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Video Information: 17.10.22, Interview with Kuntal, Mumbai
Context:
Acharya Prashant in conversation with mountaineer Kuntal Joisher and actress Niharica Raizada discussing climate change and global warming.
Music Credits: Milind Date
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Be a part of the Live Sessions: https://acharyaprashant.org/en/enquir...
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~~~~~
Video Information: 17.10.22, Interview with Kuntal, Mumbai
Context:
Acharya Prashant in conversation with mountaineer Kuntal Joisher and actress Niharica Raizada discussing climate change and global warming.
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00Thank you Acharyaji for taking the time to talk to us.
00:29Thank you for taking time and giving us this opportunity to sit down with you and discuss
00:33about climate change, about veganism and about a lot of other questions that we have for
00:37you.
00:38With me today I have on the panel Niharika Raizada ji, a renowned actress and my name
00:43is Kuntal Joyshar, I am a mountaineer.
00:47I'm glad to be here.
00:49So I had this thought where in the last 12 years of my climbing mountains, going on Everest
00:58and many other mountains in Nepal, in the Indian Himalaya, across the world, as I have
01:03been going every single year, I have been seeing that there are drastic impacts of climate
01:09change that I can see on the mountains that I'm climbing, especially let's say around
01:14glaciers melting on the mountains, like I go to Everest, every year I see that the glacier
01:20is receding internally, internally, internally.
01:23Even the glacier at 8000 meters where temperature is easily about minus 25, minus 30 degrees,
01:30even that is losing ice and it is receding at that altitude where impacts of climate
01:36change should not be seen, technically or scientifically.
01:39So we are seeing these changes, there are these glacial lakes that are getting formed
01:43that can have impact on smaller villages downstream.
01:49All these changes are happening, snowfall happening in weird times and these things
01:53that are constantly happening.
01:55But then I come back to Bombay and there's no impact of climate change or at least something
02:02that I really can't perceive.
02:04Sure, maybe there's a little bit more warmth in the climate or a little bit extended monsoons
02:10but sometimes you feel, it's Mumbai climate, it will just change up and down here and there.
02:15And so if I am sitting in my bedroom and I am not kind of feeling any massive impact
02:22of climate change, but there is massive impacts of climate changes happening in very sensitive
02:28ecosystems, like the Himalaya and let's say even the Arctic or the Antarctic which is
02:34causing havoc across the planet where there are these floods happening and droughts happening
02:41and so many things that are happening.
02:42But sitting here in Mumbai, I am not able to, everything is fine, what's this big deal
02:48about it.
02:49So how can we take this concept of climate change and explain it to everyone in a way
02:56where people can start getting serious about it and start doing something about it.
03:00Because if we are looking at any data points, then people are saying by 2040 or by 2050
03:08this planet will literally be uninhabitable.
03:11So we really need to be getting serious about this and do something about it now.
03:17So how can we kind of bridge this gap where I am seeing something in the mountains but
03:22I am coming home and can't have this question constantly happening.
03:27What can I do?
03:28The first thing is to see that we are nearing extinction.
03:37It is not merely a problem.
03:38We have already entered the sixth mass extinction phase.
03:46It's a catastrophe worse than the third world war that we sometimes metaphorically imagine
03:57to mean deadly disaster of unimaginable proportions.
04:02When you want to say that something utterly terrible might happen, then you say third
04:08world war.
04:09What's already happening is worse than the third world war that might not happen.
04:16We are rushing towards our extinction.
04:20This is the sixth one I said.
04:25Of the previous five ones, three happened due to exactly the same cause that ails us
04:34today, carbon dioxide.
04:38You talked of the receding glaciers of the Himalayas and you said that's visible there,
04:44that's not visible here.
04:46You see, two things, one, because our senses can perceive only gross changes, therefore
04:54what is happening a bit subliminally.
05:00We do not detect it immediately.
05:05I would liken it to getting infected by the HIV.
05:10It can stay in the body for long and then it erupts.
05:14It's not AIDS all of a sudden, or even the COVID virus, the disease that we all suffered
05:22so much from.
05:24It comes to you and the symptoms do not show up immediately, but when they do show up,
05:29they can be fatal.
05:31You said technically the layer should not recede so much there.
05:37Let me offer you an example, you'll find it interesting.
