L: Photo of tents by Quratulain Bakhtiari along a street in Sindh (August); R: Image from a helicopter by Haris Gazdar of submerged fields in Dadu district (September)
In his New Yorker essay, “Pakistan’s Biblical Floods and the Case for Climate Reparations,” Mohammed Hanif opens with:
“We have tried, in various ways, to convey to the world the scale of destruction caused by recent floods in Pakistan, because, apparently, a third of the country underwater and thirty-three million lives upended doesn’t cut it. Pakistan’s climate minister has called it Biblical. We have shot and shared videos in which the landmark New Honeymoon Hotel crumbles in the duration of a TikTok. The U.N. Secretary-General, António Guterres, who is seventy-three and has called the climate crisis a “code red for humanity,” visited Pakistan and said that he hadn’t seen this scale of climate carnage in his life. Some of us have created maps showing that the areas underwater are larger than Britain. We have shown pictures of dead and starving cattle to appeal to animal-lovers. We have posted videos of puppies being heroically rescued from rushing waters.“
The scale of destruction is unimaginable, and unfortunately, as many climate experts have emphasized, the devastation experienced in 2022 will not be the last. Tents can help in the short-term, but as Hanif points out, “Pakistanis are saying that charity tents and emergency supplies are welcome, but what we need and want is compensation for climate-related loss and damage.”
Even as government officials debate climate change and how much and when to send funds—and waters rise in Florida, Puerto Rico, and Cuba—each of us can make a difference in Pakistan right now. To make a donation, please visit the lists below and make a generous donation, Every dollar counts:
- this list is created by Sapan, an organization formed by my sister/journalist Beena Sarwar in collaboration with many South Asian leaders.
- this list is generated by the Center for South Asian Studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz.