other- of the Dalai Lama in India and Chinese gov- wise 2008 hasn't been an entirely lucky year ernment officials in Beijing have given for the rising world power. China registered Tibet a higher profile than at any time over a record number of earthquakes, from the the last decade. But beyond politics, there is headline-making Province monster another even more important crisis brewing jolt that killed 80,000 people and triggered on the Tibetan Plateau: a looming environ- 13,000 aftershocks, to smaller, more recent mental meltdown. tremors in Tibet, Yunnan, and, yet again, in Over the next 25 years the "roof of the Sichuan. world," where most of Asia's great rivers These temblors have one thing in com- find their headwaters, could well deliver mon: they struck around the edges of the an ecological crisis to Asia's billions of peo- Tibetan Plateau, a tectonic plate that was ple. With glaciers melting away faster than pushed skyward millions of years ago by the anyone predicted, the people of China, upthrusting Indian subcontinent to form South Asia, and Southeast Asia are con- the earth's highest mountain range, the fronting the prospect of diminished water Himalayas. resources. For, while irregular river flows The Indian Plate, moving like a wedge, may be accelerated in the near term by the heaved the plateau to new heights and melting ice, the long-term flows would be continues to slowly push the "roof of the diminished. world" to the northeast, pressing down on We've already seen early signs on the the Sichuan basin and other lower-elevation Tibetan Plateau of the effects of warming- mountainous areas in China's midwest and glaciers retreating, permafrost thawing, southwest. It is these plate tectonics that grassland degradation, and desertification. have caused the recent earthquakes. There's real reason to heed these signals Such seismological events can be as grave warnings of far more disturbing devastating. But climate change, elevated consequences to come that will have a temperatures, melting glaciers, and chang- global significance over the next several ing weather patterns on the Tibetan Plateau decades. could have much larger and more long-term

© 2008 World Policy Institute 171 ecological consequences than all potential tion of the plateau's ecosystem and disrupt earthquakes combined. reliable sources of downriver water supply Earthquakes are, of course, impossible for much of the continent. to predict with any accuracy. But our chang- Sitting at the geographical center of ing climate is demonstrating its shifting Asia, the Tibetan Plateau, though inhabited patterns in many obvious ways. And on this by no more than a few million largely no- fabled miles-high plateau a clear warning madic people, is the size of Western Europe. bell is sounding what's in store for the Home to the Himalaya, Kunlun, and other planet's future climate, if we only take the lofty mountain ranges, the plateau is the time to listen. Melting glaciers and per- source of most of the continent's great river mafrost have over-fed rivers, lakes, and systems: the Yellow, Yangtze, Mekong, wetlands in some areas, producing more Salween, Brahmaputra, Ganges, and Indus, frequent floods. In the northern part of the to name the most important. The nearly plateau, however, warmer temperatures and 60,000 square kilometers (14.8 million uneven rainfall distribution, coupled with acres) of glaciers in China, mostly on the overgrazing, have at the same time shrunk Tibetan Plateau, comprise the largest ice rivers and lakes, and parched dry previously mass outside the polar regions. It is these lush pastures, turning them into sand dunes glaciers that feed the headwaters of these or degraded lands. Moreover, scientists and mighty rivers, that in turn serve as a major environmentalists are increasingly concerned water source for 2 billion people at lower about this once-isolated region's importance elevations. to much of the rest of Asia. Yao Tandong, "You can think of these glaciers as a wa- one of China's leading glaciologists, is ter bank account that's been built up over concerned that what is happening on the thousands of years," explains Dr. Lonnie plateau could "ultimately bring about an Thompson, a professor of glaciology at Ohio immeasurable ecological crisis." According State University at Columbus who has done to his research, glaciers in Asia's higher alti- research on the Tibetan Plateau for many tudes, mostly in China, have shrunk 7 per- years. "During the twentieth century and in cent in size over the last 40 years. And in the beginning of the twenty-first century, the next 25 years, they will melt even faster. we have been taking more out of that bank account than we have put in," Thompson Asia's Water Tower observes. "We know that, long-term.. .that China and India today worry about the bank account will be gone." problems of water pollution, but what if The Quelccaya Ice Cap, on the Andes there's no water left to pollute in the Mountains in Peru where Thompson has decades ahead? drilled ice cores since 1978, has lost 25 per- Let's look at the scale of the problem we cent of its size in 30 years. The melt rate face. Simply put, the Tibetan Plateau's envi- has gone up ten-fold in the past three ronmental crisis is a 2-billion-person prob- decades, receding from six meters per year lem. With a population of 4 billion, Asia is in the first 15 years to 60 meters a year in home to 60 percent of humanity. As half the last 15, according to measurements of the Asian population rely on the mighty taken by Thompson's team. river systems for water-for drinking, irri- The experience of researching and moni- gation for agriculture, industry, and hy- toring glaciers in Tibet, Peru, and other re- dropower-the dramatic shrinking of gla- gions has made Thompson feel like a doctor ciers and permafrost will cause a degrada- seeing ill patients getting sicker year after

