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'Declare a Worldwide Climate Emergency': Death Toll in Nepal-Tibet Floods Tops 1,000
"The glacial collapse and deluge," one scientist said, "was the structural failure of a mountain itself, nature's latest commentary on the deadly consequences of human-caused planetary warming."
Sep 01, 2026
With more than 1,000 people dead as of Tuesday and rescue teams still searching for the thousands missing after a glacial collapse in the Himalayas that created a flooding crisis in Nepal and Tibet last week, campaigners, politicians, and scientists reiterated the need for global climate action.
China confirmed at least 16 people are dead and 546 are missing in Tibet, including 261 foreign nationals, while Nepal reported 1,003 deaths and 3,916 more unaccounted for, including 583 foreigners, according to The Associated Press. Among those missing in Nepal are about 900 workers from a dozen hydropower projects, 500 of whom are believed to be trapped in tunnels.
Thousands have been rescued since last Wednesday, and as the AP noted, "authorities in Nepal have been burying bodies in temporary graves until they can be identified. They are preserving DNA samples, photographing distinguishing facial features, and recording other identifying details. Each body is assigned a reference number to help families identify and claim the remains later."
Nepali Prime Minister Balendra Shah has emphasized in recent days that "the flood in the Bhote Koshi River in Rasuwa was not an ordinary flood," and "it is now time for us to strongly raise with the international community the issue of the disasters we are experiencing as a result of climate change."
In a Monday interview with The New York Times, Maheshwar Dhakal from Nepal's Ministry of Agriculture, Forest, and Environment also linked the disaster to human-caused climate change and said that "those who have contributed the least are suffering the most."
Dhakal estimated the recovery cost at $5 billion, and shared his government's letter to the United Nations' fund for such disasters, which says in part that "early action in Nepal would send a signal that the fund is capable of responding with humanity, speed, flexibility, and solidarity when climate-vulnerable countries face losses and damages beyond their capacity to address alone."
Declare a world-wide #climate emergency www.nytimes.com/live/2026/08... #nepal #floods #flooding
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— Nikolas Kozloff (@nikolaskozloff.bsky.social) August 27, 2026 at 4:29 PM
Stefan Rahmstorf, a scientist at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany, highlighted on social media Tuesday that experts have long warned about the kinds of disasters seen in the Himalayas over the past week.
"Why are climate scientists not surprised about mountains being destabilized by glacier melt and permafrost thaw?" he asked. "Because they have long predicted that as a result of global heating."
Bill McGuire, professor emeritus of geophysical and climate hazards at University College London, wrote in a Tuesday column for The Guardian that "the increasingly temperamental behavior of the Earth beneath our feet teaches us that global heating is all-pervasive. It will intrude into every aspect of our lives and livelihoods, and leave no part of the planet untouched. As the world processes the horror of the events in Nepal and Tibet, it is a lesson that we ignore at our peril."
Also writing for the British newspaper on Tuesday, Michael Mann, a renowned climate scientist at the University of Pennsylvania, similarly stressed that "the glacial collapse and deluge in Nepal and Tibet was not a freak weather event; it was the structural failure of a mountain itself, nature's latest commentary on the deadly consequences of human-caused planetary warming. And it was the exclamation point on a summer of extremes, illustrating with a sole unnatural disaster the apocalyptic future that lies in store if we fail to take dramatic climate action."
Mann pointed to the lack of such action in the United States—the world's largest historical climate polluter—where President Donald Trump openly courted Big Oil on the campaign trail and has served the climate-wrecking fossil fuel industry's interests since returning to the White House last year, from declaring a national energy emergency and ditching the Paris Agreement, again, to waging a war on renewable power projects.
"Trump and enabling congressional Republicans continue to double down on policies favoring fossil fuel extraction and dependence at the very time we need to be moving even more quickly away from fossil fuels toward clean energy," Mann wrote. "These extreme events underscore the urgency of taking action now, and—while there are many things we can do—one of the greatest opportunities Americans will have to affect climate policy is the upcoming midterm election. You can make support for urgent and dramatic climate action a litmus test issue as you go to the voting booth."
Highlighting that dozens of Americans are among those still missing in Asia, the US-based watchdog group Public Citizen argued on social media Tuesday that "this isn't just a climate change catastrophe. It's a crime. For decades, Big Oil knew fossil fuels would lead to disasters like this. Big Oil must be held accountable."
In 2024, the group published a legal memo detailing how local or state prosecutors in the United States could bring criminal charges against Big Oil for deaths from extreme heat made more likely by the fossil fuel-driven climate emergency. With rapidly advancing attribution science, the approach could also be applied to other disasters linked to the human-caused crisis.
Greenpeace International also demanded accountability for the industry on Tuesday, saying that "it makes us SICK to think of people losing their homes, their livelihoods, and the people they love to fires, floods, and storms, while fossil fuel companies make billions. A FRACTION of those obscene profits could help communities rebuild. MAKE POLLUTERS PAY."
"Make oil, coal, and gas corporations pay their fair share for the damage they cause," the advocacy group added. "Introduce new taxes or fines on them to help communities at home and around the world rebuild from climate disasters and invest in climate solutions."
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With 350+ Dead and 1,300 Missing, Nepal Carnage Seen as Climate Disaster
"Delay is deadly," said one campaigner. "Without a rapid transition away from fossil fuels, the planet will continue to heat up and lives can be lost in a flash.”
Aug 27, 2026
Scientists and climate action campaigners on Thursday pointed to the collapse of a glacier as a likely cause of disastrous flash flooding in Tibet and Nepal's Rasuwa district, where emergency workers are searching for more than 1,300 missing people after water and mud poured into the Trishuli River valley, crashing through villages where thousands of people live and sweeping away bridges, homes, and miles of roads.
An initial assessment by geologists and glaciologists found that in satellite imagery taken before the flooding, a glacier was seen about 4,000 feet above the valley where at least 353 people were later killed Wednesday by the rushing waters and mudslide.
The glacier appeared about 2 million square feet smaller after the flooding, while the valley was "strewn with ice and mud" and the nearby river was "swollen beyond its banks, submerging the surrounding vegetation beneath murky brown floodwaters.
The scientists said an "ice avalanche"—a massive chunk of ice that fell off a glacier in the mountainous region and into the valley below, was likely at least partially to blame for the flash flooding, but noted that it was too early to rule out other or additional causes.
The satellite imagery appeared to show that "a glacier in the area basically snapped off in a clean break, allowing it to fall just over a vertical kilometer to the valley bottom,” Daniel Shugar, a geologist at the University of Calgary in Canada, told The New York Times. "The bottom looks like a bomb exploded—it’s just deposits from the broken-up glacier."
The chunk of ice was likely about 2,000 feet wide, Shugar told the Times, and fell nearly 4,000 feet—a fall that would have "pulverized" the ice into water.
Aakriti Dotel, national network coordinator for the climate action group Nepalese Youth for Climate Action said the floods were "another painful reminder of the growing climate crisis facing Nepal and the Himalayas."
