Environmental Friendliness in Germany

The awareness of enviornmental issues is pretty high in Germany. Compared to most developed countries the environmental movement is strong here. Some of the things to notice immediately are:

• Separation of waste into 3 categories: Bio, recyclable and others
• Extra charge for usage of plastic bags in supermarkets and encouraging people to reuse
• High cost of petrol/diesel
• Bicycle friendly streets
• Excellent public transport system
• Various environmental activities like protecting forests, plantations, etc. Opposition to 3rd runway in Munich is a significant movement
• Existence of Bio-products

When one travels through Germany, it is impressive to see that there is almost no visible air pollution and most cities are extremely green.

Does this mean Germany is environmentally friendly? Sadly, the answer is no when one observes the life-style and the society closely. Among the developed nations, probably, Germany might be better off w.r.t. environmental awareness. However when it comes to practice the country is way behind. Here are some of the reasons:

Air pollution: It is true that visible air pollution is almost nil in Germany. This is not due to any technological breakthrough. It has happened mainly by shifting out all the polluting industries to the so-called third world countries and importing finished goods.

Greenery: Germany is a pretty green country through the year except during winter. However much of this is artificially maintained. In fact home and garden plants looks to be a billion Euro industry here. There is very little support available for indigenous growth and maintenance of plants and trees. Much of the emphasis is on the commercial aspect of buying and selling exotic plants.

Animals: It is shocking to see absence of animals in all the greenery visible in Germany. Cold weather is probably a partial reason for seeing less animals here compared to tropical regions. However a bigger reason is the attitude of people in general towards animals. Animals, unlike plants, like to be free. However people in general want animals to be under their control. This desire for control has lead to elimination of most of the carnivores. That leaves only herbivores. Due to absence of their respective predators, the herbivores have the ability to rapidly increase in numbers and cause wide spread destruction of vegetation. This requires again human and technological effort to keep this under-check!

Why don't people let the respective predators survive? Animals in general flourish best when they are least disturbed. Which means gardens, forests, mountains, lakes and rivers need to have less disturbance from humans to enable the animals to thrive. In cases where animals are closer to human dwellings they require compassion and an attitude of "live and let live" principle. In an industrialized society human interference with nature is strongest and absence of compassion is stark. This has lead to wiping out many of the animal species here.

Recycling: Recycling of products and packaging material is almost a myth. It is true that a small percentage of these materials do get recycled. However majority of the materials are either buried in some remote place or exported to some "poor" country, from where no one wants to hear any more news of the same.

Supermarkets and Superstores: Almost all end user purchases happen in supermarkets and super stores. It is interesting to see that most products sold in germany will just have a German address and may or may not contain the information on the country of origin. Majority of these products would have travelled thousands of kilometers before reaching the supermarket shelves. How on earth can a supermarket be environmentally friendly?

Bio-products: Bio products are a niche. It is possible that these products are grown and produced in the most enviornmentally friendly ways. However as long as they are priced higher they cannot replace the non-bio, environmentally harmful products!

Public transportation: Existence of good publich transportation is a big thing here. However as long as they are more expensive than travelling by car most people would prefer cars. As long as the government promotes car industry and as long as the car industry pumps millions of Euro in promotion of the same how can the lure of the car decrease. Public transportation will remain a nice-to-have back-up solution for the majority of the population.

In summary some of the key things required to put Germany on the path of enviornmentally friendly nations are:

• Introduce enviornment related topics early on in the schools
• Spread awareness on the dangers of widespread usage of technology
• Promote business models and lifestyles that cause less burden to the environment
• Protect natural habitats from human activities
• Encourage human activities which are in harmony with Nature
• Ban imports of any item from anywhere in the world that is produced or hunted in an unsustainable manner
• Export and import Knowledge and not machinery and industries:
• Stop pumping money into the so-called third-world countries in the form of "Aid" and instead spread education on enviornment and encourage local sustainable life-styles
• Make the reports on environmental damages caused by modern machinery and industry easily available to any country receiving the German technology.