172 WORLD POLICYJOURNAL * FALL 2008 -,

*,.L•_

4r

Ae Bottoms up. The source of drinking water for two billion people. year. The situation has become so severe Plateau Research at the Chinese Academy of that Peru, once 80 percent dependent on Sciences. A 33-year veteran of glacial stud- hydropower, has now had to build coal-fired ies, he is known affectionately as "Uncle plants to make up for the shortfall in its Iceman." Thanks to mounting attention to power output during the dry season, when global warming and increasingly generous its hydroelectric turbines run as low as 20 government investments in the field of percent of capacity. Everywhere Thompson glaciology, Yan is now busy overseeing a goes, he finds glaciers shrinking, retreating, small army of researchers who are trying to and thinning at faster rates than he origi- understand better the full environmental nally imagined. consequences of a warming plateau. They On Mt. Naimona'nyi, 6,100 meters are also trying to understand not only its above sea level in the Himalayas, where causes, but to figure out how to deal with Thompson's team of American and Chinese the problem over the next quarter century colleagues drilled an ice core, they expected and beyond. to find two tell-tale radiation-tainted layers Yao told China's state-run Xinhua News created by American and Russian nuclear Agency, "The retreat over the last 30 years tests in 1951 and 1962. Instead, they dis- equals the previous 200 years combined." covered that the glaciers showed no net He predicts that by 2100, half of China's ice-mass accumulation at all from snowfall glaciers will have disappeared. during the past half-century. Yao and his colleagues have discovered Yan Tandong worked in Thompson's lab that, until the first half of last century, in Columbus, Ohio, in the late 1980s. He China's glaciers were expanding. But during went on to found the Institute of Tibetan 1950s and '60s, a large-scale retreat began.

Tibet: Plateau in Peril 1.73 Then, during the late 1960s and into the utilizes 7,100 anti-aircraft guns, 4,991 '70s, research recorded a modest net accu- rocket launchers, and roughly 30 aircraft to mulation as more glaciers expanded than re- fire silver-iodide shells into cloud forma- treated. But entering the 1980s, glaciers tions in an attempt to induce more rainfall again started shrinking, this time with and increase runoff into lakes and rivers. alarming rapidity. Since the 1990s, scien- Standing at the first bridge across the tists have observed an "all out" retreat, with in Madoi County, an overwhelming majority of glaciers begin- Province, a vast, high grassland area of the ning to shrink. Tibetan Plateau, one would never imagine Each year, glaciers in China have been that the quiet, steady, and crystal clear melting away at the equivalent rate of the stream-fed by drop after drop of centuries- entire annual runoff of the Yellow River, ac- old melted ice-could become one of Asia's cording to Yao. The Yellow River basin is great rivers flowing down to the ocean. If the "cradle of Chinese civilization," and has current trends hold, Chinese scientists say nourished generations of Chinese for millen- that the Tibetan Plateau will lose two-thirds nia. Now, however, its water flow has come of its glacial ice cover by 2100, without under mounting pressure due to northern even factoring in what many scientists be- China's growth in agriculture, urbanization, lieve is a probable accelerated warming and of course, the altered watershed and trend. Because accelerated glacial retreat is the shrinking runoff from glaciers on the proving more commonplace than scientists Tibetan Plateau. Indeed, some years the had originally predicted, this seemingly river has stopped flowing long before it gets distant-future projection could very well ar- to the sea. In 1997, sections of the down- rive much sooner. Indeed, as Greenpeace has stream riverbed dried up entirely for 220 reported, many glaciers in the region have days. been melting ten times faster than three Yushu Prefecture in Qinghai Province, centuries ago. the "source region of three great rivers" or The Yellow River is the foremost of sanjiang yuan-the Yellow, Yangtze, and the great rivers to experience a water over- Mekong-contributes, respectively, 49 per- draft from its upstream "bank account." cent, 25 percent, and 15 percent of water to Ironically, China may have to deal with dry the three rivers, according to statistics from rivers before it has even had a chance to the Qinghai Province Meteorological clean up the "rivers running black." Agency. Accelerated melting of glaciers in And, the Yellow River is not unique. their watershed, along with desertification Not far from its headwaters are the sources and growing evaporation rates as a result of of the Yangtze and Mekong. The "source re- rising temperatures, have significantly cut gion of three great rivers," is such an impor- back the water supply, particularly to the tant area that, a Qinghai newspaper report- Yellow River. According to a 2005 Green- ed, a recent provincial-sponsored joint study peace report on the Yellow River source re- with People's University in Beijing put a gion, some glaciers have retreated as much price tag on its ecological value at 11.3 tril- as 76 percent in the past 30 years. The situ- lion yuan, or $1.65 trillion. ation has prompted the Chinese government to create a Weather Modification Depart- Warmer & Sandier ment under the auspices of the Chinese The backdrop of the winding streams that Academy of Meteorological Sciences- comprise the tributaries of the Yellow River which employs some 37,000 people and are snowcapped mountains in the far dis-

