:: Delhi Greens ::

Ever considered the question: how do we acquire knowledge about the physical environment around us? The easiest way to get to know about environment in general and environmental issues in particular is to open a text book. In our academic curriculum, in our schools and colleges, in any discipline, we will get enough information about the issues and problems of modern day environment. If we are extra curious, we can go to the nearby library to get books on specific aspects of environment like wildlife or birds or trees or flowers and butterflies.

Beyond this there are those interesting slide shows by people who have gone there and captured it all in slides or movies of their own. These are frequently offered in colleges and University film clubs and in IIC and IHC in the city.  If we are a little more adventurous, we can visit a National Park or a game sanctuary and take pictures of nature with our own cameras. Ask any WWF enthusiast about the pictures s/he took, the taste of the tamarind flower he ate, or the wild berry he bit on or the honey at the bottom of the flower he sucked on and you will get a whole new story about the experience they have to share. Then there are National Geographic etc. channels that let nature into your house.

Further, you can separate out those who are enthusiasts, from those who are committed through their own action and supporting actions of others towards conservation of nature. These are the people who always get a yes! for whatever they propose at the level of action. They powerfully invite us common people to participate. They stand for environment and provide the opportunity and credibility. They are straight forward through out their life about their commitment to nature. For such persons, there would be an interesting answer for this question. They will all be able to share with you that one moment at which it all began. That first moment, that one innocent experience from their childhood that truly touched them. That is when the proverbial moth transformed into the butterfly.

I am not anywhere near say Sunderlalji Bahuguna etc, but for me too there has been a moment. It is those evenings on the beach, when I was 7 or 8 years of age, standing on the edge of a wave breaker wall and jumping off on to the wet sands below. Those brief moments when I could feel myself flying. That determined my commitment and love for nature. What was yours? Do contribute…

Walking in the Lodhi Gardens, what captured my eye was the flocking instinct of black birds. They were all sitting gathered on a wire in a row with each one of them facing the same direction. Every few minutes they would fly away and sit again on the same wire. I have no idea as to what prompted the flying. There was no clearly defined leader yet they all seemed to follow something. A similar behaviour can be observed among swifts, pigeons and parrots. While crows and falcons that gather around dump sites do so in a hierarchy.

We have an equivalent of this behavior among nomadic tribes, zoom cultivators and hunter gatherers as I learnt during my recent trip to Mizoram. We are the only animals who are capable of collective actions that go beyond just gathering together. For that to happen we need to maintain the uniformity of language and communication over time and space. We, in its modern day equivalent, do it through conferences and meetings of professionals and on chats and facebook, etc.

The need to communicate is to stay connected. Just as we need each other to biologically reproduce, we need each other to socially reproduce so we can communicate with each other and relate to experiences. Spoken language alone is not enough. Social reproduction allows us to create civilizations, Taj Mahal, Sanchi Stupa, Jantar Mantar, etc. that can only happen when societies feel connected and are able to go beyond everyday existence to create something magnificent.

Interestingly my field work in Delhi slums showed that the migrants into the city too follow this behaviour. Those that come into the city in search of labour do not settle randomly. They settle near people of their ‘own type.’ The single male migrants live as paying guests with people from their own village, region, who eat the same food and speak the same language. So often, in spite of them being slums, one finds unique constructions of these huts.

Thank you for reading your blogs so carefully and with so much interest. It is what makes them available. But not every action everywhere are good. The context determines it.

To recapitulate, Govind Singh some time back listed in his post on this very blog, five main reasons to save tigers. I had shared the impact of this increased consciousness on the shift in status of the tribe called the Moghiyas from being brave Tiger hunters to being poachers to be shunned by society. And being one more reason why and how 1411 tigers are left to ’save the tiger’. So you can pay higher and higher to ad agencies and cricketers and hockey players to raise consciousness and spend (and make) lots of money.

A telecom company is making every attempt to go environment friendly as against its competition and is talking of saving the paper. What is an average Delhi resident going to contribute?  Besides talking about it, blogging, chatting etc. is they will want to go and visit these 1411 animals.

Already at Ranthambore Tiger Reserve, during any given season when the park is open, there are a minimum of 60 to 80 tourist vehicles each carrying a minimum of 4 to 5 tourists and for 8 months of the year say 200 days. Tiger reserve visitor proxy to back of the envelope calculations indicate that if each tourist on an average stays for three days and spends say about 3000/- per day or Rs. 10,000/- a visit. This leads to a conservative economy of 80 crores. If the advertising actually leads to increase in environmental tourism, the impact it has on the tigers is humongous. Not all of it is good. For example every tourist visiting the reserve wants to go and ‘site’ a tiger. The tiger on the other hand loses its ear of humans and obviously cannot differentiate between a hunter and a tourist. So hunting becomes easier.