Let the world remember Germany for its Environmental leadership! Let Germany become synonymous with Peace and Non-violence in the broadest sense.

Economic activity and Environmental Protection: two faces of the same coin

Economic activity has a direct impact on the environment. The more the economic activity the greater is the impact. Faster, a nation's GDP grows, faster is the degradation of the forests, wild animals, rivers, seas, climate and of course, traditional communities and societies. From the tme Europe, Australia, US and Japan started on the path of tremendous economic progress much of the natural habitats started vanishing in these countries. Whatever little is remaining is maintained with tremendous efforts. Same thing can be said about China and India. The economic growth of these countries are being achieved at a huge cost to the environment.

In today's world, higher standard of living is typically associated with material possession and consumption. What every individual purchases, consumes, uses and disposes is a function of affordability. The cost of a product ultimately decides what people buy and get used to. Similarly the number of things that people buy is a function of how much money they possess. As this pattern of material possession and enjoyment has a direct impact to the enviornment, environmental protection cannot happen without relooking at the underlying economics that dictates most of our daily life activities.

One cannot drive in a big expensive car everyday and work for environmental protection. How is the car manufactured? How much energy was spent for its manufacturing and how much is being spent for its usage? How much of natural habitats have been sacrificed for oil wells, transportation, factories, showrooms, roads and parking areas meant for the cars? How much does a car cost? How was the money for buying the car generated? How much enviornmental impact is associated with earning this money?

Car is just an example and probably the one that spikes out among others. Similar questions can be asked about every product that is used.

There are a lot of environmental movements towards conservation of forests and animals. There are a lot of voices being raised against global warming, melting of polar ice caps, pollution, etc. However why is it that the environmental degradation continues to worsen?

There are also many movements for promotion of environmentally friendly products. "Bio" products are a big fashion. However why is it that they have not become main stream products and occupy a niche in the society?

It boils down to underlying economics. Majority of the people buy and adopt things that are relatively cheaper among the available options. "Bio" products are expensive and hence they cannot become mainstream. Living an enviornmentally friendly life is more "expensive" than the norm in a developed society and hence it cannot become mainstream!

Thus environmental protection and economic policies have to go hand-in-hand in order to see any visible impact. As long as economic policies are dictated by only money and profits, it is unlikely that anything significant can change w.r.t. environment.

What is Violent about Industrial Societies?

Most of the industrial societies have a high value of human development index. Human development index as defined by United nations includes parameters like availability of education and career opportunities, healthy environment, justice to all and typically high standard of living. Such being the case, what can be wrong? Shouldn't every society emulate an industrial one? Doesn't industrial development foster peace and prosperity? Isn't it paradoxical to say that such a society promotoes violence?

Human development index, when separated from standard of living is probably an excellent measure of how advanced a society is. Equal opportunities for education and career development, justice for all and such other purely humanitarian parameters are in fact peace-inducing ones. Every country and every community needs to strive to improve these factors. The questionable part is "standard of living".

High standard of living is typically defined in a western measure of scale. This scale is set by modern economic theory and is purely from a material posession and comfort point of view. In this system, a family living a content and healthy life in some remote corner of Africa or India, with no money will be considered to be extremely poor, compared to a taxi driver in New York City, who is an immigrant and has no immediate family! In this scale, a country with rich Bio-diversity and not much of industries is considered backward and third world compared to a country with many factories, high trade and no natural habitats!

High standard of living, associated with material wealth and human-centric comfort comes from a huge cost to Nature. It requires high energy and natural resources for its sustenance. Where do these things come from? Without unleashing devastating destruction on nature, there is no technology that is existent today, that can generate the required energy and can acquire and transform the natural resources to maintain high standard of living.

