Acharya Prashant: The very urge for liberation, when it doesn’t find an outlet, becomes the urge to consume. Do you see this? Where does the tendency to consume so much come from? It comes from the misidentified and thwarted urge toward liberation. If you will not provide liberation to a man, his energies will flow in the direction of consumption.
So, these are the two things that we require: one, less population; secondly, the population that remains must be highly spiritual in its outlook. Only then can you avoid climate catastrophe. All this tamasha that is happening on the streets will not help; instead, it is making people feel good about themselves.
I look at these climate warriors, young men, and young women, some of them were fighting the police recently in Bombay, and I thought to myself, will these young people refuse to have a kid? No, that they won’t. Here, for a tree, they are prepared to lay down their lives—and I respect that sentiment, seriously I respect that—but then I want to question the efficacy of that.
You don’t want these two thousand seven hundred trees to be cut down, but then if you get one child, that is the equivalent of cutting down a lakh trees. Bringing one child into the world is the equivalent of cutting down lakh trees—maybe more; just do the maths. But you show so much of sentiment when a tree is hacked down, and you show no sentiment when you see family after family procreating; you in fact send them congratulatory messages: “Wow! Nice, didi! Good that you have your second or third kid now!” Returning from a climate demonstration, what does this young girl do? She calls up her didi and says, “So, didi, was the delivery fine?” What nonsense is this?
