Ramon Magsaysay Award-winning climate warrior Sonam Wangchuk calls himself an 바카라˜education activist바카라™. He talks with Jayanta Oinam. Excerpts:
Something to warm up, anything on Ladakh and climate change?
We, in Ladakh, have been nature-friendly for millennia. In the past 30 years, I have been trying to make education more relevant as our old education system valorises production and consumption. We see the effects of that. We try to make children problem-solvers. That gave birth to solar-heated mud buildings, using greenhouses to grow things and ice stupas바카라”artificial baby glaciers.
How much has changed, say in these past three decades?
Ladakh has changed a lot. Flash floods are common, followed by drought. That바카라™s when we thought that we should act global. If mountain people, the first victims of climate change, send an SOS to the world there might be some impact.
And the #livesimply movement started?
Yes. It바카라™s a platform to sensitise the urban youth. #Ilivesimply movement is a fun, crowdfunding campaign. Not money, you pledge to change your behaviour in dollar-equivalent actions바카라”in 바카라˜green dollars바카라™. In less than a month, we got pledges worth over a million dollars.
Tell us something about The Last Game?
Sports stars connect with youth. So, Viacheslav 바카라˜Slava바카라™ Fetisov바카라™s coming to Ladakh was a natural thing. Hopefully, we can do it every year.
You mentioned about making Ladakh a zone of peace...
Ladakh is a hot battlefield. I gave a call for 'peace with nature, peace with neighbours'. Let's make Ladakh a zone of peace. Opening Ladakh for large scale mining and industry as a UT will add to our ecological disaster.