As long as the flow of energy and natural resources are uninterrupted, everything seems to be peaceful. In such a case violence will be hidden. In most cases the violence happens so remotely that the population enjoying high standard of living could be completely unaware.

Energy that we use results in Carbon-compunds as output which gets into nature at a rate faster than natural cycle. Result, as we know today, is global warming. Global warming is not just about increasing temperature. It is about drastic changes in climate across the globe resulting in widespread damage to nature. Isn't that violent?

Industrialization has no regard for forests and wild animals? Forest cover is decreasing at an alarming rate world over. Animal species are going extinct. Isn't that violent?

Fish and other sea food are being used up at an unsustainable pace. Not only the number of fish is decreasing but also species are going extinct in sea. Sea life and river life are devastated by increased consumption of fish and other water-animals, oil spils, chemical dumps and by propellers of speed boats and large cargo and luxury liners. Isn't that violent?

In cases where certain nations or groups cause an interruption to the supply chain of the industrial society for whatever reasons, vaid or invalid, the nation or the group could be termed as terrorist and could be devasted by war. Couldn't that be the case with Afghanistan and Iraq? Isn't that violent?

Who sells guns to the thugs and the militants across the world and equip them with means for violence? Isn't selling of guns for such purposes violent?

Much of the pollution in advanced societies has decreased in the last few decades. Isn't that a miracle of science and technology, that while the pollution decreased the standard of living increased? Shouldn't humanity bask in this glorious achievement? However what happened in reality? Much of the polluting industries were shifted to the so-called "third world" countries. There has been no miracle in science and engineering that has happened to eliminate pollution. Even there is no sensible way to recycle or even safely dispose much of the products of today's industries. Most of these toxic wastes are dumped in "poor" countries. Isn't that a violent policy?

Above all, industrialization is seemingly leading the whole humanity and the entire bio-sphere to a dead-end? Isn't that violent?

Traditional Indian Values for the Environmental Debate

Developed countries are typically defined as those countries which have been considered as extremely succesful in industrialization and have adopted and practised the principles of modern economic theory very well. How are the developed countries measured? Some of the conventional yard sticks are high level of industrialization, very high and growing GNP (Gross National Profit), high level of automation, high standard of living and so on and so on. While a lot of positive aspects can be associated to the success of industrialized nations one can quickly realize that not everything is rosy here.

Let us look at industrialization in the light of environmental context. Main characteristics of highly developed nations would then be:

1. High level of energy consumption
2. High level of contribution to global warming
3. High degradation of natural beauty and natural habitats
4. High consumpion of natural resources
5. High generation of non-recyclable waste, including highly toxic ones
6. Accelerated rate of species extinction
7. Intolerance of eco-diversity

The awareness on the ill-effects of industrial societies is quite widespread among many people in the developed countries, especially in recent years. Surprisingly everyone continues life-as-usual due to two reasons: either there is a high belief in science and technology or people don't know how to make alternate choices or both. A lot of people strongly believe that science and technlogy will "magically" solve the problems associated with industrialization. Majority people also feel helpless since they cannot see any alternatives. Most people are waiting for leaders and experts to show the way forward. However we have not seen or heard alternatives. Few people have raised their voices but they are not being heard.

Let us take up the issue of energy crisis. There is a strong hope that scientists and engineers will "soon" find excellent sources of green energies. Some of the green energies talked about are solar, wind, tidal and bio-gas. However what most people overlook is the fact that to harness these altrenate energy sources one needs enormous tracts of water, wind and land in order to meet the world's present requirements. Where will this land and water be available? What other effects can these in turn cause? How can high consumption of even green energies reverse global warming?

When looked closely, there are more changes happening in industrial societies which can all be linked up as contributors to impending environmental disasters. What is happening to family system? What is happening to marriages and communities? Why are people living as "partners" for years together and not marrying? What do people strive for in their lives? Why are people spending so much money, which in turn is proportional to consumption of energy and natural resources? Why do people produce, buy, use and throw so many things, everyday?

