Are we serious about the environment?
How serious are we about the earth?
This
piece is published at The Citizen on 5th April here. Thanks are due to
the team at The Citizen.
‘We are a nation that talks of salads and eats
samosas’, Sanjeev Kapoor, the well-know chef, had stated in an interview. He
may well have been referring to our
attitude towards our planet, albeit in metaphorical terms.
Two events
bring this out starkly.
Images
from Cold Play concert at Mumbai,
November 2016, depicted trash lying scattered after the event. More than seventy
thousand people had attended the mega-event; many of whom had contributed to
the litter. During the event they had pledged to the Sustainable Development
Goals or SDGs; their pledges and actions turned out to be anti-thetical to each
other.
This
is how the media covered it:
‘Nobody could be bothered with civic sense or niceties such as recycling
for a sustainable living’ ~ huffingtonpost.in
‘It was an event designed to raise awareness
but like most good things in our society we decided to turn a blind eye towards
it’ ~ scoopwhoop.com
This
begs a few questions. Did it make any sense to preach on these issues during an
event of this nature? The audience was eagerly waiting for its idols to sing
and apparently the messaging had as much impact as playing our national anthem,
before films in cinema halls, has on our love for our country. Does messaging
of this kind have a role other than to make the organizers happy; that they
highlighted crucial issues and got support of large numbers? Irrespective of
the messaging could the audience not have dealt with trash in a more mature
fashion?
Not
only was the event organized in one of our largest cities but also the ticket
prices would have ensured that this was attended only by the privileged class. To
underscore the point, this was a crowd which was ‘educated’ and ‘well-to-do’. These
events are a reflection of not only the organizers but also of our society as a
whole.
It
is not just entertainment events that warrant a critical relook. Each year
during March we celebrate the Earth Hour.
In other words, shutting off lights for one hour for our earth.
‘Switch off all your non-essential lights
from 8:30pm - 9:30pm’ says the website. Is this not to be done for all
hours and on each day of the year! What is the message we are then giving? One
hour absolves us of what we do for the rest of the year?
What
impact shutting off select lights for one hour on one day in a year will have
in a country where even urban areas regularly suffer from electricity shortage
is a separate question.
One
also wonders how it helps address climate change, as the intention appears, if
we are not changing or even discussing our lifestyles. We want a live in a
better world but are unwilling to voluntarily bring in any change in our lives.
We do not want an iota of discomfort in our lives. A year, for the record, consists
of 8,760 hours.
This
is akin to making only a trailer and not bothering to make the movie. Little
point then in increasing the campaign’s foot-print by having t-shirts printed. Ironically
another campaign by the same organization talks of how it can take up to 2,700 litres
of water to produce the cotton needed to make a single t-shirt! It also stressed
on the need to make informed choices!
If
we take up actions like putting upper limits to the number of times we fill the
fuel tanks of our vehicles or the number of hours our air-conditioners run
during a month we may still make a small beginning.
Where do we stand today?
These
images of bottles, glasses and plates lying scattered - many a time with food -
and our satisfaction at shutting off select lights for one hour in a year
convey how we ‘deal’ with the environment and how we could not care less for
the earth. Unfortunately in this we seem to stand united cutting across all
barriers, ancient and modern, which seek to divide us.
We
appear to be happy to skim the surface and stay away from the nuances lest we
open up the proverbial cans of worms. Change and willingness to explore are not
very welcome either. In other words we are doing too less when we are aware
that a lot more is needed. What we are doing is akin to offering a sachet of
tomato ketchup for dinner to a person who has just shared that s/he not eaten anything
since morning and is hungry!
These events have shown the
mirror; the choice of acting lies with us.
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