"As our glaciers melt and extreme weather events become increasingly unpredictable, communities living downstream are bearing the devastating consequences," said Dotel. "We mourn the lives lost and the livelihoods affected and call for urgent global climate action. There must be stronger support for vulnerable mountain communities, and accountability from those most responsible for the climate crisis.”
The disaster stunned officials in the area, where there had been no rainfall before the floodwaters and mudslide overtook the region.
Intense videos circulating on social media Wednesday showed people attempting to run away as water and mud crashed into villages in the region.
🇳🇵🌊 Nepal flash flood kills at least 95, hundreds missing
➤ A massive flash flood swept away villages in Nepal’s mountainous Rasuwa district near the Tibet border Wednesday, killing at least 95 people and leaving hundreds missing, including 384 tourists and eight South Korean…
— Drop Site (@DropSiteNews) August 26, 2026
Tom Fletcher, the United Nations humanitarian chief, said he had mobilized $2 million from the UN Global Emergency Fund "to save lives with emergency medical care, shelter, water."
The secretary-general of the Nepal Red Cross told CNN that about 20,000 houses have been "swept away" in the region.
"These people do not have anything," said Rishi Khanal. "To feed them for some time, some days is a very serious thing to us... The shelter problem is there. The drinking water problem is there."
A truly desperate assessment out of Nepal from the Secretary General of @NepalRedCross: pic.twitter.com/QrJ4vZhmSz
— Becky Anderson (@BeckyCNN) August 26, 2026
A police officer in the village of Syabrubesi told the Times that waves of water crashed into his police station Wednesday morning, right after he got off the phone with a friend who had warned him a flood was headed toward the town.
“One of my senior officers and I were together when the wave struck. I was thrown out, but he was unlucky and was buried or swept away,” he told the newspaper. “I cannot explain how big the waves were. They engulfed several-meters-high buildings in a fraction of seconds... It wasn’t just water. It was a combination of boulders, sand, and thick sludge.”
Seven people were working at the station when the flood hit, and the officer is one of three who have been found alive. He said he was concerned that the other four are among the missing.
Homes, schools, government buildings, and the office of a hydropower project are among the infrastructure destroyed in Syabrubesi.
More than 160 glaciers in Nepal have entirely melted in recent decades, as scientists have warned that continued fossil fuel extraction is heating the planet and causing dangerous extreme weather. The area of the country's glaciers also shrank by about one-quarter between 1970-2010.
At The Conversation, Levan Tielidze, a research fellow in glacial geomorphology at Monash University, wrote that "it’s too early to say this was the exact cause. But we know that the great ice stores of the Himalayas—known as the world’s 'third pole' because it contains the largest amount of snow and ice after the Arctic and Antarctic—are no longer safe."
Tielidze continued:
What happened in Nepal is likely due to an enormous ice-and-rock landslide sweeping down a mountain pass and gathering up ice, water, rock, trees and dirt.
The landslide was so large it was originally thought to be an earthquake, as the seismic energy registered as a 4.4 magnitude quake on seismographs.
By the time it reached Gyirong Port—a China-Nepal border crossing—the wall of debris resembled a tsunami of dirt. Early estimates suggest the wave may have been 30 meters high.
Rising global temperatures have been linked to previous collapses of glaciers, including in Switzerland last year when the Birch Glacier wiped out nearly an entire town of 300 residents, who had evacuated before the disaster. Eleven mountain climbers were also killed by a glacier collapse in Italy in 2022.
“Every destabilized glacier in a warming Himalaya is a ticking time bomb that can go off unannounced, and when it does, those least responsible for the climate crisis pay with their lives," said Savio Carvalho, head of campaigns and networks for 350.org. "This moment of grief has a clear message for world leaders: Delay is deadly. Rich countries must finally deliver the finance and protection they owe frontline communities. Without a rapid transition away from fossil fuels, the planet will continue to heat up and lives can be lost in a flash.”
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Nepal PM Resigns as Anti-Corruption Protesters Torch Parliament
"In every sector... corruption is increasing," said one protester. "Students are being killed by police... We would like to request that the government of Nepal stand down."
Sep 09, 2025
Nepalese Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli resigned Tuesday as youth-led anti-corruption protesters set fire to government buildings and assaulted officials as they fled for their lives as the number of demonstrators killed by state forces rose to at least 22.
On Monday, state security forces attacked protesters with weapons including water cannons, tear gas, batons, steel-coated rubber bullets, and live ammunition, killing at least 19 people and wounding upward of 350 others in the capital Kathmandu and other cities. Medical responders said that many of the protesters had been shot in the chest or head.
The BBC reported three more people were killed on Tuesday, bringing the death toll to at least 22. Protesters in Kathmandu stormed and set fire to the Singha Durbar—which houses the Nepalese Parliament and several government ministries—as well as the home of Oli, who was serving his third nonconsecutive term and said he resigned "in order to take further steps towards a political solution."
Video recordings posted on social media show protesters chasing and assaulting Finance Minister Bishnu Paudel, who is seen stripped to his underwear and dragged through a street. Another video shows bank notes raining from the sky as demonstrators set Energy Minister Deepak Khadka's home on fire.
Yet another video posted on social media shows Foreign Minister Arju Rana Deuba and her husband, former Prime Minister and Nepali Congress President Sher Bahadur Deuba, bloodied after their home was attacked and burned. The home of Jhala Nath Khanal, another former prime minister, was also torched. Khanal's wife, Ravi Laxmi Chitrakar, was inside the house at the time and was severely burned, according to The New York Times.
The Condition of four time PM of Nepal @SherBDeuba and his wife curent foreign minister Arju Deuba Rana pic.twitter.com/BxrQUm9QBs
— IN- Depth Story (@in_depthstory) September 9, 2025
The demonstrations, now in their second day, were sparked by growing outrage over government corruption and impunity, pervasive nepotism personified by the "nepo-kid" children of powerful officials, and the September 4 nationwide ban on 26 social media platforms including Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Reddit, WhatsApp, X, and YouTube.
The ban came after the companies missed a government-imposed registration deadline. Some social media platforms, such as Nimbuzz, TikTok, Viber, and WeTalk registered in time and were allowed to remain in operation.
Critics, who include Kathmandu Mayor Balen Shah—a 35-year-old rapper-turned-politician who many believe could be a future prime minister—called the ban an attack on free expression and businesses that depend on social media for sales and marketing.
Although the government subsequently lifted the ban amid the nascent protests, the move came too late—and, critically, the social media proscription was only part of the problem.
"It's shameful to see international media framing Nepal's Gen-Z protest as merely against the social media ban. That's not what it is about," Nepalese physicist Sunny Labh wrote Monday on social media. "The protest was—and still is—against a corrupt system, unchecked government privileges, and years of exploitation. Reducing it to just the ban is dishonest and insulting to the movement."