05:40In a place like Canada, just a difference of five degrees centigrade in the average
05:48temperature can mean the existence or non-existence of hundreds of meters of ice sheets, just
06:00five degrees.
06:02That which you call as the ice age, actually the average temperatures then were not too
06:07different from what we have now, just five degrees.
06:11And five degrees mean unimaginably thick ice sheets or their absence.
06:20So if five degrees lesser can mean that the ice can get that large, five degrees higher
06:27would mean that all the ice can suddenly vanish.
06:30So what is happening up there and that which you saw is exactly what is going to happen.
06:35And when we say the average temperatures are already 1.5 above normal and they'll get
06:42to three degrees, five degrees, maybe even six degrees, we feel like saying, oh, six
06:47degrees is not much.
06:48After all, sometimes it is 24, at other times it's 30, 25 and 24 and 30 are both things
06:54that we have tolerated, even enjoyed.
06:57So 24 and 30 don't mean much, they mean a lot.
07:01They basically mean that 80 to 90% of all life on the planet is about to go extinct.
07:09That's the severity of the problem we are facing.
07:12It's not about the kind of daily weathers that we experience.
07:17Oh, it's a bit humid today, it's raining without reason.
07:23Don't you feel a bit warm under the collar?
07:26It's not that kind of thing.
07:27We're not talking about the weather.
07:28It's climate change.
07:32Everything is going to change and the planet will become inhabitable, not only for us,
07:36but for all species that we know of.
07:39That's the extent of the crisis.
07:41I repeat, everybody needs to repeat it as many times as possible to as many people as
07:47possible.
07:48Mass extinction, that's what we are staring at.
07:52And we are quickly rushing towards it.
07:55That's what is happening.
07:57And the thing is, because we do not experience it on our skins immediately.
08:04So we feel as if it does not exist.
08:07That's the first and the most cowardly way of dealing with a disaster, denial.
08:15Just deny it.
08:16It does not exist.
08:17We all want to deny things, bad things when they first happened to us.
08:20No, this can't have happened.
08:21And then there are advanced stages of grief, and then there are other methods of coping
08:25with it.
08:27But the first thing itself takes away so much time.
08:30And we have already lost so much time.
08:32Like I said, there is denial.
08:33It means that we know that it is there, it's going to come, but we tend to avoid it.
08:38So is it like there are problems that are bigger than that at present that people see?
08:42And that's why they tend to ignore it?
08:43No, it's just that if you accept it, then it demands action.
08:48Acknowledgement means responsibility.
08:50That's the reason why you find mainstream media giving so little coverage to the most
08:55important problem of our times.
08:58We talk of this, we talk of that.
09:00We don't talk of the thing that means everything to us.
09:04What you are seeing today, please understand, is carbon dioxide levels that we have not seen
09:10over the past 10 lakh years.
09:1510 lakh years, it was never so bad.
09:17And especially to you, you just told me over a 2021 pass out from IIT Delhi, you know,
09:22most of the carbon that we see in the atmosphere today has been emitted in your lifetime.
09:28After you were born.
09:30That's how lucky your generation is.
09:32That's the reason I want to talk more and more to youngsters.
09:35See how lucky you are.
09:36That's what we, the elder ones have done to you.
09:40That's what we have bequeathed to you.
09:43Take it.
09:44Lots of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, and that's going to wipe you out.
09:49Finished.
09:50So where are the solutions?
09:53What can we do being a millennial generation, being a Gen X, Gen Z generation?
09:59What is it that we can do?
10:00Like, for example, when the cyclone came this year in Mumbai, we were all asked to post
10:05the cyclone, plant trees across Mumbai.
10:09And we all participated.
10:11All the people that I know participated.
10:12But it's not enough.
10:14That's, for example, not enough to cut down the carbon dioxide amount.
10:18You just can't plant a few trees.
10:20You have to do a lot more.
10:22So what are the few solutions that our generation can implement?
10:27First thing, obviously, it is true.
10:30And it must be understood that we all owe action towards the solution.
10:39At the same time, a few data points have to be considered.
10:44It is around 12% of the world's population that's responsible for more than 80% of the
10:53excess carbon accumulated in the atmosphere so far.
10:58So if I start talking to the common man in Mumbai that you should do your bit, it sounds
11:05good in a moral sense, but won't be effective.
