Preaching to the choir (and beyond)

Pleased to share link to the piece which finds place in the Hindu Sunday Magazine

Many thanks to The Hindu.

The unedited version I share below.

Last Sunday I  got an opportunity to attend a concert on Hindustani Classical music at a Club. Brilliant performers had the audience enthralled at the excellent venue. As we moved out of the hall for refreshments I noticed tea being served in disposable plastic cups. For a club which is elite enough to continue, some of, its ‘Days of the Raj’ practices and stress on a dress-code, surely lack of cutlery could not be an issue. I eves-dropped, as I moved, and heard not one voice talking about it; it just was not a concern. I shared of this ‘something being out of place and wrong’ feeling to the person standing next to me and was pointed to the disposable plastic glasses for water! Neither the club nor patrons had any qualms in using disposable plastic cups and adding to our collective trash; one that we have no idea of disposing in an apt manner.

This left me wondering and reminded me of an email I wrote, some months ago, to a large Conservation Organization. They had organized an online competition focusing on ‘Low Footprint’ and offered an iPhone as the prize to winners! The email was to ask them if they believed consuming less was the best possible answer given our current knowledge levels and saw an irony in the prize. This also raised the question of whether the proverbial choir needs to sing better! The research, conservation and photography communities (there is need to not mix these three – they may or may not have over laps) possibly need to relook at their actions from this lens as well.

Staying with the choir; a friend, asked on facebook, if we consider the impact of travel (especially air travel), in other words our ecological foot-print when we take up actions - including conservation, research and photography. Surprisingly, many replied saying that their actions were justified as they were taking up a ‘positive’ action. How could one justify flying in and out repeatedly for conferences? Doesn’t going for a study tour - for example - have its own ecological foot-print? We cannot do without travel and the resultant ecological foot–print but can we be conscious of the issue, discuss it and begin by looking at our actions critically. Are we overestimating the ‘good’ that we are supposedly doing? Will it help if we have a common currency to measure the impact either ways? For example; taking up a camera trapping project or attending a conference will have its ecological foot print on one hand and possible benefits. The benefits may or may not occur, foot-print surely will.

Recall coming across the term ‘globe-trotting conservationist’ as a compliment on a ‘conservation’ website. Is it not an oxymoron in itself? I wonder if some of us fail to see the connections or pretend that the connections do not exist or actually believe that there are no connections. A staunch believer in the need to preach beyond the choir, I have come across - people within the proverbial choir - refusing to attend conservation conferences in buses (and demanding cars) or people in conservation not for profits refusing to travel in ‘small’ cars as also climate change conferences which talk of waste disposal inside the meeting room as a major issue but do not think twice before using disposable cups and bottles just outside the room. There have been positives as well. An annual conservation conference where a few of us discussed the use of plastic cups, need to provide bags - writing pads, presence of meat in meals and the organizers deliberated on and addressed the issues. People travelling to office on cycles, offices deciding to buy and eat only what is grown local and so on. For these, we need to make a beginning, however small. And this beginning will need us to walk a few steps more, to put in some additional effort. Nothing comes for free, surely not a better future for earth!

On the other hand, people beyond the proverbial choir have complimented me on carrying my own bag to the market adding - I should do so as I work on environment issues! As if we have our separate earths. For those looking for numbers Delhi alone generates a staggering 690 tonnes of plastic waste every day (New Indian Express, May 24, 2015)! Land starved Mumbai currently discards 11,000 metric tons of refuse every day in three dump yards that together occupy more than 740 acres (Bloomberg.com, 27^th July 2015)!

Coming back to the Club I wonder why none of the patrons raise the topic? How much trash they generate each day? Do they ever wonder on their ecological foot print? Is making lower ecological foot print an ‘in-thing’, a fashion, one of the solutions for such places to get their act together? If those high up the affluence ladder generate trash in this fashion is there hope on lower rungs of the ladder?

An interesting post in response to the piece here. Many thanks Amit Mishra.