There is an elephant in the room (we smoothly ignore it) || Acharya Prashant (2022)

Acharya Prashant

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Transcript

00:00 Thank you Acharya ji for taking time and giving us this opportunity to sit down with you and

00:09 discuss about climate change, about veganism and about a lot of other questions that we

00:13 have for you. With me today I have on the panel Niharika Raizada ji, a renowned actress

00:18 and my name is Kuntal Joyshar, I am a mountaineer.

00:23 I'm glad to be here.

00:25 So I had this thought where in the last 12 years of my climbing mountains, going on Everest

00:34 and many other mountains in Nepal, in the Indian Himalaya, across the world, as I have

00:39 been going every single year, I have been seeing that there are drastic impacts of climate

00:45 change that I can see on the mountains that I'm climbing.

00:48 Especially let's say around glaciers melting on the mountains.

00:52 Like I go to Everest, every year I see that the glacier is receding internally, internally,

00:58 internally.

00:59 Even the glacier at 8000 meters where temperature is easily about -25, -30 degrees, even that

01:07 is losing ice and it is receding at that altitude where impacts of climate change should not

01:12 be seen, technically or scientifically.

01:15 So we are seeing these changes, there are these glacial lakes that are getting formed

01:19 that can have impact on smaller villages downstream.

01:25 All these changes are happening, snowfall happening in weird times and these things

01:29 are constantly happening.

01:31 But then I come back to Bombay and there is no impact of climate change or at least something

01:38 that I really can't perceive.

01:40 Sure, maybe there is a little bit more warmth in the climate or a little bit extended monsoons

01:45 but sometimes you feel, "Ah, it's Mumbai climate, it will just change up and down here and there."

01:51 And so if I'm sitting in my bedroom and I am not kind of feeling any massive impact

01:58 of climate change but there is massive impact of climate change happening in very sensitive

02:04 ecosystems like the Himalaya and like let's say even the Arctic or the Antarctic which

02:09 is causing havoc across the planet where there are these floods happening and droughts happening

02:17 and so many things that are happening.

02:18 But sitting here in Mumbai, I am not able to, everything is fine, what's this big deal

02:24 about it?

02:25 So how can we take this concept of climate change and explain it to everyone in a way

02:32 where people can start getting serious about it and start doing something about it because

02:39 if we are looking at any data points, then people are saying by 2040 or by 2050 this

02:44 planet will literally be uninhabitable.

02:47 So we really need to be getting serious about this and do something about it now.

02:53 So how can we kind of bridge this gap where I am seeing something in the mountains but

02:58 I'm coming home and can't have this question constantly happening, what can I do?

03:05 The first thing is to see that we are nearing extinction.

03:13 It is not merely a problem.

03:14 We have already entered the sixth mass extinction phase.

03:22 It's a catastrophe worse than the third world war that we sometimes metaphorically imagine

03:33 to mean deadly disaster of unimaginable proportions.

03:38 When you want to say that something utterly terrible might happen, then you say third

03:43 world war.

03:45 What's already happening is worse than the third world war that might not happen.

03:52 We are rushing towards our extinction.

03:57 There's a sixth one I said.

04:01 Of the previous five ones, three happened due to exactly the same cause that ails us

04:10 today, carbon dioxide.

04:14 You talked of the receding glaciers of the Himalayas and you said that's visible there,

04:20 that's not visible here.

04:21 You see, two things.

04:24 One, because our senses can perceive only gross changes, therefore what is happening

04:32 a bit subliminally, we do not detect it immediately.

04:41 I would liken it to getting infected by the HIV.

04:46 It can stay in the body for long and then it erupts.

04:50 It's not AIDS all of a sudden, or even the COVID virus, the disease that we all suffered

04:58 so much from.

04:59 It comes to you and the symptoms do not show up immediately.

05:03 But when they do show up, they can be fatal.

05:09 You said technically the layer should not recede so much there.

05:12 Let me offer you an example.

05:14 You'll find it interesting.

05:16 In a place like Canada, just a difference of five degrees centigrade in the average

05:24 temperature can mean the existence or non-existence of hundreds of meters of ice sheets, just

05:36 five degrees.

05:38 That which you call as the ice age.

05:41 Actually the average temperatures then were not too different from what we have now, just

05:45 five degrees.