One student protester in Kathmandu told The New Indian Express: "We are not fighting Oli, we are fighting Oli-ism—the system that rewards loyalty over competence, wealth over work, and silence over truth."
Satish Mandal, a 26-year-old protester in the capital, told the BBC that "Nepal is being corrupted day by day."
"In every sector, especially in heath and education, corruption is increasing," he added. "Students are being killed by police... We would like to request that the government of Nepal stand down."
It is unclear who will be Nepal's next prime minister. On Tuesday, the army issued a statement saying it would secure law and order, starting at 10:00 pm local time.
International human rights defenders condemned the deadly crackdown.
"We call on the authorities to respect and ensure the rights of peaceful assembly and freedom of expression," United Nations Human Rights Office spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani said in a statement Monday. "All security forces must comply with the basic principles on the use of force and firearms by law enforcement officials."
"Nepal enjoys a lively democracy and active civic space, and dialogue is the best means to address young people's concerns," Shamdasani added. "We urge reconsideration of measures to regulate social media to ensure they comply with Nepal's human rights obligations."
Amnesty International Nepal director Nirajan Thapaliya said Monday that "the protestors have a right to peacefully protest and express their frustration and outrage against corruption and the government's restriction on the right to freedom of expression including the social media ban in Nepal."
"It is the obligation of Nepali authorities to respect this right in line with its commitments under international law as well as its own constitution and protect all protesters from further harm," Thapaliya added. "The government must genuinely listen to the legitimate demands of the youth to end corruption, deliver accountability, and ensure civil liberties instead of meting out such reckless violence against them."
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Ripping DHS Chief's Racism, Judge Extends Protections for 60K Hondurans, Nepalis, and Nicaraguans
"Secretary Noem's statements perpetuate the discriminatory belief that certain immigrant populations will replace the white population," the judge wrote, stressing that "color is neither a poison nor a crime."
Aug 01, 2025
"The freedom to live fearlessly, the opportunity of liberty, and the American dream. That is all plaintiffs seek. Instead, they are told to atone for their race, leave because of their names, and purify their blood. The court disagrees."
That's how U.S. District Judge Trina Thompson began a Thursday order postponing recent moves by President Donald Trump's administration to end Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for around 60,000 migrants from Honduras, Nepal, and Nicaragua.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issues TPS designations for countries impacted by war, environmental disasters, or other extraordinary conditions, allowing migrants from those nations to legally live and work in the United States.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced in June and July that the administration would end TPS for people from Honduras, Nepal, and Nicaragua this summer. The decisions followed similar attempts to terminate those designations during Trump's first term—efforts blocked by U.S. courts and then ended under former President Joe Biden.
"As a TPS holder and mother, this victory means safety, hope, and the chance to keep building our lives here."
When Trump returned to power in January, he issued an executive order titled "Protecting the American People Against Invasion," which was "cited in later decisions vacating or terminating TPS designations," Thompson pointed out. The judge, who was appointed to the Northern District of California by Biden, also highlighted "repeated rhetoric by administration officials that associated immigrants and TPS holders with criminal activity or other undesirable traits."
The 37-page order details some of Noem's comments during her confirmation hearing and news interviews. Thompson wrote that "these statements reflect the secretary's animus against immigrants and the TPS program even though individuals with TPS hold lawful status—a protected status that was expressly conferred by Congress with the purpose of providing humanitarian relief."
"Their presence is not a crime. Rather, TPS holders already live in the United States and have contributed billions to the economy by legally working in jobs, paying taxes, and paying contributions into Medicare and Social Security," she noted. "By stereotyping the TPS program and immigrants as invaders that are criminal, and by highlighting the need for migration management, Secretary Noem's statements perpetuate the discriminatory belief that certain immigrant populations will replace the white population."
"Color is neither a poison nor a crime," stressed the judge, who is Black. She concluded that the various TPS holders who are the plaintiffs provided "sufficient evidence to demonstrate that the secretary's TPS Nepal, Honduras, and Nicaragua terminations were based on a preordained determination to end the TPS program, rather than an objective review of the country conditions."
Thompson ordered the TPS terminations for the three countries postponed until a November 18 hearing on the merits of the case, at which point her decision will be subject to extension.
🚨 JUST IN: A district court has ruled that TPS for Nepal, Honduras, and Nicaragua cannot be terminated at this time — protections will remain in place through at least November 18, 2025 as the case continues.
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— Haitian Bridge Alliance (@haitianbridge.bsky.social) July 31, 2025 at 11:57 PM
"Judge Thompson's decision renews hope for our immigrant communities—especially for the tens of thousands of TPS holders from Honduras, Nicaragua, and Nepal who have lived here for decades and are part of the National TPS Alliance," said Teofilo Martinez, a Honduran TPS holder, plaintiff, and an alliance leader, in a statement.
"This ruling gives us strength, affirms the power of organizing, and reminds us what's at stake: the right to stay in the only home many of us have ever known," Martinez added. "We will keep fighting for permanent protections and to stop the cruel separation of our families."
Sandhya Lama, another plaintiff and TPS holder from Nepal, described the judge's order as "a powerful affirmation of our humanity and our right to live without fear."
"As a TPS holder and mother, this victory means safety, hope, and the chance to keep building our lives here," she said. "We stand united, grateful, and determined to continue the fight for a permanent future in the country we call home."
The plaintiffs are represented by the ACLU Foundations of Northern California and Southern California, Haitian Bridge Alliance, National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON), and Center for Immigration Law and Policy at the University of California, Los Angeles School of Law.
"The Trump administration is aggressively, and illegally, seeking to dismantle TPS. But they will not do so without a fight," said ACLU of Northern California attorney Emi MacLean. "Today is a good day. Sixty60,000 long-term residents of the U.S., who have followed all the rules, will be allowed to remain in the U.S. and continue to defend their rights inside and outside of court."
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From Chimney Rock to Kathmandu, Floodwaters Bring Death and Devastation
"It is hard to open social media without seeing cellphone videos from the cars-washing-down-steep-streets genre; everywhere the flows are muddy-brown, and swirling with power," Bill McKibben said.
Sep 30, 2024
Floodwaters brought mass death and destruction to the United States and Nepal over the weekend due to storms likely intensified by climate breakdown, following a month of extreme weather across the world.
Hurricane Helene, a category 4 storm, killed at least 111 across six states in the southeastern U.S., most notably in western North Carolina. Like that area, Nepal was hit by floodwaters and landslides, especially in and around Kathmandu, the capital, on Saturday; the death toll there is currently 193.
Mexico also faced a deadly hurricane last week, while West and Central Africa and Central Europe both faced extreme flooding earlier in the month.
Bill McKibben, a prominent writer and climate organizer, said the effects of climate change are becoming impossible not to see.
"It is hard to open social media without seeing cellphone videos from the cars-washing-down-steep-streets genre; everywhere the flows are muddy-brown, and swirling with power," he wrote in an essay republished by Common Dreams on Monday.
