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~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Video Information: Vishranti Shivir, 06.10.2019, Mumbai, India
Context:
~ What is really good?
~ Why is environmentalism not enough?
~ How do we stop climate change?
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~~~~~~~~ .
Be a part of the Live Sessions: https://acharyaprashant.org/hi/enquir...
Want to read Acharya Prashant's Books?
Get Free Delivery: https://acharyaprashant.org/en/books?...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Video Information: Vishranti Shivir, 06.10.2019, Mumbai, India
Context:
~ What is really good?
~ Why is environmentalism not enough?
~ How do we stop climate change?
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~~~~~~~~ .
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00So, with regards to the what must be done versus what we want to do, the lot of things
00:12like one is environment, veganism, so we understand that we have to choose one activity which
00:18is most critical.
00:19When you say critical, it is like most people are affected by it.
00:23So, when I came to Mumbai here, I could clearly see a difference in the air which is in Bangalore
00:29and which is here.
00:30I feel very suffocating sometimes.
00:33So, what you said about understanding the issue, studying about the issue and then taking
00:39an action is probably an ideal case.
00:41So, not everybody is devoted to go to that length.
00:44So, what I think is wherever you are, start from there.
00:48If I am planting trees in one particular area, it is definitely not harmful.
00:52It is beneficial for the people who are there.
00:54It has to be thought of in terms of the overall opportunity cost, you see.
01:00You have to understand this.
01:02And it's not that you have to think of the most important issue.
01:08You also have to think of the most effective way to tackle that issue.
01:16You may very well be able to rightly identify the most important issue, but what if you
01:20are using the least effective way to tackle that issue?
01:27And you know what is the problem with the less effective ways?
01:32The problem is not merely that they are less effective.
01:35The problem is that they make you feel that you are doing something effective.
01:42So they absolve you of your responsibility.
01:45You start saying, you see, I did my bit.
01:48You see, I did my bit.
01:49And when you say, I did my bit, you become licensed and entitled to do a lot of other
01:55kinds of rubbish.
01:57I'll say something with respect to this tree plantation thing.
02:02You see, it is very well known that one tree over the course of 40 years would absorb just
02:09one ton of carbon dioxide.
02:12How effective is that, please?
02:14And that is if that tree lives to get 40 years old.
02:21One tree over 40 years absorbs one ton of carbon dioxide.
02:25In one year, how much does it absorb?
02:280.025, 0.025 ton, one.
02:34Whereas having one less child causes a difference of 60 tons per year.
02:43How do you want to plant trees happily and then go home and have a child?
02:51One child is 60 tons per year.
02:55And one tree is 0.025 tons per year.
03:00But by planting a tree, you start feeling that you have done your bit.
03:04And you feel very happy.
03:06Now you can go on a date, get married, and then obviously you'll have kids.
03:11This is the kind of thing I become very unhappy with, very, very unhappy with.
03:20All the measures that social activism is taking can contribute not 1% of that which having
03:37a child less does.
03:41But then all the do-gooders are roaming and they are going around with a lot of pride.
03:45You know, we are climate warriors.
03:47What climate warrior?
03:50What climate warrior?
03:53What is this tree plantation thing?
03:58Devote your resources, your energy, your Fridays, your Saturdays or your Sundays to doing the
04:02right thing.
04:03Have an awareness campaign.
04:07Go to young people in schools and colleges and tell them not to procreate.
04:11That's what you must be doing.
04:12Instead, you are feeling good by planting trees.
04:17Not that planting trees is harmful.
04:19I am fully in support of it.
04:21But then the opportunity cost is great.
04:23You understand opportunity cost?
04:25The same time that you invested in planting a tree could have been invested in delivering
04:31a presentation in a particular college.
04:34By planting the tree, you refuse to make that presentation in the college.
04:38And this is criminal.
04:41This is outrightly criminal.
04:42I do not support this.
04:46So do not say we are little beings, we can only do this much.
04:50The ones who are doing this much are the ones causing the problem.
04:54Misplaced climate activism is not solving the problem, it is a part of the problem.
05:02Everybody is becoming a climate activist without realizing what is it that really needs to
05:06be done.
