The Trail to Kanjiroba: Rediscovering Earth in an Age of Loss

Pulitzer finalist deBuys (First Impressions) recounts his five-week trip through the Dolpo in northwestern Nepal in this lyrical if flawed meditation on climate change and the Earth. In 2016, deBuys joined a medical expedition to provide care to those in need and here uses the experience to contemplate a hospice-oriented approach to addressing climate change that prioritizes “care over cure.” This would involve caring for the planet rather than saving it, as well as “letting go of attachment to ultimate outcomes and making the best of the present” (though what this would mean for policy, he writes, is “difficult to say”). Between stories of hiking trails and working with patients, deBuys reflects on two major events that shaped humans’ understanding of Earth and its history: Darwin’s formulation of evolutionary theory and the discovery of plate tectonics. While deBuys excels at conveying the beauty of Nepal (in the Suli Gad River, “boulders froth the tumbling river into wet clouds”), his rhapsodizing about the backbreaking labor conducted by villagers feels distasteful and ill-advised, and his visit to a remote part of the world often reads like fodder for a thought exercise. While this one aims high, it doesn’t hit the mark. (Aug.)