"I've never seen devastation like this." Cars and trucks were tossed around like toys in Asheville, North Carolina, after catastrophic flooding from Helene. pic.twitter.com/4wA33g7VLB
— AccuWeather (@accuweather) September 30, 2024
Hurricane Helene hit Florida's Big Bend area late Thursday with 140-mph winds and then traveled through parts of Georgia, the Carolinas, Tennessee, and Virginia in the following days. The most severe damage came from rains in the mountains of eastern Tennessee and western North Carolina.
Parts of Asheville, North Carolina, saw stunning levels of flooding, with some buildings inundated to the top of the first story. The city's drinking water infrastructure was badly damaged. Ironically, Asheville had been described in a national news publication as a "climate haven" and "ideal destination" for climate stability.
Flooding also effectively destroyed Chimney Rock, a village of about 220 people roughly 20 miles east of Asheville, and the nearby town of Lake Lure, which has a population of about 1,300.
Went to help in the Lake Lure/Chimney Rock area today, and it’s hard to describe - never seen anything like this. Post apocalyptic. It’s so overwhelming you don’t even know how to fathom what recovery looks like, let alone where to start. Going to be a long path to recovery that… pic.twitter.com/HnyxwyQB76
— Tariq Scott Bokhari (@FinTechInnov8r) September 29, 2024
In addition to the 111 dead, there are hundreds of people unaccounted for following Hurricane Helene, whose strength was likely buoyed by exceptionally warm temperatures in the Gulf of Mexico.
"Make no mistake: The unimaginable devastation we're seeing across the Southeast is the climate crisis in action. As long as we continue with the status quo of unchecked fossil fuel use, these disasters will only become more frequent, more severe, and more deadly," Ben Jealous, the Sierra Club's executive director, said in a statement about the hurricane.
President Joe Biden said Monday that he would visit the region, possibly later this week, The New York Times reported. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), along with the National Guard, the Army Corps of Engineers, and the Federal Communications Commission, have together deployed more than 6,300 aid and rescue personnel to the region.
The damage in Nepal has also been extraordinary. Monsoon season usually ends by mid-September, but not this year. Landslides in recent days cut off the major roads around Kathmandu, where heavy floods in the south of the city killed dozens.
On Saturday, a landslide near a road about 10 miles outside of Kathmandu killed roughly three dozen people who were sleeping on buses amid the stopped traffic caused by previous landslides, The Associated Press reported. The rains subsided on Sunday and rescue operations remain underway.
In addition to the 193 dead, there are 31 people missing and dozens injured, officials said.
Nepal floods: At least 100 dead and dozens missing after days of heavy rainfallhttps://t.co/GwqBzuL23P pic.twitter.com/i2MB9HdQos
— BBC Weather (@bbcweather) September 29, 2024
The disasters in the U.S. and Nepal were preceded only slightly by Hurricane John, a category 3 storm that landed in the state of Guerrero in Mexico last week, near the resort city of Acapulco. The storm killed at least 16, with some media outlets reporting a death toll as high as 29.
Scientists dubbed John a "zombie storm" because it dissipated but then regained strength over the waters of the Pacific Ocean before landing again, as a tropical storm, further north in Mexico. Most of the damage came from torrential rains. The state of Oaxaca alone had more than 80 reported landslides, some of which buried homes and their occupants, the BBC reported.
Residents look at a broken bridge following Hurricane John near Acapulco, Mexico, on September 29, 2024. (Photo: Francisco Robles/AFP via Getty Images)
The disasters of the past week follow a month of extreme weather in much of the world.
"The month of September has seen record-breaking floods across parts of Europe, Africa, and Asia," The Guardian reported. "Hurricanes and heavy rains have left towns and cities submerged and triggered the mass displacement of people. Climate scientists have said that many of these incidents are linked to human-induced climate change."
Chad, Nigeria, Mali, Cameroon, and Niger have seen catastrophic flooding this rainy season, destroying hundreds of thousands of homes. Most of the city of Maiduguri, Nigeria was flooded on September 10 when a dam burst, causing mass displacement.
On September 18, Samantha Power, the administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, called the flooding in Africa "historic" and pleaded for more humanitarian assistance.
The flooding in Central Europe in mid-September, which was made more likely and more intense by climate change, also reached record-setting levels, lingering over a huge swath of territory, across several countries, for days.
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Nepal Reserve Prepares to Welcome Rhinos in Bid to Boost Biodiversity
The translocation is part of a larger effort to create viable populations of greater one-horned rhinos across Nepal, which has seen its rhino population grow from just 100 in 1966 to more than 750.
Sep 23, 2023
People living around Koshi Tappu Wildlife Reserve in eastern Nepal are preparing to welcome two very special guests on World Tourism Day, Sept. 27.
Pushpa and Anjali are greater one-horned rhinos (Rhinoceros unicornis) who are being moved here from Chitwan National Park in central Nepal. The translocation of the two female rhinos is aimed at boosting the tourism potential and biodiversity of the eastern Terai Arc region that runs across southern Nepal and northern India.
“We will be translocating two rhinos to Koshi Tappu Wildlife Reserve on the occasion of World Tourism Day,” Hari Bhadra Acharya, acting director-general at the Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation told Mongabay. Although Acharya said they were yet to decide which pair will be translocated, department sources told Mongabay that Pushpa and Anjali have been chosen for the purpose.
The rhinos were rescued as calves in 2019 and 2020 after being abandoned by their mothers, and cared for since then at a rehabilitation center outside Chitwan run by the National Trust for Nature Conservation, a semi-governmental body. They will be the first of their species to inhabit Koshi Tappu.
"The park, which has no rhinos at present, offers a suitable habitat and less human disturbance for the rhinos."
The pair had previously this year been released into the wild in Chitwan, to the dismay of local residents and conservationists. They said the animals, which are habituated to humans, pose a risk to themselves and to people, and urged officials to relocate them as soon as possible
A move to Koshi Tappu was one of the original options officials had considered prior to the rhinos’ release, along with possibly gifting them to foreign countries as a form of “rhino diplomacy,” much the same way China hands out pandas to other countries. Koshi Tappu, unlike Chitwan, doesn’t have any tigers, which would make the reserve a safer place for the young rhinos.
“The decision to translocate rhinos to Koshi Tappu National Park was made after considering their conservation value,” said Acharya. “The park, which has no rhinos at present, offers a suitable habitat and less human disturbance for the rhinos.”
According to Nepal’s 2021 rhino census, Chitwan National Park is home to 694 rhinos, Bardiya National Park in the west has 38, Shuklaphanta National Park, also in the west, has 17, and Parsa National Park, adjacent to Chitwan, has three.
The planned translocation Pushpa and Anjali, carried out with the support of the NTNC, is also a part of the government’s long-term plan to create multiple viable populations of the vulnerable species in Nepal. For their move, the rhinos will be sedated and transported by truck, according to Acharya.