05:07There are a few things you must understand.
05:12At the root of the climate catastrophe lies man's tendency to consume.
05:22And man consumes in three clear ways and three distinct ways.
05:27Man wants to consume the entire world.
05:29And the entire world consists of human beings, prakritic beings, which you call as natural
05:37beings and man-made things.
05:39Whenever you will look around you, these are the three kinds of things you will find.
05:44Other human beings, other natural beings and other man-made things.
05:52Man consumes all three and consumption of all three leads to carbon emissions.
05:59When you consume another human being, what do you get?
06:03What do you get?
06:04Kids.
06:05That is the biggest cause of carbon emissions.
06:07When you consume man-made things again, what do you emit?
06:11Carbon.
06:12Because whatever there is man-made is made using energy and energy comes from fossil
06:18fuels.
06:20So whenever you are consuming something man-made, you are causing carbon emissions.
06:26The third thing is consumption of natural resources.
06:30Whether you are eating vegetables, whether you are a vegan or not, or whether you are
06:38consuming meat, all of this is highly carbon emitting.
06:45Even if you are vegan, you will eat grains at least.
06:48Where will the grains come from?
06:51Where will the grains come from?
06:54They can only come by felling forests.
06:59But then you start feeling great, I am a vegan, you know.
07:02I am holier than thou.
07:05The earth does not have resources to support 8 billion or 11 billion vegans.
07:12So do not be so happy about just being a vegan.
07:16Veganism doesn't help the cause of climate change beyond a point.
07:23We need two things.
07:24One, less people and less consumption.
07:27And both of them.
07:29Both of them together.
07:32Are you getting it?
07:35Even if one of them is missing, you are gone.
07:39US has not too many people.
07:44Just 32 crores are there.
07:48And yet they are the biggest carbon emitters in the world.
07:52Because they consume.
07:54On the other end is China.
07:56China, the per capita consumption is 1 by 5 or 1 by 10 of the USA.
08:03And yet they are number 2 on the carbon list.
08:05Why?
08:06Because they are just too many.
08:10You need a situation where there are not more than 2 or 3 billion people in the world.
08:14That has been scientifically calculated to be the sustainable limit.
08:18And currently we are 8 billion.
08:20We need to reduce it to 2 or 3 billion.
08:22That's the first thing.
08:23Secondly, these 2 or 3 billion people have to be spiritual so that they do not have a
08:27tendency to consume.
08:28Unless you are spiritual, you are bound to be living a consumption-centric life.
08:37The very urge for liberation, when it doesn't find an outlet, it becomes the urge to consume.
08:42Do you see this?
08:43Where does the tendency to consume so much come from?
08:48It comes from the misidentified and thwarted urge towards liberation.
08:56If you will not provide liberation to a man, his energies will flow in the direction of
09:01consumption.
09:04So these are the 2 things that we require.
09:06One less population, secondly the population that remains must be highly spiritual in its
09:12outlook.
09:13Only then can you avoid the climate catastrophe.
09:15All this tamasha that is happening on the streets will not help.
09:19Instead it is making people feel good about themselves.
09:22I look at these warriors, climate warriors, young men and young women.
09:27Some of them were fighting the police recently in Bombay.
09:31And I thought to myself, will these young people refuse to have a kid?
09:35No, that they won't.
09:37Even for a tree, they are prepared to lay down their lives and I respect that sentiment.
09:42Seriously I respect that.
09:44But then I want to question the efficacy of that.
09:48You don't want these 2,700 trees to be cut down.
09:52But then if you get one child, that is the equivalent of cutting down a lakh trees.
09:59Bringing one child to the world is the equivalent of cutting down a lakh trees.
10:05Maybe more.
10:06Let's do the maths.
10:10But you show so much of sentiment when a tree is hacked down.
10:17And you show no sentiment when you see family after family procreating.
10:23You in fact send them congratulatory messages, wow, nice, didi, good that you had your second
10:32or third kid now.
10:35Coming from the climate demonstration, what does this young girl do?
10:41She calls up her didi and says, so didi, was the delivery fine?
10:46What nonsense is this?
10:51Do you understand?
