Dead end ahead - Take 'U' turn to proceed
Is nature bountiful?’ ‘Nature has enough for every body’s needs, but not enough for any body’s greed’. This warning came hundred years before phrases like, environmental degradation, global warming and endangered species, entered the vocabulary of even intellectuals. We failed to listen to these words from Mahatma Gandhi then. We are now confronted by the disastrous consequences of ‘Global Warming’ – ‘Melting of arctic glaciers inundating vast stretches of land, acute shortage of fresh water, alternating heavy rain and droughts, disappearance of Himalayan glaciers, Ozone layer depletion, extinction of many species of birds and animals in near future and extinction of mankind not far behind’. Extinction of species and regeneration occurred many times in the past due natural events, but over long periods. This time it is happening a little too fast due to ‘indiscriminate burning of fossil fuels by industries, power plants and transport vehicles, discharging volumes of Carbon Dioxide etc. beyond Earth’s ability to absorb. Effectively we are trying to ‘live on nature, instead of with nature’. While majority of people world over are struggling to meet their basic needs, a minority is over exploiting by their greed. This has been going on since yore, but the trend has accentuated since industrial revolution, growing exponentially in the past few decades.
The basic problem is the western notion – ‘More power, fuel, cloth, cement and steel you consume, the more developed you are’. The consumption by the few developed nations exceeds nature’s capacity to regenerate, substantially. Industrial revolution triggered increasing demand on resources. However, till about 1990 only a few sparsely populated countries were developing fast and consuming much and the effect on climate was not perceivable. Other hugely populated nations, particularly China and India, were also developing fast since 1950s along with Russia since 1920s, but the increase in the per capita consumption of resources was only marginal due to their socialistic governance, with insistence on equitable distribution of wealth – meet every body’s needs – as against capitalistic governance insisting on gross values of consumption and production – satisfy some body’s greed. The liquidation of Socialistic Governance in these countries, driving people to insatiable desire for more comforts along with gross over consumption by the developed nations has landed us in this mess.
The elites world over have been dreaming of transforming their nations in to Americas. Leave alone global warming, just look at its economic viability. Europe became prosperous in the past 3 centuries by subjugating and looting the original inhabitants of Asia, Africa, America and Australia. They become rich by making others poor. The prosperity of Europe, US and Japan in recent times has been due to the world market for their products. Everybody can never be rich at the same time. If somebody has to gain, somebody else has to loose. The system based on exploitation cannot be sustainable. ‘Market Economy’ – ‘Capitalism’ re-christened – at its best is ‘Un sustainable and definitely unjust’.
Forecasts say China will be on top, followed by India and US competing for 2nd position, Japan at 4th position in 25 years time ranked by the western model of ranking economies. If India and China develop like present US, with shining roads, swanky malls, glittering lighting, Champaign flowing like river (with pistol wielding school children!), fuel guzzling cars, people wearing gorgeous dresses and gulping exotic food, imagine the quantum of power, cement, steel, textiles, plastics, petroleum products etc. that will have to be produced and the green house gases (GHG) and other effluents that will result. India and China with a population of about five billion together as against 350 million in the US presently, if we develop like US, we will be burning the Earth to ashes and not just be warming it. Indiscriminate commercialization of Science and Technology – the hall mark of western model of development – has lead to more problems, creating its own monsters – Frankenstein – like Environmental degradation, Ozone layer depletion, Global warming, Nuclear holocaust, Terrorism and Y2K to mention a few.
Look at the parody of application of the western model to India for instance. Take MRTS (Mass Rapid Transit System at Chennai – South India) and the thousands of tons of cement and steel it has consumed. What is the cost per user? Is the enormous cost justifiable? Planned further are ‘Metro Rail’, ‘Monorail’ and ‘Underground Train’. This is the result of blindly copying the west. Add to this the many flyovers constructed in the past two decades. Is not there a ‘more energy efficient solution’ to the transport problem? Satellite towns, limiting Floor Space Index, relocation of people to effect minimum man-mileage movement, developing better public transport facility, etc. avoiding such wastes like elevated concrete corridor will go a long way in solving even water supply, sanitation and waste handling problems. The reduction and dilution of pollution level will be a bonus. Since early seventies, Chennai roads are lit by Sodium Vapour Lamps (SVL) of some 2000 watts replacing Filament lamps (FL) of about 100 watts. The number of lamps has gone up several folds, with the increase in length of roads and the lighting coverage. Imagine the increase in the per capita consumption of power on street lighting alone. Returning to the old practice, may be with the more energy efficient CFL, will save millions of units of energy annually. The vehicles on road are anyway fitted with headlamps. Looks like a retrograde step. But from the global warming point of view, it is retracting a wrong step only to leap forward. We have to come out of our obsession with west, to understand these issues better.
It has become fashionable to advice households to use CFL instead of FL to reduce emission. CFL costs Rs 120, but FL costs only Rs 10. CFL lasts 3 years while FL lasts only one. The saving per CFL will be only about Rs 35/- per year at the lowest slab of tariff, which requires the whole life of CFL to even recover the extra cost invested. Deferred expense in the case of FL makes it more viable. The lighting power is a small fraction of the total power used. Poor people switching to CFL will yield no tangible benefit. Changing FL to CFL may be viable for residential buildings in developed countries and for higher slab consumers and street lighting. Commercial establishments can afford to change over and also benefit substantially due to the higher tariff. Industries – plant & machinery – are the bulk consumers of power. Even marginal savings by auditing and reducing consumption by industries will yield tangible result, as also switching to sprinkler irrigation, drip irrigation etc. for agricultural.
The increasing use of ACs is putting a heavy burden on power generation. If India develops to the level of US, some 280 million plus ACs and fridges will be required to keeps all of us cool at home. Add to that for offices. We should reduce the use of ACs to a couple of hours only, during the hottest time of the day, that too during the hottest season of the year. Imagine the saving possible with 2 hrs x 100 days Vs 8 hrs x 300 days a year on AC bill. If you find comfort at 23 deg. C, learn to find comfort at 25 deg. C. After all, we were without AC until recently, even without fans until quite recently. We have to compromise our comforts today for the very existence of the future generation’s. We have no right to deny the future generations, their right to live on this beautiful planet.
Is nuclear power the solution? Nuclear energy is not green, it is blood red. Nuclear power plants are veritable nuclear time bombs. Even when they do not blast, the ‘supposed to be permissible level of radiation’ itself is dangerously high. Number of people killed and maimed by radiation from nuclear power plants and near the test sites is staggering.
Till 1950s, buildings had brick walls, wooden sleepers with bricks for the roof, lime and clay mortar and steel used only for windows. Those buildings have remained intact for several centuries, where as RCC buildings are crumbling in a few decades. Going back to older construction technology will save so much of steel, cement and hence GHG emission. As for the timber for that, we have a huge reserve of forests. How many seedlings have been decaying in the shade of the older trees? How many trees just falloff and decay in forests? Cutting matured trees in a planned manner will allow smaller saplings to get sunlight and grow up. Growing trees absorb more CO2 than old trees and produce more wealth. Use of more timber in construction will give a fillip to growing trees. Only indiscriminate felling of trees is harmful. Energy required for manufacturing bricks and burning lime and using them locally are much lesser than that required for making cement in centralized industries and sending them far away. With better technology even the brown cloud emanating from brick and lime kilns can be reduced substantially.
Processed items use up a lot more of energy as against items used raw, for instance, Lime Vs Cement, Wrought iron and cast iron Vs Steel, Wood as it is Vs Ply wood and chipboard, processed foods like concentrated fruit juices, jams etc., Vs fresh fruit juice and raw fruit. Plastics considered wonder material of 20th century – a boon – is now deemed a bane. Even water kept in plastic bottles becomes poisonous. Use the good old glass and ceramic containers instead. How little was the use of steel till the forties? Even railway coaches were built with wood. Steel Industry is a major global warmer. Transport industry alone is adding so much of GHG now. How many more vehicles have we added since say 1970 and worse since 1990 in India? How many of us have started travelling by air instead of train? You feel you can afford it now. But the earth – atmosphere – cannot. You burn a small hole in your purse but plug a huge hole in the atmosphere blocking radiation of heat outwards, resulting in global warming.
Till the introduction of the economic reforms in 1991 in India, we were encouraged to save, but now we are being wooed to buy more of consumer goods, private vehicles, undertake pleasure trips, eat costly food etc. leading to steep increase in the demand for those items and services. This may add to comfort for some (not for everybody), but what about the GHG? Drinking water available freely in public taps and fountains earlier has since vanished. We have to buy bottled water at an exorbitant price. Look at the cost to the buyer and also to the environment – the effort to filter, bottle and send it far off Vs piped supply. Not to speak of the environmental cost of the plastic bottles.
