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?
