Hurtling towards a climate apocalypse
THESE days, I often congratulate myself for having resisted the temptation of buying a car. In fact, I love to walk, and it makes me feel good that there is no carbon emission from this simple act, and I am playing at least a minimal role in combating the threat of climate emergency. However, a pedestrian like me is being perceived as an obstacle or a hindrance. After all, our highways, lanes/bylanes, it seems, exist only for cars, motorbikes and other vehicles.
The normalisation of consumption further pollutes the environment.
No wonder it is becoming increasingly difficult to walk peacefully or cross the road without anxiety. See the paradox: if you seek to play a role — even a minimal one — for reducing carbon emissions, you are not wanted! Even though scientists and environmentalists are repeatedly reminding us that because of the ceaseless burning of fossil fuels, the world is in a state of climate emergency, we are never tired of cutting trees, constructing mega expressways, glorifying speed and mobility, buying cars — more and more bigger ones — and designing towns/cities in a way that walking or cycling becomes almost impossible.
The Delhi Statistical Handbook 2023 is frightening. The total number of vehicles registered in the national capital stood at 1.2 crore, of which 33.8 lakh were private ones. The game goes on, even though vehicular emissions account for about 38 per cent of Delhi’s pollution. The entire thing is self-defeating. Imagine, for instance, the fate of Bengaluru — the transformation of a peaceful city into a noisy zone known for its notorious traffic congestion. Yes, with more than 23 lakh private cars, as a report says, commuters spend an average 30 minutes to cover merely 10 km!
We seem to be caught in a vicious cycle: more cars, more traffic congestion, more flyovers, more expressways, more pollution. Yet, the lobby of techno-capitalists, contractors and politicians has begun to glorify yet another expressway to be inaugurated soon. Yes, this 264-km Delhi-Dehradun Expressway will enable you to travel between these two cities in just 2.5 hours!
And as usual, we will be tempted to buy the latest model of a fancy car, drive along this sleek expressway and feel the thrill of what our hyper-modern times worship — speed and more speed. And we can safely forget that because of this expressway, as statistics provided by the National Highways Authorities of India suggest, 7,555 trees have already been felled! Who bothers about the pain of trees and the resultant human tragedy?
Likewise, the speed/mobility inherent in the modernist project of development has led to a tremendous growth of the domestic air passenger traffic in India; it is expected to cross 150 million passengers in 2024. Amid these tales of ‘progress’, do we bother to contemplate and understand that air travel is the most carbon-intensive activity an individual can undertake? It seems we are willing to pay the price. We inhale polluted air in our metro cities, quarrel with our neighbours over parking space and live with hypertension and diabetes because of constant exposure to speed and noise. And I feel like resisting this obsession with speed and mobility that our expressways and airports symbolise. I cherish the rhythm of ‘slowness’.
There is yet another consequence of our fascination with speed — the cult of consumerism. “Buy one, get one free” — the market-driven mantra tempts us to buy and consume more, be it latest electronic goods, a fancy garment, a packet of potato chips or detergent powder, or, for that matter, a new smartphone.
This normalisation of consumption further pollutes the environment. For these products, massive amounts of energy are required to power manufacturing facilities and transportation. This leads to carbon emissions. Likewise, textile production generates millions of tonnes of waste each year, and very few fabrics ever get recycled. Moreover, as e-commerce has increased our reliance on packed items, millions of packages wrapped in plastic create humongous amounts of waste. We should not forget that plastic exposes living beings to harmful chemicals which might cause cancer and other health problems. Likewise, electronics contain rare metals that often end up in landfills. Moreover, plastic waste is likely to land in the ocean, causing severe damage to marine species.
Yet, the gospel of capitalism continues to seduce us to buy more, consume more and thereby cause harm to the earth’s ecosystem. As you visit a shopping mall, receive messages of special ‘offers and discounts’ and regard shopping and buying as mass entertainment, you realise that consumerism is the most cherished religion of our times. Yet, I seek to become a ‘minimalist’.
I know that my ‘slow living’ or ‘minimalism’ is no answer to what is happening around us — the visible presence of a climate emergency with all its devastating consequences: the constant emission of greenhouse gases causing the rise of the average world temperature by 1.1-1.2°C, melting of glaciers, more and more heatwaves, frequent and intense floods, cyclones, wildfires and the loss of human lives.
We need to strive for a massive structural transformation for which world leaders, policymakers and corporate elites have to take the historic Paris Agreement seriously and rethink development and economic growth to substantially reduce global greenhouse gas emissions. But then, no big revolution is possible unless you and I also try to alter our life projects for reducing carbon emissions, exert pressure on the government and initiate a movement for saving our earth from a catastrophe.