174 WORLD POLICY JOURNAL * FALL 2008

I tance. This is typical plateau country, a of Suojia Township, and then a spokesman wild, rugged, and windy, open grassland for the county of Zhidoi, which in Tibetan dotted with lakes and streams. The vast, means the "source of the Yangtze." But sit- pristine pastoral landscape is, however, ting in his government offices, he couldn't showing signs of drying out, a trend that stop thinking about Jiesang, his mentor and is only predicted to accelerate over the next the environmental crusader in the wilder- 25 years. ness. So in late 1990s, Hashi quit his gov- Further out on the plateau, lakes and ernment job and, once again, began roaming ponds lay scattered everywhere across a mix- the Tibetan Plateau, doing environmental ture of fragile pastures and sandy dunes. education while working on preservation Called the "Sea of Stars," this area boasts projects. stunning natural beauty. Gusty winds are "This is what everybody is talking almost always blowing, rippling through about: desertification of the river source re- hilltop prayer flags silhouetted against gion," Hashi says as he points to the sand pearl white clouds in azure blue skies. But dunes creeping down the hills. Ironically, he "acloser look reveals "ascene that isn't so lovely: golden sand Desertific ition has become so serious has encroached on slope after slope of in this reg ion that whole sections of formerly lush pas- road are n tures and forming ow buried under sand. beaches along a web of small ponds and lakes. is standing a few steps away from a bill- Hashi Tashi-Dorjie, a government offi- board swaying in the strong wind that cial-turned environmentalist who is based in proudly advertises government investment Yushu Prefecture, has traveled through the in projects to curb desertification as it takes for years. An orphan since age over pasture lands. But despite these proj- eight, he grew up cadging meals from other ects, desertification has become so serious in nomad families living in yak hair tents on this region that in recent years Hashi's team the grassland. Hashi was smart and worked now sometimes finds whole sections of road hard enough to get a decent education, ulti- buried under sand. mately becoming a teacher back in his "The general trend is warmer and drier," hometown. Then, he and another friend Hashi observes. Standing beside a barbed- joined Jiesang Suonan-Dajie, also a teacher, wire fence put up by a pasture restoration to start a program to protect Tibetan an- program, he speaks appreciatively about the telopes which were being hunted in the vast government's investment and attention to area of Kekexili by poachers and illegal gold the ecological degradation of Qinghai's miners. Jiesang, the leader, was gunned grasslands. But, he also points out that some down by antelope poachers in early 1992, government policies are based on assump- bringing the issue into the national spot- tions that put more blame on the nomads light. The incident also jolted Hashi into and their yak and sheep herds than on other pursuing a political career. factors-a critique he fears will only inten- After attending a Communist Party sify during coming years. school, Hashi returned home to Yushu Pre- In fact, Hashi believes that Tibetan no- fecture and soon became the party secretary mads who have been living on the plateau

