We are told that cleaner technology will solve the climate crisis. But emissions begin before any fuel is burnt, in a life that has no joy and so keeps reaching for the next lower pleasure: the party, the trip, the purchase. The demand for pleasure is not wrong. What matters is which pleasure we seek. Music, books, sport and real company cost the planet almost nothing. Can we look honestly at what our own consumption is trying to fill?
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[From a session on climate denialism, held beside a live demonstration: a block of ice standing for the Himalayan glaciers, slowly melting into a tank of water.]
Questioner: On the point that you were talking about, models are unreliable, found some interesting things. So out of 17 model projections published 1970 to 2007, 14 matched the warming that actually happened. Once actual emissions were accounted for, ExxonтАЩs own 1977 to 2003 projections were also accurate.
Acharya Prashant: Exactly right. Yes. Yes. The models have known it, modeled it fairly accurately. The knowledge is present and not disputable. Now it remains to the ego. The only solution is you have to ask yourself, must you find pleasure in the usual consumptive and emissive kind of desire? Or are there other ways of higher pleasure? Because pleasure you will need. The ego is a thing that is born suffering. Therefore, pleasure, the demand for pleasure is not unreasonable. ItтАЩs just that there is a lower pleasure and there is a higher pleasure that you can call as joy. Can there be joy in life? Because if there is joy in life, IтАЩll not need to burn fuel just to have some fleeting, momentary lower pleasure. Is higher pleasure possible? What if running gives you pleasure? What if? Please tell me. What if you are somebody who finds pleasure in running, singing, reading? We need to have a humanity that knows the tastes of higher pleasures.
