Melting Himalayan Glaciers With Western Greed – OpEd
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Buildings are submerged in mud following flash floods in Rasuwa district in central-northern Nepal. Photo Credit: UNICEF
By Graham Peebles
Key Takeaways:
The article argues that Nepal’s 26 August glacial collapse and flash floods, which killed 1,455 people and left about 5,300 missing, are the end result of Western consumerism, corporate greed and fossil-fuel dependence rather than a purely natural event.
Nepal emits only 0.025% of global greenhouse gases yet faces $4–5 billion in reconstruction costs (roughly 2% of GDP), with more than 250 unidentifiable bodies washed downstream in Chitwan and families such as Nabin’s still searching for missing relatives.
It concludes that climate justice requires wealthy nations to cut emissions, dismantle the fossil-fuel economy and internalise environmental costs in the price of goods, or continue imposing the heaviest burdens on the poorest countries.
“My nephew [32-year-old Nabin] was swept away in that devastating flood…he may have been carried away by the raging waters, buried beneath the earth, or perhaps he somehow survived…the hardest part is not knowing whether we have lost him forever or whether, somewhere out there, he is still alive…” Nabin’s uncle told me.
On 26 August, northern Nepal was hit by massive flash floods. A large section of a glacier had detached, triggering an ice-rock avalanche that crashed down the valley, temporarily damming the Trishuli River before releasing a massive wall of water and mud. Communities living along the river in Rasuwa, Nuwakot, Dhading, and Gorkha regions were devastated: homes swept away, schools destroyed, villages decimated. To date 1,455 people are reported dead, and an estimated 5,300 are still missing.
Around 100km further downstream, in Chitwan, The Guardian reports that “more than 250 bodies have washed up along the riverbanks. But they are in such a disfigured state that only nine have been successfully identified.” Unimaginable anguish. Anguish caused by a disaster that rocked Nepal, and beyond.
This ‘natural’ disaster (like most climate-change disasters) was the final act within a chain of events triggered by a particular way of life: a materialistic, consumer-based approach born and nurtured in the West.
A selfish, shallow ideology of greed and division, built to generate huge profits for the few while creating discontent and misery for the many. An approach rooted in desire and discontent, pleasure and division. One that believes in separation—the false notion that we are separate from one another, from the natural world, and from that underlying reality: the silent screen upon which the time-bound movement of living is played out.
These are the pillars of destruction: they have created violent, unhealthy, divided societies, in which the good is often suffocated under the weight of competition, fear and distrust, and have led to the catastrophe we call the environmental emergency.
Foreign Poisons
Nepal is a country of 30 million people; 70% live in rural areas, most are poor. Between a quarter and a third somehow survive on an annual income below $544.73 (the national poverty line). Communities living in remote mountain areas suffer the most: work is scarce and poor roads make travel to food markets, schools and health facilities difficult, sometimes impossible. Public transport is non-existent in some areas, forcing children to walk hours to attend overcrowded, under-resourced schools.
There is no heavy industry in Nepal, and this small, ancient country produces very few GHG emissions—just 0.025% of global emissions—the poisons that are clogging the lower atmosphere, resulting in global warming and climate chaos.
The Nepalese government estimates costs for reconstruction (80 bridges and 40 kilometres of highway have been destroyed) to be between $4 and $5 billion—around 2 per cent of Nepal’s Gross Domestic Product. This is a staggering amount for a very poor nation that bears virtually no responsibility for climate change, which, in this case, led to the flash floods.
Nepal has applied to the UN Loss and Damage Fund for financial assistance. But it may need to take loans from international bodies, incurring interest, to repair damage caused by a disaster resulting from the GHG emissions of wealthy nations and its industrialised neighbours, China and India, where many of the goods bought in the Global North are now manufactured. If climate justice is ever to become a reality, the environmental costs currently incurred by producing nations should be reflected in the price of goods imported by the Global North.
Causal Chain
The glacial collapse that triggered the devastation in northern Nepal is a consequence of the warming climate—this is widely understood. What is not spoken about enough, and bears repeating, is that rising global temperatures are driven by the materialistic lifestyles and irresponsible consumption patterns of wealthy nations.
It is western greed, corporate avarice, and state-led complacency that caused the deaths of 1,455 Nepalese people. And if such tragedies are to be avoided, GHG emissions must be cut and the fossil fuel economy dismantled. This requires a major shift in attitudes and behaviour—not in Nepal, but in the US, the home of rabid consumerism, in Europe/UK, Australia, Japan, and elsewhere.
This common-sense statement is not new; how many times have such words been spoken? And yet, because profit is the god of the hour to the men and women in suits—corporate and political—very little changes. While the impact of climate change is felt in every country, the beneficiaries of the fossil fuel economy are not the ones bearing the heaviest cost. Instead, it is mostly poor nations in the Global South, nations like Nepal, that emit virtually nothing yet now count their dead by the thousands.
Where climate change is concerned, the source of emissions is of little relevance: the natural world is one whole, completely interconnected, beyond man-made borders. So too is humanity—one family. Hard to believe, given the level of division currently on display.
Nepal’s suffering is not an isolated tragedy; it is a symptom of a global system in which those who contribute least to the problem bear the heaviest costs. We live in a world where social injustice has become normalised, where extreme inequality is accepted as inevitable. Now, to this ever-deepening schism of indifference, we must add climate injustice—or climate racism. And in both areas, connected and intertwined, we are reaching tipping points.
“Nabin was the only son of his parents. Even today, his father and mother keep looking toward the gate, hoping against hope that their son might somehow return…When a family loses its only child, it is not just a life that is lost. Dreams are lost, hopes are shattered, and an entire future is changed forever…Everyone’s family has something like this.”
They are not concerned about the underlying causes—GHG emissions, Western greed, and endless consumerism. They just want their son back.
For how long must families like Nabin’s, in countries like Nepal, be expected to simply accept the gross social and climate injustice that flows from a corrupt and cruel socio-economic order? It is complacency—”the root of all evil”—that lies at the core of social and climate injustice: an attitude of indifference that allows the status quo to continue, even as lives are destroyed.
About Graham Peebles
Graham Peebles is an independent writer and charity worker. He set upThe Create Trustin 2005 and has run education projects in India, Sri Lanka and Ethiopia where he lived for two years working with acutely disadvantaged children and conducting teacher training programmes. Website:https://grahampeebles.org/
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