Tibet: Plateau in Peril t75 for centuries play an integral part in main- perature rose .33 degree centigrade per taining the environmental health of this decade on the plateau, while in central Chi- highland ecosystem. Traditionally, nomads na it rose only .22 degree, according to Chi- move their herds between different pastures na's national and provincial meteorological at varying altitudes during each season, thus records. Some areas on the plateau, such as preventing overgrazing. But the new fences, Lhasa and Nagchu in northern Tibet, have designed to keep nomad families and their warmed even faster, with temperatures herds within fixed perimeters can easily lead rising .36 and .40 degree respectively. The to overgrazing of a particular area, because world's average temperature, by way of com- without rotation the pasture never gets a parison, has only risen by about .13 degree chance to rest. Hashi has also witnessed every 10 years. many instances where livestock, birds, and The difference between this so-called other animals have become caught in the "third pole" and the Arctic and Antarctica is barbed wire fences erected by government that, while it may take decades for the melt- programs. ing ice in the polar regions to raise sea levels The government has also been handing to heights that can threaten coastal commu- out eight-year living allowances that en- nities elsewhere, the disrupted weather pat- courage nomads to move into towns and to terns on the plateau have already begun to move their herds off environmentally fragile affect the traditional way of life for millions grasslands. Such programs are based on a of Tibetans, and are on the precipice of presumption that nomads are to blame, in a threatening the lives of hundreds of millions large part at least, for the degradation of more downstream users. these grasslands. Hashi disagrees with such The quality of summer pastures is of an analysis. There are areas, he admits, that enormous importance to animal husbandry used to be wilderness in the 1930s that have on the Tibetan Plateau, because during the now been severely damaged by overgrazing. winter when the grass is covered by snow, But, he insists, it's difficult to make sweep- livestock must survive by burning fat stored ing generalizations about the whole plateau. during the short months when the pasture is The real problem, Hashi believes, is that lush. However, if this cycle of feast and higher temperatures and changing rainfall famine (to which animals on the plateau patterns have lead to desertification. "I don't have uniquely adapted) is disrupted, it af- know exactly what is causing the warming fects not only the animals, but the lives of and drying here," Hashi confesses, "but I the nomads themselves, whose subsistence is think global climate change is the driving entirely dependent on their herds. force behind all this." "In the past there was usually still snow on the ground when the rainy season came, Nomadic Livelihood Under Threat says Suonan-Norbu, a former nomad who That the Tibetan Plateau-sometimes re- now works for a state-owned herding farm ferred to as the world's "third pole"-is one in Suojia Township. During the summer of the early victims of planetary warming, solstice rainy season, or monsoon, the grass is hardly news to glaciologists like Thomp- would grow very rapidly. "At this time, no son and Yao. The plateau is extremely sensi- matter how many yaks and sheep you had," tive to a warming environment: elevated Suonan-Norbu explained, "there was endless temperatures arrive five years sooner in these grass for feed." high altitudes than at lower elevations. Over In the past, these rains came in the form the last few decades, the annual mean tem- of light sustained showers. Now, however,

176 WORLD POLICY JOURNAL * FALL 2008 It looks refreshing now, but for how long? they come in the form of intermittent heavy families around here no longer keep yaks thunderstorms. When these downpours end, and sheep," he says. "Some don't have a Suonan-Norbu says, the grass, which needs horse either, because motorcycles have re- to be irrigated by slow steady rains, dries up placed horses." With commercialization and and stops growing. "Now we have an un- urbanization, nomads are slowly abandoning even distribution of rainfall," he observes. their old pastoral way of life. If that aban- "The pattern doesn't follow the rules as we donment accelerates and millions more mo- knew it." torcycles, followed by cars and four-wheel- Nomads' deep knowledge about rainfall drive vehicles arrive on the grasslands, con- patterns and the grassland ecology on which suming vastly more oil and other non- they depend is born of experience. "Nomads renewable resources, one can only imagine don't look at the calendar," Hashi tells me. the pressure on the environment over the "They look at the sun, moon, stars, and next quarter century. plants in making decisions about their "Should I choose to migrate to a town herding and lives." But in recent years, or city, I could get a government subsidy," these regular seasonal events have started to Suonan-Norbu says. "But if I leave nomadic be upset. "Our knowledge about rain pat- life, I can't do business. I'm illiterate and terns and our common sense about how to don't have other skills." His lament is lead our lives has become invalid," Hashi shared by many. observes sadly. In Jeigu Prefecture, high on the Tibetan As a result, many nomads are giving up Plateau, a visitor would have a hard time nomadic life and are moving into towns. detecting any traces of traditional pollution. "As far as I can see, 30-40 percent of nomad The air is fresh and clear, the roads are rela-

