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Video Information: 10.04.23, TEDx talk, SVC-Delhi
Context:
~ Why our consumptions are destructive ?
~ What are the facts about destructive consumption?
~ What are causing global warming & climate change ?
~ How are food affective global warming & climate change?
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~
Be a part of the Live Sessions: https://acharyaprashant.org/hi/enquir...
Want to read Acharya Prashant's Books?
Get Free Delivery: https://acharyaprashant.org/en/books?...
~~~~~
Video Information: 10.04.23, TEDx talk, SVC-Delhi
Context:
~ Why our consumptions are destructive ?
~ What are the facts about destructive consumption?
~ What are causing global warming & climate change ?
~ How are food affective global warming & climate change?
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00Can you imagine roaming around in a t-shirt on Antarctica or on the Arctic?
00:10But that's what is happening.
00:11Look at the temperatures and there is no typo there.
00:15We have not missed out on a minus sign, that's 38 degrees, yes, not minus 38.
00:22And that's the kind of extreme weather events that we are already into, we are not forecasting.
00:35Nobody is acting as a doomsday warner or something.
00:4183% increase in extreme weather events.
00:46Remember the Australian forest fires, remember the European heat waves, remember what is
00:51happening in Pakistan and Bangladesh next door, the floods, and remember what is happening
00:58in India as well, the frequency of cyclones, and 83% increase over just the last one or
01:04two decades, that's where we are.
01:09Flood and other water related, that's just a number, dollar 5.6 trillion by the next
01:14decade or by 2050.
01:17To put things in perspective, that's more than the current GDP of India, we are not
01:22yet even at dollar 4 trillion completely.
01:26But the economic loss comes later, it's the human loss that's the worst tragedy and we
01:33are yet to fathom the magnitude of what we are already into and neck deep into.
01:41But we talk of other truths, we talk of metaphysical realities, we talk of knowing the unknown
01:49and even the unknowable, when we do not know even that which is present right in front
01:54of our eyes, we do not know the obvious facts that stare at us and would destroy our lives,
01:59but we want to know of some hidden mystical reality, how will that work?
02:04Extremes, just as we saw extreme weather events, look at the extremes here as well, we are
02:12contrasting the far and wide with the up and close, the near thing and saying that be it
02:19the distant reality or the immediate one, we are equally in oblivion.
02:24Look at these extremes and we are talking of dollar billionaires here, mind you.
02:30India ranks third when it comes to the number of billionaires in the world and 80% of Indians
02:37earn less than rupees 10,000 per month.
02:40If you earn rupees 20,000, 25,000 a month, you are in the top 10 percentile in India,
02:45that's where we stand.
02:46The percentage of population below the poverty line is still 20% and that's when we have
02:51defined the poverty line on bare sustenance terms.
02:55We have taken the minimum number of calories a person needs to survive and then we say
03:00for these calories what is the minimum amount of food grains etc that you need to consume
03:04and based on that we have drawn the poverty line, which is a very inhuman way of drawing
03:08the poverty line and still 20% of us are below the poverty line and yet we have a vulgar
03:15accumulation and display of wealth going on.
03:18The inequality is increasing continuously.
03:22You know of the Gini coefficient, right?
03:24And you know of how it has only been increasing in the world and also in India.
03:29Yes, now, killing, violence, there is a violence that is happening on a global scale, on a
03:40macro level and there is a violence that is happening right in our households.
03:44Let's first look at the former one, fish gone, number of species that are getting extinct
03:53every day, do you know that is more than 100 times the natural rate.
04:00The natural rate is that one or two species will go extinct every day and that's a natural
04:06thing that has been happening since the last millions of years.
04:10But today we have exceeded that rate by 100 times.
04:15Some studies say 1000 times, even as we speak a few species have gone extinct.
04:22Can you imagine the devastation, the total obliteration of life itself?
04:27That's what we are doing and we remain blissfully ignorant.
04:31We behave as if nothing is amiss.
04:35All the fisheries gone, would we survive?
04:372048, it's as if fisheries are out there somewhere isolated, disconnected from us.
04:43Would we survive if they are gone, please tell me.
04:48Let's look at India, relate the last two points.
04:52Very few people realize that milk and beef are synonymous, very few people realize that.
05:00We do not bother to inquire what happens to all the cattle after they stop yielding milk.
05:07As young educated inquisitive minds, should we be that complacent, that ignorant, that
05:15non-oblivious?
05:16Isn't there a direct relation between our dairy consumption and our beef production
05:22and subsequent export?
05:25But we don't mind.
05:26Next.
05:27Yeah, killing them.
05:30So we are not just killing the cows, the buffaloes, the fish, the entire wildlife.
05:36Look at who else is being killed.
05:38189, that's rock bottom.
05:41I wonder if there is any country below us.
05:441920 is the ratio, where are those missing 80 girls?
05:50And if you are a killer, why would you spare your own daughter or wife?
