There is definitely an equity dimension in the whole issue of global warming. There is a deep abyss separating these two societies. The line of demarcation is not between nations but between societies within the nations. We people in this part of the world share more with common people in mumbai or plachimada or New Orleans or Bagdhad. We are the one who have to first face the fierceness of any natural or man made catastrophe. It is we (our near ones, neighbors) who contribute to the statistics in Breaking News. Whether it is tsunami or flood or cyclones the poor part of the society faces the maximum brunt. How is that occupants of huts (or small houses) with minimal facilities is equated with houses/flats with 5-6 air conditioners and fridge stacked with “soft” drinks and so on?. It is not that I am against modern lifestyle and choice of comfort. People can decide for themselves. But they definitely will have to take responsibility for the consequences. We common people cannot pay for their exigencies nor will we allow them to piggyback ride us. There is everything for need (that too is depleting) but there is definitely not for greed (that’s an oft quoted line). So when Mr.N.Ram writes in a column (in The Hindu, where else!!) few months back that …..per capita Co2 emission by India is very small fraction of what is seen in USA…..it shows nothing but his very carefully cultivated Machiavellian ignorance (or probably delusions). What do I like millions of people in this country share anything with this megalomaniac and his Formulae One juvenilities or some Botox Turd in some excellent car. Theirs is a different world which majority us people don’t identify with (in many cases, like upwardly mobile, this could be not by choice. Attributing egalitarianism or restraint to poverty is crap philosophy). But the fact is whether we like it or not we live in different worlds albeit we share the same geographical region of India. A small example will suffice: Although per capita per day water consumption in India is low there is a huge inequity in access. The per capita consumption in urban slum is 10 liters for domestic use while in rural India it averages 40 liters. The per capita consumption in urban rich areas stands at whooping 300-450 liters(this would increase substantially if we include water intensive products they consume like cokepepsi) wherein according to Peter Gleick, president of the Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment and Security, an overall basic water requirement of 50 liters per person per day is proposed as a minimum standard to meet four basic needs—for drinking, sanitation, bathing, and cooking. Another scientist Falkenmark uses the figure of 100 liters of freshwater per capita per day for personal use as a rough estimate of the amount needed for a minimally acceptable standard of living in developing countries, not including uses for agriculture and industry. Taking an average of both- 70-80 liters per capita per day, we find that rural India and urban slum are below the water requirement wherein the urban rich consumes almost triple the required!!!. Clearly there is a huge disparity. Majority of us do not share this world of greed, instant gratifications, gimmickry, superficiality coupled with essential attitudinal arrogance (for people like Botox Turd its about occupying the eyeball space, its exhibitionism which has replaced demonstration. Presentablilty of self that is no different from the chauvinists in audaciously classified “backward” places, instantly placing Botox Turd and her clan as forward!!). This is the world wherein sensibilities are declining with onslaught of pop culture, material acquisitions and life style-success they define. A world of cultivated politeness (politeness here is limited to within their circle, people who are influential), exchange of pleasantries, strategic use of words, market messages……offcourse everything with lots of style!!. When they argue (as in Times of India, Editorial) that India, brazil, china…..have equal right to first benefit from the earth resources……what they really mean is the benefits for greedy indulgent elite in these “developing” countries at the expense of poorer sections within these societies. You can feed on us and still be part of us is a strange logic. This Nation based per capita classification is an unacceptable argument. Its not “rich countries should clean up their act first”. It is rich societies in each country should clean up their act first. You cannot hide behind us, come forward and take responsibility towards consequences of your profligacy. There is a need for Environmental or Pollution Tax to curb per capita consumption and life style demands (so instead of frequent flier benefits we can have frequent flier tax!!!!). You see we need socio-environmental “Growth” too. The companies should be forced to reveal their green house liabilities to their investors. The profit over people (Chomsky) extended to profit over people and environment has to stop. There is an immediate need for a paradigm shift in policies related to issues of environment, particularly on global warming, green house gases (GHGs) and ozone. Mr. George Monbiot writes in Guardian Newspaper “....…“raise awareness”, “accelerate deployment of cleaner technology” and “diversify our energy supply mix”. There is nothing wrong with these objectives. But unless there is a regulation to reduce the amount of fossil fuel we use, alternative technologies are waste of time and money, for they will supplement rather than replace coal and oil burning. What counts is not what we do but what we do not do (emphasis mine). Our success and failure in tacking climate change depends on just one thing: how much fossil fuel we leave in the ground……”. He further writes “…..meaningful action on climate change has been prohibited by totalitarian capitalism…”. Totalitarian capitalism is where the government lax the rules for “efficient business” and market to decide the peril of “disposable” environment. This is not denying that there are instances of Corporates who want (and are insisting) stricter environmental laws to give impetus to eco-friendly technology to be viable. Clearly the global warming and issue of climatic changes are hinged on what elites (including upwardly mobile middle class) of all societies in all the countries do not do, that is in context to per capita consumption and life style demands.
