Roof of the World

And so that's what got me thinking a- about writing.

Back in about 1997, I wrote a manuscript never to be published called Pilgrimages to the Roof of the World.

That was a catalyst for me to get writing, and I really enjoyed it actually.

I love the process of writing because it's so reflective.

So I love the process.

Yeah.

Pilgrimages to the Roof of the World started me off.

That followed with a website, pilgrimages.co.nz, which no longer exists.

In 2023, David Craig and Jennifer Cheavens made national news for a study that found that lovingkindness techniques can ease symptoms of anxiety and depression and promote feelings of social connection.

So in the spirit of considering the stranger, let's take a trip back to the region where these techniques were developed, back to the Roof of the World.

[gentle music] Few people can get into Chinese-occupied Tibet these days, but neighboring Nepal is close.

Charles Dawes went there in 1971 with the Peace Corps to help the country modernize its agriculture.

It's a cruel but vivid image, this disaster.

Scientists agree that the catastrophe was set off by global warming.

Centuries of human progress in which we couldn't or wouldn't consider how our actions could be interconnected with the most remote part of the world, the roof of the world, which in August 2026 cracked.

A few days later, Rohit was in the city of Bhaktapur for Gai Jatra, a festival of remembrance for the dead.

My guest today is Jonathan Mingle, an independent journalist and author whose reporting and writing is mostly focused on the science and politics of climate change, energy, health, and technology.

In 2015, he published Fire and Ice, Soot, Solidarity, and Survival on the Roof of the World, in which he reports about the shrinking glaciers across the Himalayas and California, the role of black carbon in that shrinkage, and the impacts on the people and nature who live there.

In 2024, he published Gaslight, the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, and the Fight for America's Energy Future, which won the 2025 Reed Environmental Writing Book Award.

Jonathan Mingle, welcome to Sustainability Now.

You've been listening to a Sustainability Now interview with Jonathan Mingle, an independent journalist and author whose reporting and writing is mostly focused on the science and politics of climate change, energy, health, and technology.

He talked today in part about the Nepali-Chinese flash flood that killed over 1,200 people and left more than 5,000 missing in August.

In 2015, he published Fire and Ice, Solidarity and Survival on the Roof of the World, which reports about the shrinking glaciers across the Himalayas and California.

You can read the report on the Himalayan disaster by googling the following title, Rapid Warming in the Himalaya Exacerbates Geohazard Cascades Beyond Adaptation Limits.

It is.

And if a traveler is aiming for July, the data really flags the roof of the World Music Festival in Korag.

I saw that in the notes.

It sounds amazing.

The Bibi Fatima hot springs above Yamchun Fort, which only cost a few dollars.

That sounds incredible.

Karakul Lake, the night skies in Belongkul, conquering the Akbetl Pass, and of course, the Roof of the World Festival, if you time it right.

OK, but what about the honest disappointments?