05:47 And five degrees mean unimaginably thick ice sheets or their absence.

05:56 So if five degrees lesser can mean that the ice can get that large.

06:01 Five degrees higher would mean that all the ice can suddenly vanish.

06:06 So what is happening up there and that which you saw is exactly what is going to happen.

06:11 And when we say the average temperatures are already 1.5 above normal and they'll get to

06:18 three degrees, five degrees, maybe even six degrees.

06:22 We feel like saying, oh, six degrees is not much.

06:24 After all, sometimes it is 24, at other times it's 30.

06:28 25 and 24 and 30 are both things that we have tolerated, even enjoyed.

06:33 And so 24 and 30 don't mean much.

06:35 They mean a lot.

06:37 They basically mean that 80 to 90 percent of all life on the planet is about to go extinct.

06:45 That's the severity of the problem we are facing.

06:48 It's not about the kind of daily weathers that we experience.

06:53 Oh, it's a bit humid today.

06:55 It's raining without reason.

06:59 Don't you feel a bit warm under the collar?

07:02 It's not that kind of thing.

07:03 We're not talking about the weather.

07:04 It's climate change.

07:07 Everything is going to change and the planet will become inhabitable not only for us, but

07:12 for all species that we know of.

07:14 That's the extent of the crisis.

07:17 I repeat, everybody needs to repeat it as many times as possible to as many people as

07:23 possible.

07:24 Mass extinction, that's what we are staring at.

07:28 And we are quickly rushing towards it.

07:31 That's what is happening.

07:33 And the thing is, because we do not experience it on our skins immediately.

07:40 So we feel as if it does not exist.

07:43 That's the first and the most cowardly way of dealing with a disaster.

07:49 Denial.

07:50 Just deny it.

07:51 It does not exist.

07:52 We all want to deny things, bad things, when they first happened to us.

07:56 No, this can't have happened.

07:57 And then there are advanced stages of grief.

08:00 And then there are other methods of coping.

08:03 But the first thing itself takes away so much time.

08:06 And we have already lost so much time.

08:07 So like you said, there is denial.

08:09 It means that we know that it is there, it's going to come, but we tend to avoid it.

08:14 So is it like there are problems that are bigger than that at present that people see?

08:18 And that's why they tend to ignore it?

08:19 No, it's just that if you accept it, then it demands action.

08:24 Acknowledgement means responsibility.

08:26 That's the reason why you find mainstream media giving so little coverage to the most

08:31 important problem of our times.

08:34 We talk of this, we talk of that.

08:36 We don't talk of the thing that means everything to us.

08:40 What you are seeing today, please understand, is carbon dioxide levels that we have not

08:45 seen over the past 10 lakh years.

08:50 10 lakh years, it was never so bad.

08:53 And especially to you, you just told me you're a 2021 pass out from IIT Delhi, you know,

08:58 most of the carbon that we see in the atmosphere today has been emitted in your lifetime, after

09:04 you were born.

09:07 That's how lucky your generation is.

09:08 That's the reason I want to talk more and more to youngsters, see how lucky you are.

09:12 That's what we, the elder ones have done to you.

09:16 That's what we have bequeathed to you.

09:20 Take it.

09:21 Lots of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, and that's going to wipe you out.

09:25 Finished.

09:26 So, where are the solutions?

09:29 What can we do, being a millennial generation, being a Gen X, Gen Z generation, what is it

09:35 that we can do?

09:36 Like, for example, when the cyclone came this year in Mumbai, we were all asked to, post

09:42 the cyclone, plant trees across Mumbai.

09:45 And we all participated, all the people that I know participated, but it's not enough.

09:50 That's for example, not enough to cut down the carbon dioxide amount.

09:54 You just can't plant a few trees, you have to do a lot more.

09:58 So what are the few solutions that our generation can implement?

10:04 First thing, obviously it is true, and it must be understood that we all owe action

10:12 towards the solution.

10:15 At the same time, a few data points have to be considered.

10:21 It is around 12% of the world's population that's responsible for more than 80% of the

10:30 excess carbon accumulated in the atmosphere so far.

10:35 So if I start talking to the common man in Mumbai that you should do your bit, it sounds

10:42 good in a moral sense, but won't be effective.

10:49 It's the rich man in the rich countries, and obviously the rich man in the not so rich

10:57 countries like India, who's contributing the most, who's the biggest culprit towards the

11:03 climate crisis.

