( intro music )
( Aarti chanting )
Pete McBride:
( Aarti chanting )
Pete McBride:
The river is believed to have curative powers,
it can wash you of your sins, bring you closer to God,
but of course, there's a great paradox.
They don't think they can actually hurt it,
because it is their God.
They said 'The river is sick but it is still God'.
( Aarti chanting )
( applause )
Pete McBride: I wonder what would happen
if we took a river that was actually believed
to be sacred. It could...
it was actually believed to be a goddess or part of
a living entity that was part of religion.
The Ganges River is 1550 miles.
It supports 400 million people
and is believed to be sacred by one billion Hindus.
So, we decided to follow the river,
start all the way at the top, as far as we could go.
This is basically the epicenter,
21,000 foot Shivling peak, which is believed to be
the center of universe in the Hindu world,
where Lord Shiva came down and slowed the river
from the heavens to the Earth through the locks of his hair.
We decided to go past Shivling,
which is in the back.
All the way to the top of Gangotri glacier,
into the Garhwal region of the Himalaya,
up near the China and Pakistani border.
We weren't even allowed to bring satellite phones,
they were afraid
they are using them for terrorism activity.
So, three of us came up to this very remote region
in an attempt to climb this peak...
right there, Chaukhamba IV.
Never climbed before, 22,500 feet high.
This is a little out of my climbing range
to be honest.
Well these two guys,
Jake Norton, he found Mallory's body on Everest.
Dave Morton, he has guided all seven summits.
Combined they've stood
on the top of Mount Everest nine times.
Seemed like pretty good company.
I was actually a little nervous, they were just going to
drag me into anything.
And we got up to the top,
18,000 feet of the Gangotri glacier
and we were getting prepared to climb this unclimbed peak.
We were gonna do water samples up at the top
and... an unpredictable monsoon pattern rolled in.
Jake could detect it hours before it happened.
'What are you talking about? The weather is great.'
Sure enough this weather started rolling in.
At 4 pm, it started snowing.
It snowed three feet in 12 hours.
Did count 36 avalanches
counting through the night which...
a mix between thunder, artillery, distant drones,
and someone banging a drum over my head.
So, we packed up our tents.
We had to leave much of our stuff and basically fled.
Hiking out with no trail down the glacier,
with heavy packs, is challenging,
especially when you have to fight it through three feet.
In retrospect, we left our ropes,
which maybe wasn't the smartest thing
as we were crossing a lot of crevasses.
But we were challenged, it was either tent or ropes.
'What are we gonna do here?'
So, we came down and negotiated safely
through some of these crevasses
and made it back to the safety of this little tiny ashram,
this place where a guy named Silent Baba lives.
It is at 14,000 feet.
Silent Baba is a really interesting guy.
Many believe that further up the Ganges you go,
it is more sacred.
The river is believed to have curative powers,
it can wash you of your sins,
they can-- it can bring you closer to God.
Well, Silent Baba decided,
he is going to go all the way to the top and live up there,
at 14,000 feet and in addition
to prove that he is that devoted,
he is not going to speak anymore.
So, he doesn't talk.
And if you look at his front yard,
basically below Shivling, you can see the wild ibex
leaping about and jumping across.
This is one of the spots that I took a water sample.
I will show you some of the water sample data
as we move downstream.
So, unfortunately these guys
are big... sponsored, Eddie Bauer athletes.
They were bummed we didn't climb,
I was somewhat secretly relieved
that I didn't have to go up that mountain.
( laughter )
And we found... negotiated our way
back down the Gangotri glacier,
it took us four days.
And to give you an idea of
how powerful this Ganges River is...
There was a glacial outburst
from another one of its tributaries
that literally tore through this area called Uttarkashi
and you can see how populated it is
once you descend out of the Upper Garhwal region.
It killed 6000 people.
And then once you leave
the very upper highlands of the Ganges
you come down to this remarkable dam, the Tehri Dam.
The largest dam in Asia. Very controversial!
Mostly controversial because if this river is God
and you dam a river that is God, you dam God.