The simple answer seems to be selfishness! In the name of individual freedom and enjoyment, selfishness is glorified! Individualistic lifestyle is what is encouraged and fostered. Whatever is done to earn a lot of money is considered to be good and others as useless.

Let me start with marriage. Why don't people want to get married? When youngsters have the freedom to satisfy their sexual desires without any restrictions and commitments, why would anybody want to get into the complications of marriage, commitment and so on. In fact staying unmarried gives the freedom to walk away from the partner at any given instant in the name of indivual freedom and find another partner and continue the enjoyment. Hence why marry?

Most developed nations also have strong social security structures. An individual is no longer dependent on family structure for almost anything. Even when an individual retires there is sufficient funding and support structure to enable the individual to continue to lead the individualistic life unto the death. Of course, once a person retires, the society usually looks at him/her as a burden since the present working generation have to feed and provide for the "senior citizens". Even if a person at that age yearns for a family there is none available since the family structure is already eroded.

From an economic and industry point of view, people living as singles or as partners is much better than as families since they consume more and hence contribute more to the economic growth. Each person needs a car, a big house, each house filled to the brim with gadgets, most gadgets needing to be replaced once in a while, and so on and so forth. Hence the individualistic lifestyle is in strong harmony with economic growth and hence it is strongly supported!

Consider the opposite situation where family system is stronger. In those cases typically husband and wife have to stay committed, children stay with parents until they are married and usually grandparents inside the family. They just need one house with one unit each of most gadgets and since family structure provides sufficient chores to be busy with general level of consumption comes down. This is seen as restriction of individual freedom and of course, above all, not suitable for economic growth. Hence why should family system be encouraged?

Let us look at the utter disregard for the environment. None of the classical scientific knowledge, especially maths and physics, require that we need to have any regard for the environment. The beginning of this attitude can be seen in Rennaissance period. The attitude is glorified in the statement, "I think Therefore I am". This statement shows the arrogance of superiority of human rational mind and undermines everything that is supposedly not rational. As long as humans thrive and have a way to keep the nature "under control" it is seen as progress! Hence it doesn't matter if vast tracts of forests are destroyed, wild animals are slaughtered, non-industrialized societies are eliminated mercilessly, as long as the people in industrial societies lead comfortable lives, enjoy all aspects of life, get to travel to all corners of the world and are peaceful among each other!

Sadly, the supposedly great successes of industrialization have made us all blind believers in this system to continue to eternity whereas most environmental scientists are predicting almost no-future very soon.

Aren't there alternatives? Of course there are. In this connection I would like to pick the traditional Indian society and show how exemplary that is in connection with the environmental debate.

Traditional Indian society is family centric. Families have such a strong root and base that the bonds are held strong even when the family members travel far and wide. People cling on to each other as if there is a magical force, which is not tied to money or any other force that physics has discovered so far! Family system builds a sense of community and doesn't encourage and foster individualism. Each individual is expected to make small sacrifices for the bigger family and this sacrifice is glorified. This attitude of glorifying selflessness can be seen in what most people consider as heroes and leaders or even gods in India. Whether it is Lord Rama or Gandhi or Buddha or Abdul Kalam; typically it is the people who have made biggest sacrifices, who are heroes than those who demonstrated ruthless courage and intelligence.

Second strong aspect of Indian society is the attitude towards environment in general and animals in particular. Everything that is surrounding man is considered to be an aspect of God. It is also strongly believed that every object in the universe has the ability to invoke God. This builds up strong reverence towards nature and people offer prayers to earth, river, wind, fire, forests, trees, wild animals, domestic animals and so on. Every peice of creation on earth has a purpose and we don't have to know exactly what the purpose is. It is sufficient to allow each object to function on its own and discharge its duty in this grand scheme of universe, which itself is considered as embodiment of God. Much of the western society ridiculed this attitude as "superstition". However this superstition is a life-sustaining one compared to the superstition on science and technology.

