Shreya Sen-Handley | Trumped? Reset climate goal, for it's not over yet

But in turning away from the world, you’d only deplete the diminishing ranks of the humane. Your voice raised in protest, still matters, if just in the echo chambers inhabited by the likeminded. It encourages perseverance. Shutting yourself away is not the answer then, but stepping back might be key – to your survival and this planet’s.

Like all well-meaning people despairing over the state of the world, withdrawing temporarily from the battlefield that’s social media, switching off from the many fake platforms masquerading as news outlets, is essential for your mental health.

But because the smutty pawprints of the grasping are everywhere, not only on the virtual plane, our sanyas must extend to the real world as well. Yet, nothing heals like immersing ourselves in the natural world’s majesty, especially in the company of those we love best. Why, in such dark times, should we deprive ourselves of this solace?

Sacrifices, you see, have to be made to ensure a future for our descendants. Like long-term sustainability for everyone over short-term gains for the few, which we’ve rejected again and again when choosing our governments. But is the re-election of Trump the final nail in our coffin, or can we continue to fight on other fronts to salvage our destiny?

I’m struck, in particular, by the urgency with which we must shrink our ambit for travel (as hard as that is for a veteran travel writer to advocate), nurturing the beauty on our doorsteps instead, even as we fling our minds and hearts open to those to whom we’ve never allowed admittance.

If we’d paid more attention to the travails of tiny Kiribati, or much bigger but impoverished Bangladesh, could we have averted this autumn’s deadly floods in Spain? Stylish Barcelona itself was smashed to watery smithereens, despite its citizens taking to the streets mere months before that in furious anti-tourism protests, warning of disasters exactly like the one they faced. Rising 7% year-upon-year, Barcelona’s tourist numbers in 2024 touched 10.9 million, putting unbearable pressure on their city’s infrastructure, leading to catastrophe.

And while there wasn’t a protester in sight in Darjeeling, where I spent the few quiet days before Diwali, only swarms of monkey-capped Bengalis (the women too, with pink pompoms to distinguish them) visiting from the plains, there undoubtedly should have been.

I say this not because I didn’t love the awe-inspiring, respite-giving mountains, but because I absolutely ADORED them. And it pained me to witness what humanity, especially visitors to these stunning landmasses, are doing to them (yes, me included, though we try to leave the lightest of footprints on our travels). It’s not hard to spot the profound injuries to the Himalayan eco-system, no matter how blind an eye our government chooses to turn on them, with the other perfectly-functioning ocular orb firmly on the money tourism brings.

Decades after my last trip to these mountains, far too much has changed. Their enduring beauty is still exhilarating, with not even the imminent return of the Orange Menace (that week) able to deflate my buoyance. But other factors almost managed.

The dirt, disease, and dereliction, that’s taken over so much of this part of India was depressing to say the least. Poverty is undeniably responsible, but the unsustainable levels of tourism and scourge of corruption are major culprits too.

Lamahatta Eco Park, a slice of pine forest, would’ve been a delight, with its settling mists and soaring evergreens, but for the litter marring its landscape — handiwork of heedless touring throngs, jostling for selfies with my British husband (light skin is all it takes for some of our colour-obsessed countrymen to embarrass themselves) instead of binning their waste in the clearly provided baskets.

As for Darjeeling, it broke my heart with the squalor that’s overtaken it. Although its historic cafes, tea-tasting havens, and authentic Tibetan takeaways, were all worth sampling, wall-to-wall tourists, ugly new constructions, and dogs and ponies in heart-rending conditions, obscured its once-legendary allure.

But the gloriously green and twisting mountain roads, tranquil monasteries, charmingly quaint tea gardens, friendly locals, and the view, oh the view, of the most spectacular mountain range in the world, would’ve completely wiped away the more discordant experiences, had our finest moment there not been occasioned by the ravages of global warming.

The Kanchenjunga, world’s third highest peak, on our first morning there was amongst the most magnificent sights we’d ever seen, aflame in the light of the rising sun and as clear as day as it was surprising. Surprising because this fabled, cloud-shrouded peak is known for being elusive, but the global-warming-induced high temperatures that has visited the area lately, allowed us an unparalleled glimpse, leaving us with bittersweet memories.

Global warming will only get worse now that Trump’s returned, promising to ‘drill, baby, drill’ our already devastated earth, to his followers’ glee. A climate-change denier who’s trashed rot-stemming international climate treaties in his last presidential blood-spree, there can be no doubt our natural world, and all right-thinking (wrong-thinking as well actually) humanity, face an existential threat from him.

How does one even begin to counter this? I reckon the answers won’t reveal themselves immediately. Walk away, for now, from the noxious effluence (the meaning of trump in British English) he injects into every good thing. Wipe away your footprints from much of the earth so it doesn’t have you to blame as well. Then? Rejuvenate, regroup, and reset, the terms of the battle ahead.