What becomes of God, is it still sacred?
So many ask that on a spiritual level.
It also submerged 40 villages and displaced 100,000 people.
But it does produce
200,000 megawatts of electricity
which is very important in...
in a developing nation, of course.
Just downstream is Devprayag, a very spiritual place.
Officially on the map,
this is where the Ganges starts.
The river on the left is the Bhagirathi,
that's the source river, that's the river we went up.
The river on the right is the Alaknanda.
You can see the difference between
what a dam does and what a dam doesn't do.
On the right is the natural hue,
the sediment carrying loads, etc.
That emerald green again, clear water coming down
on the left because of the dam.
When you get below Devprayag,
down into some of the more populated foothills,
this is around Rishikesh and Haridwar.
You start to see the real
love and adornment of the river.
This is called Aarti,
it's a daily ritual in the Hindu culture
where they come to do offerings and sing songs
and offer flame.
Flame which equals light, which equals humility
in front of your gods.
And they basically come out every single day at 5 o'clock
and give this river a group hug.
And it's beautiful. It's really beautiful.
But of course, there's a great paradox.
They don't think they can actually hurt it,
because it is a God.
Well, they may do offerings and are unaware that
they are putting plastic in the river, that's bad.
So, the people that adore it are also partially killing it.
Now, just to give you a flavor,
some sights and sounds of Aarti,
I'm going to play you a short video.
( Aarti chanting )
I'm gonna keep moving you downstream,
try to get us to the end of this river...
Remarkable river when you get up in the air.
But to give you an idea how hard that is in India,
helicopters and aircrafts are used for the military only.
This took me two years to get this flight.
But you are able to see from the air,
kind of the beauty, the marvel of the Himalaya
and as this river descends, and through the terraced
and populated areas.
I mean to think this river supports 400 million people.
And we wanted to do something different too.
We didn't-- I wanted to document it
and try to raise awareness, but I also wanted to...
to do some testing to prove 'Is this-- people claim
it's the most contaminated river in the world and
what is this situation with this water. How bad is it?'
So, we brought some water testing devices.
This is actually in front of Agra,
the Taj-- in Agra in front of the Taj Mahal.
Many people...
maybe some of you have been to the Taj Mahal,
but nobody goes out here.
This is the most putrid river
I've ever stepped my foot in my life.
I mean, it was garbage and crap everywhere
and there was a half-eaten dead monkey floating by me.
Nasty, nasty water.
And, they do say that the Gangajal,
the Ganges water is powerful, it is curative,
there is something special about it.
I'm like 'Really? We need to figure this out'.
As early as 1896,
the British were actually putting
cholera bacteria into Ganges water and it was dying.
So, the Ganges had a power to it, a curative power
that was in fact... unusual.
But here in the Yamuna River, this is what our data showed.
This is the oxygen, dissolved oxygen content.
If you are above 8, on a river with dissolved oxygen,
which all the species and plant and flora need,
you're a healthy river.
Well, right there at Yamuna in front of Agra, it was zero.
Basically, a dead river, and just to give you an idea
of what happens on the inverse,
we tested for 21 heavy metals,
this was one of the, just the higher ranges.
The yellow line is the safety line
for human interactions, of course, I was standing
knee deep in the river that is just laden with zinc,
just one of the many heavy metals it was high.
So, not a healthy river, but what's interesting is
the oxygen level came back,
you saw that dip, it came back up.
So, somehow this river,
on some level is restoring itself.
We jump back over to Kanpur,
where you see people, of course, treating the river
much like a laundromat.
Nobody was swimming here in Kanpur,
they said ''The river is sick, but it is still God'.
First signs of fishing we saw. This is in part
because we started coming into the Muslim religion
that is mixed in the section of Ganges here.
The Hindu religion,
they are all vegetarian and won't fish or allow it.
but in this area we saw some fishing.
And then we also wanted to see some of the industry.
Kanpur was basically built as a textile town,
by the British.
Great access because of the Ganges river.
