Worse Than the 3rd World War || Acharya Prashant (2022)

Acharya Prashant

🧔🏻‍♂️ Want to meet Acharya Prashant? Be a part of the Live Sessions: https://acharyaprashant.org/hi/enquiry-gita-course?cmId=m00026  📚 Want to read Acharya Prashant's Books? Get Free Delivery: https://acharyaprashant.org/en/books?cmId=m00026  📝 Read 3 handpicked wisdom articles, just for you: https://acharyaprashant.org/en/articles?cmId=m00026  ➖➖➖➖➖➖  Video Information: 17.10.22, Interview with Kuntal, Mumbai  Acharya Prashant in conversation with mountaineer Kuntal Joisher and actress Niharica Raizada discussing climate change, consumption, beauty and global warming.  ~ Is climate change real? ~ How is climate change affecting Himalayas and other sensitive ecosystems? ~ What can one do to save Earth?  ~ What is real beauty? ~ Why are humans destroying the Earth?  Music Credits: Milind Date  ~~~~~

Transcript

00:00When you want to say that something utterly terrible might happen, then you say 3rd World

00:07War.

00:08What's already happening is worse than the 3rd World War that might or might not happen.

00:15We are rushing towards our extinction.

00:19This is the 6th one I said, right?

00:24Of the previous 5 ones, 3 happened due to exactly the same cause that ails us today,

00:34carbon dioxide.

00:37You talked of the receding glaciers of the Himalayas and you said that's visible there,

00:43that's not visible here.

00:46You see, two things, one, because our senses can perceive only gross changes, therefore

00:53what is happening, a bit subliminally, we do not detect it immediately, right?

01:04I would liken it to getting infected by the HIV, right?

01:10It can stay in the body for long and then it erupts.

01:13It's not AIDS all of a sudden or even the COVID virus, the disease that we all suffered

01:21so much from.

01:23It comes to you and the symptoms do not show up immediately, but when they do show up,

01:28they can be fatal.

01:32You said technically the layer should not recede so much there.

01:36Let me offer you an example, you'll find it interesting.

01:39In a place like Canada, just a difference of 5 degrees centigrade in the average temperature

01:50can mean the existence or non-existence of hundreds of meters of ice sheets, just 5 degrees.

02:01That which you call as the ice age, actually the average temperatures then were not too

02:06different from what we have now, just 5 degrees.

02:10And 5 degrees mean unimaginably thick ice sheets or their absence.

02:19So if 5 degrees lesser can mean that the ice can get that large, 5 degrees higher would

02:26mean that all the ice can suddenly vanish.

02:29So what is happening up there and that which you saw is exactly what is going to happen.

02:35And when we say the average temperatures are already 1.5 above normal, and they'll get

02:41to 3 degrees, 5 degrees, maybe even 6 degrees, we feel like saying, oh, 6 degrees is not

02:47much.

02:48Sometimes it is 24, at other times it's 30, 25 and 24 and 30 are both things that we have

02:54tolerated, even enjoyed.

02:56So 24 and 30 don't mean much, they mean a lot.

03:00They basically mean that 80 to 90% of all life on the planet is about to go extinct.

03:08That's the severity of the problem we are facing.

03:11It's not about the kind of daily weathers that we experience.

03:16Oh, it's a bit humid today, or it's raining without reason, you know, don't you feel a

03:23bit warm under the collar?

03:25It's not that kind of thing, we're not talking about the weather, it's climate change.

03:31Everything is going to change and the planet will become inhabitable, not only for us,

03:35but for all species that we know of.

03:38That's the extent of the crisis.

03:41I repeat, everybody needs to repeat it as many times as possible to as many people as

03:46possible.

03:47Mass extinction, that's what we are staring at.

03:51And we are quickly rushing towards it.

03:55That's what is happening.

03:56And the thing is, because we do not experience it on our skins immediately, so we feel as

04:04if it does not exist.

04:07It's the first and the most cowardly way of dealing with a disaster, denial.

04:14Just deny it.

04:15It does not exist.

04:16We all want to deny things, bad things, when they first happened to us.

04:19No, this can't have happened.

04:21And then there are advanced stages of grief, and then there are other methods of coping

04:25with it.

04:26But the first thing itself takes away so much time.

04:29And we have already lost so much time.

04:30Like I said, there is denial.

04:32It means that we know that it is there, it's going to come, but we tend to avoid it.

04:37So, is it like there are problems that are bigger than that at present that people see?

04:41And that's why they tend to ignore it?

04:42No, it's just that if you accept it, then it demands action.

04:47Acknowledgement means responsibility.

04:49That's the reason why you find mainstream media giving so little coverage to the most

04:54important problem of our times.

04:58We talk of this, we talk of that.

04:59We don't talk of the thing that means everything to us.

05:04What you are seeing today, please understand, is carbon dioxide levels that we have not

05:08seen over the past 10 lakh years.

05:1310 lakh years, it was never so bad.

05:16And especially to you, you just told me your 2021 pass out from IIT Delhi, you know, most

05:22of the carbon that we see in the atmosphere today has been emitted in your lifetime, after

05:28you were born.

05:30That's how lucky your generation is.

05:31That's the reason I want to talk more and more to youngsters, see how lucky you are.

05:36That's what we, the elder ones have done to you.

05:39That's what we have bequeathed to you.

05:43Take it.

05:44Lots of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, and that's going to wipe you out, finished.

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