At 11,500 Feet, a ‘Climate Fast’ to Save the Melting Himalaya

This month, Indian activist Sonam Wangchuk conducted a 21-day “climate fast” in his native Ladakh in the Himalaya. He had two objectives: to call the world’s attention to the rapid meltdown of the planet’s “third pole” and to pressure India’s government to grant Ladakhis the power to legally protect the region’s resources.

For centuries, Ladakhis have survived and thrived in the “rain shadow” of the Himalaya, where the only water comes from melting snow and ice. But in recent decades, they have witnessed rapid glacier loss, increasingly erratic snowfall, and disasters caused by unprecedented cloudbursts and glacial lake floods.

An educator and an engineer, Wangchuk has pioneered the construction of passive solar-heated buildings throughout the region, as well as “ice stupas,” in which meltwater is refrozen…