Global warming and human arrogance
Everyone takes a flight somewhere. The start of the UK (and Europe’s) vast heatwaves coincided with a massive increase in flights. Air travel in the summer of 2026 1 had increased substantially over previous years. Holidays are no doubt important but for decades there has been warnings that humanity’s activities are causing countless problems everywhere. Places are getting fed up with tourists. The sheer influx of tourism requires a service and transport industry that can cope with such vast numbers – but there’s a downside to it all. Larger airports, more flights, more hotels, more food to be prepared for particular markets, tastes and sale, and in the process there’s no doubt even more food is thrown away and the trash produced is immeasurable. The energy for all this (and for the other industrial/consumer processes) is basically incalculable – and the whole endeavour results in what is known as environmental degradation. In other words there’s a ‘payback’ that is not easily quantifiable in human, animal, marine or natural terms. The work of putting all this right becomes impossibly gigantic and there’s every certainty this must outweigh all the ‘benefits’ that humanity has made in terms of progress.
Humanity sees tourism and holidays as an immeasurable success. What it does not do is to see this sheer tourism and a desire for mass travel as an unmitigated disaster. Surely the number of disasters that have now occurred (floods, forest fires etc) have all but outweighed the advantages of the profitable tourist industry? Its almost like humanity has an arms race against nature, yet there is only one real winner that will emerge and that’s nature. Its revenge knows no bounds.
In Switzerland glaciers are disappearing at a rapid rate 2 and there have been warnings of possible floods and mudslides. That at Blatten occurred not more than a year ago. 3 India experienced huge floods a whilst back when glacial melt saw floodwater speed through a valley killing many people. 4 The story turned out to be far worse in Tibet and Nepal however. The mountainous region known as the Himalayas is without a doubt suffering the effects of global warming with snow lines receding and glaciers vanishing. Even so countless numbers continue to make the trip to Everest and leave piles and piles of trash and discarded tents en route. That’s part of the package of human selfishness that is turning the entire planet into an unmitigated ecological nightmare.
The environmental degradation of the Himalayas has potential to impact the rest of the world. Yet humanity continues on its thankless path very much unfazed by all these disasters. One of the world’s biggest floods has occurred with potentially hundreds and hundreds dead and more missing. This occurred yesterday in the valleys of Nepal and Tibet, 5 and there’s every certainty few of the local populace will ever find out what happened to their loved ones or how they met an awful end. There were countless numbers of tourists too who have have perished. Numbers will never be known – but the unmitigated scale of the disaster is fast becoming obvious. The scale of humanity that has been affected is simply too great for anyone to reasonably measure. Sadly its another indication that humanity seriously needs to get a grip on what is happening to the world’s environment.
Gyirong Port had already seen other disasters unfold. This is from July 2025. The older bridge sited here had been washed away – and that seen in the current disaster had been in use since early 2026.
It ought to be a warning that humanity needs to do something drastic. As some have said, its too late already. Ocean temperatures have risen inexorably 6 and there’s indication that next year (2027) is going to be potentially worse. The big question is what will humanity do about it? Not a lot and that’s a certainty. Flights, holidays, destructive tourism, and vast development that takes no consideration of the environment will continue unabated. Increased forest fires and flooding shall continue and humans shall look at the scenes and decide that its not going to affect them in the slightest.
Humanity is determined, like lemmings, to go over the cliff. One person deems they are not doing any harm with their unsavoury activities but there are billions of people and each and every one is actively contributing in one way or another no matter how small, towards this massive ecocide.
Even war is a massive environmental concern and yet its an example that shows humanity has little desire to cease and desist. The sheer morass that is factory farming is a huge contributor too. Its a sign humanity are not a very clever species yet its things like that that this particular race of bipeds appears to only want to make exponentially more effective and faster in terms of processing and production – including being plastic wrapped for one off use before being unceremoniously discarded without a care for the environment.
Humans simply have no idea of the damage they do – yet they are ‘expert’ at proliferating every single possible woe that can be construed. There have been warnings from the late 19th century through to now that the massive polluting, environmental degrading, trash-rearing ways humanity loves to produce, is evidently not doing any good. Very sadly humanity cannot look any further than the selfishness and greed it loves to bathe in.
The main image is of the border post at Gyirong screencapped from Youtube. One of the earliest videos of the disaster featured the border check point – and that video has been shown everywhere on the news and in social media. Shortly after the disaster videos were posted on X (Twitter) featuring a tour of the facilities. Evidently there were numerous numbers of people here before the calamity struck.
References
- France 24: More traffic, but halved profits for airlines in 2026: Industry forecast ↩︎
- Guardian: Snow and ice on Swiss glaciers melting at alarming rate amid heatwave, expert says ↩︎
- Nature: The 2025 Blatten disaster in the Swiss Alps followed exceptional warming and highlights the vulnerability of people and heritage in glaciated landscapes ↩︎
- Carbon Brief: ‘Catastrophic’ 2023 lake outburst in India driven by glacial melt and permafrost thaw ↩︎
- Guardian: How the deadly Nepal and Tibet flash flood unfolded – a visual guide ↩︎
- BBC: World’s oceans hit highest temperature on record as El Niño grows ↩︎