10:54Climate catastrophe is a spiritual problem and it can only have a spiritual solution.
11:04All else that you see happening around you in the name of climate activism is just tamasha.
11:10It will not help.
11:11It will boost up a lot of egos.
11:14It will give fame and limelight to a lot of young people.
11:18They will become climate warriors, they will become saviors of the world.
11:21Tomorrow one of them might even get the Nobel Prize.
11:26So much of limelight is there, you know.
11:28This young man, he has really brought this issue to popular consciousness.
11:36Let's bestow upon him the Nobel Prize for peace.
11:40All that can happen.
11:42But all that will be just symbolic, not helpful at all or even if it helps, it will help only
11:50to a very marginal degree.
11:54Do you get the real solution?
11:58Some 8 billion, take it back to 2 billion and you don't have to kill people for that.
12:04You just have to educate and encourage people to not to reproduce.
12:09Even if they want to have kids, let them have at max one kid.
12:15And second thing is, this 2 or 3 billion that finally remains must be deeply spiritual from
12:21the heart so that it does not have a tendency to feast upon the world.
12:30Are you getting it?
12:32But the way climate activism is going, it is going in a very blind direction.
12:41People are trying to get governments to intervene by way of legislation.
12:47What can the governments do?
12:51It's a democratic world.
12:53The governments will only do what the people want them to do.
12:57And the people want only cosmetic steps to be taken.
13:02So the governments will take cosmetic steps.
13:07In fact chances are, as far as this tree plantation exercise is concerned, chances are we have
13:13already crossed the threshold where tree plantation can reverse the effects of climate
13:22change.
13:23That threshold has already been crossed.
13:27Now we need stricter action, now we need more meaningful action, now we need real action.
13:34Planting trees might have been a useful step 20 years back, but that threshold has been
13:40long since crossed.
13:42You need to do more concrete action today and more concrete action is not about Friday
13:47demonstrations and all those stuff and Friday strikes.
13:52All that is just a show.
13:55Real action needs to be taken.
14:08At the center of all this lies man's tendency to consume which comes from an absence of
14:16spiritual education.
14:18Climate change is a result of absence of spiritual education.
14:24Do not talk of two problems, there is just one problem.
14:27That problem is man's misguided and uneducated ego.
14:32Unless you educate the ego about who it really is, it will keep proceeding in the direction
14:38of blind consumerism.
14:41Lack of spiritual education has brought this catastrophe upon us.
14:45That is the only problem and therefore that has to be the only solution.
14:50All the other things that we are doing will not help much.
14:53Yes, so I have tried to educate my friends and family around me, so maybe I should take
15:01a bigger step now to spread awareness.
15:08If that is something that must be done, do it.
15:13It is not a time where you can gently nudge someone and feel that you have done your bit.
15:24Because it is nobody's personal or private matter anymore.
15:29A fellow reproducing blindly is a threat to the entire humanity.
15:35How is his family his personal matter?
15:40Tell me please, somebody sets a time bomb in his home, a huge time bomb that will bring
15:48down the entire community, will you say it is his private matter because he is doing
15:53it within his home?
15:55Tell me please, somebody sets a bomb inside his home and the bomb is powerful enough to
16:02bring down the entire building, not merely his apartment, will you say it is his private
16:08matter, how can I interfere, these are personal choices, we have to respect personal choices.
16:14These are not personal choices anymore.
16:16If you are reproducing, you are bringing down the entire humanity.
16:22So you have to be more than gentle now, are you getting it?
16:29And that does not mean cruelty, that means more compassion, more energetic action coming
16:36from deeper compassion and deeper sense of responsibility.
16:45You will have to give up the notion that these are first of all personal choices, no, not
16:49personal choices.
16:51What you are doing has an effect on me, how is it your personal matter?
16:55Acharya ji, regarding the population, so generally when on the streets when I see women begging
17:11with their children or on the streets I see people, I get really angry that how can they
17:18have kids being in the position they are in, like one is that they have not figured
17:23out a way for themselves, I understand that it is just by chance that the situations that
17:29we are born in the kind of resources we have, it is just a genetic chance and I understand
17:35that but I really get angry when I see that very poor people who are not even able to
17:40fend for themselves are having kids and then they just use them as tools further to beg
17:46and so what is, how do we go about dealing with this?
