[Music]
tell his story in less than 20 minutes
is it’s quite unfair because teachers
take that much time to clear their
throats in any case we must surrenders
to the format’s Thank You Ted X DPS go
gown young friends principal Aditi
Mishra thank you for having me it’s
always a pleasure to speak to young
students I think it’s one of the
priceless perks of being a teacher thank
you I’ll skip this
I would want you to have a look at this
slide and what was the take of John
Charles Palani on the 21st century
science and youth I’m not sure how many
of you agree but I completely agree with
what he said but that’s not my quiz the
quiz is now coming your way please raise
your hands if you believe in what I am
saying how many of you think that the
global poverty has been eradicated how
many of you think that the global
environmental pollution has been
eradicated now that we are on the same
page I can continue not that I wanted to
convert you I’m not in the business of
proselytization I am a practitioner of
science and work with facts not only
facts but stories behind these facts
these ideas are contained in my book
which is they’re out there life in the
Himalaya let me go to the story the
story is date is dated to the summer of
1972 5th the 6th 16th June to be exact
the place Stockholm and the even United
Nation conference on human environment
among many prominent leaders that
attended the conference was our own
prime minister the then Prime Minister
mrs. Indira Gandhi now I will just pause
here and tell you that notably a person
who chaired this United Nations Human
conference and environment was a person
called
Morris strong he was a Canadian
businessman with interests in oil and
minerals
I am afraid not very benevolent for
environment but that’s not important but
since then what has happened has that
most of the global summits and
environment how been deliberating on how
to say of businesses rather than saving
the environment but in any case let me
go back to the story during her address
to the conference mrs. Indira Gandhi
made a rather very innocuous some people
thought it was an innocent or a genuine
remark and she asked and a court that
are not the poverty and the need the
greatest polluters now this was a very
genuine kind of an expression but this
the public response or the or the global
response was another Commission which
was created by the United Nations called
world Commission on Environment and
development which was also known later
by but the name Brooklyn Commission
because it was headed by the former
Norwegian Prime Minister Gro Harlem
Brundtland and what had world achieved
was that they had fairly and squarely
put the blame of environmental global
environmental pollution on the world’s
poor and the poverty therefore when they
submitted the report of world Commission
on Environment and development which was
ultimately published in the form of a
book called our common future which for
the first time used sustainable
development as the panacea for getting
rid off of the evils of pollution on
earth but more than that
the route that it took was that in order
to get rid of environmental pollution
what we need to do is that we need to
develop more and more we need to have
more economic development to get rid of
poverty first because poverty and
pollution were in terribly linked and
this and the broom ice on which it was
based was an economic principle which is
called coziness
curves these were developed by Simon
Nessa very famous economist which in in
simple language said that during the
process of industrialization and and an
economic growth initially there will be
a lot of income equality among people
but over a period of time then the
income inequalities will decline
so applied to the environmental issues
the same principle was that during the
initial process of industrialization and
economic development pollution will grow
exponentially but over a period of time
as the incomes grow you will have less
and less pollution in the long run but
as another famous economist Keynes said
in the long run we are all dead
and that’s exactly what what’s happened
so did this venecia called sustainable
development actually yield the results
that it was supposed to I’m afraid it
didn’t happen because greenhouse gases
did not come down as you can see here
China’s greenhouse gas emission rates
are about 12% a year
imagine and the global broken promises
of release of ten point three billion
dollars to the developing world
and out of that a paltry sum of 0.3
billion dollars which is less than which
is less than 3% it’s two point nine two
percent exactly that that’s what was
approved and back home in India if we
see how we have fared in the sustainable
goal index we will see that we are
almost laggards at 116 ranked globally
we are just about 58 global index so I
have just given you three examples how
the promises of sustainable development
did not what exactly happened these are
some of the realities this is you can
see the glaciers and this is a Tibetan
glacier in high Himalaya you can see
2009 picture and two
twenty-one picture so climate change is
the first replication of these
greenhouse gases well another bad news
came while we were all celebrating