Mainly it leads to a thriving economy that generates its own economic and political interests. These interests then generate their own vested interests in having tigers but how many? Keeping just a few decorative show pieces, not unlike circus animals, on display is all that is needed. Next comes the leopards that are used by jewelers to advertise their jewelry. Next is what..not..

It is all about Money, Honey! Think about it.

The “world to word’ paradigm allows us to fix and manipulate the world in order to control and dominate it.  The environmental perceptions dictates clichés such as “the world we live in, we have borrowed from our children rather than inherited from our elders” or “earth has enough resources to meet all our needs but not enough to meet even one person’s greed.”  “Today’s solutions are tomorrow’s problems.”

Therefore, the solutions we look for are embedded in the way we use language to define our problems. We look at our physical environment as a solution to our problem of survival: problem of having adequate food, water, and air, using energy. So the solutions are also dictated by it. It allowed us to separate certain parts of environment as natural resources. We then used the words to create the processes and machines to produce goods and services and satisfy our needs.

This is the old story…This construction of the world as an instrument for the consumption of human beings we are told is the root cause of the environmental problems of today.  Is there an option?

Yes! We create ‘word to world’ fit. Use words to ‘create’ the world that we live in. Therefore among Eskimo’s there are 24 worlds to describe the snow while in English we have only 6 and in any Indian language, there are just one or two. While we have specific and multiple words to describe say the contents of polluted water supply or air pollution, most cultures would not even notice it if the water looked clear and tasted fine or the air did not smell foul. It presents a world where language creation is a creative act that allows us to create a whole new world, to which we did not have access to. From this ‘word to world’ fit we have complete access to ourselves and to others, to the very essence and possibility of what it is to be human.

Then environment does not get divided into natural resources and pollutants, but as the infinite possibilities that we can image and create. Not as problems to be solved due to our actions but creative ways of connecting with the environment and with each other.

The very perception of dividing environment into natural resources and waste is an artificial division. The wrecks/ scraps from one culture/society, old battle ships of the cold war era, dismantled in Dang, Gujarat, is a resource for the transformers providing electricity 24*7 in Indian small scale industry. Garbage disposed in urban Municipal landfills, today’s waste, is a potential for energy production of the future – producing methane.

On lines of ‘Avatar’ the movie, we can even think of having intra- species communication. Communicate with the world in an entirely new way. Impossible? Impossible nothing, for a prehistoric man, mechanized production: magic, controlling nature: impossible, making rain happen: not even heard of.

As human beings, we are born into a pre-existing world. Being born into a culture we inherit-words and language-we assume that words and languages describe this preexisting world. Because we think of language as something in response to the world or existing in order to deal with the world, language becomes a means to an end. It is a means to make sense of the world and to make sense of ‘why and how’ of things around us.

This paradigm allows us only one way of thinking and doing things. The world is separate from us that we exploit for our benefit. Things that are useless are treated as waste or dirt or pollution to be discarded. It only allows us for fixing and changing things to our advantage, things that are not working or not working as well as we would like them to.This form of thinking has logic of its own. Cities like Delhi come into existence as a result of this logic. Agglomeration and consolidation of production of goods and services allow for trade and commerce so that more can be produced with least bit of energy and increased efficiency. It results in production of waste and pollution. It also results in crowding-settlements where human beings are living in close proximity and high densities.

Therefore waste generated by industry and commerce, air water land pollution needs to be treated in order to keep human labour healthy, so that they can be productive and efficient. Close and high density settlements need to be kept clean and safe so that human beings will be willing to stay with each other. Clean and safe drinking water, cleaning of the streets or keeping the garbage off the streets is in order to maintain good health of the population so that they can survive and produce efficiently. Even the immunization programs and the nutrition programs are in order to ensure that there is a future generation of skilled and semi-skilled human beings servicing the economies of growth.  This is essential in order to keep the entire giant economy of the city and the nation operating smoothly and growing at 6% or 10% GDP.

This is the implication of language as coming into existance in order to deal with the world. It follows that how we use language will be limited to what this paradigm allows us to do– to fix and manipulate the world in order to control and dominate it. Is there an option?

