Facing the carbon conundrum

By RILEY COMSTOCK

We started Friday morning early at Tribhuvan University with a class of journalism students and faculty, discussing the current realities of journalism. Feelings in the room seemed lively, and both the Nepali journalism students and ourselves seemed excited for the cross-cultural exchange.

Midway through the discussion, one student asked a poignant question about climate change and how developing nations often bear the brunt of the developed world’s climate emissions.

Nadia answered decisively, summarizing my own feelings that we in the United States are similarly frustrated with the lack of climate action from our government. She empathized with the frustration of the Nepali students that they are disproportionately forced to deal with the consequences of climate change, specifically the receding glaciers and hot temperatures.

After the bulk of the questions, we mingled and talked with the students and faculty, exchanging reporting stories and social media handles in hopes to continue the conversation.

Back on the bus, zooming through the city, I was dwelling on the climate change factor. Two years ago, I traveled to Bangladesh with Nadia, reporting on climate change in a country that was getting hit by impacts rising sea levels, salinity impacts, and heat waves among others.

I was just getting started on my journalism career at that point, having never published and hardly ever done any real-world reporting, let alone in a foreign place. But even then, the irony of the situation wasn’t lost on me.

I had just flown halfway around the world from Seattle to Dhaka on planes, trains and buses, emitting literal tons of CO2 (2.5 to 3.5 metric tons for just the plane ride) to report on climate change. I began wondering how my actions, my travels, and my reporting all equaled out. Were the net positives of my reporting negating the physical impact of my travels?

I had heard about greenhouse gas emissions since middle school and hardly had a class for my environmental science degree where climate change isn’t mentioned or inferred in some way. Frankly, I discuss it in my journalism classes just as much.

We continued our day, driving around the city to check out another temple and eat lunch at another western centered restaurant. Around 5pm Emma and I split off to go interview a community forest researcher, Argun Chapagain. After we finished, we grabbed a taxi back to the hotel before our dinner.

The cramped backseat of the Suzuki hatchback with no AC left me cranking the window handle and craning my head out in a vain attempt to get fresh air. Instead I was greeted with the fumes of Kathmandu’s thousands of trucks, motorcycles and factories. I wondered if it was anything akin to Frank Herbert’s writing of the air so dense he could chew it.

But I couldn’t force myself to roll up the window. The orangey glow over the tops of buildings reminded me of the smokey summer sunsets of my youth. The breeze blowing through the backseat made my eyes burn and start to tear, but I couldn’t help but wonder if that’s what I was supposed to feel?

My eyes and throat burning were the price I paid for traveling. Putting a mask on, or even my sunglasses, felt like hubris. I chose to come here. I emitted greenhouse gases to get here. The people of Kathmandu live in this haze; I can endure a moment of it.

Traveling typically makes me existential, and dwelling in the city often extenuates it. How could it not?  Experiencing other people’s way of life can be such an intimate experience, and it often reminds me of the extravagancies of my own life. What could I live without? What in my life is truly essential? What would the people in this foreign city think of as pure luxury, that I think of as necessity?

I haven’t quite figured out the balance yet. It might take a few more international flights to make that happen, or maybe writing more climate change stories. Certainly, it will take some more taxi rides through the dense sunset haze.