The simple clothing used in the bygone era was produced with much less machine energy compared to the mill made synthetic clothing with heavy coloration, prints and complex tailoring. Hand loom woven cloth and Khadi require no powered machine energy at all. Manual energy does not add to global warming. Castor/Jingly oil used for lighting and firewood/charcoal used for cooking until recently in villages and until not long ago in urban areas are from renewable vegetable sources – net carbon neutral. Though not very efficient, the damage to the environment was negligible. The development of more efficient wood burning stoves and ‘gobar gas’ – cattle dung gas – plants, have turned the kitchen greener.
When Gandhiji recommended shunning modern technology of the west – reckless, destructive, un-sustaining, non-regenerating – and returning to nature – time tested, regenerating and sustainable practices – he was not understood. But today many scholars have started advocating the same using modern jargons, only 80 to 100 years a bit late. We may even be extinct before we start believing in his concepts of Non-violent coexistence, Trusteeship and Sarvodaya.
Farmers were told since 1950’s to use chemical fertilizers and pesticides to boost the yield. The result: Millions of hectares of land under cultivation for the past 5000 years have become uncultivable within 40 years. Now we are turning back to ‘organic farming’ – new name for a 5000 years old practice. Use tractors and plough fast and deep was the instruction. Result: the earthworms have gone deeper still. Now we have to get cattle back from forests. Incidentally this is what Gandhiji said, ‘Go back to nature – proven, sustainable, traditional practices’ – ‘Learn to live with nature and not on nature’ and ‘Nature has enough for everybody’s need but not enough for anybody’s greed’. He was accused of suggesting, going back to ‘Bull-o-cart age’. While listening to him would have ensured sustenance of life, listening to ‘Truman’ and ‘Bush’ has sealed the fate of all bio matter on earth. Total annihilation of all bio-matter is around the corner (by the environmental impact of nuclear and other modern technologies and the greed to commercialize technology and monopolize it).
Gandhiji advised ‘the way to happiness is not in trying to satisfy our wants, but in reducing it’. ‘The more you try to satisfy your wants, the bigger will your wants grow’. What is the solution to global warming? Just reduce consumption, walk down or cycle to the shop, use bicycle instead of scooter for short movements, use scooter to office instead of car, use shared cars instead of individual cars, use public transport instead of private cars. The indirect benefits – reduction of traffic and hence more efficient burning of fuel – will be a bonus. Gandhiji advised, walk down to your work spot, do your small personal works – like washing cloth etc. – yourself. You will not need your workouts then. He said you have to earn your food by doing physical work. He set an example by spinning a few hundred meters of yarn every day to earn his food, even while he was engaged in the epic struggle to drive out the British from India. We read, live stock consume 1000 kgs of vegetation to yield 1 kg of meat etc. Giving up meet eating will ensure better availability of food for the starving poor and improving green cover will have a direct impact on global warming.
Want to know your position in the fight against global warming? If you consume less than the world per capita consumption of power, fuel, cement, steel, textiles etc. you are a friend of Earth – Prithvi Mithra – and if it is more, you are an enemy of the Earth – Prithvi Kshatru. Going by world average, almost all Indians will be Prithvi Mithras as on date. But that does not absolve us of our responsibility to save this Earth from the Kshatrus. Currently we are consuming at 130% of the Earth’s capacity to renew itself i.e. our ‘footprint’ is 130%. We have to consume less than 76 percent of the current world average to avert further degeneration and much less, say 50 percent only, to wipe out the deficit of past 25 years before which the footprint was less than 100%. Reduce machine energy – electric power, petroleum etc. – and use manual energy instead. You have to ‘eat to live and not live to eat’. Use simple cloth – Khadi and handloom, the ‘symbols of green products’ – plain, white or lightly colored and without exotic prints. ‘Try to meet only the needs and do not pursue greed’. ‘The ways of the west will turn the world in to a massive grave yard, sooner than anybody can imagine, with or without a war’ paling European colonist in the past three centuries turning the rest of the world in to a big slum. As the land of the Buddha, Ramakrishna and Mahatma Gandhi, India’s message to the world is ‘Live and let live’. Global warming has brought us face to face with what greed can do to Earth leaving us no choice now. ‘Market based economy’ driving people to insatiable desire for more money and power can never bring peace to the world. Only a moral based society can ever dream to live in peace and harmony. Gandhian economics – Survodaya – and Gandhian way of life – simple, selfless and caring – are the only ways forward. It is ‘Dead end’ ahead – Take a ‘U turn’ if you want to proceed.
A special note;
I propose to form a global club/ society/ association named appropriately as ‘Prithvi Mithra’ to debate and pursue the goal outlined above (let the name be in Sanskrit – let us globalize the great Indian culture) Any takers? Pls. mail me.
By K. Raja Rajan,