So this is a leather tannery.
There are 400 running tanneries in Kanpur
and they produce 8% of the world's leather supply.
Much of us are probably wearing their leather.
It goes to our fine shoes.
Most of it it's buffalo, some cow.
Yes, the cow and buffalo are sacred,
but if you are not Hindu, you can work in this industry.
When you are in the tannery,
this is one of the cleaner ones.
They are actually following protocol.
They have to recycle the water now...
by government.
70 tanneries were shuttered down
by the government, but it is one of the most toxic places
I've ever been in my life.
This was like walking into a bottle of ammonia.
My nose almost exploded when I walked in here.
I mean, they are basically bathing
in this heavy metal called chromium,
which is a very toxic, very nasty, uh, heavy metal.
It creates lung cancer, liver failure,
kidney damage premature dementia.
And in 2013, they did a study...
that they are basically pumping out 79 million gallons
of contaminated water into the Ganges around Kanpur.
And they only have a capacity to process 45 million gallons,
so only half of the water is getting cleaned.
This is a worker outside of a tannery
trying to bathe himself off and he is kneeling on
basically a pancake of dried chromium.
Outside, the kids are playing a gleeful game of cricket,
the national sport,
and they are playing on a field of
chromium laden leather scraps.
( sound of water pumps and motors )
( sound of industrial dryer )
( children shouting )
( sound of flowing water )
( sound of machines )
Pete McBride: It makes me think about my leather shoes
in a whole new way.
Like I said we tested 21 heavy metals,
I just want to give you an idea what it's like in Kanpur
where the tanneries are, that's chromium.
It spikes right off the roof
even with all the new recycling
that the government is trying to do.
We move downstream, Indian traffic jam.
Very typical. India is a spectacular place.
It is so rich in humanity.
Practicality sometimes
and functionality, doesn't always work,
but it is overcome with humanity,
it's really wonderful.
We moved into Varanasi.
It is one of the oldest inhabited cities in the world.
People have been living here for 5000 years.
Again, one of these Aarti ceremonies.
Varanasi is considered sacred,
they perform Aarti in sacred cities.
Again fire equals light equals humility,
people coming from the banks to watch it.
And then just downstream, you can come here to pray
and round the corner, people come to die.
All this work and a bunch of essays I wrote
were published on the National Geographic magazine
'Proof' blog recently.
I'm just going to read you the opening sentence
of the blog that went with the Varanasi story.
"When you step off a wooden boat
onto the banks of the burning ghat
in the oldest of India's cities
and you weave through a maze of funeral pyres hissing,
steaming and spitting orange embers
into the inky night
and you feel the metronome clang of bells
vibrating inside your chest and a wave of furnace-like heat
consuming everything in its reach,
you realize how removed you truly are
from the ritual of death."
That was the most run-on sentence
I've ever written in my life, but I liked it.
( laughter )
That was in the evening in the burning ghat.
This is in the morning, back here
at 4:30 in the morning.
Very challenging to get access.
You are not supposed to photograph here.
It took me three days to get access.
Very powerful place to be, you see...
the goats eating flowers, the dogs,
that's a femur bone.
These are all the ashes and bodies that have been burned.
And the belief is that if...
you are burned on the bank of the Ganges,
and in Varanasi specifically, and your ashes are thrown
into the Ganges river,
which you are seeing right here that is human ash,
that you will achieve a level of Moksha
in the Hindu religion.
And Moksha means, you will break
the cycle of birth and rebirth.
You'll not come back into this world,
you'll not come back as a cricket or cow or
another human, whatever.
You will actually go to heaven.
So, many people actually will come to die in Varanasi,
it is that important to them to reach heaven this way.
And one challenge though, of course is
burning all these bodies uses a tremendous amount of wood.
It can take 1100 pounds of logs to burn one large body.
50-60 million trees
from the Himalaya are getting cut down.
You see them getting barged up to the burning ghat here,
very complicated situation.
And of course this is a very common sight
when you get further downstream.
