On 25th of January at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Greta Thunberg, the young and strong voice of the Environment Movement, sent an emergency alert across the world speaking in her powerful and steady voice, “I don’t want you to be hopeful. I want you to Panic. I want you to feel the fear I feel every day.” We live in a nuclear age under a reigning capitalist economy driven by monopolistic markets and consumption driven cultures. The cumulative effect of this is a deteriorating society. The work we, the budding and thriving generations of the twenty first century, have at hand is to build a sustainable future. The zoonotic virus that has been strangling the world by its death-grip has made the work at hand even more difficult, leaving us no option but to plunge straight away into activities that would save our environment from further deterioration. The pandemic induced lockdown had given some initial signs of recovery, yet data sources from the countries that have managed to reopen their economies tell us exactly what we feared would happen, that we are moving from bad to worse.
The covid age witnessed some direct positive changes in our environment mainly because of the lockdown that shoved the troublemakers into their cages. Human beings all over the world were forced to spend their days in their concrete caves, giving some uninterrupted time on the planet to the rest of the countless beings. Economic Times reported a 17% decrease in the global Carbon emissions during lockdown. We saw gaily swimming Dolphins in the busy marine route of Bosphorus in Istanbul, clearer water flowing through the Venetian Canals, wild boars on the streets of Haifa, a considerable reduction in the air pollution levels and similar positive news. At the same time an article published by Natasha Daly in National Geographic says how naively we bought similar fake animal pictures trending on social media.( Fake animal news abounds on s ocial media as coronavirus …). According to the article, this optimism wave was the result of our baseless hopes in the natural recovering power of the Universe along with almost an uncontrollable desire to go viral. This shows that our optimism was more or less in duced by a mirage of negligible amount of facts and a plethora of lies.
Once your vision gets cleared of the optimism-fog, you realize how the pandemic induced lifestyle has resulted in added burden on our surroundings. The pandemic induced lockdown led to a total abandoning of the recycling system, this includes the discontinuation of the institutional mechanisms as well as abandoning of the recycling and conservation culture. The unattended waste releases methane, a greenhouse gas. The use of single use plastic has soared up to an alarming level. We have been repeatedly educated about the horrible consequences of single use plastic, quite recently by the acclaimed BBC Broadcast ‘The Blue Planet’, yet we paid no heed to our pre-pandemic wisdom when it came to the use of single use plastic. The pandemic saw a paradigm shift, abandoning a slowly progressing conservation culture to short term priorities. The dramatic rise in the online delivery system has contributed to this swamp we are trapped in.
One of the most threatening impacts of the pandemic is an aspect most unattended to-the medical waste. Gloves, PPE Kits and Masks have become groceries we need for daily existence. These are made predominantly using materials like polyester, polystyrene, polyethylene, polycarbonate etc which are known to have high after life. Since we are miserably caught up in the struggle to control the pandemic, we conveniently turn a blind eye to long term consequences of these materials. It is true that you can’t control the pandemic without this equipment. At the same time, the widespread damage caused by these medical waste is a fact that is getting truer than ever. On the face it appears to be a catch-22 situation yet there are ways to get out of this vicious loop. From simple steps like buying the reusable masks to constructing medical waste plants should be put back on our priority list.
Our environment goals are usually placed in a list for good times. This trend would prove suicidal in no time. We are no longer living in a world where climate change could be debated. We have read and heard about how China has returned to its pre-pandemic pollution levels, how America has been pulled out from the Paris Agreement, how India has hastily circulated EIA 2020, and how Bolsonaro has blissfully let the Amazon die. We have seen similar trends during the 2008 Financial crunch. Yet we learned no lesson. The point however is to think about the precedence we set for our future generations and the planet we leave for them.
In a recent article that appeared in The Hindu on 9 November 2020, MP of Rajya Sabha and former Union Minister Jairam Ramesh opined about how ‘G’ in GDP in the post-covid world should stand for ‘Green’ instead of ‘Gross’.(COVID-19, climate and carbon neutrality – The H indu) He emphasised the need to have an agenda regarding carbon neutrality following the trend of Japan, South Korea, China, EU and others. He criticised our country for awfully lacking measures in this front. It seems 70% of the infrastructure that we need by 2050 to make a sustainable growth is waiting to be established. In February Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced a 4400 crore package to control the air pollution in 102 of the most polluted cities. The fund was planned accordingly to reduce the amount of particulate matter by 20-30% from 2017 levels by 2024 under the National Clean Air Programme (NCAP). The programme has already been called out for mismanagement. To begin with, this fund wouldn’t be enough for the goal it seeks to achieve. This being the case, only half the money has been allotted to 15 states so far.
In a world like ours with very limited resources for exploding populations in each country, a clean environment is also the base of inclusive growth. 2.2 Billion people do not have access to drinking water. Ironically they are asked to wash their hands regularly when they do not have enough to drink. Indira Gandhi’s often quoted Stockholm speech explains how poverty and need are the greatest polluters. CLIMATE CHANGE IS A REALITY. Acknowledging the problem is the first step to larger change. The novel coronavirus poses a cruel choice to the world: the society and economy.(Lessons from COVID-19 on reducing India’s environmental …). While we are struggling to recover from the pandemic, we should also make sure that sustainability is at the heart of this recovery. Sustainability is the element that will balance the lopsided equation between human species and the larger ecosystem. While it’s important to maintain the GDP growth, it’s also important to make sure that this growth has no adverse long term consequences. 600 crore was spent by the Ministry of Agriculture over two years to give subsidized equipment to farmers of Punjab and Haryana to dissuade them from stubble burning. Yet this year saw no difference in the number of farm fires. Hence it’s important to keep in mind the effective implementation of the policies. The prohibition on the sale and use of firecrackers during Diwali by the National Green Tribunal is a welcome measure. We are yet to see the level of accomplishment of this policy. We need to have quick and effective measures to make our environment fit for living, not just for ourselves, but for the countless generations that will follow. We have no time to waste. We are already knee deep in our graves, let’s not dig it further.