17:51You are looking in not exactly the right direction.
17:56That kid that you see begging on the street will have a far smaller carbon footprint throughout
18:03his life even if there are five such kids in that beggar family.
18:08Obviously that beggar family must not have five such kids but the reasons for not having
18:15kids must be social and economic.
18:19By having five kids, the beggar family is not really causing much harm to the climate
18:26because their consumption levels are extremely low, wait, wait, their numbers do not matter.
18:34India has 1.4 billion people, India's carbon footprint is very small compared to that of
18:39the US, so numbers right now don't matter that much.
18:45Compared to this, the one or two kids that an affluent family has are a far bigger problem.
18:55Think of their carbon footprint.
18:58And having a kid is not merely having a kid, it is a geometric progression.
19:05You have a kid, the kid will have kids and then they will have kids.
19:10It's not one person you have given birth to, you have given birth to 100 persons.
19:18There is an estimate that says that a woman can do all sorts of climate activism all her
19:24life and save a few tons of carbon emissions.
19:33But if she just decides to have one less child, she can save six times more carbon
19:39emissions without doing anything else.
19:43Either she can go out four hours every day of her life and indulge in tree plantation
19:48and this and that, and every single day of life she can indulge in climate activism.
19:55And that will result in the lessening of the global climate load by x tons, right?
20:04The other option is don't do anything.
20:06There is no need for any climate activism.
20:08Just have one less child.
20:10And by having one less child, you will save six x tons of carbon dioxide emissions.
20:18Are you getting it?
20:28It is available.
20:29It is not being shared and broadcasted.
20:34It is very much available.
20:35Where else am I getting it from?
20:38I didn't meditate and get this knowledge.
20:44I am getting it from public sources.
20:47It is just that people become too emotional if you tell them to have one less child.
20:54I have tried with a couple of my friends, they are just like, my kid needs a company.
21:00To hell with their emotions.
21:01Who are you?
21:03When somebody is being dragged to the jail, he obviously feels emotional.
21:08So what?
21:10You will have to pay for your follies.
21:17When somebody doesn't get selected in an entrance exam, he or she does feel emotional.
21:21So what?
21:22Just because you are emotional, you cannot be granted a pardon or a favour.
21:32Now you see why lack of spirituality is the biggest problem?
21:36Because when you do not operate from a spiritual centre, then you operate from an emotional
21:42centre.
21:43These emotions are what is causing this climate change.
21:50And I am really surprised that so many people who are highly emotional are into climate
21:56activism.
21:57When the entire problem is of emotions.
22:01You are so emotional about that next foreign holiday, right?
22:05That is carbon intensive.
22:08You are so emotional about having a good nice nest of your own, that is carbon.
22:13You are so emotional about having two nice kids, that is emotion and that is carbon.
22:22Emotion equals carbon in a big way.
22:26And the problem to this emotional centre is nothing but spirituality.
22:36Think of it.
22:37Whenever you go emotional, you start releasing carbon dioxide, don't you?
22:40When you go emotional, you either drink and that is carbon or you go and have a party
22:47and that is carbon.
22:56This entire model we have based our lives on, this centre around which we are living
23:04is flawed.
23:07And that is what is leading to this climate catastrophe.
23:10We are not addressing the central problem.
23:15We are just dabbling on the periphery.
23:23And that will not help.
23:29That will just help boost our ego.
23:30We will say, you know, I did my bit, I am a climate warrior, I will have nice photos
23:36to put on Facebook and I now have the right to tell the others, you know, you are morally
23:42inferior to me.
24:02So if there is one action that you must take to fight this menace, what is that?
24:10We said it is not merely important to identify the problem.
24:15You also need to identify the most effective way to fight that problem.
24:21What is that most effective way?
24:22It is not tree plantation.
24:24The most effective way is spiritual awareness.
24:32That is what you have to do and that is difficult.
24:34That is far more difficult than planting trees.
24:37So we would rather plant trees.
24:40That is how the whole thing goes.