As with its tigers, Nepal has been successful in conserving its rhinos, achieving zero poaching for several years running now and growing the population from a low of 100 in 1966 to 752 in 2021. Translocations have been part of the conservation strategy during this period, beginning with the first batch of 13 rhinos moved from Chitwan to Bardiya in 1986.
This translocation is just a start, with more rhinos set to be moved to Koshi Tappu based on how the translocated pair adapt.
"We hope that the [latest] translocation will not only enhance the conservation of the species, but also attract more tourists and visitors to Koshi Tappu,” Acharya said, noting that the wildlife reserve, which is also a Ramsar site — a key wetland — and an important bird habitat.Residents living near the reserve have awaited the arrival of rhinos there since 2017. That year, 15 wild water buffalo (Bubalus arnee) from Koshi Tappu were moved to Chitwan, with officials promising to bring over rhinos in return. However, the buffalo translocation wasn’t successful, with the animals all dying for various reasons shortly after their arrival in Chitwan.
Nepali conservationists have long pushed for the translocation of animals to take place at scale so that newly established populations survive in new habitats. Translocating two female rhinos to Koshi Tappu, where they won’t be able to breed to produce offspring, doesn’t serve a conservation purpose, they argue. However, Acharya said this translocation is just a start, with more rhinos set to be moved to Koshi Tappu based on how the translocated pair adapt.
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Justice Demanded After Qatari World Cup Official Admits Hundreds of Migrant Worker Deaths
"Until all abuses suffered by migrant workers in Qatar are remedied, the legacy of this World Cup will be severely tarnished by their mistreatment," said Amnesty International's head of economic and social justice.
Nov 29, 2022
An Amnesty International campaigner on Tuesday led calls for "truth, justice, and compensation" after Qatar's World Cup chief admitted that hundreds of migrant workers died during the construction of projects related to the FIFA tournament.
"Without full investigations the true scale of lives lost can never be known."
In an interview with British journalist Piers Morgan aired on TalkTV, Hassan Al-Thawadi, secretary general of the Qatar World Cup Supreme Committee, was asked how many migrant workers--who make up 90% of the nation's workforce--have died during the construction of $300 billion worth of tournament-related infrastructure including stadiums, hotels, highways, railways, and an expanded international airport.
"The estimate is around 400, between 400 and 500," Al-Thawadi replied. "I don't have the exact number, that's something that's been discussed. One death is too many, it's as simple as that."
Responding to Al-Thawadi's remarks, Steve Cockburn, Amnesty International's head of economic and social justice, said that "the continued debate around the number of workers who have died in the preparation of the World Cup exposes the stark reality that so many bereaved families are still waiting for truth and justice."
"Over the last decade, thousands of workers have returned home in coffins, with no explanation given to their loved ones," he noted. An analysis by The Guardian found that more than 6,500 workers from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Sri Lanka died in Qatar since the repressive Gulf monarchy was awarded soccer's premier international tournament in late 2010. The Guardian's estimate, however, has been criticized for counting all foreign worker deaths in the country over the past decade.
"Qatar's extreme heat and grueling working conditions are likely to have contributed to hundreds of these deaths, but without full investigations, the true scale of lives lost can never be known," Cockburn continued. "Meanwhile, families are suffering the added anguish of severe financial insecurity that comes from losing the main wage earner."
"There is nothing natural about this scale of loss and there can be no excuse for denying families truth, justice, and compensation any longer," he added. "Until all abuses suffered by migrant workers in Qatar are remedied, the legacy of this World Cup will be severely tarnished by their mistreatment."
Al-Thawadi asserted that conditions are improving for migrant workers in Qatar, noting the implementation of a 1,000 riyal, or about $275, minimum monthly wage and increased attention to safety.
"I think every year the health and safety standards on the sites are improving, at least on our sites, the World Cup sites, the ones that we're responsible for, most definitely," he said.
A spokesperson for Qatar's Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy appeared to backpedal Al-Thawadi's remarks in a Tuesday statement reiterating the Qatari government's claim of just three work-related and 37 non-work-related migrant worker deaths during the World Cup construction period.
"Separate quotes regarding figures refer to national statistics covering the period of 2014-2020 for all work-related fatalities (414) nationwide in Qatar, covering all sectors and nationalities," the agency said.
Hari, a 27-year-old Nepalese builder who earned 700 riyals a month in a country where the average Qatari household makes more than 100 times more, described working conditions to CNN earlier this month:
It was too hot. The foreman was very demanding and used to complain a lot. The foreman used to threaten to reduce our salaries and overtime pay. I had to carry tiles on my shoulder to the top. It was very difficult going up through the scaffolding. In the pipeline work, there were 5-7 meters deep pits, we had to lay the stones and concrete, it was difficult due to the heat. It was difficult to breathe. We had to come upstairs using a ladder to drink water. At some places, they didn't have water. Some places, they didn't provide us water on time. At some places, we used to go to houses nearby asking for water.
It never happened to me, but I saw some workers fainting at work. I saw one Bengali, one Nepali... two to three people faint while working. They took the Bengali to medical services. I'm not sure what happened to him.
A 2019 study of 1,300 Nepali migrant worker deaths in Qatar published in Cardiology Journal found a "strong correlation" between toiling in extreme heat and dying from heart problems.
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India and Nepal's New 'Wildlife-Friendly' Infrastructure Rules Ignore Birds
"Important bird habitats should be avoided during the development of roads, dams, canals, and railway lines. But if doing so isn’t possible, mitigation measures should be adopted to minimize the impacts on biodiversity."
May 22, 2022
Nepal's government has recently adopted guidelines to make infrastructure such as roads, dams and railway lines wildlife-friendly, following pressure from conservationists and NGOs.
Ninety out of 100 infrastructure projects in Nepal don't take the potential impacts on birds into consideration.
But not all wildlife have been included, with birds, especially those living in dense forests, likely to still be negatively impacted despite the mitigation measures.
The guidelines, issued in April, classify wildlife that could be impacted by infrastructure into five categories Small (such as tortoise, snakes and other reptiles and amphibians); small mammals (squirrels, rabbits, porcupines and civets); medium-sized animals (wild cats, dholes, hyenas and monkeys); big animals (rhinos, tigers, bears, deer and buffalo); and mega animals (wild elephants).
"Linear infrastructure such as roads and power lines severely impact birds, especially those that live in dense forests," or forest specialist birds, said prominent Nepali ornithologist Hem Sagar Baral. "However, 90 out of 100 infrastructure projects in Nepal don't take the potential impacts on birds into consideration," he added.
"As tigers and rhinos get killed in collision with vehicular traffic, authorities tend to focus on these mega faunas when designing wildlife-friendly infrastructure," Baral said. "Birds, who also suffer, mainly due to the fragmentation of their habitat, get little attention."
Fragmentation of habitat is one of the key challenges facing forest birds in the region, according to a recent study conducted in the Mai Valley in eastern Nepal, designated by BirdLife International as an Important Bird and Biodiversity Area. The valley is home to birds such as the rufous-throated wren-babbler (Spelaeornis caudatus), the spiny babbler (Acanthoptila nipalensis), and the hoary-throated barwing (Sibia nipalensis).
