Glaciers are often major tourist attractions. But they also affect people in a more direct way. In La Paz, Bolivia, people rely on glacial melting from a nearby ice cap to provide drinking water during dry spells. Glaciers can also be used to irrigate crops. In Switzerland's Rhone Valley, farmers have irrigated their crops fro hundreds of years by channeling meltwater from glaciers to their fields.
Glaciers can also help to generate hydroelectric power.
Scientists and engineers in Norway, Canada, New Zealand and the Apls have worked together to tap onto glacial resources, using electricity that has been generated in part by damming glacial melwater. Direct glacier observation can help us answer many questions, and reveal clues about global warming, because glaciers are so sensitive to temperature flunctuations accompanied by climate change. We can learn such things as how much our atmosphere naturally warms up between Ice Ages, and how human activity affects our climate. Scientists are discovering that the production of electricity, along with the use of coal and petroleum necessary for indestry, affects our enviroment in ways we had previously not understood. Within the past 200 years or so, increased amounts of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases have been released into the atmosphere due to human activity.