Save yourself, your way
The climate is changing and not only in Copenhagen. Delhi is dying to get the shivers and it is still not getting them despite being in the arms of December.
Sikkim, somebody told me, has rained pretty less this year; up in the Himalayas, the snowline resembles the hairline of a balding man in youth; and if you were to step into a theatre to look into the future, 2012 will tell you how fast the end is coming and how there is no hope in hell for anyone to turn back the tide of man-engineered destruction of Mother Earth.
Of course, not many are still bothered about there being no life on Earth a million years later. It is, after all, hundreds of generations later that life will die so how does it really, really matter! Saving the environment for some is like charity — dispensable till you really have the money to part with.
For me climate talk gains significance when I am unable to move the traffic away at any time of the day; when the water supply shrinks every year; when rain becomes slimmer; when winters just don’t agree to arrive and when oft-visited tourist places lose their green splendour.
That’s when Copenhagen becomes news for many like me; that’s when it becomes important to know how much India is giving away to acknowledge what our Minister says is the new reality of the emerging new world.
And that’s when you should get scared enough to do something when alarming reports on the thinning glaciers hit headlines.
But what do we really do? We prefer to bribe the MCDwallah when it comes to a rainwater harvesting norms not followed. The Government, on its part may be quick to justify why it needs to tax the common man to fund the corrupt MCD coffers, but it never ever does anything to ensure that laid down norms are being followed without violation. If you remember this year, when the monsoon hit Delhi, all roads got blocked; people were stranded on arterial roads; cars almost went under and a deluge like situation was the talk of the media for days.
But what a waste! Not a drop of this life-saving manna from heaven was harvested. Had it been, it would not have only irrigated the insides of the Capital but also given a push to the Yamuna which is deader than the Dead Sea, darker than the devil and more polluted than the mind of a depraved man.
Actually, what India needs more than what it might give away at the Copenhagen summit is beginning at home. Environment, and the saving of it, needs to be a school subject; it needs to be included in the daily lives of the urban populace (the rural population is still very circumspect about the environment as it directly hits their agricultural economy); it needs to be as important as Defence in the annual Budget allocation and it needs to follow a strict law which punishes defaulters through fast track courts and with the maximum punishment.
Our’s is a billion plus population and if this save-environment effort is done in a concerted manner it will be a billion plus push towards good life. Much of Copenhagen would then be rendered as a Government-to-Government negotiation and not a life and death issue as it is turning out to be.
Environment, health and social empowerment are issues usually tagged with NGOs and what political animals tag as the “loony fringe” of society. Ironically though, it is the same people at the helm of the world who then converge with 30,000 delegates to Copenhagen and talk of why no one will give way; talk of inevitable failure; talk of how to do it the next time!
The much simpler way? Close the tap, nurture a tree, take the public transport, go solar and agitate against mindless projects like the hydro-electricity mayhem that is killing the hill State of Himachal Pradesh, for example!
Sikkim, somebody told me, has rained pretty less this year; up in the Himalayas, the snowline resembles the hairline of a balding man in youth; and if you were to step into a theatre to look into the future, 2012 will tell you how fast the end is coming and how there is no hope in hell for anyone to turn back the tide of man-engineered destruction of Mother Earth.
Of course, not many are still bothered about there being no life on Earth a million years later. It is, after all, hundreds of generations later that life will die so how does it really, really matter! Saving the environment for some is like charity — dispensable till you really have the money to part with.
For me climate talk gains significance when I am unable to move the traffic away at any time of the day; when the water supply shrinks every year; when rain becomes slimmer; when winters just don’t agree to arrive and when oft-visited tourist places lose their green splendour.
That’s when Copenhagen becomes news for many like me; that’s when it becomes important to know how much India is giving away to acknowledge what our Minister says is the new reality of the emerging new world.
And that’s when you should get scared enough to do something when alarming reports on the thinning glaciers hit headlines.
But what do we really do? We prefer to bribe the MCDwallah when it comes to a rainwater harvesting norms not followed. The Government, on its part may be quick to justify why it needs to tax the common man to fund the corrupt MCD coffers, but it never ever does anything to ensure that laid down norms are being followed without violation. If you remember this year, when the monsoon hit Delhi, all roads got blocked; people were stranded on arterial roads; cars almost went under and a deluge like situation was the talk of the media for days.
But what a waste! Not a drop of this life-saving manna from heaven was harvested. Had it been, it would not have only irrigated the insides of the Capital but also given a push to the Yamuna which is deader than the Dead Sea, darker than the devil and more polluted than the mind of a depraved man.
Actually, what India needs more than what it might give away at the Copenhagen summit is beginning at home. Environment, and the saving of it, needs to be a school subject; it needs to be included in the daily lives of the urban populace (the rural population is still very circumspect about the environment as it directly hits their agricultural economy); it needs to be as important as Defence in the annual Budget allocation and it needs to follow a strict law which punishes defaulters through fast track courts and with the maximum punishment.
Our’s is a billion plus population and if this save-environment effort is done in a concerted manner it will be a billion plus push towards good life. Much of Copenhagen would then be rendered as a Government-to-Government negotiation and not a life and death issue as it is turning out to be.
Environment, health and social empowerment are issues usually tagged with NGOs and what political animals tag as the “loony fringe” of society. Ironically though, it is the same people at the helm of the world who then converge with 30,000 delegates to Copenhagen and talk of why no one will give way; talk of inevitable failure; talk of how to do it the next time!
The much simpler way? Close the tap, nurture a tree, take the public transport, go solar and agitate against mindless projects like the hydro-electricity mayhem that is killing the hill State of Himachal Pradesh, for example!
Published December 13, 2009, Sunday Pioneer; http://www.dailypioneer.com/222242/Save-yourself-your-way.html
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