Since the dawn of the civilisation, humans have been uniquely reliant on Mother Nature for the very subsistence. However, resources are limited and human greed is enormous. Therefore, it is time that we put sustainability at the core of living, says BHASKAR SINHA
Other than those who are staying in self-indulgent cocoons, are not we facing the difficulty of inhaling less clear air into our lungs? Are not we getting alarmed by the lessening of the livable places day by day? Are not too many people everywhere and leaving less and less place to other living creatures? Usages of nose masks are nowadays not only confined in the hospitals; fairly those are increasingly prevalent in most polluted and populated cities across the world.
The habitable place is limited. Resources are limited, but human greed is enormous. Famous personalities like Gandhi put this crux in a fathomable way that we might need two planets to sustain our greed. Today’s enterprising minds like Elon Musk are taking about colonising Moon or Mars, but is it not the another dimension of greed? Why humans can’t put sustainability at the core of living? Why extravaganza excites rich and famous? Mainstream is always ruling the roost.
Still good sense must prevail. However are the scant numbers of noble minds, who are picking the scattered thoughts and trying to make this Earth livable, should be encouraged and celebrated. Projects encompassing womb to the tomb to be undertaken keeping sustainability at the core. Rich world all the time plundered the resources incessantly. Darwinism made them believe that winners could take it all. Rich world has ever more and still wants furthermore.
Even if not happy with the one Earth, will search or create another one or two. Poor world has fewer picks and does not dream of splurging, so eternally limited with sparse means. A balanced approach must be undertaken. Need to think whether hunger for resources is always sustainable? What’s the harm if we made deferment of Earth’s decay for few more million years probably concluding with her natural death?
Since the dawn of the civilisation humans were uniquely reliant on Mother Nature for the very subsistence alike other fauna and flora, for the want of food, shelter or wears and gears. Then the unabashed species learned the use of hand, learned the use of fire and wheel and most importantly learnt the use of fossil fuel usage. After that, they brazenly ripped the Earth for all non-renewables like wood, coal, oil, etc. And with the exponential population explosion these non-renewables may subsist barely in between fifty to hundred years at the most.
Humans (obviously, ours so called intelligent cousins) believe first and fast movers ideology. Go there first, embezzle the treasure, enrich self and conveniently forget poor cousins as well as other species on earth. Humans are most selfish loads. Mohenjo-Daro, Harappa, Mesopotamia, Misr and Babylon; all grand old civilisations were somehow self-reliant, somehow contained, never tried to make worldwide empire.
But with the advent of Alexander, a new phenomenon of worldwide empire took step which was exploited by his European cousins in the name of searching for new worlds. Though they made new routes, circumvented and navigated the new worlds, they also took ownerships of the new found bootie. Though the original inhabitants of those new worlds got brashly subjugated, their masters took back the riches to their homelands.
A new world order was created when elite colons surreptitiously got inordinate nourishment from their new found colonies. Even the industrial revolution or renaissance, etc. were seeded by the new found money. Scientific and research structures were easily now made in these elite countries and with fertile brains ever loaded with innovative and intellectual thoughts, more items and gadgets were churned out for indulgence. So the great divide went ahead further. Rich and poor cousins further alienated. To appease the tad, but noticeably a huge number of blokes, ‘developing’ or ‘emerging’ words were created. Interestingly in economics, the only viable word is growth. ISO philosophies continual improvements with new KPIs and new targets. How can anyone improve continuously?
In business cycle, there is SIP, Strategic Point of Inflexion. Whatever goes up, needs to come down, somehow like Sin X- Cos X curve or f (X)= Sin X + Cos X. Clever humans understood the resource constraints quickly. Shared sustainable development came into the lime light. World bodies like UN, after overwhelming League of Nations, then World Bank, IMF, WTO came at the centrestage. Furthermore CDM came into being. Finally arrived CSR, on which Dutch researcher Mercel Van Nanewijk wrote in 2003: “Too often, CSR is regarded as the panacea which will solve the global poverty gap, social exclusion and environmental degradation.” Readers, see the ingeniousness of thoughts of the rich world, only fortunate few are reaping the dividends all along.
The gap is widening and will be widening further. Human nature is to go for betterment and go and grow for ever more. If one world is not enough, we create or search for another one. Can growth be muted? We need to ask ourselves. Can more compassion be asked from ourselves? Finally all ‘isms’ had failed, only ‘capitalism’ cracked the whip.
