what happens to the glaciers in the himalayas will have the most massive affect on future -- we have never had projected threat to food security on this scale before. to many americans thinking about the melting glaciers on the tibetan plateau, that is china's problem. it is china's problem but it is also our problem because if china comes into the world market for massive quantities of grain as it has done over the last decade or massive quantities of soybeans, it will come to the united states because we are far and away the world's largest grain exporter. for american consumers, this is a nightmare scenario because we are looking at the prospect of competing with 1.3 billion chinese with rapidly rising incomes for our grain. historical the, when we face a situation like that and food prices were rising out of control we restrict exports has in the 1970s. the problem today is that china is our banker. every month, the treasury department auctioned off treasury securities. this is how we cover our fiscal deficits. one of the big buyers every month is china. they now hold over a tril

it is the ice melt from the glaciers in the himalayas and on the tibetan plateau that sustains the major rivers of asia during the dry season. the changes, the gang sea and the yellow and it is that i.c.e. meld that sustains the rivers that also sustains the irrigation systems of the india and china for example. china is the world's leading wheat producer. the india is number two and we are number three. a lot of people think we are number one, we are not. china, because the irrigate most of their week were as we hear gave very little of our feet. with rice, china and india totally dominate the world rice harvest so what happens to the glaciers in the himalayas or of the tibetan plateau will have the most massive effect on future food security than anything we have ever seen. we have never had a projected threat to food scale on-- to many americans thinking about the melting glaciers on the tibetan plateau, that is china's problem. it is china's problem but it is also our problem because if china comes into the world market for massive quantities of grain as it has done over the last dec

and how it could be possibly threatened in the future if we do not preserve the ice in the himalayas.ing is that india was once a colony of england, and i think we all know that from our history books, but i recently heard that india was a fairly rich country prior to the english invasion. and of course, growing up in the 1950's, i seem to recall the great famine in india and the news. my question is, is the indian government trying to get together the new technologies in agriculture, etc., in order to ensure the well-being of its people? host: thanks for the call, david. ashley tellis you have been in the u.s. since 1985, born and raised in india. guest: that is correct. the good news is that indian -- india has sufficient food production. the bad news is that the border supply -- the water supply that we take for granted is something that we will have to do much better to maintain the performance of the agriculture production over the long term. part of it is that there is climate change. the water table in india is dropping quite precipitously and the use of water in indian agricul

important because not only is the the greenhouse pollutant, also when it lands on the glacier in the himalayas it accelerates the melting of glaciers but also because people are exposed to lead in the in dire-- endure environment has important implications for human health. autozone a major pollutant formed through a complex series of pathways and it includes the first public studies of the long-term health effects of black carbon using data from 66 u.s. cities for a period of 18 years. the conclusion is black carbon is damaging to help. it may be more so than an differentiated particles commonly used in air pollution studies but certainly what they are not it is more damaging is certainly damaging to health and adds to the evidence that ozone poses mortality independently from other pollutants of the control of black carbon would reduce climate change and benefit population health and because they are short-lived some of them last only for a few days, reductions in emissions would immediately benefit climate unlike the case of co2. sulfates, the situation is somewhat different. epidemiologica