11:06 So what do we do?

11:08 We need to raise awareness to a point where it becomes an electoral issue.

11:18 Obviously we can do our own bit, not use a four wheeler when necessary, fly less often,

11:28 don't consume meat.

11:30 We all know of those measures, go solar, go tidal, whatever you can do.

11:36 Obviously a person cannot go tidal on his own.

11:39 So these are the things that we can do, but most of these are mostly feel good measures.

11:45 You will feel that you are on the right side of morality, you have done your bit.

11:49 The thing is an effective change cannot happen unless it is at the policy level.

11:58 And in a democracy, policies depend on the number of people who are sensitive to the

12:08 need of policy change or regulation or formulation.

12:12 We don't have sensitivity at all.

12:15 So if you have any reach among the audiences, first thing is to keep shouting this in their

12:22 ears all the time.

12:25 You are happily sleeping in your little dark caves and you just do not know that there's

12:32 a nuclear explosion outside.

12:35 You cannot let this happen.

12:37 So, if you have an audience, if you have an reach, if you have people who listen to you,

12:44 that's the first thing to do.

12:45 Without that the common man would remain busy in his usual petty affairs, we cannot blame

12:52 him for that.

12:54 And when it will come to choosing a government at any level, even at a local level, he'll

12:59 vote on largely meaningless issues and the central issue will remain in oblivion.

13:07 That means nothing.

13:09 This has to be there on the front page of the newspapers, has to be there constantly.

13:19 Somebody has to, a lot of people have to wake up to it.

13:24 The stats themselves are so terrifying that if they are brought out in the public domain,

13:29 they are already in the public domain.

13:31 It says that they are not getting publicized.

13:34 Being public and getting publicized are two very different things.

13:39 There is so much that is available if you want to look up for it.

13:45 But nobody wants to Google for something as specific as the stats concerning climate change

13:52 and such things.

13:53 So, we need to shout it out from the rooftops and the stats have to be clear to us first

14:00 of all.

14:01 What are we doing?

14:02 Where is it really coming from?

14:04 What contributes to it?

14:05 And how exactly are we a participant in it all?

14:08 Right.

14:09 So, I wanted to point out about that where you just said that what contributes to it.

14:15 At least whatever I have done the research and whatever reading I have done, animal agriculture

14:20 is a very big contributor to the greenhouse gas emissions.

14:24 Now, sure, there are very controversial numbers.

14:27 One agency says, no, these numbers are not correct or some agency says these numbers

14:31 are not correct.

14:32 But at the end of the day, every agency agrees that animal agriculture produces significant

14:38 amount of greenhouse gas emissions, which is eventually contributing to climate change.

14:45 In addition, there is a lot of land use.

14:47 There is a lot of water use.

14:49 There is a lot of biodiversity loss that a lot of these things are causes, which are

14:53 indirect contributors to the climate change crisis.

14:57 Now, you said that we need to make changes at a policy level.

15:01 We should elect properly and those kind of things.

15:05 But these lobbies are super strong and these lobbies like, let's say, meat lobby or the

15:10 dairy lobby or for example, even a lobby like a car making lobby or the petroleum lobby,

15:18 these lobbies are super strong and they are also going to influence the elected members

15:23 quite a bit to continue supporting these industries, subsidizing these industries and continue

15:30 contributing to the greenhouse gas emissions and a lot of these things.

15:35 So, what can we do in these situations where I as a person, it just feels like such an

15:42 overwhelming problem to me.

15:43 I look at this and I'm like, I can't do anything.

15:46 All I can do is I can stop eating meat.

15:48 I can be a vegan.

15:49 Okay, I have been a vegan for 20 years.

15:51 I'll stop flying.

15:52 I will, you know, stop.

15:53 I don't even have a car.

15:55 I travel in a metro as much as I can, travel in public transportation.

15:58 So, I do a lot of these things.

16:00 But anytime it comes to the election or the electoral politics, I'm like, I can't do

16:07 anything.

16:08 No, it's not that way.

16:09 Please see, the tobacco lobby used to be equally strong.

16:13 And for a very long time, they tried to obfuscate the ill effects of tobacco on health.

16:22 But then there were concerted attempts, people got together.