Independence Day this year
Tama Carlton published this very
damaging kind of offer of a paper in
Proceedings of the National Academy of
Sciences which is one of the top most
scientific journals and what she found
was that in the last thirty years
60,000 farmers in India had committed
suicide which see directly correlated
with environmental change specifically
climate change and she of course you
know from the reason that how farmers
felt in death traps because they during
the crop crop season they would need
more water and it is high temperatures
that time what is not available they
have to dig deeper they take more and
more deaths and then in my own research
and if you have the book or you will
likely to have the book in some chapter
called a streetcar named Maruti this is
exactly what my research found that
after 1983 there was a spur huge surge
of number of cars being produced in
India so a motor vehicle revolution was
heralded by by Maruti but what we fail
to see is this the amount of you know
carbon which is getting an intestinal
stir exactly coincides with 1980
revolution or what I call the Maruti
revolution with the result today even in
the high deep interior Himalaya you have
huge amounts of gleb black carbon
including on the glaciers in like I have
said stop open glacier now what does
black carbon do is that it settles on
the glaciers and the glaze because it
can it can absorb solar
light and it heats up the glaciers and
glacial ablation you know go goes goes
very high we have these are our own from
my own research group what we found was
that actually Himalaya are the hottest
or the warmest mountains in the world
more warm than any other mountain
because obviously we are in the in the
tropics now two things have happened as
a result of these this this warming it
has changed lives and livelihood self of
people in the Himalaya the first
resource is that what we also found was
that now these beautiful emollient
meadows of which you see the often you
see postcards now those are being in
breast bye-bye shrubs and a large number
of medicinal plants herbal medicinal
plants come from these alpine meadows
and what it does is it seriously
undermines the first resource which
people use because this is an alternate
health care system which people people
have their because they there is no
health care delivery system in those
regions so they depend on these these
resources first resorts and also this is
an example which I have discussed in a
book of the Yaak
now with the ingression of these these
shrubs and grass is going into the group
going away from these alpine meadows
what is happening is that the basic life
support system of York and York and I
must tell you is fundamental is crucial
to the life and culture of these
Himalayan highlands but for York
Himalayan Highlands would never have
been they humans would have never
settled there York both in his in its
life and death
service service humanity in Himalayan
highlands as you can see you can have a
large number of products while it is
alive and there
now if the grass is grow and if the the
grasses go extinct what happens to the
arc if the yog goes what happens to the
Tibetan and hi Himalayan Highland
culture so we are looking at complete
cultural and halation of a very distinct
Himalayan himalayan culture so because
of all these troubles lot of thinkers
writers scientists have been
disenchanted with this idea of
sustainable development because this was
possibly far away those who developed it
possibly Stockholm or Zurich or New York
or Washington they are far away from the
last mile therefore what happened was
that there was a disconnect between the
practitioners and those who had
developed it so people like John
Robinson you know they say that it’s
it’s vague it’s for Hippocrates it
fosters delusions so he says that it’s
almost saying that have your cake and
ate it too which which you know is not
possible one example which I want to
give you because it’s a most recent
example the most recent climate summit
that happened this is the Paris climate
summit now look at this declaration at
the end of the days 52 page document
mentions carbon six times economy 29
times finance 35 times water zero and
I’m sure none of you believe that water
should not have that place at that high
table because water is going to be
crucial India and China both can talk
about double-digit economic growth but
they are suffering of what a deficit and
this is going to be a what they call it
a a thorn in the flesh for double-digit
economic growth so what where do we go
from here
so I suggest that instead of sustainable
development we should ask a different
question we should ask not that you know
you can have your cake and eat it too
you should ask a different question you
should ask that how much cake can we
bake so if you do that then you come to
this sustainable living model which
promises itself on three important
factors the carrying capacity of air
water land if you and that will be
determined by these three issues
geophysical vulnerability ecological
fragility and of course the cultural
sensitivity of the people what do I mean
now for example can deli and godown
afford to have so many vehicles motor
vehicles I simple answer is no because
