Amitav Ghosh: European colonialism helped create a planet in crisis

Indian author says pillaging of lands and killing of indigenous people laid foundation for climate emergency

Amitav Ghosh can clearly remember his first interaction with the climate crisis. It was the early 2000s, and Ghosh, now one of India's most celebrated authors and winner of its highest literary prize, was researching a novel set in the Sundarbans, a network of islands around the mouth of the Ganges Delta in the Bay of Bengal, which is home to the world's largest mangrove forest.

Climate change had barely entered into public consciousness back then, but Ghosh clearly remembers visible signs that something wasn't right".