The Tibet-Nepal flood is a warning against defying nature

Humanity is altering natural ecosystems more rapidly than it is developing an adequate scientific understanding of the consequences. Those alterations are contributing to climate change, which in turn is amplifying the damage to ecosystems. The Nepal-Tibet flood disaster is a stark reminder that humanity must stop trying to bend nature to its will.

The catastrophe that began high in the mighty Himalayas on the Tibet-Nepal border is a warning from the world’s youngest, tallest and most volatile mountain range about the dangerous illusion that humans can engineer nature into submission.

An immense ice-and-rock avalanche sheared off a glacier situated directly along the crest of the international boundary on the Nepalese side, plunged into the China-controlled Tibetan upper basin, and unleashed a devastating torrent that ripped through transboundary rivers, wrecking upstream Chinese infrastructure and leaving a vast trail of death and destruction downstream in Nepal.

The disaster exemplified how human interventions can magnify nature’s fury. Nepal bore no responsibility for the catastrophic flash floods, yet it faced their main brunt. Extensive infrastructure-centered alterations to the upstream river corridor and mountain landscape in the Tibetan border region compounded the downstream effects through physical, structural and operational vulnerabilities.

The tragedy’s central lesson is best summed up by the 1970s American television advertising slogan that became a pop-culture catchphrase: “It’s not nice to fool Mother Nature.”

In the name of development, countries have long sought to redirect river flows, flatten mountains, tame weather and conquer landscapes. Such engineering has undeniably brought energy, water and prosperity. But when it disregards the fundamental logic of natural systems, manageable risks potentially turn into calamitous ones.

The Tibet-Nepal disaster offers the latest illustration of why respecting nature has become an imperative for........

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