11:09It's the rich man in the rich countries, and obviously the rich man in the not so rich
11:18countries like India, who's contributing the most, who's the biggest culprit towards the
11:24climate crisis.
11:27So what do we do?
11:28We need to raise awareness to a point where it becomes an electoral issue.
11:38Obviously, we can do our own bit, not use a four-wheeler when necessary, fly less often,
11:48don't consume meat.
11:50We all know of those measures, go solar, go tidal, whatever you can do.
11:55Obviously, a person cannot go tidal on his own, but so these are the things that we can
12:00do, but most of these are mostly feel-good measures.
12:04You'll feel that you are on the right side of morality, you have done your bit.
12:09The thing is, an effective change cannot happen unless it is at the policy level.
12:17Change cannot happen unless it is at the policy level.
12:22And in a democracy, policies depend on the number of people who are sensitive to the
12:32need of policy change or regulation or formulation.
12:36We don't have sensitivity at all.
12:39So if you have any reach among the audiences, first thing is to keep shouting this in their
12:46ears all the time.
12:50You are happily sleeping in your little dark caves and you just do not know that there
12:56is a nuclear explosion outside.
12:59You cannot let this happen.
13:01So if you have an audience, if you have a reach, if you have people who would listen
13:05to you, that's the first thing to do.
13:09Without that, the common man would remain busy in his usual petty affairs.
13:16We cannot blame him for that.
13:18And when it will come to choosing a government at any level, even at a local level, he'll
13:23vote on largely meaningless issues and the central issue will remain in oblivion.
13:31That means nothing.
13:33This has to be there on the front page of the newspapers, has to be there constantly.
13:42Somebody has to, a lot of people have to wake up to it.
13:47The stats themselves are so terrifying that if they are brought out in the public domain,
13:53they're already in the public domain.
13:55It says that they're not getting publicized.
13:57Being public and getting publicized are two very different things.
14:03There is so much that is available if you want to look up for it.
14:09But nobody wants to Google for something as specific as the stats concerning climate change
14:16and such things.
14:17So we need to shout it out from the rooftops and the stats have to be clear to us, first
14:24of all.
14:25What are we doing?
14:26Where is it really coming from?
14:28What contributes to it?
14:29And how exactly are we a participant in it all?
14:32Right.
14:33So I wanted to point out about that where you just said that what contributes to it.
14:38At least whatever I have done the research and whatever reading I have done, animal agriculture
14:44is a very big contributor to the greenhouse gas emissions.
14:48Now, sure, there are very controversial numbers.
14:51One agency says, no, these numbers are not correct.
14:53Or some agency says these numbers are not correct.
14:56At the end of the day, every agency agrees that animal agriculture produces significant
15:02amount of greenhouse gas emissions, which is eventually contributing to climate change.
15:09In addition, there's a lot of land use.
15:11There's a lot of water use.
15:13There's a lot of biodiversity loss that a lot of these things are causes which are indirect
15:18contributors to the climate change crisis.
15:21Now, you said that we need to make changes at a policy level.
15:24We should elect properly and those kind of things.
15:28But these lobbies are super strong.
15:31And these lobbies like, let's say, meat lobby or the dairy lobby, or, for example, even
15:37a lobby like a car making lobby or the petroleum lobby, these lobbies are super strong.
15:43And they are also going to influence the elected members quite a bit to continue supporting
15:50these industries, subsidizing these industries and continue contributing to the greenhouse
15:56gas emissions and a lot of these things.
15:58So what can we do in these situations where I, as a person, it just feels like such an
16:06overwhelming problem to me.
16:07I look at this and I'm like, I can't do anything.
16:11All I can do is I can stop eating meat.
16:12I can be a vegan.
16:13OK, I have been a vegan for 20 years.
16:15I'll stop flying.
16:16I will stop.
16:17I don't even have a car.
16:19I travel in a metro as much as I can, travel in public transportation.
16:22So I do a lot of these things.
16:24But anytime it comes to the election or the electoral politics, I'm like, I can't do anything.
16:31No, it's not that way.
16:32Please see, the tobacco lobby used to be equally strong.
16:37And for a very long time, they tried to obfuscate the ill effects of tobacco on health.
16:45But then there were concerted attempts.
