India, Sept. 6 -- On a partly sunlit day in May 2024, when I eventually reached the Khumbu Glacier after six days of trekking, I was struck by the number of people staying there. The trek was part of a science journalism Climate Boot Camp in the Everest region, organised by the Nepal Forum of Science Journalists (NFSJ), bringing together 10 South Asian journalists.

The base camp didn't look like merely a temporary staging point for a handful of climbers preparing for an extraordinary ascent to the world's tallest mountain.

The scene was strikingly different from the remoteness I had imagined. Tents were scattered across a large part of the glacier, forming what looked less like a temporary mountaineering outpost and more like a bustling...