Published: Tuesday, December 28, 2010
In our view / Climate change
Free Tibet from pollution
One document obtained by Wikileaks that didn’t get enough attention, apparently due to insufficient citing of public figures’ peccadillos, was the cable describing the Dalai Lama’s concern about climate change.
The Buddhist leader told American officals the issue of Tibet’s political future should be temporarily shelved in favor of immediate action help save the sacred Himalayas, according to the cable released by The Guardian newspaper.
The Dalai Lama told the U.S. ambassador to India that political talks with Beijing could wait for five or 10 years, but that the environmental crisis cannot wait.
The Himalayas are the Earth’s most massive mountain system and home to its highest peaks. The entire range is often called “The Roof of the World” and contains the greatest area of glaciers and permafrost outside of the poles. While the vastness of the Himalayas remains difficult to comprehend, the tangible effects from environmental damage unfortunately brings the region back down to earth.
The Dalai Lama pointed to the Himalaya’s melting glaciers, deforestation and increasingly polluted waters as evidence for his call to focus on the physical. He is particularly critical of China’s dams, which have displaced thousands of Tibetans while leaving temples and monasteries underwater.
We agree with those who say the Dalai Lama is on the right path. It’s difficult to think of an issue — protecting the Earth — that more clearly fits the Buddhist belief that all things, great and small, plant, animal and objects, are interconnected.
So we agree again with those who say not only should the Dalai Lama take on this issue, he should take it on more publicly, roundly and strongly. That is to say, it’s not just China that needs pressuring. Huffington Post blogger Nikolas Kozloff notes, “If the Dalai Lama is serious about safeguarding Himalayan glaciers, then getting the U.S. (the world’s second largest greenhouse gas emitter) to pressure China (the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitter) is an exercise in futility.”
Kozloff argues that the “climate change justice movement” needs a high-profile spokesperson and that the Dalai Lama, 75, is just the person for the job.
Almost half of the world’s population depends on water from the Himalayas. Which is why this is truly a “global” issue, regardless of political boundaries. If caring for our earthly home so that current and future generation can live here is something humans can’t agree on, well, then, that would be karma.
This will take real work. Like Tibet’s political struggle with China, making the environment just another liberal American bumper-sticker issue won’t fix anything.
The Buddhist leader told American officals the issue of Tibet’s political future should be temporarily shelved in favor of immediate action help save the sacred Himalayas, according to the cable released by The Guardian newspaper.
The Dalai Lama told the U.S. ambassador to India that political talks with Beijing could wait for five or 10 years, but that the environmental crisis cannot wait.
The Himalayas are the Earth’s most massive mountain system and home to its highest peaks. The entire range is often called “The Roof of the World” and contains the greatest area of glaciers and permafrost outside of the poles. While the vastness of the Himalayas remains difficult to comprehend, the tangible effects from environmental damage unfortunately brings the region back down to earth.
The Dalai Lama pointed to the Himalaya’s melting glaciers, deforestation and increasingly polluted waters as evidence for his call to focus on the physical. He is particularly critical of China’s dams, which have displaced thousands of Tibetans while leaving temples and monasteries underwater.
We agree with those who say the Dalai Lama is on the right path. It’s difficult to think of an issue — protecting the Earth — that more clearly fits the Buddhist belief that all things, great and small, plant, animal and objects, are interconnected.
So we agree again with those who say not only should the Dalai Lama take on this issue, he should take it on more publicly, roundly and strongly. That is to say, it’s not just China that needs pressuring. Huffington Post blogger Nikolas Kozloff notes, “If the Dalai Lama is serious about safeguarding Himalayan glaciers, then getting the U.S. (the world’s second largest greenhouse gas emitter) to pressure China (the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitter) is an exercise in futility.”
Kozloff argues that the “climate change justice movement” needs a high-profile spokesperson and that the Dalai Lama, 75, is just the person for the job.
Almost half of the world’s population depends on water from the Himalayas. Which is why this is truly a “global” issue, regardless of political boundaries. If caring for our earthly home so that current and future generation can live here is something humans can’t agree on, well, then, that would be karma.
This will take real work. Like Tibet’s political struggle with China, making the environment just another liberal American bumper-sticker issue won’t fix anything.
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