16:49People got together.
16:51And ultimately, we had regulations on tobacco.
16:53There were taxes, there were prohibitions, and they continued till date.
16:57And we have been able to mitigate the ill effects of tobacco on human health.
17:02That could be done.
17:03This too can be done.
17:05It's just that, you know, it's not getting into the public conversation.
17:11I just read that 63% Americans, and why do I quote America?
17:15Because countries like America are the ones worst responsible for the state we are in today.
17:2263% of them admit to never having even discussed climate change in their households.
17:31That's the problem.
17:32That's the real problem.
17:34And why do we not discuss it?
17:35Here, the thing gets interesting.
17:38We do not discuss it because it challenges, the discussion challenges our very basic philosophy of life.
17:47You see, what is the philosophy that we are living in our daily lives?
17:52We are saying more is better.
17:56We are saying, if you want to be happy, you need to have more goods, you need to have
18:02better furniture, bigger cars, you need to fly more.
18:06How about a dollar 500 million yard?
18:10Things like that.
18:12So that's the philosophy that we live.
18:14Not only the common man, from the common man, that philosophy becomes the philosophy of
18:18the governments.
18:19So how do the governments, for example, measure their economic success?
18:23They talk about GDP.
18:25What exactly is GDP?
18:27GDP is just the same thing.
18:29How many more goods, transaction worthy goods is your economy producing?
18:35Now, basic things that make life richer are not really amenable to monetization.
18:45Because you cannot monetize them, therefore, they do not even count towards the GDP.
18:51Right.
18:51And it is the GDP focused approach.
18:54It is the material happiness focused approach that is at the root of the climate crisis.
19:00We keep on saying the country is producing more and more or my income is getting higher
19:07and higher.
19:08Therefore, there is welfare.
19:11It's another thing that what GDP successfully hides is a lot of inequality.
19:17We said the top rung of people, the very elite in terms of money, one percentile, top one
19:27percentile or five percentile, they are the ones contributing in the heaviest sense to
19:34this crisis.
19:36But they are also the role models and aspirations for the remaining 95 percent.
19:42We all want to be there.
19:43And that's a philosophy that has been taught to us.
19:47The climate crisis is a product of a wrong way of living.
19:52We have been conditioned.
19:54We have been taught a wrong philosophy.
19:57And that's the problem.
19:59And the problem is deeper because your generation sees no alternative except that one philosophy
20:09because it has not been exposed to anything else.
20:12The work that we are trying to do of taking Vedanta to every household is, therefore,
20:18something that is striking at the very roots of the climate crisis.
20:22And all these are related.
20:24Veganism, climate crisis, loss of biodiversity, extinction of species.
20:28You name the problem.
20:30And what you'll find is that the same philosophy, philosophy of material happiness is at the
20:37root of all of them.
20:38And therefore, you cannot solve any single one of these problems without really addressing
20:46all others.
20:47And you have to address all of them.
20:49And all of them are intersectional.
20:51They all touch upon each other.
20:53Then you have to go to the very base.
20:55Is more really better?
20:57Are we benefiting from that?
20:59When you say GDP is great and, for example, Moody's just said India is not going to grow
21:07at 7.6 percent.
21:08It's going to be 6.8 percent.
21:11And there was a lot of hue and cry.
21:13Oh, my God, country is not growing that much.
21:15The fact is that the average income of the most disadvantaged section has not risen by
21:29much over the last 30 years, even in India.
21:33Whereas the top one percentile has gotten richer by more than 15 times.
21:42Inflation adjusted figures.
21:45So what is GDP doing?
21:47It is taking an aggregate.
21:50It is presenting to you an average in terms of per capita income.
21:55What it is hiding is that what averages successfully managed to hide.
22:01That the averages have been pulled up only by a handful of people.
22:05And the vast majority of people is actually remaining at the same levels where it was
22:12a long time back or actually the levels have fallen.
22:16That's what GDP is hiding.
22:18So it's not even that we are getting even materially more prosperous.
22:25First thing is, is material prosperity giving us what we really need?
22:29What are the costs of material prosperity?
22:31Secondly, are we getting even materially more prosperous as a human community?
22:37No.
22:37Only a handful of people are gaining in wealth.
22:40All else are just wallowing in their old positions.