Every human is different. Every tribe is different. Everyone wants to live his way. It is about self-righteousness and self-determination, but we are now not only local anymore, in a connected world we are all glocal. Global warming, climate change and nuclear winter all global issues are hanging over us. Compassion, care for others and care for disadvantageous, may save us from the cataclysm. Lately, we were successful by arresting the Ozone hole.
A follow up from the Paris Climate Treaty is of late ongoing at Bangkok, where no clear understanding or breakthrough seems achievable. Local fishermen and laborers are outside sit in protest with the pretext that their livelihood is at stake due to rising sea level, global warming, changing rain patterns, flash floods and the like. Whether any policy makers listening? The record breaking rainfall in Kerala this year over the last seventy five years period not only made the place inhabitable, but also numerous creatures are totally lost. Human factors like unbalanced ecological fidgeting with the coastal ecology by indiscriminate mining and moreover dams or dams’ management also partially to be blamed. The same human factor causing unsustainable tinkering with the mountainous ecology and indiscriminate deforestations brought Uttrakhand disaster five years back. Disharmony in the economic prosperity wish and ecology has widened greatly. A Libra attitude of balancing between the two is amiss.
In the era of environmental stress with increasing social division and political polarisation, we need to revisit the Brundtland Report (1987). The common definition of sustainability, as it says: “Sustainable development is development that meets the need of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”
So what is there in future? Smart or sustainable cities? Carlo Ratti, Director of MIT Sensible City Lab, prefers to call them as sensible future cities. To him, a sensible city should have characteristics of weather like Miami, topography like Prague, mobility like Singapore, sustenance like Copenhagen, buzzing like Mumbai, night life like Rio de Janeiro and people’s participation like Boston.
Though landfill is limited, waste generation has become manifold. First of all to produce and to package food, huge quantity of energy is consumed and in this processes a significant quantity of Green House Gasses (GHG) are emitted. Moreover, if food wastes not managed in an organic way, landfills become contaminated and unsustainable. Papers, plastics, glasses and metals have to be made out from the process of going to the landfills. There are huge prospects of recycling industries involving papers, plastics, glasses and metals. Only and only food wastes without packaging should find its place to landfills to be converted into organic composts. The C40 city Mayors had recently taken a pledge to cut the food wastes at fifteen percent level individually by the year 2030. In that process 50 per cent wastes will be reduced while reaching landfills or incinerators by the year 2030.The final goal is towards zero. In this way 87 million tons of food wastes will be saved. If we see the figure, it is over one billion tons of food wastes are reaching the landfills annually. And what we get in turn from the rotting scraps? Heat entrapping GHG — methane to be precise in the atmosphere is the result from the rotting scraps followed up by global warming. As of now, it is a pledge of 23 cities comprising 150 million people. Seems prospective?
But, whether most populous nations on Earth are enrolled? Instead of top- down, whether bottom-up should not be the strategy? Whether one-third of the humanity should not be the part of the process at the grassroots levels? Whether not it would be much easier to keep the pledge then? On the other hand grassroots could do it a lot better, if proper supply chains exist for packaging and recycling. Should policy makers, enterprises and erudite minds not work together to achieve that feat?
Social scientist Geoffery Bateson has rightly said: “You can’t change system without changing yourself.”
To live a sustainable life
We all know that the resources that are at our disposal are limited. There will come a time when these natural resources will get exhausted. From food to water — Earth can withstand only a certain amount of green house gases. Hence, the aim should be to live as one planet economy where both people and Nature can thrive in the available space.
There are several benefits of doing so. First, if one is suing less resources, it means that we are not depleting them. This can be saving trees or using less energy or saving water.
Second, using less resources means that one is saving money. Sometimes huge sums of money especially when it comes to electricity bills in a metro like Delhi.
Third, when one goes green, the chances are that one is using less harmful chemicals. Your’s and the family’s health is no longer compromised.
Four, when one consumes less, one creates less waste. Sustainability is all about recycling.
Five, sustainability comes with lessons. One may end up researching on a healthy recipe and or find a do-it-yourself tutorial. In either case, one ends up with a bigger knowledge base. And how does one do that? There are many things that humans can do for a sustainable living.