The feedbacks you post are out of your willingness to ‘because in the matter’ of creating a better world through environmental actions. Thank you for taking time out to respond to the blog and sharing your lives with me. It is these little acts of patchwork that brings us together. Patchwork is a creative way of bringing different pieces of cloth to create a new design. It always begins with small pieces coming from different places and origins and combines to create a design. It creates a completely new design from the old, the discarded and the small. Similarly when a new a new world order gets created, the pieces of different actions from people in different areas of life come together.

Wanted to share with you a news item by John Schwartz in the January 28th 2010 paper of International Herald Tribune as what appears to be a beginning piece and part of this emergent new world order. “Kivalina an Inupiant Eskimo village (in Alaska USA) of 400, perched on a barrier island north of the Arctic Circle is accusing two dozen utility companies of helping to cause the climate change that it says is accelerating the island’s climate change”. They use the sea ice blocks are used to protect the town’s fragile coast from high wind season. But this year they could not do it. The relocation cost of this village could amount to $400 million.

The case is one among three major law suits filed by environmental groups, private lawyers and state officials against major utility companies. It is a difficult battle and federal judge dismissed their suit, but they are appealing the decision. The cases rely on the common law doctrine of nuisance, the same concept that allows the neighbours to sue one another over noise odor and the like, that interfere with the use of enjoyment of property. In the context of climate change these used to be dismissed as frivolous, not any more. Similar issues with drug companies as captured in the classic ‘Silent Spring’, Tobacco companies and asbestos industries in the past have yielded results.

But this is just the beginning. The pressure from such suits could become a significant issue within the next few years. Let us wait and see. Blocking the ice melt.

One of the news report in the newspapers today read ‘IPCC retracts 2035 alarm on glacier melt.’ The Chairperson of the coveted body, on behalf of 2500 best scientists from across the world, accepted on Wednesday 20^th January 2010 that it made a huge goof up in its fourth assessment report on climate change and withdrew its assertion that the Himalayan glaciers ran the risk of being wiped out by 2035. They took complete responsibility of the report being wrong.

It takes tremendous courage and integrity to come out and say that we made a mistake and face the consequences of that. Without the successful inclusion of all governments in the process of creating the climate change report by the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) this could have possibly challenged the entire UNFCC report, related to climate change and its potential impacts. Already Industrial western world has been using the “glacier theory’ to flog India on climate change. Survival emissions from burning firewood and cow dung and wet paddy fields emitting methane, have come under criticism for potentially contributing to climate change. These emissions were linked to the seasonal ‘brown cloud’ over parts of India. These were used to put pressure on India to take stronger actions and take greater responsibility for the climate crisis.

How do we look at the goof up on the year of 2035 for Himalayan glacier melt down? Or can we be complete about it. We can say yes! It happened and look at what next? by accepting it, forgiving it and appreciating the new possibility for actions that opened up especially for India and China.

We are at the next level. New environment friendly energy production options, new possibilities of cooperation between nations through ‘debt for swap’ and CDM technologies are today possible that did not exist earlier. Let’s do it..while we still can.

Life is not about waiting for the glaciers to melt…it’s about learning to dance in the snow!

“The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”

I begin with this quotation as I firmly believe that we can achieve sustainable development through simple steps taken at the local and individual level.

Many people overemphasize the importance of global community effort and measures at the macro level; however, I strongly feel that efforts at the micro level have a more intense impact on the environment. In my opinion, educational institutions, corporate houses, RWAs, students, in fact every human being can contribute towards sustainable development.

One can interpret the term “local efforts” as those steps which can be taken up by every micro-level unit of the society, with minimal investment. To repay our debt towards the environment, we just need to adopt certain techniques and modify our lifestyles. No one needs external force or incentives to incorporate these efforts within our lives. We Indians surely need not go too far to validate this: since time immemorial, environment conservation has been an integral part of our cultural heritage – whether it be the conservation of ‘baolis’ (step-wells) to harvest water, the reverence of sacred mangroves, or simply the practice of worshiping the elements of nature, community efforts have always played an important role in the lives of Indians.

More recently, many villages, for instance, Binola near Gurgaon, have adopted water harvesting, solar cooking and efficient lighting equipment and are contributing in a small albeit significant manner towards environment protection. These are the micro level measures that greatly impact the macro level. One doesn’t need laws, government funds or support to adopt a greener lifestyle. I corroborate this idea with the following facts:

• Shutting down the computer instead of using sleep mode can save upto 15 KW hrs in a week.
• One bus carries as many people as almost 20 cars, but causes half the amount of pollution.
• Using a tumbler instead of letting the tap run during brushing can save about 30 litres of water every month!

