Video Information: 25.01.25, Vedanta: Basics to Classics, Goa
📋 Video Chapters:
0:00 - Introduction by the Speaker
1:21 - America's Self-Centered Policies
3:19 - Ego-Driven Leadership
5:33 - Carbon Emissions: U.S. vs. India
7:28 - Policy Regressions Under Trump's Administration
8:21 - The Danger of Exceeding 1.5°C Temperature Rise
10:16 - Lack of Accountability in Leadership
12:48 - Climate Challenges for India and Public Apathy
14:54 - India as the Worst Sufferer of Climate Change
Description:
This conversation focuses on the environmental and global challenges arising from self-serving, short-term priorities of leadership, exemplified by Donald Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris Climate Accords. Such actions reflect an ego-driven tendency to prioritize immediate national interests over global well-being, disregarding severe consequences for vulnerable nations like India. India faces acute climate risks due to its reliance on natural irrigation, monsoons, and glacial rivers, compounded by its unique geography, population density, and poverty. These factors make the country a potential epicenter of climate-induced disasters, including erratic rainfall, glacial retreat, and water scarcity, leading to mass migrations.
Despite the gravity of the situation, widespread apathy persists, both in India and among Indian communities abroad. The conversation highlights the critical need for global awareness and responsible leadership to counteract such indifference and focus on long-term climate solutions, emphasizing the role of collective human effort to address these pressing environmental challenges.
🎧 Listen to Acharya Prashant on Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/show/2QmVEAAnsNE7Xs0MW0Li8Y?si=09fbcbc7c99c469b
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~
📋 Video Chapters:
0:00 - Introduction by the Speaker
1:21 - America's Self-Centered Policies
3:19 - Ego-Driven Leadership
5:33 - Carbon Emissions: U.S. vs. India
7:28 - Policy Regressions Under Trump's Administration
8:21 - The Danger of Exceeding 1.5°C Temperature Rise
10:16 - Lack of Accountability in Leadership
12:48 - Climate Challenges for India and Public Apathy
14:54 - India as the Worst Sufferer of Climate Change
Description:
This conversation focuses on the environmental and global challenges arising from self-serving, short-term priorities of leadership, exemplified by Donald Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris Climate Accords. Such actions reflect an ego-driven tendency to prioritize immediate national interests over global well-being, disregarding severe consequences for vulnerable nations like India. India faces acute climate risks due to its reliance on natural irrigation, monsoons, and glacial rivers, compounded by its unique geography, population density, and poverty. These factors make the country a potential epicenter of climate-induced disasters, including erratic rainfall, glacial retreat, and water scarcity, leading to mass migrations.
Despite the gravity of the situation, widespread apathy persists, both in India and among Indian communities abroad. The conversation highlights the critical need for global awareness and responsible leadership to counteract such indifference and focus on long-term climate solutions, emphasizing the role of collective human effort to address these pressing environmental challenges.
🎧 Listen to Acharya Prashant on Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/show/2QmVEAAnsNE7Xs0MW0Li8Y?si=09fbcbc7c99c469b
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00Namaste, Ajay. I'm Samrat. I've been living in New York for 20 years. I switched from
00:09engineering to education about 14 years ago. And I've since been working as an educator
00:14with a special focus on climate education and advocacy. I have an NGO as well that works
00:22on environmental justice issues. My question today pertains to the situation that is a
00:28nightmare for all the environmentalists here in the US. Donald Trump is once again, president
00:33of the most powerful nation of the world. He represents an existential threat to pluralistic
00:39democracies. But additionally, I feel that his administration is a unique and unprecedented
00:45danger to our global climate goals. He's for the second time in history, withdrawn the
00:50US from the Paris Climate Accords. And also in just a few days, the first few days of
00:55his presidency, he has signed a series of executive orders, clearly meant to undo years
01:00of hard won progress in the US on climate issues. Now, I have a lot of thoughts on this
01:05as an environmentalist. But I'm very keen to hear your insight into this situation.