This is just 200 yards from the Ganges,
this is a very typical drainage.
Of course, it stems much in part from
'the Ganges is God'.
I mean, the Ganges is going to clean itself.
That isn't a big deal if you pollute God.
God is all-powerful.
God is however we perceive it.
We moved further downstream all the way to Patna,
a place few people go.
And of course, we left the crazy monsoon storm
with three feet at the top and we entered into a cyclone.
We figured, what the hell,
we've gotta make it to the end though.
It was raining so hard, my eyelids were peeling back.
I felt like I had a sand blaster on my face.
It didn't stop these guys.
These guys are out celebrating at full tilt
a festival called Durga Puja,
good over evil, and they build big,
big statues of their deities and
they bring them down and of course,
they offer them to Ma Ganga, mother Ganges.
Offer these offerings to the God.
Of course, the river is bigger now.
It has got a bigger current, it is wider.
But all of these offerings just sort of float
and collect on the banks.
And many of them have led paint and plastic,
and what not. They are not all biodegradable.
Further downstream, we moved across
into Bengal, the last state on the Ganges.
Durga Puja continued and raged through the night here.
All the villagers were building their statues and
coming and giving offering, putting ghee on the mouths and
then carrying them, and then
throwing them in the Ganges as a great offering.
In Calcutta, on the southern edge,
in the Indian side of the delta,
we've now come about 1500 miles.
This is one of the main shipping lanes
for Calcutta and a very typical scene, you have
somebody praying, somebody drinking water,
somebody washing their hair,
somebody collecting sacred Gangajal,
they are going to bring back to their village.
Back to our water data,
this whole concept of the river coming back to life
is interesting because
there's a thing... they are calling it the X-factor.
They believe it is related to bacteriophages, that...
if all these people come into the river everyday,
and they are treating it like a bathroom,
why are they not getting sicker?
Well, the oxygen level does return
and the oxygen actually helps to...
to support these bacteriophages,
which eat bacteria.
And that's one theory why
these epidemics, cholera epidemics haven't occurred
with one million people
coming for certain festivals and what not.
So, there is some element of the curative power
to this river.
And after six weeks,
travelling 1550 miles, roughly three vertical miles,
in theory, we were free of sin because,
believe me, I did wade,
walk, swim, fall in
the Ganges many times on this trip.
Yes, I was free of sin and I was free of 35 pounds.
I lost a bit of weight.
It is a good weight loss program.
We reached the Bay of Bengal,
it's Sagar Island where you can come,
give an offering to Ma Ganga,
to the river,
to this pack of stray dogs, that all are related.
( laughter )
So, there is the Ganges,
just to give you a little overlay of
the locations and the water testing.
This is the heavy metal testing.
You see some heavy spikes on the Yamuna River,
which is basically flushing out
New Delhi and all the industry there.
Agra, of course, is the lower part of that.
So, it somehow digests a lot of that heavy metal input
and puts it at bay to a degree,
but it's not gonna last.
Now, the new Prime Minster of India, Modi,
has actually budgeted, and this is
very new, it is very recent,
$340 million to clean up the Ganges.
So, there is some hope.
There are people listening and paying attention.
This was some of our other testing.
Nitrates are very high at the top of the river,
this is probably blowing in from China,
from fertilizer.
You can see the temperature
basically steadily drop
and this is oxygen, the main one.
So you see the river try to come back to life,
which is unusual, but it slowly,
it turns into nearly a dead river at the end.
But I want you to remember
not the river for its data or its contamination,
I want you to remember for its sounds, so I have
one more Indian video, it is just a minute and half long.
( walking through snow )
( sound of pouring tea )
( sound of flowing water )
( chanting )
( music )
( sound of flowing water )
So all the rivers in our-- all the water in our rivers
and our ecosystems, our water table is very limited.
And no matter whether you live in Washington D.C.
or you live in Colorado, where I do,
or you live in India,
I'd like to urge people that I think
all these rivers and all our water systems should be sacred
because they all are scarce.
Thank you very much.
( applause )
( outro music )