Your Role Models Are Destroying The Planet
Questioner: There is increasing evidence these days that people who are unhappy with their jobs tend to have a larger carbon footprint. I’ve been listening to you for over a year, and I’ve heard your videos on climate change, where you mentioned that spirituality is the only solution. I’ve also been reading books on climate change, one of which is Less is More, which discusses ‘de-growth’ as the solution. The book also mentions that dualism is the reason why we exploit nature and take it for granted. The solutions proposed include less animal exploitation and a smaller population. However, we also have influential leaders like Elon Musk, who support population growth without considering these factors.
So, my question to you is about de-growth and non-dualism. Whatever actions we take, we use natural resources, and they leave behind a carbon footprint. In that context, what does non-dualism mean? How can society embrace non-dualism when influential leaders oppose what science is telling us? And in this capitalistic world, what does de-growth really mean?
Acharya Prashant: What is duality in the first place? It is the feeling that there are two truths—this (pointing towards self) and the world. Both truths are incomplete and dependent on each other; that’s duality. The belief that there definitely exist two, and of the two, I am one and I am incomplete. How do I become complete? By feasting on the world, by exploiting it. That’s the reason the book you have read says that duality is one of the reasons behind climate change.
Climate change is nothing but a crisis of consumption. We are so terribly incomplete, hurt, and restless that we want happiness at any cost. And to get happiness, we exploit everything around us—we exploit our own bodies, the ones we are related to, and, of course, we exploit the animals, the birds, the trees, the forests, the rivers, the atmosphere; we exploit everything.
We are so crazy and deeply in pain. Think of a person who is both in agony and in illusion, suffering deeply and also crazy. What will he do? He will do anything to get rid of his pain, right? And that’s what mankind is doing. All kinds of unthinkable things so that we can somehow feel happy. Kill, eat, exploit, plunder, rape—do whatever it takes just to have a fleeting glimpse of happiness. And because it is fleeting, we have to do more and more of it to sustain even the semblance of being all right.
So, you said that anything we do has a footprint. See, climate change is not caused by all the little things you do, so you can relieve yourself of that guilt.
It’s not you and me who are responsible for climate change. If simply existing were to contribute to the climate crisis, then we would all be guilty, but that’s not the case.
There is a perfect balance that nature provides. You have agents that emit carbon and, equally, you have agents that absorb carbon. What are those agents known as? Trees and the oceans—they absorb these gases.
What’s happening is that we have crossed all limits by a long distance—280 ppm to 440 ppm and increasing at an accelerating rate. Who’s doing that? Not the common man, though there are vested interests trying to place the blame for climate change on the common man. No, the common man is not really responsible. The common man is responsible, but in another way, indirectly, which we will get to.
The richest ten percent of the world’s population is causing ninety percent of the carbon emissions. And if you bring that down to the richest one percent, it still accounts for about thirty to forty percent. It’s so skewed. The per capita emissions of an Indian are only a small fraction of those of an American or a Briton; it’s coming from there.
There is enough allowance for everybody to peacefully survive; what we do not have is the allowance to consume endlessly.
So, it’s not as if doing anything contributes to carbon emissions, no, not that way. And if it does, then there are things to take care of that—trees and other physical mechanisms, natural mechanisms. But when you are burning oil endlessly so that you can have physical comforts and all kinds of vanities, then there is obviously no solution. How do you take care of that?
Now, here comes the role of the common man. This has to be turned into an electoral issue. You have to elect governments that are prepared to tax vulgar consumption. You have to have governments that are prepared to tax the ultra-rich. You cannot let them go scot-free with all the damage they are causing to the environment and to the planet itself. We were talking about the sixth mass extinction, and that sixth mass extinction is not being brought about by the lower middle-income countries and the middle-income countries; that is being brought about by the first world, the developed world. They are the culprits, and they will have to bear the burden.
And even in countries like India, if the per capita emissions are rising, the responsibility lies only with a handful of people compared to our population. They are the ones who have to be singled out and taxed. It is a very clever ploy to make the common man feel responsible. So, what does the common man start doing to alleviate his guilt? He says, “Fine, I am recycling, I am not using plastic that much now. Or I am turning organic, or I am reducing my electricity consumption by fifteen percent.”
The question is, “Dear, how much electricity does the common man anyway consume?” It’s not the common man who is causing all this, I will tell you who is causing this. Your role models are causing all this. The influential fellow you referred to is causing all this, and it’s a great tragedy when the ones who are influential are neither intellectual nor spiritual. Think of it. A brain-dead fellow is so influential just because he has so much money. And you can have a lot of money without being intellectual at all; it is possible, it is happening.
Your role models are very unworthy people, and they are role models exactly because you find them consuming a lot, and you all aspire to consume that much, so they become your role models. You say, “Wow.” Somebody asked a famous soccer player, and he says, “I have twenty cars, all luxury ones.” And that simply charms you so much, wins you over—twenty cars, five Rolls Royces! He does not even want to own a cheap thing like Mercedes. Not one, but multiple private planes. Super expensive yachts, yachts to take care of yachts.
And that’s what we all aspire for. Why? That brings us to the point we started from—our dualistic philosophy of life.
We all have been taught wrongly, we have been trained wrongly. Life education, we have been deprived of. So, all that you want through all that you do is consumption.
What do you live for?—Consumption. How do you know a fellow is doing well in life? He’s able to consume a lot.
When consumption is the ideal, climate change is the result.
And all these role models—people you follow, the ones who have fifty million on Instagram and places—what are they displaying to you except their ability to consume? Either they display their own ability to consume, or they present themselves in certain cases as stuff to be consumed. For example, a voluptuous female model—why does she command that kind of a following? She is saying, “I am available to be consumed, at least optically. Consume me.” Or you will follow a billionaire, a millionaire, or somebody.
We have been taught the wrong purpose of life, and the results are catastrophic. We do not know why we exist, and climate change, therefore, is a result of a totally wrong kind of education, the wrong fundamental philosophy of life.
Is all this coming together and making sense, or is it appearing too scattered? Do you see how it is all integrated? Do you see how the one you follow on Instagram and the rising ppm levels are directly correlated? Do you see all these things? In general, they will appear as different issues, not related, but they are very much related.
The very concept of a good life is a carbon-intensive one; the very concept of happiness is carbon-intensive.
When you become richer, you typically become a meat eater. Do you know how much animal agriculture contributes to climate change? Just as much as fossil fuels do.
Everything that makes you happy is actually something that is destroying the Earth.
The saving grace is, as Indians—as middle-class Indians—you still are not in a position to consume too much. Therefore, you are still not directly responsible for destroying the Earth.
But there is an indirect culpability, which is that you are following and admiring the ones who are, in fact, destroying the Earth. And if you keep following them, you will become like them; that’s the whole purpose of being an admirer, right?—“I want to be like him.” You want to be a murderer? You want to be like someone responsible for genocide? You want to be like someone responsible for wiping out hundreds of species of organisms per day?
It’s a sad commentary on our times that people who should be behind bars are actually helming top positions in industry, in government, everywhere. Choose your role models very carefully. It’s got something to do with love.
Be very careful about the ones who appeal to you. Don’t be just driven to anything that appears attractive. We do not know whether much can be done to save the planet. Probably, we all are inexorably on our way to extinction. But still, you have a life to live; be very careful. Most people we follow, we admire, we respect, are terribly unworthy. Don’t fall for the gloss.
Even if you find you are being left alone, that aloneness has a dignity. Learn to enjoy that dignity.