the baseline of suspended particulate
matter in Delhi and its environs
particularly the southern parts that
means including good gone up to Jaipur
is is very high because we’re close to
thar desert
therefore you may have all kinds of
technological and administrative
interventions in the form of in the form
of alternate vehicle numbers or what
they call odd-even you are never going
to get rid of pollution because the base
level of suspended particulate matter in
Delhi is very high I was so inspired in
the morning by looking at those children
when they came in fact if we did this
we’ll be doing a great service to Delhi
and its environs so what does this mean
is the same living means that we must
now have a bottom-up approach in which
we must we must plan according to the
amount of land water and air how much
they can sustain how much population
they can sustain so if you were to if
you were to sort of put it into a simple
matrix you will see that it’s a simple
equation either there are too many of us
using may be lesser resources all we are
to too little of us using too too many
resources so if you multiply 10 units of
population by 5 units
five units of consumption you will get
50 units of impact or you multiply five
units of population by ten units of
consumption you will still get fifteen
units so what do we do reduce reduce
population firstly but reduce population
reduce all consumption only then can be
this earth as a system living place we
also have besides that took you know to
take care of some cultural issues okay
so here is an example which I have said
in my book this is about entire over
Southeast Asia you can see that we often
you know Ramon that our rivers have run
dry our Springs have run dry
believe you me none of them have run dry
they still have that much water if not
more the only thing is there are too
many of us who are drinking their waters
who are using their waters so there’s a
there’s a negative correlation between
the demography and and and and the
resource resource availability so that
brings me finally to the first Gandhi or
the original Gandhi who said earth
provides enough to satisfy every man’s
needs but not every man’s greed so you
will have to ponder is poverty and need
the greatest pollution polluter or is
the you know unencumbered pursuit of
wealth that equals greed to pollution so
I want to my idea is to turn mrs.
Gandhi’s idea upside down rather than
saying poverty and need lead to
pollution
I say wealth and greed need lead to
pollution that’s what I believe you may
think otherwise thank you
[Applause]
tell his story in less than 20 minutes
is it’s quite unfair because teachers
take that much time to clear their
throats in any case we must surrenders
to the format’s Thank You Ted X DPS go
gown young friends principal Aditi
Mishra thank you for having me it’s
always a pleasure to speak to young
students I think it’s one of the
priceless perks of being a teacher thank
you I’ll skip this
I would want you to have a look at this
slide and what was the take of John
Charles Palani on the 21st century
science and youth I’m not sure how many
of you agree but I completely agree with
what he said but that’s not my quiz the
quiz is now coming your way please raise
your hands if you believe in what I am
saying how many of you think that the
global poverty has been eradicated how
many of you think that the global
environmental pollution has been
eradicated now that we are on the same
page I can continue not that I wanted to
convert you I’m not in the business of
proselytization I am a practitioner of
science and work with facts not only
facts but stories behind these facts
these ideas are contained in my book
which is they’re out there life in the
Himalaya let me go to the story the
story is date is dated to the summer of
1972 5th the 6th 16th June to be exact
the place Stockholm and the even United
Nation conference on human environment
among many prominent leaders that
attended the conference was our own
prime minister the then Prime Minister
mrs. Indira Gandhi now I will just pause
here and tell you that notably a person
who chaired this United Nations Human
conference and environment was a person
called
Morris strong he was a Canadian
businessman with interests in oil and
minerals
I am afraid not very benevolent for
environment but that’s not important but
since then what has happened has that
most of the global summits and
environment how been deliberating on how
to say of businesses rather than saving
the environment but in any case let me
go back to the story during her address
to the conference mrs. Indira Gandhi
made a rather very innocuous some people
thought it was an innocent or a genuine
remark and she asked and a court that
are not the poverty and the need the
greatest polluters now this was a very
genuine kind of an expression but this
the public response or the or the global
response was another Commission which
was created by the United Nations called
world Commission on Environment and
development which was also known later
by but the name Brooklyn Commission
because it was headed by the former
Norwegian Prime Minister Gro Harlem
Brundtland and what had world achieved
was that they had fairly and squarely