Under the study, lead author Aastha Joshi and her team, including Baral, compared the diversity of birds found in two forests in the Mai Valley: one contiguous (Hangetham Community Forest) and the other isolated (Maipokhari Religious Forest).
"We chose the Maipokhari forest habitat as a test case for isolated forests as the development of infrastructure around it caused the religious forest to be fragmented eventually and be surrounded by agriculture land," Joshi said.
The Hangetham Community Forest, by contrast, developed as a contiguous forest within the Panchthar-Ilam corridor of Nepal, connecting forests of two different districts, thanks to the active participation of the community in its conservation.
Climatic conditions were assumed to be identical for both forests, which are just 20 kilometers (12 miles) apart, Joshi said.
The researchers recorded bird sightings in the two forests from December 2019 to January 2020, and then again in March 2020 and March 2021 (curtailed due to COVID-19 restrictions). They found that the contiguous forest supported a significantly higher bird diversity than the isolated forest.
Measures such as building overpasses and underpasses and culverts don't necessarily help mitigate the impacts of roads on birds.
"As the continuous forest is surrounded by forests, it offers a wide range of micro-habitats, food sources, and nesting sites away from predators and competitors," Baral said. When the forest habitat is fragmented, the specific requirements of these birds can't be met, he added. That's why measures such as building overpasses and underpasses and culverts don't necessarily help mitigate the impacts of roads on birds, he said.
The team recorded a total of 1,138 individual birds belonging to 141 species throughout the entire study. The overall result showed a higher number of species in the contiguous forest (116) compared to the isolated forest (84).
"It has been well documented both in the [Indian] subcontinent and outside that the larger contiguous patches of forests support more bird diversity than isolated patches," said Indian ornithologist Rohit Jha, who has studied birds in both India and Nepal but was not involved in the recent survey. "The studies, including the recent one in eastern Nepal, add to our existing knowledge that only a subset of species found in larger forests is found in small patches," he added.
In the case of a forest spanning 600 square kilometers (230 square miles), Jha hypothesized, some bird species will only live within the innermost 200 km2 (77 mi2), "as they have developed and evolved to live in core forests away from human disturbance and edges of forests." These, Jha told Mongabay, are the forest birds that are most threatened in the subcontinent due to the fragmentation of habitat, he added.
Various studies have shown that forest patches in the Indian subcontinent are increasingly being fragmented due to various reasons, such as the development of roads, power lines and railways. A 2020 study found an increase in the number of forest patches and a reduction in the number of large patches (defined as covering more than 10,000 km2, or 3,900 mi2) due to linear infrastructure in India. High-tension power lines and major roads were the most common linear intrusions within forests, and 70% of the assessed protected areas had some amount of linear infrastructure passing through them.
In the case of Nepal, a 2018 study looking at forest cover in the country from 1930-2014 found a 75.5% reduction in dense forests, and an increase in the number of fragmented patches. A 2021 study looking at forest loss and fragmentation between 1930 and 2020 in the Asian elephant's range in Nepal's Terai plains found the area of the large forests had shrunk by 43% during that period, whereas smaller patches had increased several time over.
"As both Nepal and India are developing countries, there is a growing need for essential infrastructures such as roads and powerlines," Jha said. This means fragmentation will only increase in the foreseeable future, ramping up the threats to forest specialist birds.
Developers and policymakers in the region need to identify key contiguous forest patches and prepare plans to keep them intact.
Baral and Jha both agreed that important bird habitats should be avoided during the development of roads, dams, canals and railway lines. But if doing so isn't possible, mitigation measures should be adopted to minimize the impacts on biodiversity, including different bird species. They also called for wildlife-friendly infrastructure guidelines, such as the one issued by Nepal recently, to include birds.
Jha said that as part of the mitigation measures, developers and policymakers in the region need to identify key contiguous forest patches and prepare plans to keep them intact. "It is also necessary to ensure not just connectivity, but also functional connectivity, between forests, and not allow fragmentation, to save the specialist forest bird species," he told Mongabay. "The mitigation measures need to be designed to ensure that threats to birds are also accounted for from the starting phase of development projects."
This then needs to be followed up with effective monitoring, which is lacking in the Indian subcontinent, Baral said.
"When a development project is completed," he said, "we need to keep on effectively monitoring its impacts on biodiversity."
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'People as the Enemy of Conservation': The Militarization of Conservation in Nepal
There are several incidents of human rights violations taking place in the name of conservation by the soldiers and rangers.
Dec 10, 2021
Chitwan National Park in the Southern lowlands of Nepal is famous for its one-horned rhinoceros and other wildlife living in its tropical grasslands and forests. Adjoining India, this landscape was once famous as the hunting grounds of big game and entertained Royals and important government officials working for the British empire. Before the early 1960s, Indigenous Tharus occupied this land. This changed with the eradication of malaria which encouraged a massive migration from the hills, leading to deforestation and large shrinkages of the forest. Due to this deforestation and decline in wildlife, the government established its first Protected Area, a rhino sanctuary, in the 19th century to protect the one-horned rhinoceros with park rangers. These rhino guards demolished thousands of Tharu houses, forcing them to leave their land in order to make way for the newly established sanctuary.
Like most Indigenous peoples, Tharus had a spiritual connection with nature and the forest. They revered rhinos and tigers with the belief that they are vital for a healthy ecosystem.
Before the eradication of malaria and mass migration, Indigenous Tharus managed the Chitwan's forest without the need for legislation or military enforcement. During this period, Chitwan was a mix of lush forest and grassland because Indigenous life is rooted in nature conservation. It is estimated that there were more than 1000 rhinos and 300 tigers in Chitwan alone. Like most Indigenous peoples, Tharus had a spiritual connection with nature and the forest. They revered rhinos and tigers with the belief that they are vital for a healthy ecosystem. Elderly Tharu landowners tell the story of a much better forest when Tharus were managing it. Wildlife was part of life and human-wildlife conflict was negligible.
Nepal's first Protected Area, Chitwan National Park, was built under a strict protectionist idea of conservation, viewing people as the enemy of conservation. This view restricted people from the park. Consequently, the military was mobilized to shield and prevent people from accessing it. Park officials would go to extreme measures to ensure this, including burning Indigenous houses and even torturing inhabitants to death.
Timelines and data, however, don't show any evidence of militarization bettering the forest or increasing the wildlife population. In fact, the forests and wildlife habitat, have decreased. The Rhino Census 2021 showed that the total rhino population in Chitwan was 752--significantly less than the estimate before militarization.
Apart from decline in wildlife, the militarization of conservation has brought conflict between park and people. Soldiers have issued sanctions, sexually harassed, and even tortured local Indigenous people to death (See Kathmandu post, Naya Patrika, Peter Gill). These Indigenous people, who share a rich history and culture with the forest and have been harvesting its resources sustainably, now don't feel any ownership. The park doesn't encourage the participation of locals in forest management, worsening the park-people conflict even further.
