Humans have crossed all the limits || Acharya Prashant, at IIT Bombay (2022)

Acharya Prashant

‍♂️ Want to meet Acharya Prashant? 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: 17.10.2022, IIT Mumbai  Context: ~ Unhappy with your job? ~ What to do if I hate my job? ~ When should one quit his or her job? ~ Why do we take nature for granted? ~ Why am I so unhappy? ~ What is the cause of the climate crisis? ~ Who are your role models?  Music Credits: Milind Date  ~~~~~

Transcript

00:00See, climate change is not caused by all the little things that you do.

00:09You can relieve yourself of that guilt.

00:13It's not you and me who are responsible for climate change.

00:20If just to exist is to contribute to the climate crisis, then we would all be guilty, but that's

00:28not really the case.

00:31There is a perfect balance that nature provides.

00:35You have agents that emit carbon and equally you have agents that absorb carbon.

00:47What are those agents known as?

00:50Trees and the oceans.

00:56They absorb these gases.

01:00What's happening is that you have crossed all limits by a long distance, 280 ppm to

01:10440 ppm and increasing and increasing at an accelerating rate.

01:16Who's doing that?

01:19Not the common man, though there are vested interests that are trying to put the guilt

01:28of climate change on the common man.

01:31The common man is not really responsible.

01:33The common man is responsible, but in some other way, indirectly, we'll come to that.

01:40The richest 10% of the world's population is causing 90% of the carbon emissions and

01:57if you bring that down to the richest 1%, that still remains close to 30-40%.

02:06It's so skewed.

02:10The per capita emissions of an Indian are only a small fraction of those of an American

02:19or a Briton.

02:23It's coming from there.

02:26There is enough allowance for everybody to peacefully survive.

02:33What we do not have is the allowance to consume endlessly.

02:43So it's not as if doing anything contributes to carbon emission, no, not that way.

02:49And if it does, then there is stuff to take care of that.

02:53Trees and other physical mechanisms, natural mechanisms.

02:59But when you are burning oil endlessly so that you can have physical comforts and all

03:11kinds of vanities, then there is obviously no solution.

03:20How do you take care of that?

03:23Now here comes the role of the common man.

03:27This has to be turned into an electoral issue.

03:31You have to elect governments that are prepared to tax vulgar consumption.

03:42You have to have governments that are prepared to tax the ultra-rich.

03:49You cannot let them go scot-free with all the damage they are causing to the environment,

03:58to the planet itself.

03:59We were talking of the sixth mass extinction.

04:03That sixth mass extinction is not being brought about by the lower middle-income countries

04:12and the middle-income countries.

04:14It is being brought about by the first world, the developed world.

04:21They are the culprits and they'll have to bear the burden.

04:25And even in countries like India, if the per capita emissions are rising, the responsibility

04:36lies with only a handful of people compared to our population.

04:41They are the ones who have to be singled out and taxed.

04:48Are you getting it?

04:50It is a very clever ploy to make the common man feel responsible.

05:00So what does the common man start doing to alleviate his guilt?

05:06He feels fine, I am recycling, I am not using plastic that much now or I am turning organic

05:15or I am reducing my electricity consumption by 15%.

05:21The question is, dear, how much electricity does the common man anyway consume?

05:29It's not the common man who is causing all this.

05:32I'll tell you who is causing it.

05:34Your role models are causing all this.

05:37The influential fellow you referred to is causing all this and it's a great tragedy

05:44when the ones who are influential are neither intellectual nor spiritual.

05:51Think of it.

05:52A braindead fellow is so influential just because he has so much money and you can have

05:58a lot of money without being intellectual at all.

06:01It is possible.

06:02It is happening.

06:05Your role models are very unworthy people and they are role models exactly because you

06:11find them consuming a lot and you all aspire to consume that much.

06:16So they become your role models.

06:18You say, wow.

06:21Somebody asked a famous soccer player and he says, I have 20 cars, all luxury ones.

06:29And that simply charms you so much, wins you over, 20 cars, 5 Rolls Royce.

06:40He does not even want to own a cheap thing like Mercedes.

06:51Not one, but multiple private planes, super expensive yachts, yachts to take care of yachts.

07:00And that's what we all aspire for.

07:04Why?

07:05That brings us to the point we started from, our dualistic philosophy of life.

07:12We all have been taught wrongly.

07:14We have been trained wrongly.

07:19Life education we have been deprived of.

07:25So all that you want through all that you do is consumption.

07:30What do you live for?

07:31Consumption.

07:32How do you know a fellow is doing well in life?

07:34He is able to consume a lot.

07:37When consumption is the ideal, climate change is the result.

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