Essay by Eric Worrall

My heart goes out to Om Prakash, who lost his family in a landslide disaster earlier this year. But it wasn’t climate change which killed his family.

‘Climate change killed my family’: Unusual monsoon hammers India’s Himachal

Record-breaking torrential rain leaves a trail of unprecedented devastation in northern India’s Himachal Pradesh state.

By Srishti Jaswal
Published On 25 Sep 202325 Sep 2023

…

“It was raining intensely. Around 4am I heard a deafening crash. Just behind the house, the entire hill collapsed and unleashed a torrent of water and mud that destroyed everything. I survived, but my daughter, wife and my mother died in their sleep,” Prakash said.

…

“Due to global warming, the monsoon winds now carry more moisture from the sea along with dust and pollution from the plains. Himachal’s bowl-like topography captures those moisture-laden clouds. This leads to excess monsoon rainfall in less periods. The result is flooding,” Shukla explained.

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Stopping the flow of rivers by dams in Himachal Pradesh has led to severe riverine disturbances, said Manshi Asher, co-founder of the environmental group Himdhara.

“When the water increases beyond the holding capacity of the dam, they open the floodgates without warning. The impact is visible in the form of landslides and floods,” she said.

The lack of comprehensive data on the environment in the region has also made the situation more dangerous.

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Read more: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/9/25/climate-change-killed-my-family-unusual-monsoon-hammers-indias-himachal

I wonder what the original draft of that Al Jazeera story looked like?

In my opinion, someone involved in the chain of publication of that Al Jazeera story appears to have tried to tell the real story – uncontrolled building of dams, poor management of said dams, including abrupt releases of water without warning, and a lack of environmental data, have dramatically worsened the risk of landslides and floods.

But Al Jazeera decided to lead with climate change claims, which given the “lack of comprehensive data”, do not seem to be backed by solid evidence.

Even if CO2 is increasing rainfall, would reducing emissions fix the “landslides and floods” caused by poor water management? Or would focussing on water management issues be more likely to lead to an improved near term outcome?

If Al Jazeera had led with the dam management issue, I would have praised their handling of the story, even if it contained alarmist climate content. But instead of telling the story, in my opinion Al Jazeera have done a grave disservice to Om Prakash and others in his situation, by using Prakash’s tragedy as a prop to push their political climate agenda. You have to read the full article to read about the real root cause of local landslide and flood tragedies.