The issue of Global Warming at the moment is being tackled at two levels. The first is more recent one that is the need for Adaptation. With increasingly turbulent and extreme oscillation of climate the need for system to adapt to the changes is being recognized. But the need for adaptation shouldn’t side track the more important issue of Mitigation, which is the second level at which the global warming is being tackled. Mitigation, wherein a sincere concerted global effort is more urgently needed. The International Agreements and concerns towards reducing GHGs, improving technologies and stringent pollution rules has to take into consideration the issue of disparities within the societies. Classifying countries into “developing” and “developed” for international agreements has to go and replaced by rich and poor societies within countries. Each country needs to be forced as part of international agreement to recognize this division and make rules accordingly on pollution control and sustainable development. We majority people all around the world cannot take the burden of indulgent few who are sucking away our common resources with impunity (off course it does give them a chance to “help” us and be in the news). As a Marketeer verdicts in one show (well its all a show !!!) “…being profitable allows for concern for environment”. It’s about let me fatten myself first. Many of these elites who are jostling the eyeball space have reached there by the very means which has caused much misery and harm to others, not to forget the long term environmental consequences. Then they try to patronize us, by charity, by whatever means that help them to cling on to public space (Crude woman is only a symptom of bigger epidemic). As early as 1987 The Brundtland Report in Europe (UK?), titled Our Common Future, defines development as “…..that which meets the needs of the poorest without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs….”. Already world over the indications are that the global warming has crossed that threshold wherein sudden shifts in climatic changes happen. Sergei kirpotin and Judith Marguard reports in New Scientist recently that an area of permafrost (in Siberia) has started to melt for the first time since it was formed some 11000 years ago at the end of the last ice age. The area, which covers the sub arctic region of western Siberia is world’s largest frozen peat bog and scientists fear that as it thaws, it will release billions of tones of methane, a greenhouse gas 20 times more potent than Co2 into the atmosphere. The peat bog could hold some 70bn tonnes of methane, a quarter of all of the methane stored in the ground around the world. Over the next 100 years it would add around 700mn tonnes of carbon into the atmosphere each year. This would effectively double atmospheric levels of the gas leading to a 10% to 25% increase in global warming. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climatic Changes (IPCC), 2001 points out “…that a global average temperature change ranging from 2.5 degree F to 10.4 Degree F would translate into climate related impacts that are much larger and faster than any that have occurred during the 10,000 year history of civilization”. It further says “…the impact associated with deceptive changes in temperature are evident in all corners of the globe. There is heavier rains in some areas (people in Mumbai and Bangalore, recently Chennai are quite aware of it now!!. Thankfully I was prudent enough to choose a place where I was spared of this misery) and droughts in others. Glaciers are melting and spring is arriving earlier, oceans are warming (hurricanes and storms are related to these changes) and coral reefs are dying…”. Things therefore are slipping from bad to worse. Leonard Fuentes (a Cuban novelist) writes in a column recently “…..as Cuban poet Jose Marti said about poetry, either we save ourselves together or we all lose ourselves. This is the nature of “global” game in which what is at stake is not the wealth and comfort of few but the lives of everyone, in Cuba, in Barundi, in Ceylon, in Venice, in California…..”. Let me end this very long (thanx for the patience!!. Not that I give a damn!!) article with a line I read somewhere : we are not getting along with each other if we are not getting along with the planet.