Third aspect is the principle of Non-violence. This is a unique concept that has been preached and practised to various degrees throughout the ages in India. Of course, Gandhi, demonstrated it to the world in an extremely emphatic manner. Even today, in the age of communal riots, terrorism and rising crime rates in India, non-violence is what appeals to the majority of Indians compared to violence. Typically violence is perpetrated by money-minded people, who find financial gains in fostering such acts. However quickly the Indian majority asserts its belief in non-violence and helps in peace taking over violence.

Non-violence is not limited towards people alone. It extends to animals as well. One of the unique concepts of extreme non-violence is a strict vegetarian diet. While for many people in the west it is fashionable to be vegetarian, for millions in India it is a natural way of living. Even if we look at the so-called non-vegetarians in India, one has to define them as "Indian non-vegetarian" since the choice of non-vegetarian food is limited to chicken, lamb, goat and easily available fish. Eating anything else is considered to be bad or sinful! It is this attitude that has saved all the animals in the Indian wildnerness and also amusingly animals in Indian cities and towns!

Fourth aspect and also the biggest aspect is the attitude towards life which is seen as composed of 4 stages or shelters. The childhood and the youth (Brahmacharya), The Married (Grihasta), The Retired (Vanaprasta) and The Renunciated (Sanyasa). A person discharging his duties well in each of these four stages is considered to have fulfilled his life's tasks well and is believed to be rewarded in his future lives. One might debate and argue about the ethical and rational aspects of this approach. However one just cannot refute the fact that it gives a solid purpose for life and helps the man and woman to get strongly rooted in the community. Having such an ethereal purpose makes one feel the satisfaction and sense of natural accomplishment. Contrast this to a person in the industrialized society, where the purpose of life is to acquire and enjoy material life at all costs. It is only very late that one would realize the futility of such a search for material enjoyment and happiness. Only thing that is guaranteed to have happened in such a journey is wide-spread damage to the environment. Of course, the aspect of live-in relationship doesn't exist at all in traditional Indian society!

Fifth aspect of India that is, of late, slowly recognised is the multi-religious, multi-cultural fabric of Indian society. It is an extremely complex societal fabric. However the beauty of it is that it works and has stood the test of time. It is a demonstration to the world on the importance of diversity and how it is not just theory but it is in everyday practise. There are hardly cities or villages in the countries outside India that can boost the common situation of temples, churches, mosques, etc. located on a single street, common to most Indian cities and towns and the major population feeling and celebrating festivals belonging to different faiths and religions. Although one can point out communal riots and the underlying societal tensions, at the same time, one can point out the way it works succesfully across the length and breadth of the country. Statistically the successes override the failures of this multi-religious country.

Sadly the self-realization of the potencity of traditional values in India is fast eroding especially among the educated and the rich Indians. What could be the reason? Maybe, it has much to do with Indian education system. Indian education system was started by the British and was continued by mostly copying things from Europe and the US. Through out British rule and later much of the educated class has grown up with great admiration for the western systems or to be more precise to the industrialized institutions and neglected or overlooked core Indian values. It is the villages, small towns and the vast masses of poor and "uneducated" Indians who have clinged on to the value system almost ignorantly!

Isn't there a strong and urgent case for restoration of a sense of high value for these traditional values and integrate these into the general enviornmental debate across the world. Doesn't it provide a non-violent answer to the climate and the energy crisis?

How can we slow down?

It is clear that in order to adopt an eco-friendly life-style and build environmentally sustainable societies, we need to slow down. Slow down implies reducing the rate of consumption of natural resources. I will discuss some of the aspects methods of slowing down.

Main focus is to move away from consumption. There is an urgent and immediate need to reduce consumption. We need to look for ways to enjoy life without consuming a lot of energy or wasting a lot of materials. How do we start on this journey?