put the blame of environmental global
environmental pollution on the world’s
poor and the poverty therefore when they
submitted the report of world Commission
on Environment and development which was
ultimately published in the form of a
book called our common future which for
the first time used sustainable
development as the panacea for getting
rid off of the evils of pollution on
earth but more than that
the route that it took was that in order
to get rid of environmental pollution
what we need to do is that we need to
develop more and more we need to have
more economic development to get rid of
poverty first because poverty and
pollution were in terribly linked and
this and the broom ice on which it was
based was an economic principle which is
called coziness
curves these were developed by Simon
Nessa very famous economist which in in
simple language said that during the
process of industrialization and and an
economic growth initially there will be
a lot of income equality among people
but over a period of time then the
income inequalities will decline
so applied to the environmental issues
the same principle was that during the
initial process of industrialization and
economic development pollution will grow
exponentially but over a period of time
as the incomes grow you will have less
and less pollution in the long run but
as another famous economist Keynes said
in the long run we are all dead
and that’s exactly what what’s happened
so did this venecia called sustainable
development actually yield the results
that it was supposed to I’m afraid it
didn’t happen because greenhouse gases
did not come down as you can see here
China’s greenhouse gas emission rates
are about 12% a year
imagine and the global broken promises
of release of ten point three billion
dollars to the developing world
and out of that a paltry sum of 0.3
billion dollars which is less than which
is less than 3% it’s two point nine two
percent exactly that that’s what was
approved and back home in India if we
see how we have fared in the sustainable
goal index we will see that we are
almost laggards at 116 ranked globally
we are just about 58 global index so I
have just given you three examples how
the promises of sustainable development
did not what exactly happened these are
some of the realities this is you can
see the glaciers and this is a Tibetan
glacier in high Himalaya you can see
2009 picture and two
twenty-one picture so climate change is
the first replication of these
greenhouse gases well another bad news
came while we were all celebrating
Independence Day this year
Tama Carlton published this very
damaging kind of offer of a paper in
Proceedings of the National Academy of
Sciences which is one of the top most
scientific journals and what she found
was that in the last thirty years
60,000 farmers in India had committed
suicide which see directly correlated
with environmental change specifically
climate change and she of course you
know from the reason that how farmers
felt in death traps because they during
the crop crop season they would need
more water and it is high temperatures
that time what is not available they
have to dig deeper they take more and
more deaths and then in my own research
and if you have the book or you will
likely to have the book in some chapter
called a streetcar named Maruti this is
exactly what my research found that
after 1983 there was a spur huge surge
of number of cars being produced in
India so a motor vehicle revolution was
heralded by by Maruti but what we fail
to see is this the amount of you know
carbon which is getting an intestinal
stir exactly coincides with 1980
revolution or what I call the Maruti
revolution with the result today even in
the high deep interior Himalaya you have
huge amounts of gleb black carbon
including on the glaciers in like I have
said stop open glacier now what does
black carbon do is that it settles on
the glaciers and the glaze because it
can it can absorb solar
light and it heats up the glaciers and
glacial ablation you know go goes goes
very high we have these are our own from
my own research group what we found was
that actually Himalaya are the hottest
or the warmest mountains in the world
more warm than any other mountain
because obviously we are in the in the
tropics now two things have happened as
a result of these this this warming it
has changed lives and livelihood self of
people in the Himalaya the first
resource is that what we also found was
that now these beautiful emollient
meadows of which you see the often you
see postcards now those are being in
breast bye-bye shrubs and a large number
of medicinal plants herbal medicinal
plants come from these alpine meadows
and what it does is it seriously
undermines the first resource which
people use because this is an alternate
health care system which people people
have their because they there is no
health care delivery system in those
regions so they depend on these these
resources first resorts and also this is
an example which I have discussed in a
book of the Yaak
now with the ingression of these these
shrubs and grass is going into the group
going away from these alpine meadows
what is happening is that the basic life