16:27 And ultimately, we had regulations on tobacco, there were taxes, there were prohibitions

16:31 and the continuity will date.

16:33 And we have been able to mitigate the ill effects of tobacco on human health.

16:38 That could be done.

16:39 This too can be done.

16:41 It's just that, you know, it's not getting into the public conversation.

16:47 I just read that 63% Americans and why do I quote America because countries like America

16:53 are the ones worst responsible for the state we are in today.

16:58 63% of them admit to never having even discussed climate change in their households.

17:07 That's the problem.

17:08 That's the real problem.

17:10 And why do we not discuss it?

17:12 Here the thing gets interesting.

17:14 We do not discuss it because it challenges, the discussion challenges our very basic philosophy

17:21 of life.

17:23 You see, what is the philosophy that we are living in our daily lives?

17:28 We are saying more is better.

17:33 We are saying if you want to be happy, you need to have more goods, you need to have

17:38 better furniture, bigger cars, you need to fly more.

17:42 How about a dollar 500 million yard?

17:46 Things like that.

17:48 So that's the philosophy that we live.

17:50 Not only the common man, from the common man that philosophy becomes the philosophy of

17:54 the governments.

17:56 So how do the governments, for example, measure their economic success?

18:00 They talk about GDP.

18:02 What exactly is GDP?

18:03 GDP is just the same thing.

18:05 How many more goods, transaction worthy goods is your economy producing?

18:12 Now basic things that make life richer are not really amenable to monetization.

18:21 Because you cannot monetize them, therefore, they do not even count towards the GDP.

18:28 And it is the GDP focused approach, it is the material happiness focused approach that

18:33 is at the root of the climate crisis.

18:36 We keep on saying the country is producing more and more or my income is getting higher

18:44 and higher, therefore, there is welfare.

18:48 It's another thing that what GDP successfully hides is a lot of inequality.

18:54 We said the top rung of people, the very elite in terms of money, one percentile, top one

19:03 percentile or five percentile, they are the ones contributing in the heaviest sense to

19:10 this crisis.

19:12 But they are also the role models and aspirations for the remaining 95%.

19:18 We all want to be there.

19:20 And that's a philosophy that has been taught to us.

19:23 The climate crisis is a product of a wrong way of living.

19:28 We have been conditioned, we have been taught a wrong philosophy.

19:34 And that's the problem.

19:35 And the problem is deeper, because your generation sees no alternative except that one philosophy

19:44 because it has not been exposed to anything else.

19:48 The work that we are trying to do of taking Vedanta to every household is therefore something

19:55 that is striking at the very roots of the climate crisis.

19:59 And all these are related, veganism, climate crisis, loss of biodiversity, extinction of

20:04 species, you name the problem.

20:06 And what you'll find is that the same philosophy, philosophy of material happiness is at the

20:13 root of all of them.

20:14 And therefore, you cannot solve any single one of these problems without really addressing

20:22 all others.

20:23 And if you have to address all of them, and all of them are intersectional, they all touch

20:27 upon each other, then you have to go to the very base.

20:31 Is more really better?

20:33 Are we benefiting from that?

20:35 When you say GDP is great, and for example, Moody's just said India is not going to grow

20:43 at 7.6%, it's going to be 6.8%.

20:47 And there was a lot of hue and cry, oh my god, country is not growing that much.

20:51 The fact is that the average income of the most disadvantaged section has not risen by

21:05 much over the last 30 years, even in India, whereas the top 1 percentile has gotten richer

21:15 by more than 15 times, inflation adjusted figures.

21:22 So what is GDP doing?

21:23 It is taking an aggregate, it is presenting to you an average in terms of per capita income,

21:31 what it is hiding is that what averages successfully managed to hide, that the averages have been

21:38 pulled up only by a handful of people.

21:42 And the vast majority of people is actually remaining at the same levels where it was

21:48 a long time back, or actually the levels have fallen.

21:53 That's what GDP is hiding.

21:55 So it's not even that we are getting even materially more prosperous.

22:01 First thing is, is material prosperity giving us what we really need?

22:05 What are the costs of material prosperity?

22:07 Secondly, are we getting even materially more prosperous as a human community?

22:13 No, only a handful of people are gaining in wealth, all else are just wallowing in their

22:19 old positions.

22:22 So we need to take up this discussion with the young people especially.