There are several incidents of human rights violations taking place in the name of conservation by the soldiers and rangers. To make matters worse, big conservation organizations have worked to hide these incidents. Raj Kumar Chepang, aged 24, was beaten to death by soldiers for collecting snails in the National Park in 2020. Shikharam Chaudhary was tortured and beaten to death by rangers in 2006; WWF Nepal demanded the charges against the guards be dropped. In 2020, Park authorities and soldiers burnt down houses belonging to the Chepang Indigenous people and destroyed others, leaving ten families homeless during the monsoon season.
Deploying the military for conservation comes at the cost of both money and conservation. The government has to pay millions of dollars for the military annually just to guard the park. This militarization also excludes the community who are vital for sustainable conservation.
Based on intense fieldwork and research, Charles M Peter concluded that Indigenous people have a better understanding of forest management and conservation. Their experiences and knowledge gathered over thousands of years and passed down for generations can be used for sustainable forest management and conservation. Involving the local community also minimizes the cost of conservation, reduces park-people conflicts and gives a sense of ownership to locals. Therefore, for sustainable conservation, both the strict protectionist idea and militarization of conservation are detrimental and should be avoided in future.
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Climate Despair, Hope, and My Long Walk to the Top of a Beautiful World
A Himalayan journey toward hope.
Oct 19, 2021
Thirteen thousand feet high on the far side of the Himalaya mountains, we have entered the past and the future at the same time. We are a medical expedition and also a pilgrimage, consisting of doctors, nurses, Buddhist clerics, supernumeraries like me, and a large staff of guides, muleteers, and camp tenders. We are bound for the isolated villages of Upper Dolpo, a remote region of northwestern Nepal, land of the snow leopard--both the actual animal and The Snow Leopard, Peter Matthiessen's nonfiction classic. We are traveling the same trails Matthiessen walked in 1973.
As a medical mission, our purpose is to provide primary health care to people who rarely, if ever, see a clinician. As pilgrims, our purposes are as varied as our individual identities. Mine is to make peace with the anger and grief that have dogged me since finishing a pair of books, one on climate change, the other on extinction. They left me heartsick. My delight in the beauty of the world had been joined to sorrow at its destruction, and the two emotions were like cellmates who refused to get along. Their ceaseless argument soured the taste of life. I hoped that a long walk--about 150 miles in this case--might cure the resultant moral ache. (The story of that walk provides the backbone of my new book, The Trail to Kanjiroba: Rediscovering Earth in an Age of Loss.)
The trails we followed led us into the past in the sense that the high Himalayan world--Sanskrit's "abode of snow"--is a relic of the Pleistocene, a land of glaciers, vast spaces, stony rubble, and frigid rivers. Its cynosure animal is less the snow leopard than the yak, a source of food, fiber, hide, bone tools, transport, and tractor power more essential to the Tibetan settlers of the region than even the bison was to America's Cheyenne or Sioux. Yaks enabled people to inhabit the wintry attic of the world, where today an Ice Age climate still lingers, even as it begins to fade away.
As much as we were entering the past, however, we were also plunging into the future. Lands at these high elevations appear to be warming two to three times faster than those lower down. The reasons for this are only partly understood. Changes in albedo--the reflectance of the land--are part of the answer: as snow packs shrink and glacial ice retreats, the newly bared and darker earth absorbs more solar energy than the white blanket that had covered it. The absorbed energy, in turn, warms the land and accelerates the melting of yet more nearby snow and ice. Windblown soot and dust, often set loose by human activities, can also darken the white, high-altitude world, yielding a similar effect.
From 1962 to 2006 the glaciers of the Himalaya appear to have lost more than a fifth of their ice. They did not all shrink at the same rate. In fact, some glaciers haven't shrunk at all, but measurements of the overall trend in the Sikkim-Nepal region put the average loss at seven inches of depth every year across the whole extent of ice. And, of course, the melting continues.
We used to say that climate disruption at high altitude presaged the changes that were soon to arrive in the rest of the world, that the cascade of broken balances exhibited by melting glaciers, erratic seasons, and unpredictable rivers was a harbinger of woes bound for environments closer to home. Sadly, such changes are harbingers no longer, for the woes have arrived.
Last summer saw nearly an entire Greek island combusted, significant swaths of Italy and Turkey turned to ash, giant expanses of the American Pacific Northwest set ablaze, and another full season of California flambe. Meanwhile, wildfires in Siberia consumed forested areas greater than all the rest combined, while floods in Belgium and western Germany drowned towns and villages that had never seen the like before. Then came an Atlantic hurricane season that has rivaled or surpassed the previous record-setting year in multiple categories. The future about which scientists and activists have warned us for more than 30 years is no longer on our doorstep. It's in the house.
Nowadays, the far Himalaya is less a model for the future than a mirror for the present. You see the same controversies over grazing and the same mistrust of land "managers" that preoccupy the American West. You see patterns of rural-to-urban migration that are common throughout the world, with young people leaving the family farmstead to seek their fortunes in the city. You also see the increased mobility of humanity expressed in legions of outsiders flooding into formerly isolated districts, much to the consternation of longtime residents.
In the case of Dolpo, the vast majority of outsiders invading the region are hunters of a weird fungus, yarza gunbu, that invades the head of a particular caterpillar soon after it hatches in the tundra grasslands. The fungus then consumes the unlucky caterpillar and erupts through the thin soil to produce a miniature tower, only a centimeter or two high, that (with a certain amount of imagination) can be seen to resemble an erect penis. As the snow recedes in the spring, yarza hunters pour by the thousands into the high country. Crawling on their hands and knees or shuffling stooped across the damp heights, they stare intently at the ground, straining to spot the phallic structure of their quarry. Gathered and dried, these rather unappetizing avatars of the male principle sell at cocaine prices as a remedy for impotence and a general tonic for health. Their market includes a large swath of Asia, especially China. Some call it "Himalayan Viagra."
Many Nepalis, especially urban youth, look to science to explain the perplexities of climate change, but in Dolpo and similar regions, yarza gunbu hunters often get blamed for the disturbed weather and chaotic hydrology afflicting the region. The newcomers, so the thinking goes, break unwritten laws, abuse pastureland, pollute streams, and cut shrubs and trees where none should be cut. Such behavior is said to upset the spirits of place. As a result, brutal winters now alternate with ones that are too warm, while avalanches fall where avalanches never fell before. The rains also seem to be affected. They start too early or end too late. Or they don't come at all. And the traditional rituals that people counted on to restore order when things slipped out of balance are proving inadequate to overcome such a high level of disturbance.