First and fore-most, we need to buy only the abolute minimum things in life. Never should we spend a dollar or an Euro more for something that we can live without. When we buy less things we do use less things. This reduces our energy consumption during usage. In turn it leads to producing less number of things and thus reducing the overall stress on the environment.

Some of the most difficult concepts that one needs to come to terms with, especially in the western world, are the following: that we don't have to buy everything possible and possess them as personal belongings and that we don't have to visit all possible destinations on planet earth or that do and enjoy all possible things.

Al Gore illustrates the following point in his film, "An Inconvenient Truth" very beautifully.

Old Habits + Old Technology = Predictable Consequences

Old Habits + New technology = Completely Altered Consequences

The scientific and engineering knowledge that we have gained so far coupled with the technologies available today only needs to be used with a lot of maturity. It calls for a lot of self-restraint. As Al Gore illustrates we see such a restraint with the use of Nuclear weapons. The reason being that the damage is immense and immediate. We have already seen the damage and learnt albeit after just a single use! On the other hand much of the adverse impact of much of the "fruits of modern technology" is invisible and is spread across time and space. The cause and effect are not obvious and immediate. For example the melting of the Glaciers near the north pole might lead to wide spread draught in Africa after several months or years.

Another key aspect to examine is to go into the root causes as to why we are constantly looking at ways to automate things and eliminate physical work from our dialy living. With increased automation we spend more and more energy to run these machines. Then we end up enrolling in a fitness program to "spend" our body calories. In spite of that the energy that we consume in the form of food doesn't get utilized fully and in most cases leads to obesity and other problems.!!

Why are we so hesitant to do physical work in our dialy routine? Let us take the simple case of house hold chores. like cooking, washing clothes, watering plants, cleaning, decorating, etc. Instead of doing these manually we take pride in using washing machines, dish washers, kitchen makers, vaccuum cleaners and so on. Each of these equipments consume a lot of energy. In majority of cases they also consume excessive water, chemical agents and so on. Thus we consume energy, water and put out a whole lot of chemicals which cause damage to the natural habitat around us. Why do we adore, foster and admire this lifestyle so much?

Using automated equipment comes with its tag of being chik, fashionable and progressive. Not using them is ancient and out-dated. Everyone wants to be modern and no one wants to become ancient!

A bigger reason is our money-centered culture. Household work doesn't generate any "income". These activities, therefore, have no regard in the modern world. The modern economic theory only looks at them as "necessary evils" or at best as "over-heads". On the other hand this economic policy glorifies the lifestyle based on consumerism and calls it progress. How rational is this approach?

Irrespective of what the economic theorists says, for the sake of the environment, for the sake of other living beings on earth and above all for the sake of humanity's future we are required to slow down!

Why should we slow down?

In this article I would like to appeal for a slow down of "consumption" in order to lessen the damage to the environment and sustain the ecology. I would like to define consumption as the rate at which non-recyclable materials and resources, or to be more precise, materials which cannot be easily replenished in nature, are utilized to staisfy people's needs.

Firstly, one might argue as to why we should reduce consumption since we are having more and more products in the market with the "Recycling" symbol on it. What we need to consider is the fact that the products which are marketed as "Recyclable" truly never meet that intent. Let me illustrate what is meant by this by taking as simple a product as paper used for printing. To get a glossy, white paper a whole lot of chemicals are added to the paper. Over this, one uses exotic printing chemicals to print all that the paper is intended to communicate to the reader. At the end of it all the paper material is so much "polluted" with all sorts of chemicals which cannot be seperated out. At least presently we don't have techniques to get back the original pure wood pulp from nature and return it to the environment. What is done in most cases is to use this paper after some processing steps to make a low quality recycled paper. Of course, this new "recycled" paper in most cases can be used again only making something of much lower quality. As per William McDonough and Michael Braungart, authors of the book, "Cradle to Cradle" argue that majority of the so-called materials which are used today are at best "down-cycled" and never "re-cycled".