22:28 How do you want to live?

22:29 What do you want to live for?

22:31 What is your core philosophy of life?

22:33 As we used to say in IIT, what is your funda?

22:37 What's the fundamental you want to live by?

22:40 So I have a doubt here.

22:42 Like, we all started from a point when we were early man, we lived in cages.

22:46 Then we started technological advances, we developed and made so many things just to

22:50 live a life which is very peaceful.

22:52 Now when we have these things, we are saying that we should go towards minimalism.

22:56 So there are two options.

22:57 Either we develop such technologies, for example, the sonar parents ones, in which whatever

23:02 things are released in the environment, they don't harm us much.

23:07 Or we literally go to a point where we start discarding things and go back to the same

23:12 life where there is a lot of minimalism.

23:14 So what should be the approach?

23:16 We need active economic degrowth.

23:20 We do not need so much of consumption.

23:22 What was the consumption for in the first place?

23:26 Why did the early man come out of the forest, out of the cave?

23:29 For what purpose?

23:30 You must remember the purpose.

23:32 The purpose was not that he was not getting enough to eat there.

23:35 No animal ever starves in the jungle, unless man interferes.

23:39 Right?

23:40 You don't really have pandemics in the jungle, again, unless man interferes.

23:46 So jungles are actually quite nice places and man was all right there in the physical

23:50 sense at least.

23:51 Right?

23:52 We do not die of hunger, heat, food, thirst, starvation.

23:56 That does not happen usually in the jungle.

23:58 And if that happens, to that extent it happens even in the cities.

24:01 Right?

24:02 We have people dying of starvation on footpaths.

24:05 That happens even in the US.

24:06 Even the US have people who are ill-fed.

24:10 Why did we come out from the jungle in the first place?

24:14 Because there was something that could not happen in the jungle.

24:18 There were conditions not really suitable to that particular thing.

24:22 What was that thing?

24:23 We wanted to develop ourselves more.

24:27 We wanted to have more peace, as you said.

24:33 Did we really get that by coming out of the jungle or have we failed miserably?

24:37 The intention itself has been defeated.

24:40 When we were there and now that we are here, are we really better off in terms of the intangible

24:47 thing that we wanted?

24:48 Tangibly, we have gathered a lot.

24:50 Tangibly, obviously, we have gathered a lot.

24:53 But that intangible thing that we were so desperate for, I dare say so much in love

24:59 with, could we manage to secure that?

25:02 No, we did not.

25:04 So not only do we need to minimalize, we actually need de-growth.

25:10 A lot of things that we are using, we do not need them.

25:13 They have to be discarded.

25:15 A lot of the industries are simply wasteful.

25:17 They do not need to exist.

25:19 The world, do we really need huge military complexes?

25:24 Do we really need these huge slaughterhouses, animal agriculture he talked of?

25:30 Do you really need those industries?

25:33 A lot of the cosmetics industry, for example, are these things actively needed?

25:37 You have to ask yourself these things.

25:40 Textiles, garments, do we really need so many clothes as we use?

25:47 And there is just so much.

25:51 The carbon emissions of the US military are larger than that of several other nations

26:00 combined.

26:01 I am not talking of the emissions of the militaries of the other nations.

26:07 I am saying you pick up the Scandinavian nations, for example.

26:13 The emissions of the entire country are lower than the emissions from the Pentagon.

26:23 What's going on?

26:24 Do we really need all those things?

26:28 Do we really need to fly as much as we do?

26:34 In a country like India, how do you justify flying from Delhi to Chandigarh?

26:42 Or from Delhi to Jaipur?

26:45 I do not know whether we have flights from Mumbai to Pune.

26:48 We do.

26:49 And to Surat as well.

26:51 And many other places in Gujarat.

26:53 I am not sure.

26:56 And if poor road infrastructure is the reason, we better ramp up that infrastructure.

27:02 The kind of carbon footprint when you fly is tremendous.

27:09 So I liked it.

27:12 We traveled to Bombay via train this time.

27:19 We had a camp in Goa.

27:20 We again used the train.

27:22 Once the flight, then the train.

27:26 Obviously it's not all that convenient.

27:28 But that's the minimum you need to begin to do.

27:32 That's just the minimum.

27:33 That won't suffice.

27:34 There is a lot more that we actually require to do.

27:37 [Music]

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