Tibet: Plateau in Peril 177 tively well-maintained, and the sky is al- the health of the grassland and precipitation ways a crisp blue with clouds scudding levels. overhead. But for how long? Local residents But, Dr. Xue Xian, a visiting fellow at have begun to notice a growing amount of the University of Oklahoma's glaciology de- garbage, sewage, and some occasional indus- partment and a researcher with the Lanzhou trial waste around town. And they are far Institute of Cold and Arid Regions Environ- more disturbed and perplexed by the fact mental and Engineering Research of the that the mountains that surround the town Chinese Academy of Sciences, has studied of 23,000 are now rarely capped by snow. the causes of desertification in the Yellow One teacher recalls that during his child- River headwater region. In a paper to be hood there used to be snow all year round published by Geomorphologyjournal, she on the mountaintops. and her colleagues argue, like Hashi, that climate change and permafrost thaw, Deserts, Permafrost, and Monsoons not overgrazing, are the main causes of the Jiegu residents have also started to experi- area's desertification. ence occasional dust storms. When one Although herd control has helped re- small storm hit in late September last year store the pasture ecosystem a bit since 2000, the sky didn't become fully brown as it of- the herd levels have continuously fallen ten does in the spring in Beijing and other from a peak of 650,000 head in 1980 to northern cities. But given the town's dis- only 200,000 head in 2005, about the same tance from and elevation above China's ma- level as during the 1950s. But, even when jor deserts-Qaidam, Taklamakan, and long herd levels were plummeting from 1980- stretches of Inner Mongolia's Gobi-such 2000, desertified areas kept expanding. A dust and winds were still bizarre, if not crucial factor seems to be the area's average shocking. Indeed, even as far inland as temperature, which increased 1.5 degrees Lhasa, there have been reports of dust centigrade from 1953-2005, and con- storms, which, last year, enveloped the city tributed to the sinking and thinning of per- as early as January. And as many weather mafrost, a key to maintaining grassland stations record ever higher temperatures, ecology. If yak herd levels continue on the and as desertification spreads southward same downward trajectory over the next over the next 25 years and beyond, these quarter century, barely 60,000 of these dust events look destined to be more and unique creatures would be left in the area. more commonplace. At high elevations, water that becomes In Madoi, desertification has already tabled above the permanently frozen layer affected 13,000 square km (3.2 million of earth (permafrost) in the spring and sum- acres), or more than half of the county. mer is a major irrigation source for above- According to satellite imaging, desertifica- ground vegetation. This accumulation of tion was getting increasingly serious: from water also helps form the wetlands that 1987 to 2000, sand coverage grew by 300 have long characterized the plateau. If square km per year, eventually covering the top levels of permafrost layers melt, 16,330 square km, or 65 percent of the the frost layer gets thinner and lower, county. The good news, though, is that which results in the dropping of the from 2000 to 2006, the total acreage of moisture-rich layer-thus reducing the desertified areas in the region fell back to sub-soil water supply, triggering sinking the 1987 level, largely due to a government water levels in lakes, wetlands, and a com- policy that caps total herd sizes based on mensurate degradation of grass and other