05:56That's the worst kind of genocide going on in India.
06:00But we don't bother.
06:01We behave as if we are an educated, enlightened, empowered country, especially when it comes
06:10to empowering the other gender as well.
06:14Think of killing.
06:15Killing happens everywhere because the killer is the same.
06:19The fellow who can kill an innocent animal just for his pleasure and profit, why would
06:27he spare an innocent girl?
06:30She would be killed because he knows there is a cost to bear and then there is a dowry
06:35to gift and all such things.
06:39Women labour participation rate 25%, worse still, it is falling.
06:46Education levels among women are increasing, their labour participation rate is falling.
06:49Over the last 20 years it has actually fallen.
06:52More women were at workplaces than they are today, two decades back.
07:00The proportion of women working was more than what it is today.
07:05Women are withdrawing from workplaces, 73% of them even if they continue to work they
07:11leave their jobs after work and that's not really an informed and voluntary choice.
07:17It is to do with the social conditions and the cultural conditioning a lot.
07:25We talk of farmer suicides and that's a very tragic thing, right?
07:29The newspapers are all full of farmer suicides and that is something we must address, obviously.
07:35But what about the housewives and does anybody bother to enquire what our cultural institutions
07:42are doing to the woman to the point that she is compelled to die by suicide?
07:51And we are missing that as young students when you talk to each other.
07:54I am asking you, do you take up these issues?
07:57Do these form a part of your daily conversations?
08:00They hardly do.
08:01Next.
08:05Loss of biodiversity and we will be talking of another kind of loss next, right?
08:10This is a loss far and wide as is biodiversity.
08:14This is biodiversity loss.
08:15I just address that.
08:18The extinction rate has exceeded the natural rate not by percentage points but by many
08:25fold but by multiples.
08:29One million animal and plant species threatened with extinction.
08:32Do you understand?
08:33Threatened with extinction.
08:34They are not just threatened, their numbers are not just reducing, they are going extinct.
08:41We understand what extinction means, they will never return.
08:44We are not talking of a few members of the species, we are talking of the last member
08:49of the species.
08:51It's gone forever, never to return.
08:53And we are talking of not one such species, we are talking of a million such species.
09:01Look at the third point, let it sink in.
09:06The only mammals that are surviving today are the ones that we use.
09:11All other mammals we have wiped out.
09:14So if you want to survive on this earth, we have colonized, monopolized it to such an
09:19extent that if you want to survive on this earth, you have to be usable to human beings.
09:23If you are not usable, you will be killed.
09:27So goat, cow, buffalo, sheep, camel, only such mammals that are of use to us have been
09:37allowed to not just survive but multiply.
09:40We forcibly multiply them, that's the reality of the animal farms.
09:44We forcefully multiply them and all other animals, think of the millions of mammal species,
09:49we have completely wiped them out.
09:51That's who we are.
09:53Wild mammals represent only 4% obviously.
09:57We talked of loss of biodiversity, here is the corresponding loss of creativity.
10:03Have you heard of something called the Flynn effect?
10:06Do you know that each generation is significantly lower on IQ than the preceding one?
10:14And that has been happening since the last 40-50 years, since the advent of television.
10:19And now that has been compounded with the internet.
10:23We are losing IQ at the rate of 3-5 points every decade.
10:28Isn't that astounding?
10:30Look at the other points.
10:34Newspaper reading, magazine reading, declining sharply.
10:39When was the last time you came across a great new poetry book, a great new publication?
10:47Who cares for poets now?
10:50Innovation, creativity, intelligence, empathy, all of these things are being lost just as
10:57we are losing biodiversity.
10:59The loss outside is also the loss inside and we are not seeing that.
11:05Yes.
11:10Superstitions, 50%, almost 50%, you add up those numbers, that's 10, 24, 14, that's
11:19almost 50%, 50% people still do not completely believe that global warming is happening and
11:25it's anthropogenic, which means they won't really participate in any climate activism.
11:35Isn't that superstition of the worst kind?
11:37And that same kind of superstition is reflected in something else.
11:43Look at what is happening on social media these days.
11:48Superstition rules and if you can propagate superstition, you will very soon be a superstar.
11:55Is that not the rule now?
11:58Look at this.
11:59Miracles, yes, they do happen and that's not just something that Indians believe in.
12:03Faith healings, no, no, no, the scientific system of medicine won't help you.
12:12Come to all the other kind of mumbo-jumbo and the number of deaths that is causing,
12:16that's going largely unreported.
12:19So a mind that does not care for the truth is what is called a superstitious, right?
12:24We do not care for the truth when it comes to macro events and we also do not care for
12:29the truth when it comes to things in our personal life.
12:33So small things, you want to proceed for an examination, somebody tells you, well, you
12:40should wear this thread or take some yogurt before you leave and that same kind of harmless
12:46looking thing is what becomes the climate tragedy and subsequent extinction as well.
12:53So please don't take those little superstitions lightly, they are killing us.