Secondly, one might argue that there is nothing much to fear about non-recyclable materials or resources because soon our scientists and engineers will do "break-through" research and provide us with new materials and energy sources that help us to continue in a normal way. This is the point I would like to analyze further.

Let us look around us and assess the rate at which we are consuming natural resources. There are a large number of indices that point out to exponentially increasing patterns of consumption. Crude oil, overall energy consumption, metals and minerals, water and so on and so on. Other indices for exponential growth patterns are population, carbon-dioxide (CO2) levels in the atmosphere, global temperature, depletion of ice-shelves near the poles, elimination of species, reduction of forest areas, waste generation, etc. All of these are on an exponential trajectory. To quote M. King Hubbert, who studied these patterns and gave a mathematical structure to this, says, "Our prinicipal constraints are cultural. During the last two centuries we have known nothing but exponential growth and in parallel we have evolved what amounts to an exponential growth culture, a culture so heavily dependent upon the continuance growth for its stability that it is incapable of reckoning with problems of non-growth." How powerfully it has been articulated!

The question is how can these growth patterns be sustained when the source of the natural resources are finite on earth? At leats it wuld call for creating multi-ple earth like planets to live this lifestyle! There are a large number of elitist thinkers and majority of the leaders in politics and financial circles who exuberate the hope that science and technology will rapidly develop to solve the problem of "shortage" of resources. They are very hopeful that "very soon" we will have a range of eco-friendly products and infinetly sustainable energy sources and therefore there is no need to panic. These technologies are christened as "green technolgies". Life as usual is thus justified in these people's arguments since we will have green technologies in the coming years. Is it really so?

The point to closely examine is how soon can the green technologies be developed? How soon will these green technologies be put to wide-spread use? The key point is will these be developed and adopted "in-time" and before it is too late.

One analogy to draw at this stage is to compare this to playing a computer game. Let us assume that we are playing a game against the computer. As we do well at a certain level typically the game takes us to the next level, w.r.t. difficulty. At each successive level we are required to play with increased resources, in this case our reflex time, analysis, time, speed of reaction, etc. At each higher level our body needs to put in much higher effort to paly the game. Typically in a computer game either the player wins the final level, since our computers are limited in their capability or the player loses out since it was too fast for him/her!

In the real world we seem to be playing such a game and we are in a race against nature! However unlike a computer game, nature has no limits as far as we can tell. As the game continues the natural world around us morphs in all sorts of unpredictable ways to cope up with the so-called game. Can we hope to win in this 'rcae against" nature game? Isn't it likely that we hit head-on with "GAME-OVER" rather than winning it to our satisfaction?

The point I would like to drive at is that it is not realistic to expect that we can invent green technologies and adopt them at such a rapid pace that it can offset the present trends completely. If we just look around us and measure how long it typically takes for us to adopt scientific ideas, it is clear that it is not a matter of few years. It typically happens over decades.

I am optimistic that as human beings we will invent and discover a lot of things towards green technologies. However in order to develop these technologies and adopt them suitably, one of the very precious natural resource is decreasing exponentially. That is Time! We need time to invent and discover. We need time to develop technologies. We need time to adopt them in daily life. However with the present rate of consumerism time is essentially running out.

How do we "make or produce" more time? Only way we can do this is to slow down the rate of consumption. How do we reduce the rate of consumption? There are many options and one of them could be the use of tremedous force (violence) and kill as many people as possible since when we have less number of people, we can possibly sustain better! Is that moral? Is that humanitarian? Can this be ever celebrated as humanity's progress?

Instead of a barbaric approach of wars and genocides we need to look for higher intelligent ways of addressing this problem. There is an urgency to look for non-violent methods. Non-violent methods calls for adopting simpler life styles. It calls for abhorring greediness in life. As part of simpler life styles we need to use less energy, we need to reduce our carbon footprint and above all we need to buy less things every day. The focus of life needs to some extent move away from being material-centric and place higher emphasis on spiritual values and ideals. If we all want happiness and content in life we need to adopt spiritual gratification at an equal footing to material comfort.