01:11How do you see this issue from the global perspective, especially from the vantage point
01:16of climate vulnerable nations like India?
01:23You see, that's the ego at play. It does not consider anyone or anything bigger than its
01:35own petty interests. America first. We have gold under our feet. Let's dig it out. Let's
01:48burn it. Let's export it. Let's make America great again. Why must we bother about the
01:56vulnerable state of countries like India? Why? Give me a reason. There is no reason.
02:04I stand for white supremacy. I stand for the global leadership of the American nation.
02:20Have I been elected to take care of the entire world? No. I'm for this limited number of
02:31people and I have to take care of their desires in the limited way that they express themselves.
02:45Have I been elected to educate them? No. I have not even been elected. I have been appointed
02:54to do what they feel doing like. I stand behind them actually, following their trail.
03:09They lead the way. That's it. Simple. Nothing more than that. Think of the person. We don't
03:22have that in the US, but we still have those things in India. The DG sets, the diesel generator
03:28sets using vintage technology, eight decades old. That pat pat, the ubiquitous sound in
03:41Indian weddings. You don't find them in the metros anymore, but you go to smaller towns
03:53or villages where power cuts are more frequent and public awareness is much lower. And this
04:05fellow is emitting as much smoke and carbon as he possibly can. And how does it matter
04:14to him that what he is emitting is something that others are going to breathe? Why must
04:26it matter to Trump that Americans constitute only 4% of the global population, but are
04:31responsible for 25% of the excess CO2 we have in the atmosphere? Why must it matter
04:40to me? You see, my DG set is supplying electricity to my own house. And my own house is all that
04:51I am concerned about. My field of concern does not exist beyond my limited acquaintances.
05:04That's happening everywhere. It's about the ego. It's about the fundamental human tendency
05:12to be animalistic. Just that this tendency can be challenged and overcome and ideally
05:21only those who challenge and overcome this animalistic tendency should be occupying the
05:29spots of power in the world. We have people of all kinds. Not all deserve to be at the
05:39driver's seat, especially not at positions where they have tremendous resources and power
05:49and capacity to destroy the world. The average American already emits 14 plus tons of carbon
06:03dioxide annually. Think of the average Indian. One by seven of that. Less than that. Less
06:12than one by seven. Even the global average is around four tons. And the global average
06:19includes America and Europe and Japan and the other members of the global north. And
06:30still the average is no more than four point something metric tons per annum. Why must
06:41that be a concern to me? If it is cold, I want to burn gas and oil. And China has been
06:52such a headache. I'm running trade deficits, huge trade deficits. So why should I not export
07:02gas and get some surplus? Myopic thought, self-centered behavior that you find in every
07:16household. That's what is being played out at a much grander scale. That's all. National
07:29energy emergency. We'll dig Alaska out. And the Arctic is not to be left untouched. Stop the
07:47subsidies given to green renewable energies like wind. Withdraw the subsidies. Don't incentivize
07:59EVs. Rather promote diesel and petrol vehicles. Because we have enough of those things. And as
08:10you said, withdraw first thing. Just as you assume the presidency, withdraw from all possible climate
08:17agreements. Not that you are anyway doing a great job as a nation in terms of meeting your climate
08:29obligations. Suspend the 360 billion dollars that the previous administration had committed to green
08:39energy and meeting the Paris goals. Not that we are anyway meeting the Paris goals. That's right.
08:48Even that wasn't sufficient. It wouldn't have met our goals. In some sense, it is ironical
08:58that probably the withdrawal of the US isn't going to make much of a difference. Because the
09:06national deliverables that we had, even if we met them fully, that would have amounted to only
09:15around a 2.6% reduction compared to the 2010 levels. Whereas, what the agreement stipulates
09:22is a 44% reduction. And if you don't have a 44% reduction and net zero by 2050, then you cannot
09:32stay within the 1.5 degree centigrade limit. And the 1.5 degrees numbers is not something popping
09:42up from nowhere. Beyond 1.5 degrees, we know that uncontrollable feedback cycles get activated.
