Blogging revisited!

Yaayyy! Blogging time! Its hard to fathom that a person so averse to blogging just a week ago has been waiting all these days to write another post!:)

I am really amazed and honored by the kind of people who took time out to read my blog and post their comments. There are some very old and special friends, some very special seniors, special family members and some enthusiastic blog readers. I take this opportunity to thank each one of you for your time and effort. I will start this blog by responding to the comments first and then shall delve into a topic for today, if space permits.

The first, rather overarching, feedback I got on the blog is that I am acting as a doomsayer by saying that Climate Change is the biggest threat faced by mankind. This is certainly not a prophecy of doom based on any whim, that a comet will hit the planet earth on this day of that year. Carbon Dioxide accumulation is a hard fact of life, proved by science. And this is bound to happen, if we don't act accordingly. My endeavor here is to make people aware of a threat that is very much there, but is taking shape very very slowly. It is so glacially slow that people might ignore it, at their own peril. Climate Change is no Lehman Brothers, that it is here today and gone tomorrow, it won't be that sudden a process. It is more like a small opening in the embankment of a river. The opening is so small that nobody, in the Business As Usual scenario(BAU), hardly ever notices it in the rigmaroles of their daily life, but the water of the river is slowly eating away the sediments, and the cavity grows ever so slowly! One might say that the cavity is not there, but the process is irreversible and would get noticed at the point of no return.

You might have read this story in school, of a small Dutch boy who prevents his village from drowning by blocking a similar cavity in his village embankment with his finger overnight, until people notice him standing there and repair the damage. He saves the whole village by his prudence, else the river would have destroyed it. Sadly speaking, we are beyond the point in the saga where one heroic effort can do the needful. We need the masses to sit up and take notice of the cavity. Until then, researchers, scientists and other activists of Climate Change will only act as small Dutch boys so that the masses of the world can take notice and remedy the situation.

This blog is just a small effort in the hope of making people inquisitive about Climate Change, so that they start asking those questions that we have hitherto conveniently swept under the carpet. And make no mistake, this is pure science. There is no conjecture, or mysticism involved here. If people are still not convinced about the change, I will urge them to do a small experiment at home. Try sitting in a closed room with an open furnace, with some fresh wood, or coal,better still, in the furnace. Sit in the closed room and try to do your normal activities. See for yourself what changes begin to happen as you spend more time in the closed room. I agree, all this is happening at a very fast pace in the room, but the changes will be there for you to feel. The same is happening with the environment, albeit at a very slow level.

The second point brought about by a dear friend, Mrigank, was related to the developing world and their role in this process, given their usual problems with poverty, literacy, public health etc. While I must give him the credit for an impassionate plea for Climate Change not being as important in the developing world as it should be in the developed world, I have reasons to the contrary. And I hope that I can convince him with my reasons, something that I have not been able to do very many times in the past:) The reason is exactly what Sreekumar mentions,Sustainability, and I hate him for stealing my thunder on this:) Sustainability is the buzzword for the developing world, that can take them beyond the mentality of the third world countries.

Consider this: the total share of global CO2 emissions of India is around 5% and that of US is around 24%. If you take a per capita value of the same entity, the ratio is even more skewed as we know that US has around 300 million people emitting that amount while in India 1.1 billion people cause a smaller dent. Now do an interesting slicing of data, for all the data enthusiasts in you, take the top 5% of Indian population, in terms of personal income, and look at their average CO2 emissions. It comes out to be of the same order as an average person in the US!!! A wealthy Indian is at the same consumption level as an average American! This simply means that rich people in our part, or any poor part, of the world are hiding behind the poor. They will keep enjoying their level of comfort, and keep blaming the developed world for all their emissions, as long as they have a good chunk of poor people in their country to take care of them, in order words average out the emissions for them. Thus, there is vested interests in keeping people poor and ignorant. This may sound ludicrous, but this my friends is close to reality. We need to bring the lot of poor in these countries up in a sustainable manner. Imagine if all the poor people in India start dreaming of a life like the wealthy, at the same level of consumption, the emissions will simply shoot through the roof, literally speaking!

There has to be a 2 pronged approach for this. The rich, in the poor countries, have to cut down on consumption and the poor have to be developed in a sustainable manner, without being forced to give up any of their amenities. As a simple example, the bulk of the emissions in an Indian village is caused by the 'chulha' or the open coal furnace. Once ignited, it keeps burning for the most part of the day as it is very difficult to reignite, once put out. Just imagine, if we could harness some sort a solar powered furnace for these people, how much of a dent in the emissions we can cause at the national level,and at the global level too. We did not ask the village poor to let go of any benefits he/she was entitled to, we just changed the source of it. I am not talking chimerically here, this very much being implemented at the village level. Check out the work one Mr. Harish Hande is doing in this field in the villages of Karnataka and Gujarat and you will be convinced of the scope of possibilities here. I have met him personally, and must say that his work is really commendable. It takes a lot of guts and gumption to go the way he has gone, and endure as much as he has endured!

God! I will have to tame my blogging prolixity or else will end up making a tome of my blog! I will postpone broaching a new issue on Climate Change at a later date, on a different post. Till then, enjoy saving the planet! You are all heroes this world is looking upto:) At least, I tell myself this statement everyday, first thing in the morning. Keeps me going strong through the day!:)

P.S.: It is scientifically reported that if we start living the same lifestyle as we had in 1750, the pre-industrial era, things would come back to normal and we will not have to worry about climate at all. How many of us are willing to do so?:) Some food for thought....:)