The Third Force: Stupidity
If opinion as to the cause of climate change is divided in Nepal, the division is generally benign. Not so in the United States, where it used to be said that, when things got bad enough, the nation's doubters and deniers would come around. Well, things have been bad enough for quite a while, as attested by the incineration of Paradise, California, in 2018, and Greenville, California this summer, the steady diminishment of the Colorado River, and so many other grim indicators. Rather than allow the light of realism to penetrate their thinking, the rightwing cheerleaders of America's culture wars, many of whom serve in Congress, persist in denying, dodging, or twisting the facts of global warming in ways that please their base and their corporate sponsors. Garret Keizer, writing in Harper's Magazine, theorizes that the problem goes deeper than the inevitable tension between liberals and conservatives. He argues that there is "a third force seeking hegemony over this world: stupidity."
Powered by social media, bullshit now travels at the speed of light. A Facebook algorithm is always available to help you segue from funny cat videos to anxiety-inducing clips about QAnon and chem trails. The main objective for Facebook and its advertisers is to keep viewers amused and aroused, to keep them plugged in. For many Internet users, real threats like global warming just can't compete with the loony ones.
The immoral and potentially fatal inability of the United States to take meaningful action on global warming means that Americans share more in common with rural Nepalis than they might imagine. Even through the pall of pollution that hangs over that country's capital, Kathmandu, people there can see that their climatic future will be determined by the billowing smokestacks of the United States, China, India, and Europe. They know that they have little agency on the world stage, little ability to influence events. This is not something new. Nepal is squeezed between the jealous powers of India and China. Each plays a different tune; Nepal dances, but it cannot dance to both at once. With two quarreling neighbors to appease, Nepal is far from being the master of its fate.
We Americans don't see ourselves as subject to the will of others. Since the early days of the republic, our autonomy has been a point of national pride. We chart our own path and we've long believed that, if something isn't right, we can fix it. If something needs doing, we will do it. We fought a world war in two hemispheres and came out victors. We rebuilt Europe. We walked on the moon. We won the Cold War and extended our economic reach around the world, exporting not just manufactured goods but our taste in music, film, fast food, and clothes. We spurred a Green Revolution in agriculture that vastly expanded the human carrying capacity of the globe, and we vanquished smallpox and polio. We were the good guys.
Today those attitudes and that pride seem so... well, twentieth century. Our scientists still develop vaccines, but the rest of us can't agree on using them. Our research institutions still pioneer the science of epidemics and climate change, but the general population can't agree on their underlying reality.
Implementing policies to control a public health crisis that has killed more than 700,000 fellow citizens or mitigating a shift in the global environmental equilibrium that threatens the future of civilization--these "big lifts"now exceed our strength. We can't even agree on a measure as simple as mask-wearing. More concerning yet, fidelity to the basic tenets of our electoral system, once the backbone of our democracy, now seems a relic of the past. Tens of millions of voters reject the clearly documented outcome of our last presidential election, and so do hundreds, maybe thousands, of public officials elected by that very system.
In times of stress, America has sought reassurance in the exploits of its vaunted military, but lately that hasn't worked out too well. Washington's 20-year war in Afghanistan bore a gloomy resemblance to its catastrophic effort to "save"Vietnam from communism, and not just in the way it ended. Imperial hubris, ignorance of local realities, and soaring civilian casualties are just a few of the dismal parallels to the earlier war. And we need hardly speak of Iraq: our invasion there produced an out-and-out disaster premised on out-and-out lies.
Which brings us back to agency. As Americans, we now confront a striking new reality: we don't have the clout we once thought we did. White America now shares its humbled condition with people who live on the farther side of the Himalaya, as well as with Native Americans, Blacks, and many other fellow citizens. America's minorities have long understood the loneliness and vulnerability of not being in command, of having to struggle against a hostile and disordered world. Now, the fractured American majority is getting a taste of how that feels. For want of cohesion and agreement, the United States is failing to address the biggest and most complex problems that confront it. Given how we've used our military since World War II, that reduced capability may not be an entirely bad thing. But where climate change is concerned, it's tragic.
Climate change requires comprehensive, systematic, and immediate action. Again and again at the national level, we've shown that we don't have what it takes. Diagnosis: inadequate agency. Responding to the climate crisis has become a race against time and our government still dawdles at the starting line.
Gratitude, Resilience, and Hope
At 13,000 feet on the farther side of the Himalaya, the world becomes lunar. The tallest vegetation can't hide a golf ball. Nothing is screened from view. What's there is there, as naked as sunlit boulders, as clear as mountain streams. As our expedition meandered from village to village, traversing passes higher than 17,000 feet, we wondered how so stark and spartan an environment might shape the people dwelling in it. In our clinics, we got a partial answer.
The gratitude and resilience of our Dolpo patients impressed us all deeply. One doctor spoke for many of us when he said,
"They come in with joint pain, a blown-out knee, GI distress, a horrible rash, whatever, and maybe we can't help them. 'Sorry,'we say. 'Wish we could do something for you.'And they get up and smile. They say, 'That's fine. Thanks anyway.'And off they go, as cheerfully as they came in. Patients back in my clinic [in the U.S.] are so different. Whatever hurts them becomes so much bigger a thing. And we give them meds for blood pressure or pain, but they really seem to want us to fix something bigger than that, something we don't have meds for. They want us to fix the pain that is in their minds or in their souls. My Nepali patients have lots of problems, but not that one."
The cheerful stoicism of our hosts inspired us. I had joined the expedition carrying much anger at my country's refusal to face its environmental responsibilities and frustration at witnessing the worsening results of its fecklessness. The long walk helped quite a bit. My fellow travelers, the patients we treated, and the spectacular land through which we traveled imparted many lessons. Perhaps the most important involved a rekindling of hope.
Hope is different from optimism and also different from the simple desire for things to turn out well. True hope demands faith in "not-knowing,"in trusting the uncertainty of the future. The people of Dolpo seemed to possess that faith. In realms more familiar to westerners, such culture heroes as Czech dissident and later president Vaclav Havel and South African liberator Nelson Mandela also possessed it. Neither Havel nor Mandela knew if the Soviet Union or apartheid would be dismantled in their lifetime.
Nevertheless, through long periods of darkness, each of them cultivated a resilient hope that had two vital components. The first was a commitment to the intrinsic value of right action, irrespective of whether it resulted in the desired outcome. In Havel's words, they did what "makes sense," no matter whether their efforts might ultimately fail. Many philosophies distinguish between "instrumental good," which is realized when an action achieves its goal, and "intrinsic good," which is realized irrespective of result. Havel and Mandela pursued intrinsic good.
Second, they believed in surprise--that sometimes big, consequential things happen with virtually no warning. An earthquake, the fall of the Soviet Union, or a coronavirus epidemic are all good examples. There is no guarantee that the consequences of surprise will be beneficial. That's where true hopefulness and doing what "makes sense" come in--they sustain you through the long wait for surprise. In Czechoslovakia and South Africa when the long-desired surprises arrived, both Havel and Mandela seized their moment and made them as beneficial as possible. The essence of their preparation was that they never lost hope. Neither should we.
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