‘My Heart Was Racing’: The Week 5 Winner of Our Summer Reading Contest

Winner

Yugottam Koirala, 18, from Nepal chose an article from the Climate section headlined “Himalayan Glacier Loss Speeding Up, New Report Finds,” and wrote:

In an airport, a friendly immigration officer looks at my passport and smiles. Then out of the blue, she asks me if the Himalayas are as beautiful as they appear in photos. “Uh … they look even better in real life,” I reply.

Wherever I go, I find comfort in knowing that the Himalayas are etched onto my Nepali identity. Clad in white, these mountains are more than just peaks, they are symbols of faith for people across cultures and religions.

So when I first read this article, my heart was racing. As temperatures soar and glaciers melt, the world’s third pole may soon be stripped of its freshwater reserves and biodiversity hot spots, strangling those of us who depend on them for a living.

I see farmers in my country suffering from crop losses due to erratic water supply. I hear warnings that glacial floods will exacerbate living conditions in my riverine hometown. I read depressing projections that a fourth of our Himalayan wildlife may go extinct within this century. Everywhere I look, the fate of our Himalayas seems sealed.

But this article, alongside red-flagging these alarming findings, also reassures me that the world is slowly understanding the dire effects these changes can have on people. So this gives me hope that soon, a slew of research and interventions will follow this shift in public perception.

But until then, at another airport, if an officer asks me about Nepal’s mountains again, what should I say?

_______

Runners-Up

In alphabetical order by the writer’s first name.

Angela on “What Owls’ Silent Flight Tells Us About the World”

Haoyuan on “The Heartache of Being Sidelined From Your Favorite Sport”

Jianing on “What Chinese Calligraphy Taught Me About Myself”

Syeda Q. on “First Muslim Woman to Be Federal Judge Confirmed by Senate”

________

Honorable Mentions

Alex on “How to Make a Staycation Feel Like an Actual Break”

Amber T. on “Just Made a Queer Memory? Drop a Pin.”

Connor Simpkins on “Drowning Is No. 1 Killer of Young Children. U.S. Efforts to Fix It Are Lagging”

Emily F. on “‘No Love Is Ever Wasted’”

Hyungyoon Cho on “It’s Seven Grandkids, Mr. President”

Nathaniel T. on “West Bank Teenagers Are Writing Out Their Last Words”