09:52And then there is no limit to temperature rise. Once those cycles get activated, then you may
10:02even come to a net zero situation and yet find the temperature continuously rising. Because a
10:09vicious cycle is now in action and that does not depend on human activity anymore. So far, we say
10:18the whole thing is anthropogenic. We say we did it and so we can undo it. The threat is that the
10:26matter is slipping out of our hands now. Yes, we did it. We initiated it. But the monster is assuming
10:32a life of its own now. And that life begins at 1.5 degrees. But you see, at the cost of being nasty,
10:46let me say when you are nearing 80, you anyway don't have much of a future to look at. And when
10:56you know it's your second term, you know there is no third term possible as per the US Constitution.
11:02So you can do a lot of stupid and very dangerous things and be never accountable for that. You
11:10won't be around to pay the price. I just hope that other nations don't reciprocate in kind. I just
11:26hope that just as the previous withdrawal was reskinded, the same thing would happen even after
11:38four years. Though that would obviously be too late. In the US, there is a response like we
11:46created the US Climate Alliance, which was a bipartisan alliance of states and governors who
11:51wanted to meet the Paris climate goals. So I think it's funny because more than half of Americans
11:58actually want real climate action. And yet more than half will vote for someone who will not give
12:03us climate action. It's a bizarre situation. I don't know the name of the gentleman who,
12:10in the course of the campaign, equipped that, you know, anyway we are not going to pay much
12:20of a price for the climate results that unfold. White would turn green and that would give us
12:33more pleasant weather and more land to cultivate and build upon. It's countries like India that
12:40are going to really pay the price. Another matter that Trump has a large fan base even in India.
12:47Right. That's very bizarre, right? His closeness to the Indian government and the fan base. I heard
12:55that somebody built a temple in India or something for Trump or they were worshipping him at a
13:00temple. Very likely, very likely. I don't know of that, but likely. You see, and the ones who are
13:08admiring him in all possible ways. The irony is that these would be the ones most severely affected
13:17by the climate tragedies coming upon us. We have a population, 60-65% of us as Indians are still
13:28dependent on agriculture in some way. US, the number is 2%. You include all agro-related industries,
13:385%. India, it is 65%. And our irrigation is all natural. We depend on the monsoons and the
13:52monsoons depend on a very delicate balance of temperature between the sea and the land. If the
14:00right pressure differential is not there, you will either have excessive rain or no rain at all.
14:08Similarly, our rivers, they are not rain-fed. Our rivers are glacial and the glaciers are all
14:18shrinking. Initially, we will have situations where the rivers would be flooded and the adjoining
14:29plains would suffer and as the glaciers withdraw, we would be losing our rivers. We would be losing
14:39the rain, at least the rain patterns and we would be losing the perennial supply of water in the
14:46form of our rivers, the Himalayan rivers. And yet we are not waking up. When it comes to the
14:57absolute numbers that are going to be affected, India is going to be the number one sufferer in
15:03the world. And yet there is so much apathy, just indifference. You talk to 10 people here about
15:13climate change and two or three of them would say, you know, it does not matter to us. One of
15:18the special ones might even say it's a hoax. That's right. I find the same apathy in American
15:28Indians here. In the environmental movement, most of the people that I work with are not Indians
15:34and it's very bizarre to me because as Indians, we should really be working on this. Yes, yes, yes.
15:40The Indian subcontinent, if one goes through the reports and one does not really need to be
15:48trained in science to understand those reports, the whole thing is pretty obvious. The Indian
15:53subcontinent is going to be the worst sufferer. One of the reasons is its unique geography. Then
16:01there is poverty and then there is the population load. These three things combine and under the
16:08impact of the climate crisis, we'll have a huge humanitarian disaster unfolding in front of us.
16:15Mass migrations are possible. Mass migrations. That's right. One can only work harder to
16:25disseminate information and raise awareness and that's what we are doing and will continue to do.
16:31And thank you. It's in dark times like this, I think it's your teachings that give me
16:38the strength to continue doing the work that I'm doing. I'm glad, I'm glad. Thank you.