A simple life style necessarily calls for Slowing down!

Simple Living linked to Environmental conservation

Simple living seems to hold the answer to counter the widespread destruction of enviornment. What is simple living?



Simple living as applicable to environmental sustenance and protection would mean that we adopt a life style that causes least damage to the environment. At the core of it lies a lifestyle that fosters the concept of live and let live principle. We, the people, live and let the environment also live. Living doesn't mean just surviving or sustaining. It does mean that one enjoys life to its fullest while making allowances to the natural habitats to thrive and grow as well. It is a concept where man lives in harmony with nature.

Does simple living mean that we need to live a miserable life in the jungles or an austere life of a saint? Of course not. At the same time it does mean that we should not live a lavish life that squanders and destroys the environment around us.

Each of us need to define for ourselves our necessities in life and possess them and enjoy them. This applies to clothing, food, shelter, entertainment and many things that we use in our day-to-day lives. All of us require food, shelter, entertainment and so on. However in each of these areas, it is a question of how much we need and when are we satisfied.

We don't have to eat everything that is possible to be eaten on this planet. It is necessary to limit ourselves to food items that can be grown or obtained in a sustainable manner. This will mean that we eat and enjoy dairy products, agricultural products and products from poultry. This will mean that we stop killing animals on land, air and sea which grow in their natural habitats to satisfy our hunger. It also requires us to prefer and limit our choices to locally available food to a large extent. One critical question to ask is, will we sacrifice a whole lot in life if we adhere to this principle? I think not.

All of us need homes. Here again we can make the choices for the size of the houses and what facilities we would need. Smaller the house is, lesser is the strain on the environment. It does mean avoiding lawns and private swimming pools. It does mean preferring more plants and tress in the open spaces around the house. It does mean borrowing ideas from other societies or countries and adopting suitably to the local environment. Also the building materials and techniques selected are to be more suited to the local conditions. The entire construction needs to be such that it consumes as low energy as possible through the year to sail through the seasons. Emphasis on natural ventilation, lighting, and a wide variety of local trees and plants makes the houses sustainable. Keeping the furniture in the house to the minimum adds to environmental sustenance.

We do need good clothes. Limiting ourselves to the necessary ones does help the environment. Similar choices need to be made for entertainment. Entertainment that consumes less overall energy and the ones that don't disturb natural habitats are to be definitely preferred over others.

We need to engage ourselves in creative activities. Those creative activities which enhances our skill, knowledge and lightens our body and soul are to be sought after in place of those that are intrusive to the ecology. Need to think twice before taking up car/motor cycle racing, montaineering, scuba-diving, skiing, etc.

Are there indicators that help us measure simplicity in life? Are there indicators to measure our environmental impact? Yes there are. One possibility is to use the the economic indicators themselves but in the reverse way! The amount of money that we need to lead a healthy and fruitful life is a measure of simplicity in life. The lower the money that we require the simpler we are. What about the environmental angle? The lesser energy that we consume the better for the environment. In majority of the cases the cost of the product is higher when high energy has been consumed during its manufacturing. Thus lower the cost of the product, lower is the overall energy consumed.

The move towards simplicity in life does call for being less greedy in life. It does call for moving away from consumerism. The reward we get for choosing simple lifestyles is that we get to live in a rich environment which we can proudly present to our future generations.

Introduction

Some of the questions that have been bothering me for a long time are the following:



Are we doing the right things with all the technology and scientific knowledge we have gained over all these centuries? Why most of our lives are becoming so mechanical, fast and unthinking? Why are we so much bent on earning and spending money? Is this what is termed as progress? Is this wide spread destruction of natural habitats across the world justified by any means? Why is their a perennial energy crisis? Can we not live in harmony with nature?

Life so far has been a quest for me to find satisfying answers to these questions.