Climate Action: Why Governments Keep Resisting
Questioner: Sir, recently you got the award for the most impactful environmentalist, and I've been following you on the issues of climate crisis and environmental activism. You also wrote a column in The Pioneer about “Greenwashing.” So, with regards to that, I was wondering: is the climate crisis discourse shifted, emphasizing more on individual responsibilities, that I should be vegan, I should recycle, and it is my responsibility to help the climate?
And in your book, you talk about this inner disease. You talk about, “Man's hunger not in the stomach. It resides in the mind. That hunger — blind, restless, insatiable — has destroyed everything it could touch. Climate change is only the latest, the most devastating, and perhaps the final symptom of this inner disease.”
This inner disease has also been manifested in industries. You see, they have their own negligence, recklessness, and you talk about “Operation 2030,” which is just five years away. So, do you think we should focus more on policy change rather than individualistic actions? That's my question, sir.
Acharya Prashant: Yeah, but who will change the policy?
Questioner: We focus on ourselves within, right? This disease is also in the ministers, the MLAs.
Acharya Prashant: Yeah, I get it. But who will change the policy? Just come to that.
Questioner: They will change. Right?
Acharya Prashant: And who elects them? So, it's about individual responsibility.
Questioner: We can vote out for that. But you see, in the manifestos, rarely any politician talks about climate change.
Acharya Prashant: You allowed them to get away with manifestos bereft of any mention of the climate. That's your individual flaw, is it not? How can you act on behalf of the other when you say individual action? Right? The word "individual" is redundant because action has to be individual. Even if you get together in a group, you get together as individuals with individual consent. So all action, if you see closely, is going to be anyway individual. Even if you say 8,000 people came together to sign this document or in a protest march, aren't all of them acting as individuals, first of all?
If they aren't individuals, then they are robos, they are conditioned machines. I have my individual understanding, right? And if I see it is aligned with that of the six of you, then we say fine, the seven of us are together in something. But we have to be together in something that all of us, each of us, first of all individually agree to.
So the individual has to be targeted, the individual has to be awakened.
Questioner: And as students, what can we do for that systemic change?
Acharya Prashant: Awaken the individuals, obviously. What else? There is no option. If you think you can do it at the policy level, that sounds very tempting but means nothing because you are trying to defy the very law of existence. You are saying the minister will do it. Why will the minister do it? The minister is there because he has been voted to power by those who want no climate action. He will carry out their mandate. Why will he listen to you? At most, he'll pay some lip service. He'll say, “Yes, yes. We must do something about the climate. Fine, fine.” And nothing else.
Questioner: Yes, sir.
Questioner: So what if I voted for a political leader that was advocating for climate change, but because of democracy, the party which does not really care about climate change came into power. Then his question really makes sense because, on the individual level, what do I do?
Acharya Prashant: Democracy rotates the party in power. Again, you'll have to awaken the individual so that the one in power listens to you.
Questioner: Yes, but like…
Acharya Prashant: That's a big ask. You want to smile at it, right? It's a big ask. Impractical. It's a big ask, and that's what is asked of you. Now pick up the gauntlet. If you just rely on a messiah, on some great savior who will do it for you sitting in power, that's never, never, never going to happen.
The ones in power have the least interest in any climate action because they are the ones with the minimum stakes there. What does an old minister stand to lose?
He would anyway be dead ten years from here. And most politicians across the world are old people. The most powerful one is probably also the oldest president ever. Think of him. The one who is trying to kill the entire climate discourse. He's a very, very old man. And that's part of the explanation. He has no future. And great selfishness doesn't allow you to care for even the interest of your own kids. You say, I would be dead and long gone. When the climate effects intensify, I'll anyway be no longer here. So why should I worry?
Or I am a rich man. I'm a very rich man. The temperature rises. I simply have to reset my AC. The whole space gets flooded. I have another mansion to fly away to. Great populations are displaced, billions of them. I won't be displaced. There would be great economic loss. Why do I care? I'm a billionaire already.
So if you expect those people to act on their own, this is just wishful thinking.
Questioner: Sir, but if a minister comes up and does provide good policies, many a times the audience, the voters, will pull him down because he won't be providing freebies and such things.
Acharya Prashant: Exactly. You see this. So if the audience is not awakened, even if there is a great messiah, he'll be pulled down.
Let's say a freak of nature, some individual rises like an avatar and enters politics and manages to occupy a top post. Will the electorate allow him to function? If the electorate is not awakened, he'll be impeached, dismissed and brought down.
We say we want honest politicians. If you do get an honest politician, will you allow him to function? Please tell me.
Questioner: So a similar thing happened. My chacha is a pradhan in my village. In our lane, the roads were not very good, so he tried to make the roads. Now someone made a complaint that if you make the road, then we'll have to heighten our floor because in the rainy season water will fall inside their homes.
Acharya Prashant: These are the petty things that are bringing about a giant catastrophe. We all care for our little, little, little things, and it is the aggregation of these petty things that are resulting in this massive — massive is an understatement. This is the sixth mass extinction.
