dna edit: It’s about attitudes, not models

How that the unbridled frenzy over Earth Hour — the most-hyped annual event the world perfunctorily celebrates — has petered out, it is time to look at the tokenistic event through a prism of sanity. When one talks of the world with a future in mind, it is important not to miss the big picture. Unfortunately, in spite of the unquestionably noble intention behind Earth Hour, it has degenerated into a mindless and ritualistic bash. It is a “lights out” carnival that keeps people in the dark about their future.

People are made to forget that the issue is not just about saving power. It is not just a notion of protecting the environment, it is about saving this living planet of ours. It is not about not using power, it is about curtailing consumption. Saving the environment is more than using CFL bulbs, discarding plastic bags. And yet, it is not about bringing development to a halt, it is about adopting a new approach towards growth: sustainable development. One can’t lead a lifestyle that ravages the earth through the year, and then “observe” this day because you have been told to. “Observing” Earth Hour once a year is like going for the Maha Kumbh to wash away sins you have been committing for 14 years. Sorry, sins don’t wash that easily. Environmental transgressions don’t either.

The disconcerting fact here is that one hardly pays for environmental crimes in one’s own lifetime, it is the next generation which will. Not all of us are endowed with faculties to see the big picture; it is up to thought leaders to project them for us. Only then can we change our consumption-intensive lifestyles. This is where Earth Hour leaders have failed us. They have their own vision, but they have not taught us to change ours. But then, lifestyles are one thing, and policymaking quite another. The latter is the prerogative of politicians, and most don’t have a clue about environment in general and climate change in particular.

The result is the kind of intellectual bankruptcy that one sees in the election manifestos of political parties contesting in the ongoing Lok Sabha elections. If poll manifestos are to be accepted as vision documents, we are in for scary times ahead.

The manifestos are myopic; ample proof that parties have not learnt anything in the 20+ years after the Rio Summit. They haven’t read the latest report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change either.

That’s why their mentions about rivers and urban issues, for instance, are asides rather than being core elements that shape up visions. Willy-nilly they perpetuate the myth that development and environment are antagonistic to each other. This artificially-created conflict will continue till politicians and their policymakers understand that environmental concerns are nothing but a way of shaping developmental agendas.

Environmentalism is just the means towards sustainable development. We don’t expect political leaders of India to teach us this; but then the thought leaders behind Earth Hour have failed too. In the context, one doesn’t need to tell you where we are headed.