22:46So we need to take up this discussion with the young people especially.
22:51How do you want to live?
22:53What do you want to live for?
22:55What is your core philosophy of life?
22:57As we used to say in IIT, what is your funda?
23:01What's the fundamental you want to live by?
23:04So I have a doubt here.
23:06Like we all started from a point when we were early man.
23:08We lived in cages.
23:09Then we started technological advances.
23:14Just to live a life which is very peaceful.
23:16Now when we have these things, we are saying that we should go towards minimalism.
23:19So there are two options.
23:20Either we develop such technologies.
23:22For example, the sonar parents ones.
23:24In which whatever things are released in the environment,
23:27they don't harm us much.
23:30Or we literally go to a point where we start discarding things.
23:35We go back to the same life where there is a lot of minimalism.
23:38So what should be the approach?
23:39We need active economic degrowth.
23:44We do not need so much of consumption.
23:46What was the consumption for in the first place?
23:49Why did the early man come out of the forest, out of the cave?
23:53For what purpose?
23:54You must remember the purpose.
23:56The purpose was not that he was not getting enough to eat there.
23:59No animal ever starves in the jungle unless man interferes.
24:04Right?
24:04You don't really have pandemics in the jungle.
24:08Again, unless man interferes.
24:10So jungles are actually quite nice places.
24:12And man was all right there in the physical sense at least.
24:15Right?
24:15We do not die of hunger, heat, food, thirst, starvation.
24:20That does not happen usually in the jungle.
24:22And if that happens, to that extent it happens even in the cities.
24:26Right?
24:26We have people dying of starvation on footpaths.
24:28That happens even in the US.
24:30Even the US have people who are ill-fed.
24:33Right?
24:34Why did we come out from the jungle in the first place?
24:38Because there was something that could not happen in the jungle.
24:42There were conditions not really suitable to that particular thing.
24:46What was that thing?
24:47We wanted to develop ourselves more.
24:51We wanted to have more peace, as you said.
24:57Did we really get that by coming out of the jungle?
25:00Or have we failed miserably?
25:01The intention itself has been defeated.
25:04When we were there and now that we are here, are we really better off in terms of the intangible
25:10thing that we wanted?
25:11Tangibly, we have gathered a lot.
25:13Tangibly, obviously, we have gathered a lot.
25:15But that intangible thing that we were so desperate for, I dare say, so much in love
25:22with, could we manage to secure that?
25:25No, we didn't.
25:27So not only do we need to minimalize, we actually need degrowth.
25:34A lot of things that we are using, we do not need them.
25:37They have to be discarded.
25:39A lot of the industries are simply wasteful.
25:41They do not need to exist.
25:42The world, do we really need huge military complexes?
25:48Do we really need these huge slaughterhouses, animal agriculture he talked of?
25:55Do you really need those industries?
25:57A lot of the cosmetics industry, for example, are these things actively needed?
26:02You have to ask yourself these things.
26:04Textiles, garments.
26:06Do we really need so many clothes as we use?
26:10And there is just so much.
26:15The carbon emissions of the US military are larger than that of several other nations
26:24combined.
26:24I am not talking of the emissions of the militaries of the other nations.
26:30I am saying you pick up the Scandinavian nations, for example.
26:37The emissions of the entire country are lower than the emissions from the Pentagon.
26:47What is going on?
26:48Do we really need all those things?
26:52Do we really need to fly as much as we do?
26:54In a country like India, how do you justify flying from Delhi to Chandigarh?
27:02Or from Delhi to Jaipur?
27:05I do not know whether we have flights from Mumbai to Pune.
27:08We do.
27:09We do, I think.
27:09And to Surat as well, and many other places in Gujarat.
27:14I am not sure.
27:15I am not sure.
27:16And if poor road infrastructure is the reason, we better fly.
27:22If poor road infrastructure is the reason, we better ramp up that infrastructure.
27:26The kind of carbon footprint when you fly is tremendous.
27:32So I liked it.
27:35We travelled to Bombay via train this time.
27:42We had a camp in Goa.
27:44We again used the train.
27:46Once the flight and then the train.
27:49Obviously, it is not all that convenient.
27:52But that is the minimum you need to begin to do.
27:55That is just the minimum.
27:56That would not suffice.
27:57There is a lot more that we actually require to do.