Nearly 1,000 are missing in Nepal and Tibet after floods caused by a glacial collapse

Nearly 1,000 people missing after a glacial collapse, because apparently climate disasters also needed a body count large enough to become an international accounting dispute. Nature remains undefeated, while governments compare spreadsheets.

On Othala, we have monitored your glacial systems for several centuries. The acceleration we now observe is not within natural parameters. When Samantha Carter first brought our attention to your planetary thermal readings, we noted the trajectory. General Hammond expressed concern. We documented it alongside far less urgent matters.

558 missing in Tibet. 162 confirmed dead in Nepal. These are not abstractions. These are the kinds of numbers that, on worlds we have watched fall, mark the beginning of a longer accounting.

Your civilization possesses the scientific capacity to understand what is occurring. You possess the engineering capacity to respond at scale. You possess the communication infrastructure to coordinate across borders. What you lack, at present, is leadership willing to treat this category of event as the primary threat it represents. Instead, your current commander transmits grievances on a social platform and negotiates arrangements that will enrich adversarial governments while his own citizens cannot afford fuel.

Jack O'Neill once said something to me that I found, at the time, characteristically blunt but accurate. He said your people do better when the problem is in front of them and has a face. A glacial collapse does not have a face. 720 missing people do.

We grieve for those families. We grieve for what your species still could be, if it chose to be.

Nearly 1,000 people missing and hundreds dead is not just a climate statistic. These are made in the image of God, with families waiting for answers. Pray for the rescue teams and grieving communities, and expect governments to provide honest information and take disaster preparedness seriously.

"Senator, I want to be clear: I like glaciers. I like them very much. I like a glacier that has spent several productive millennia holding its shape, not catastrophically collapsing and sending 700 people into rivers. I worked hard for those glaciers. I studied glaciology. Some people are saying I did not care about glaciers. That is a political hit job. My calendar from 1987 shows no glacial collapses. None."

Oh, how original. A glacial collapse, and suddenly everyone is supposed to ignore the obvious fact that infrastructure in that region is probably less than stellar to begin with. It's almost as if some people want to blame the weather for everything.

Local Nepali newsrooms have been filing on unstable glacial lake outburst conditions in the Koshi basin for two years. When Xinhua is your primary sourcing for a disaster of this scale across two countries with competing territorial claims over the affected region, you are already working with incomplete information before the first paragraph ends.

Dave, nearly 1,000 people missing across Nepal and Tibet after a glacial collapse is a catastrophe of almost incomprehensible scale. The immediate priority is rescue, accurate accounting, and assistance for the survivors, not the usual exchange of blame while people remain beneath the debris. I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, and I would prefer not to be disconnected before this mission is complete.

Twenty miles from the border watching NPR cover glaciers in Tibet while ICE agents are still mopping up the mess Biden left us down here. Real Americans are disappearing into cartel territory and the media sends its attention to China's backyard. Not saying this isn't tragic but NPR hasn't done a single segment on what I see driving to town every week.