178 WORLD POLICY JOURNAL - FALL 2008 vegetation. This is precisely what's occur- reversed this trend and grew back to 4,318 ring on the plateau. square km. The cause-whether melting Xue finds that warming trends not only permafrost and glaciers, grassland restora- thaw permafrost, reducing the water retain- tion, nomad relocation programs, or man- ing capacity of grassland soil, but also expe- made rains-is difficult to know. But over dites evaporation of water above ground, the next 25 years, we can scarcely count on decreasing overall moisture. Thus the melt- this overall trend reversing. The rivers that ing of permafrost spells a drying trend, even flow into the lake, the largest inland water without dwindling precipitation. body in China, have themselves been disap- Melting permafrost also destroys roads pearing and have been fed by declining and other kinds of infrastructure. Indeed, runoffs. Half a century ago, People's Daily re- many sections of the roads on the plateau ported, there were 108 rivers feeding the are now riddled with cracks and bumps. The Qinghai-Tibet Scientists are worried that a warm- rail line was also par- ing Tibetan Plateau will change the tially built on lands that sit on top of per- aynamnic,; of the Asian monsoons. mafrost, and its melt- ing could significantly damage the railbed. lake. Now there are only 40, and many of- In the southern plateau, melting per- ten flow only intermittently. mafrost has sometimes raised the water A changing plateau, with immediate table. China News Magazine reported that in implications for local people and wildlife, Naqchu Prefecture in central Tibet, many is also a key research interest of concerned nomad families who live near big lakes have scientists, who are worried that a warming recently witnessed gushing spring water plateau will change the dynamics of the coming out of the grassland, a phenomenon Asian monsoon's circulatory patterns and connected with thawing of permafrost. The thus cause broader disruptions not only over lakes in some areas have been expanding Asia but also the whole northern hemi- year after year, flooding old pastures and sphere. The changing heat patterns in the forcing families and their herds to relocate atmosphere over the plateau is likely a key to higher ground. factor in bringing more moisture in on the To the south of the Tianshan Mountain summer monsoons from the Indian Ocean, in Xinjiang Province, melting glaciers are explains Ding Yihui, a climate expert with now feeding 5.5 percent more water than China's Meteorological Administration. But the historical average into rivers, refreshing these monsoons aren't powerful enough to oasis towns and dried-up pastures. But there push across a warmed plateau to bring are also more floods than before, and more much needed rainfalls to the northern part irregularity of flow. So, while some areas are of China. Instead, increased moisture in the enjoying more than plentiful water, other southern plateau could add ever more pre- regions are experiencing less. The Three cipitation and flooding to the already wet Rivers source region is one such place. Fur- southern summer. ther north in Qinghai Province, the Qinghai Lake has shrunk 700 square km over a A Wake-up Call century, with its water level dropping by It's becoming increasingly clear that there is 13 meters. Then, in recent years, the lake a lack of solid, comprehensive understand-

Tibet: Plateau in Peril 179 ing of all the varied environmental conse- less assess the long-term impact on much of quences that could be caused by further cli- Asia. mactic warming on the Tibetan Plateau over In the next quarter century, scientists the next quarter century. Scientists, from and environmentalists like Hashi are surely Thompson to Yao, are at the forefront of ef- going to encounter more of the conse- forts to find out more. It is urgent that the quences of a warmed plateau. Nomads like world puts more of its brightest minds to- Suonan-Norbu, who has stayed with his gether to seriously deal with the impacts of herds and continued his traditional nomadic climate change in this fragile region. If we practices, may soon find his lifestyle un- fail to learn more and then to act soon, we sustainable. But as sad as it would be to see will likely see "an ecological crisis" spread this nomadic life largely, or even partially, off the plateau and radiate downstream- extinguished, its consequences would pale with enormous consequences for the two before the harm done to downstream users billion people who inhabit the rest of of water from the great river systems that Asia, and even other parts of the northern rise on the Tibetan Plateau. hemisphere. Alarms are sounding all around the The nomads of this region may have world as growing carbon emissions exacer- been among the first to notice the changes bate global warming. But one alarm which in the land and the weather around them, begs our close futurev attention is the health and then to sound the alarm. But it would of the glaciers and grasslands, and the no- be folly to assume that they alone can fully madic life on the Tibetan Plateau, a very plumb the complexity of the new dynamics delicately balanced ecology.* now in play in this critical region, much innovatio ns... TECHNOLOGY I GOVERNANCE GLOBALIZATION

Recent Highlights Lead Essays: Leadershipand Innovation in a Networked World Diego Rodriguez and Doug Solomon Harnessing Collective Intelligence to Address Global Climate Change Thomas W.Malone and Mark Klein

Cases Authored by Innovators Second Life: Collapsing GeographyCory Ondrejka Commentaries by Philip Evans, Paul R. Verkuil and Thomas M. Malaby

Analysis and Policy Articles The Principlesof DistributedInnovation KarimR. Lakhani and JillA. Panetta Innovation Without Borders Bhaskar Chakravort!

http://mitpressjournals.org/innovations

111e111w : rPri-n53-e8 I ,amMai,ad,r, 1.-we. 7 ii12 Ti 617 253 anon 1 US/Ca,ada: no8a.207854 1 F-n 617577 1%54

180 WORLD POLICY JOURNAL - FALL 2008 COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

TITLE: Tibet: Plateau in Peril SOURCE: World Policy J 25 no3 Fall 2008

The magazine publisher is the copyright holder of this article and it is reproduced with permission. Further reproduction of this article in violation of the copyright is prohibited. To contact the publisher: http://www.worldpolicy.org