Climate Change: Perspectives on Worry and Action || Acharya Prashant, in conversation (2022)

Acharya Prashant

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Transcript

00:00 When we talk of climate change, the word anthropogenic is the most important.

00:11 It's a basic thing, but I'm reiterating because that's the thing we give the least attention to.

00:19 We are treating climate change as if it is something outside of us.

00:25 As if some asteroid from outer space came over and delivered all the gases and trapped

00:34 all the heat in our atmosphere.

00:39 I want all of us to pay attention to the fact that we have done it.

00:46 It is our action and every action is representative of the state of the actor.

00:54 We are in a particular state internally and therefore we are doing what we are doing externally.

01:01 Now our internal state has brought about this external action, this external state and we

01:10 are not addressing the root cause, we are not addressing the way we are and the way

01:15 we have been probably all throughout our history.

01:18 We do not want to address that because probably that's too painful and that would cause too

01:24 tectonic shift in our entire life system.

01:29 So we want to treat it as one of the problems that face us.

01:35 That's a very fragmented approach.

01:40 Hence the solutions that we are thinking of are also pretty external in nature.

01:46 So we want to move to greener technologies, we want to have carbon sequestering mechanisms,

01:54 we want countries to pledge for reforestation, we want auto manufacturers to come up with

02:04 newer technologies and such things.

02:08 And countries quabble with each other, who should be at the brunt and then issues of

02:12 climate justice and such things crop up.

02:17 The thing is, I want us to inquire into it.

02:21 Are we even understanding where the whole thing is coming from really?

02:26 And if we do not understand that, is it not a fundamental conclusion that we will never

02:33 be able to solve this problem and all the actions that we are trying to have as remedial

02:40 actions would just be consolations.

02:45 We would be entertaining ourselves and we would be rather gratifying ourselves that

02:53 we are doing something meaningful and fruitful and nothing would come out of it.

02:58 And I am not just hypothesizing in a vacuum.

03:02 You see, we started taking this thing a bit seriously in 1990, that's the watershed year.

03:10 And we are more than three decades from there now.

03:15 And not only have we failed to reduce or neutralize carbon, the fact is today, we are releasing

03:25 20 to 40% more carbon than we used to do three decades back.

03:32 And that's with all our climate action.

03:35 And there is really no hope that we are going to achieve carbon neutrality any soon.

03:43 My country, India, for example, even as a matter of pledge has quoted 2070.

03:51 Now, that to me is just too far off.

03:57 And this kind of action is just too insufficient.

04:02 So we are doing it, we are doing it and there are two things about us that are causing it.

04:10 They are so fundamental that we don't even talk about them.

04:14 Those two things are the numbers that we are and the numbers that are represented by our

04:24 per capita consumption.

04:27 And even these two are fundamentally one.

04:31 The inbuilt human tendency to take consumption as an indicator of the fulfillment or success

04:43 of one's life.

04:44 That's the reason we multiply.

04:48 And that's the reason we want to consume more and more.

04:52 And climate change is hardly anything but a function of our numbers on this planet,

04:59 our population and the per capita consumption by each person of our species.

05:07 Unfortunately, irrespective of the variations in culture, thought, religion, ethnicity,

05:15 all that we have across the world, about one thing, we all are fully in agreement.

05:24 And that is that we all need to have a good time by consuming more and more.

05:31 Be it the Indian, the Chinese, the American, the African, anybody, we all want to have

05:36 a happy life and about a happy life, the thing is consumption.

05:42 Consume more and let there be more people who can consume more.

05:46 So the slogan really is, more to consume more.

05:51 And nobody seems to want to address that because that is just too explosive an issue probably,

05:55 especially in a democratic setup.

05:58 The fundamental thing is we are just too many.

06:01 And if we remain as many as we are, then I don't want to sound nihilist or something,

06:09 but I don't really see hope unless we address that one thing.

06:13 Equally, if we can address that one thing, especially to youngsters, then obviously there

06:19 is a lot of hope and great possibility and that possibility will then not relate only

06:24 to climate change, but to everything that we do.

06:26 As human beings we will be able to lead richer, deeper, more meaningful lives, more loving

06:31 lives, lives of compassion, lives of less strife and lives that have a certain fulfilment.

06:39 Thank you.

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