Many of the 1,800 glaciers of Switzerland are melting at a rate of more than 3% per year. The largest ones are retreating by dozens of meters per year, while the annual thaw rates of others are doubling and tripling. The World Glacier Monitoring Service, supported by the United Nations, says the cause of the relentless melting is climate change.

Swiss citizen: It’s really a minute till midnight, so we have to do something. I live in Switzerland, and there all the glaciers come down and the climate change and it gets very, very dry in the summer. And it’s really terrible.

VOICE: As evaporating water is a serious problem throughout Europe, Swiss citizens may soon face a water shortage and even droughts. Similar phenomena of glacier loss are being measured in other Europe and other countries. Billions of people worldwide depend on glaciers for drinking water, agriculture, industry and power generation.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/11/1110_051110_warming.html , http://www.swissinfo.org/eng/index.html?siteSect=143&sid=4760286 , http://www.swissinfo.org/eng/top_news/detail/Melting_glacier_could_draw_tourists.html?siteSect=106&sid=8100731&cKey=1187429097000&ty=st , http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/03/18/a-farewell-to-ice/?hp  , http://www.terradaily.com/2007/080330022541.gqe9lu3b.html , http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5j8z_gc1go9Ny4PzfQwMuAQ6ec1WA  , http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11254319/