Whether or not the USA, Europe, the Western world, the industrialised Eastern world (China, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan), adhere to or not their paltry promises about being more responsible concerning the factors that lead to climate change, is of very little concern to us. We have never set any store by international agreements on climate change.
This year will see the twenty-third conference of parties of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and for 23 years the world and India have listened to lofty tales about simple science. In these 23 years, neither has reckless consumption been halted nor has the economic model that encourages such reckless consumption been questioned by the conference of parties. As long as they do not, inter-governmental agreements are useless.
That is why we find unnecessary and pointless the hand-wringing that has taken place about the decision of the government of the USA to exit what is called the ‘Paris Agreement’, the December 2015 document agreed to and signed by practically every country which has some fuzzy paragraphs about low-carbon economy, innovation, technology, energy and finance – all of which have very much to do with the hold of the finance capitalists and the global technocrats over the international systems of our time.
President number 45 of the USA is neither wiser than nor baser than the wisest of basest of any of his predecessors: the American political system has to do entirely with the desire to dominate other countries. Number 45’s manner may be irksome, but through him speaks the American finance capital, its bloatsome defence industry and its insensate technology industry.
We do not expect the chiefs of the Western countries, the so-called major powers of the European Union, and their allies such as Japan and Australia to do any less. They are no different. We do not think any of them, their armies of bland advisers, their bankers and the brigades of industrialists great and petty who crowd their corridors of governance have read, much less reflected, on the lambent wisdom of our civilisation.
Many centuries ago, in the section of the Digha Nikaya, or Collection of Long Discourses, called Samannaphala Sutta, or the Fruits of the Contemplative Life, it was written that there are those who are addicted to debates and shout: “You understand this doctrine and discipline? I’m the one who understands this doctrine and discipline. How could you understand this doctrine and discipline? You’re practicing wrongly. I’m practicing rightly. I’m being consistent. You’re not. What should be said first you said last. What should be said last you said first. What you took so long to think out has been refuted. Your doctrine has been overthrown. You’re defeated. Go and try to salvage your doctrine; extricate yourself if you can!”
And this is how we view what are called climate negotiations, between the experts of countries. We care not for the arguments of number 45 of the USA, for what many in the world in the last week have protested as being absurd – it undermines economy, it takes away jobs, it is unfair, it is disadvantageous to us, and so on – is what they cheer and support their own countries for in areas where they stand to gain, such as trade (to sell cheap and useless goods), technology (to enslave and control), finance (to spin webs of debt), processes of modernisation (to homogenise cultures so that ever more ‘markets’ come into being).
We in India need no such instruction. But we must guard against our philosophies being swept away by these agreements, these grand comities of nations, the barrage of numerics and scientifics that are invented to display to us what a threat we are should we not emulate the West and its ways. We must guard against our own who prefer the baubles of post-industrial society to the intellectual and spiritual riches of our civilisation, and who seek to infest India with the same technological and ‘modern’ wares that so entranced the West and doomed its folk. This has very little to do with climate and its change and very much more to do with our Indic sciences and their worth, our conduct and our duty to Punyabhoomi Bharat.
– Rahul Goswami
I have taken the data from two sources. One is the Census of India, for the census years 2011, 2001 and 1991. The other is the Road Transport Yearbook (2011-12) issued by the Transport Research Wing, Ministry Of Road Transport and Highways, Government Of India. The yearbook includes a table with the total number of registered vehicles (in different categories of vehicle – two-wheelers, cars, buses, goods vehicles, others) for every year. The number of households is from the census years, with simple decadal growth applied annually between census years. I have not yet found the detailed data that will let me refine this finding between urban and rural populations.
The implications are several and almost all of them are an alarm signal. Especially for urban areas – where most of the buying of vehicles for households has taken place – the physical space available for the movement of people and goods has increased only marginally, but the number of motorised contrivances (cars, motor-cycles, scooters and more recently stupidly large SUVs and stupidly large and expensive luxury cars) has increased quickly. Naturally this ‘growth’ of wheeled metal has choked our city wards.
More motorised conveyance per household also means more fuel demanded per household, and more fuel (and money) wasted because households are taught (by the auto industry with the encouragement of the foolish cohorts I mentioned earlier) that they are entitled to wasteful personal mobility. Over 20 years, the number of cars per household has increased 4.1 times but the number of buses per household has increased only 2.8 times. That is embarrassing proof of our un-ecological and climate unfriendly new habits.