Becoming a ‘Sustainable Generation’

Sustainability is all about doing things in such a way that the impact on the environment is minimal so that future generations suffer less. Most well-meaning folks focus on the second aspect, about reducing environmental impact to the bare minimum without bothering about the moral imperative of ensuring a decent life for the humans alive now. Providing access to energy, a decent standard of living, food security and meeting the aspirational needs of all have resulted in large-scale destruction of the environment. Trying to curtail the latter while ignoring the former has always been the challenge. (An earlier piece on fossil fuels).

A teenager reading about the incoming climate apocalypse can’t be faulted for becoming anxious. Climate anxiety is a thing and there’s increasing evidence of it afflicting students across the world. I mean, when you read the regular and steady warnings from Heads of States, UN bodies and Greta Thunberg about cities getting submerged, species getting wiped out and the planet overheating, its little wonder that children end up affected and start defacing priceless oil paintings to draw attention to this issue.

Hannah Ritchie, Lead Researcher at Our World in Data has a different story to share on climate change. With facts, data and an open mind, she breaks down key environmental issues and concludes that we might be the first generation that could truly be sustainable. Her TED talk on this topic is one place to start and her book ‘Not the End of the World’ analyses each current global environment issue – Air Pollution, Bio Diversity loss, Plastic Pollution, Food Security, Energy Generation etc, debunks the fearmongering headlines, cites data to show how things have improved and concludes with where our focus should be on.

Man, as a species, has never been sustainable. Every continent we conquered was followed by large scale extinction of megafauna – the woolly mammoths, mastodons, Tasmanian tigers etc. So, there’s no good old days to harp about. However, the difference today is that we now have the science, the knowledge and the collective will to tackle environmental issues.

Umpton Sinclair had said, ‘It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.’ Something similar is at play here. While climate change is no doubt a grave crisis facing our planet, a lot of the ‘noise’ around it is driven by institutions and agencies who benefit from this fear mongering and increased attention – financing, foreign junkets, conferences, seminars and the halo of doing and being ‘green’ – whatever that means. To be able to discern the signal from the noise, one needs intellectual honesty, courage and a steadfast commitment to improving the well being of not just future generations but also current ones.

(Featured image is from this FT piece)