NEW DELHI—Divided by a colonial-time boundary that initially separated Tibet and colonial India and now the boundary of contention between the two most populous countries of the world, the Himalayas unlike never before are narrated by two different paradigms drawn very distinctly along two different political lines—democracy vs. communism. According to Gabriel Lafitte, author and a noted expert on Tibet’s environment, this division is causing confusion in understanding what’s happening with the Himalayas. Lafitte who’s the author of the book, “Spoiling Tibet: China and Resource Nationalism on the Roof of the World,” compared two catastrophes, the Uttarakhand floods of February 2021 in India and the dramatic events of October 2018 that flooded the Yangtze river and the Yarlung Tsangpo/Brahmaputra river within two weeks of each other in Tibet. The Uttrakhand floods happened after a portion of the Nanda Devi glacier broke on Feb. 7 and caused an avalanche and deluge, leading …