Man's inner ignorance is global climate catastrophe || Acharya Prashant (2019)
Acharya Prashant: At the root of the climate catastrophe, lies man's tendency to consume. And man consumes in 3 clear and distinct ways. Man wants to consume the entire world. And the entire world consists of human beings, prākritik beings (natural beings), and man-made things. Whenever you will look around you, these are the 3 kinds of things you will find. Man consumes all 3, and consumption of all 3 leads to carbon emissions.
When you consume another human being, what do you get? – Kids! And that is the biggest cause of carbon emissions. When you consume man-made things, again, what do you emit? – Carbon. Because whatever is man-made, is made using energy, and energy comes from fossil fuels. So, whenever you are consuming something man-made, you are causing carbon emissions.
And the 3rd thing is the consumption of natural resources; whether you are eating vegetables, whether you are a vegan or not, or whether you are consuming meat. All of these are highly carbon-emitting. Even if you are vegan, you will eat grains at least? Where will the grains come from? They can only come by felling forests.
We need two things – fewer people and less consumption, and both of them together. You need a situation where there are not more than 2 or 3 billion people in the world. That has been scientifically calculated to be the sustainable limit. And currently, we are 8 billion. We need to reduce it to 2 or 3 billion, that's the first thing.
Secondly, these 2 or 3 billion people have to be spiritual so that they do not have a tendency to consume. Unless you are spiritual, you are bound to be living a consumption-centric life. The very urge for liberation, when it doesn't find an outlet, it 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 energy will flow in the direction of consumption.
Think of it, whenever you go emotional, you start releasing carbon dioxide, don't you? When you go emotional, you either drink and that is carbon, or you go and have a party and that is carbon.
Now you see why lack of spirituality is the biggest problem. Because, when you do not operate from a spiritual center, then you operate from an emotional center. These emotions are what is causing Climate Change. And I am really surprised that so many people who are highly emotional are into climate activism; when the entire problem is of emotions.
You are so emotional about that next foreign holiday, right? – that is carbon intensive. You are so emotional about having a good, nice nest of your own –that is carbon. You are so emotional about having two nice kids – that is emotion, and that is carbon. Emotion = Carbon (in a big way). And the solution to this emotional center is nothing but Spirituality.
