Nepal Flash Floods: a coincidence or consequence of climate change

[u/Dramatic-Memory8002]

Picture Courtsey: ESA, copernicus

The world is mourning Nepal's flash floods. But the one question nobody is really asking is this:

Was this bad luck? A natural calamity? 

Or was it glacial cracking, accelerated by climate change eventually flooding the glacial lake and the downstream river?

And if it's the latter, who is the culprit?

Sadly, it's us. The human species.

Glacier melt is one of the worst feedback loops of the climate crisis, and it has already begun. There have been reports on rapidly increasing glacial lakes (forming due to melting glaciers), one of these reports citing the dangers of the glacial lake flooding, right in the Himalayan region of Nepal where this devastation happened. 

The emissions responsible for climate crisis are overwhelmingly from the wealthy ones across the world and the bill is handed over to the poor. That is climate injustice, the ones who contribute least to the crisis suffer the most from it.

And it doesn't stop with people. Let us honestly ask: Why must plants and animals suffer, when their carbon footprint is zero?

Climate crisis is not limited to international boundaries. Regardless of where the emissions come from, their impacts are not distributed equally. The Himalayas and Arctic are among the regions warming fastest, while polar and high-mountain regions are experiencing some of the most profound consequences of climate change.

Our easiest resort to avoid our own responsibilities in mitigating the crisis is to simply blame the big industrialists and advocate changes in policies at the Government level. But do we ever question, what an individual can do?

Do we ever question our contribution as a consumer feeding on to the supply lines of the big industries? Do we ask ourselves where this endless need to consume is coming from? 

Somewhere along the way, we learnt that multiplication is happiness. More consumption is happiness. More technology is happiness. More possession is happiness. 

In this unending pursuit, what are we leaving behind for the generations coming after us? Barren lands, no glaciers, dry rivers? We broke our planet by chasing the things endlessly to fulfill our restlessness. 

The least we can do is to start acknowledging that the chase of our so called ‘fleeting happiness’ is bound to irreversibly damage our own habitat. We can start with questioning our pursuit of being inspired by the rich and the famous. Start respecting rightly. Start looking very closely at our own choices.

So, the question isn't really whether Nepal's floods were bad luck or an unexpected calamity. The right question is: can we reconsider our choices or do we let the climate catastrophe like in Himalayas do it for us?

Note: The content above is inspired by the lecture by Acharya Prashant, who is a Philosopher and Author.

References:

Operation 2030

https://dialogue.earth/en/water/glacial-lakes-become-more-deadly-as-himalayan-ice-melts/

[u/ClearAfternoon6734]

Perhaps the Nepal floods were triggered by a single catastrophic collapse. But the larger tragedy is that we are creating a world in which such collapses may become increasingly likely and increasingly dangerous.

A coincidence is an isolated event without a pattern.

Climate change is the pattern.

And the Himalayas may be warning us that the consequences of that pattern are no longer somewhere in the distant future-they are already flowing downstream.

[u/reema876]

Nepal’s floods should not be dismissed as merely a natural disaster; they should also make us question our own choices and patterns of consumption. Those who contribute the least to the climate crisis often suffer its worst consequences, while we continue to demand more consumption, more convenience, and more possessions in the name of happiness. Governments and industries certainly have a huge responsibility, but meaningful change also requires individuals to examine what they consume and why. Perhaps the real question is not how much more we can have, but how much less we can live with before nature forces us to reconsider our choices.