…The above list can go on. We can understand the effectiveness of local efforts by simply envisioning the amount of paper that can be saved if each one of us starts accepting online bills! We surely don’t need an amendment in the Constitution to start practising it, do we?

It is time to take control of the situation ourselves. We can’t rely on external sources to provide us with ideas or resources to handle the impending crisis. I would reiterate that if proactive local efforts are replicated throughout the country and across the world, a lot can be achieved in terms of fighting the global menace of climate change. The time has come to start living by the adage: Think globally, act locally!

A sudden and unexpected death of a person close to us leaves us paralyzed. What next is a familiar question in such an event. We suddenly realize there is a lot that needs to be done which we had left to complete with that person for ‘someday… but not now.. (because)…’and we are suddenly left with the realization that it is too late.

We get into any of these spaces. ‘I am helpless without you.’ ‘Oh! The things I could have done with you and your support.’ ‘I am sinking and life is not worth continuing.’ Or we can get into ‘A great person to have known and been with and left me enriched but time to move on.’ “ I learned a lot and my life is not the same but now I have new goals and aspirations.’ Whatever space we find ourselves in is just the way we are meant to be.

What we become present to is the person we have lost is not really lost to us. He /she is the person who while did have a physical existence outside of us is really the person that we created. Whatever that person is to us is a result of our creation. Who s/he is or who s/he is not, is all in our mind and we actually relate to this person of our own creation. So any person that we have come in contact with in our lives is really an image that we created of that person irrespective of who s/he really is, and who he really is not.

That can never be lost. It is our creation and therefore will be with us as long as we choose to let that person be with us.  One of the implications is that all the conversations we have are conversation with ourselves. Therefore, the physical existence of a person for our conversations is not necessary. If we can imagine the person, we can continue to have conversations with that person and we can continue to refer to that person as long as we live.

The same thing applies to the idea of climate change. As long as we can imagine the impacts of climate change, we can create images/ data/ proof of its impacts and take the necessary actions that are needed to make it disappear and feel good about it…

This Conference Of Parties, COP 15 is not COP 15^th.. It is not one among the series of 1st to 16th that comes before 16th and after 14^th. It is ‘COP 15’ – a stand alone event and it is the best ever so far, most successful meeting right now. After weeks of hectic negotiations at COP15, five countries including India, China and the US arrived at a proposal. Not, as the media highlighted to be, something that was salvaged by the President of USA’s intervention for hammering out an agreement among the BASIC group, but the best outcome we got out of the four major polluters contributors to come up with a consensus. “BASIC” is something to celebrate and take actions toward the future and towards controlling climate change. This ensures that the five major polluting countries including the USA have take responsibility for the changing climate and have made a commitment to the future of less than 2 degrees of temperature rise and saving the earth from the deleterious impacts of climate change. This is an empowering context to operate from.

There is resignation and cynicism, because the countries involved and the groups they can form seem to be infinite. It seems like a struggle, between various groups of countries and among various countries, based on their size, their location, their level of development, and their claim to responsibility towards global warming. There is a group formed by countries that are low-lying small island nations. Then there are the developing countries (G77) and thenthe developed countries (G7), and then still another group plus India and China (G7+2). Permutation and combination for 187 countries has infinite possibilities.

The resignation and cynicism has set in thanks to the media, because we are swimming against the current, we were hoping to see actions, in order to reach a goal, so that we could have consensus on the issue and feel good about it. We wanted to feel good about doing something, and thought that actions should come first, so the goal of controlling climate change can be achieved. It is a struggle and as we are swimming against the current, hence resignation and cynicism is more likely to set in. What we normally do is that we set up a target and we act and we struggle to achieve it and that leads to us feeling upset, and angry about not getting what we want. Then we give up.

The natural flow/ direction of the current for us human beings is exactly the opposite. We are human beings and we are the only creatures who have language and the ability to conceptualize and create a ‘world’ using the words. We are the only creatures who can create a possibility for a future that inspires us using words, then we can plan actions towards achieving it, and then feel good about the completion of such projects. We create dreams using words, then we do and then we have the satisfaction and fulfillment on meeting the dreams we created. Hence the BASIC and USA consensus is perhaps the right direction.