support system of York and York and I
must tell you is fundamental is crucial
to the life and culture of these
Himalayan highlands but for York
Himalayan Highlands would never have
been they humans would have never
settled there York both in his in its
life and death
service service humanity in Himalayan
highlands as you can see you can have a
large number of products while it is
alive and there
now if the grass is grow and if the the
grasses go extinct what happens to the
arc if the yog goes what happens to the
Tibetan and hi Himalayan Highland
culture so we are looking at complete
cultural and halation of a very distinct
Himalayan himalayan culture so because
of all these troubles lot of thinkers
writers scientists have been
disenchanted with this idea of
sustainable development because this was
possibly far away those who developed it
possibly Stockholm or Zurich or New York
or Washington they are far away from the
last mile therefore what happened was
that there was a disconnect between the
practitioners and those who had
developed it so people like John
Robinson you know they say that it’s
it’s vague it’s for Hippocrates it
fosters delusions so he says that it’s
almost saying that have your cake and
ate it too which which you know is not
possible one example which I want to
give you because it’s a most recent
example the most recent climate summit
that happened this is the Paris climate
summit now look at this declaration at
the end of the days 52 page document
mentions carbon six times economy 29
times finance 35 times water zero and
I’m sure none of you believe that water
should not have that place at that high
table because water is going to be
crucial India and China both can talk
about double-digit economic growth but
they are suffering of what a deficit and
this is going to be a what they call it
a a thorn in the flesh for double-digit
economic growth so what where do we go
from here
so I suggest that instead of sustainable
development we should ask a different
question we should ask not that you know
you can have your cake and eat it too
you should ask a different question you
should ask that how much cake can we
bake so if you do that then you come to
this sustainable living model which
promises itself on three important
factors the carrying capacity of air
water land if you and that will be
determined by these three issues
geophysical vulnerability ecological
fragility and of course the cultural
sensitivity of the people what do I mean
now for example can deli and godown
afford to have so many vehicles motor
vehicles I simple answer is no because
the baseline of suspended particulate
matter in Delhi and its environs
particularly the southern parts that
means including good gone up to Jaipur
is is very high because we’re close to
thar desert
therefore you may have all kinds of
technological and administrative
interventions in the form of in the form
of alternate vehicle numbers or what
they call odd-even you are never going
to get rid of pollution because the base
level of suspended particulate matter in
Delhi is very high I was so inspired in
the morning by looking at those children
when they came in fact if we did this
we’ll be doing a great service to Delhi
and its environs so what does this mean
is the same living means that we must
now have a bottom-up approach in which
we must we must plan according to the
amount of land water and air how much
they can sustain how much population
they can sustain so if you were to if
you were to sort of put it into a simple
matrix you will see that it’s a simple
equation either there are too many of us
using may be lesser resources all we are
to too little of us using too too many
resources so if you multiply 10 units of
population by 5 units
five units of consumption you will get
50 units of impact or you multiply five
units of population by ten units of
consumption you will still get fifteen
units so what do we do reduce reduce
population firstly but reduce population
reduce all consumption only then can be
this earth as a system living place we
also have besides that took you know to
take care of some cultural issues okay
so here is an example which I have said
in my book this is about entire over
Southeast Asia you can see that we often
you know Ramon that our rivers have run
dry our Springs have run dry
believe you me none of them have run dry
they still have that much water if not
more the only thing is there are too
many of us who are drinking their waters
who are using their waters so there’s a
there’s a negative correlation between
the demography and and and and the
resource resource availability so that
brings me finally to the first Gandhi or
the original Gandhi who said earth
provides enough to satisfy every man’s
needs but not every man’s greed so you
will have to ponder is poverty and need
the greatest pollution polluter or is
the you know unencumbered pursuit of
wealth that equals greed to pollution so
I want to my idea is to turn mrs.
Gandhi’s idea upside down rather than
saying poverty and need lead to
pollution
I say wealth and greed need lead to
pollution that’s what I believe you may
think otherwise thank you
[Applause]
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