The Root of Climate Change: Man’s Unquenchable Thirst
Acharya Prashant: I am hungry, I am dissatisfied, I want to consume. And I do not know what it is that would appease me, make me happy, quench my thirst, so I will try out everything. Any guess is as good as any other guess; I cannot just spare anything. It’s a matter of deep inner unrest. I have to try out all possible ways.
So, man tries out all possible ways. Who is this man? This is the man who is coming from a mode of thinking that lays no emphasis on understanding oneself; it is much more concerned about the outer world. And, of course, when it is concerned about the outer world, there would be great progress in science and technology, in everything that can be seen outside.
So, this man is coming from that domain of thought. He will not look at the thing called the ego; he will not look at the self. It’s not very interesting, and it’s tedious. Why look at the self? Also, it is humiliating at times—especially if you are a philosopher! It is great to philosophize about this and that, but if you start philosophizing about yourself, it doesn’t turn out too good.
So, you want to think about money, masses, dialectics, nations, communities, modes of production, what not; you want to think about all these things. What is it that you want to strictly avoid? You want to avoid looking at yourself. Firstly, it is not very interesting to the uninitiated mind; secondly, it can turn out to be humiliating. You can have a lot of grandstanding when you point fingers at this and that, and say, “Hey, I know who you are, I know who you are!” There is no grandstanding when you look at yourself and say, “I don’t know who I am!”
So, it is a compulsion with this man who comes from that line of thinking to keep proceeding only outwards. And he finds these three categories outwards: there is man, there is man-made objects, and then there are the trees and the animals and the rivers and the mountains. What is he going to do with all these three categories? Can he spare any or either of the three? Why must he? He will try out everything, because he does not know anything. When you do not know anything, you have no option but to try out everything, obviously.
When you do not know where your redemption lies, you will knock at every door, and these are the doors that are available to the man who proceeds outwardly in order to make himself happy. If I am proceeding towards the world to make myself happy, these are the three domains I will encounter: I will encounter human beings; I will encounter animals, birds, rivers, trees; and I will encounter man-made objects, cars, buildings, clothes, gadgets. What will I do with all these? What option do I have? Do I have an option? I am hungry, I am unhappy, and I don’t know from where happiness would come. So, do I have an option? What am I going to do with all these three? I want to eat them up. That’s what man has been doing, not since the last two centuries, not since the mills came about—he has been doing this since he has been known to be conscious. That’s what he has been doing. He wants to eat up everything.
Now, what is the result, then? When man eats up man, the result is population. What else is population? The woman goes out and eats up the man—you have babies. The man goes out and wants to eat up as many women as possible—you have babies, right? So, from the drive to consume first of all come babies, when the object of consumption is a human being. The next object of consumption is man-made objects, because they too are available—“why must I spare them?” So, when man wants to consume man-made objects, the result is: he guzzles up fossil fuel. “Give me more diesel, give me more petrol”—where else would the energy come from? “I want buildings; I want to consume.” And whatever you want to consume has to be firstly manufactured. How will I ever manufacture it if I don’t have energy? And energy, from any of the sources as we currently know, is carbon-intensive. Even the so-called green energy has a strong carbon footprint when seen in totality.
So, when man consumes man-made objects, again the result is more consumption and more carbon. And then man says, “I will consume the natural world as well. Why should these folks roam about happy and untouched? Maybe they can make me happy! How about some beef? How about more corn? How about turning a great banyan tree into a bonsai? I want it in a little pot; I’ll keep it in my bedroom. How about developing a delectable waterfront by the side of a great river? I will go there and satisfy my senses.” And what is the waterfront all about? Tons and tons of cement. “I will consume everything.”
And if you will look at these three types of consumption, you will understand what climate change is in all its totality. Nothing drives climate change except these three: man consuming man—and when I say ‘man’ I mean mankind; it’s not a gender-specific thing. When I say man consuming man, that gives birth to unsustainable populations. When I say man consuming man-made objects, that is what is generally meant by the level of consumption. And when I say man consuming the natural world, that is what is meant by loss of biodiversity, excessive fishing, extinction of species and what not.
So, that’s the overall framework. You cannot look at any small part of it; you have to go to the very basis of it. The very basis of climate change is the constitution of man himself. It is not a specific activity of man that is leading to climate change. And do grill me on this. I just don’t want to go away untested. I want you to question me on this; I would love to have a clearer understanding. But this is my thesis so far.
The very constitution of man is such that he is bound to destroy everything. It’s just that sometimes he calls his destruction as construction. Real construction is something totally different; it does not come from that line of thought which prohibits man from looking at himself. Real construction or real creativity comes from another mind, which, due to the various vicissitudes of history, could never gain enough prominence or power to guide the course of history. That kind of mind has sometimes been found on the Orient, though it is fairly lost now.
So, man as he is, is climate change. So, climate change is not merely man-made; climate change is man’s compulsion. Man cannot help climate change; man is climate change. If you have this big a hole in your heart, what else will you do? You will use the entire universe to plug this hole. And if you find this planet Earth too little to fill up your hole, then you will proceed towards other planets. Of course, man is the only animal blessed with intellect, so you can do that. You can now go and colonize Mars, and you can say, “We have eaten away whatever there was to be eaten on the Earth; now it’s the turn of another planet. Gobble it up!”
Full article link: https://acharyaprashant.org/en/articles/the-climate-crisis-is-a-spiritual-crisis-interview-session-advait-bodhsthal-1_89aa7ba
