As usual, I was late to check on which day the Earth Overshoot Day happened to fall this year and update here. I happened to check it about a month ago, a few days after Earth Overshoot Day, but was too laid-back to write about it here. Unlike before, I'm not much interested in writing these days. Even when I want to blog something, I keep procrastinating it. So now that I have started, today's write-up is probably going to be long.
So, the Earth Overshoot Day this year fell on August 02 (some sources say August 01. But, I personally feel it's Aug 02 given some signs I observed). For those who are reading about this concept for the first time, Earth Overshoot Day is that time of the year by which we, the humanity, have used more from nature than what our planet can renew in the entire year. It means we are "taking" from Earth beyond what it can "give". Our WANTS require 1.7 Earths...but what we "want" from 1.7 Earths, we are extracting it from the one Earth, the only Earth we have. Simply put, our wants have outgrown the allotted budget and we lead our lives (extravagantly or otherwise) at the cost of exploiting Earth.
If you have observed, I said we "want" 1.7 Earths. I said that based on the resource consumption statistics for the past decade. On an average, it seems we have been "using" 1.7 Earths year after year! But do we really "need" to use 1.7 Earths? If the answer is no, then my previous statement can be modified as - On an average, it seems we have been using 1.7 Earths year after year whether or NOT we need it.
When I just step out of home and go out, I see the roads buzzing with cars. These days almost every second person has a car in Hyderabad I guess. Just some 7-8 years ago, this was definitely not the case. Having a car was still a luxury back then. That was the transition point when the gap between need and luxury was blurring...for cars I mean. There was a time when I wanted to buy a car quite some years ago, but for whatever reasons I did not. Later my brother did. From then on, I didn't see the need for it. I use public transportation most of the time and so far it has been going good. Anyway back to the point, now how do so many people get to use cars? Simple, one might generally say. "They have the money for it, they can afford it, so they buy it." But not really! More than half actually can't afford it right away. Maybe they can, but that is eventually...half way down the line in their lives. But for now, they do it through loans. If the concept of loans wasn't there, the consumption patterns of not just cars, but of many things, would be so much more different!
Whatever maybe the reason, it hurts to see the planet being affected by the emissions from this traffic just because people can somehow afford a luxury. We are leaping towards cleaner energies now..CNG, Electric vehicles...so maybe in the coming future, the growing number of cars might not be that much of a concern after all.
When I go to Malls, I see that they are filled with heaps of clothes, accessories, appliances, electronic goods, food and beverages and many other goods. People, some people, not all, buy them beyond their needs. The amount of clothing, a person just a century ago used in their whole life time, perhaps is being used in a couple of years itself now. People in general would not see any harm in this sort of consumption. One might ask, "What's wrong in it? Things are being produced. We have the money for them, so we buy them!" So, there shifts the problem! The problem does not lie in buying. It lies in producing! The society is just driven by consumerism. What can any "one" person do? And how can any one person change this? But slow down and think once, where are the resources for ALL these goods and services coming from? They are coming from Earth itself.
Another thing I watch in dismay is - the growth of software sector...the trend of more and more people becoming software engineers, like clerks of the yesteryears! The trend of everything being woven around software...that trend looks very disturbing for me. Let's take a simple online transaction for example - "Ordering a pizza online to eat it along with the family". On the outset, it involves a few internet clicks by the customer to place an order, pickup of pizza by the delivery person and finally the delivery. Now, let's compare it with "Buying a pizza offline to eat it along with the family". The customer has to go to the restaurant, pickup the pizza and bring it home or the whole family can go and dine in there and come back home. On the outset, the first transaction looks simpler and looks like lesser resources are involved because the fuel for commutation used by the delivery boy is less given that the delivery boy is not dedicated for one delivery only and has multiple deliveries on a given route. On the other hand in the second transaction, the fuel is more than double the fuel taken in the first transaction. But, what about the internet clicks in the first transaction? Are they just benign? No resources involved in it? As you might already know, there is indeed some carbon footprint involved in the internet traffic. You can check here, the amount of CO2 emissions triggered by different kinds of activities.
What hurts me the most is the waste disposal system. The inefficient ways through which waste is disposed in India at least, is alarming. Have you ever heard of Ghazipur mountain of trash? At a height of 40-50m (around the size of a 10-storey building), spanning 70 acres, this is the largest garbage mound in North India. Last year, an avalanche of garbage collapsed from the landfill, killing two people. If you want to know more, you may google it up. It is during such a search that I came to know that this landfill has grown beyond the waste management techniques available in India. Since the basic tenets of segregation at source and decentralization of waste management haven't been followed here, simple burning is not going to solve the problem in this case, as it involves the release of poisonous gases. European countries are doing very well in this aspect for a long time already. Kudos to them! I do not have links to the exact sources I had referred to, but long back I have come across some references which say that US too is struggling with this menace of waste management...with disposable diapers alone contributing to 30% of its non-biodegradable waste. All I can say here is, we humans really complicate things in the name of sophistication and development.
If there is one thing I'm interested in, at the moment, it is this - innovate solutions for efficient waste management. Nothings interests me as much. I wish I had a Masters Degree in it from Europe by this time, lol. I wish I could do some research on it and offer simple, workable solutions in India. To me, this is the need of the hour. It is during such times that one realizes that this life is too short to do the things you want to do. It's definitely not impossible to do, but given my current state, I do not have the resources and circumstances favouring me. Instead, I would just wait and watch somebody else do it.
Going back in time, perhaps happy were the times of barter exchange. Happy it was, when there was no money. People produced only what they needed.Whatever was excess, they exchanged it to get things they needed. Man created money, much to his detriment maybe! By creating this illusionary concept of money he is assuming ownership of resources of earth in arbitrary fashion! Yes I said it, "in an arbitrary fashion, man is assuming the ownership of resources". Man decided that the work of a software architect is more valuable than that of a person who lays a concrete road. The first one is paid, say 1 lakh rupees a month and the later one say 5000 rupees a month. The first one gets access to more goods and services, hence more natural resources, through the license of money. The later one gets access to lesser resources. The superiority or inferiority of the work is decided by man. But, when seen from nature's point of view, a software engineer damages more nature than a person who lays a road. Who is supposed to be rewarded and who is supposed to be granted more resources?
The production of goods and services today is NOT happening based on the NEEDS. It's happening based on the WANTS, the arbitrary wants shaped by the comforts and far-flung ambitions of man because of which mere growth is not sufficient..he needs accelerated growth, the brakes of which he long lost control of. But my question here is, why should the Earth pay for his overambitiousness and selfishness?
So, the Earth Overshoot Day this year fell on August 02 (some sources say August 01. But, I personally feel it's Aug 02 given some signs I observed). For those who are reading about this concept for the first time, Earth Overshoot Day is that time of the year by which we, the humanity, have used more from nature than what our planet can renew in the entire year. It means we are "taking" from Earth beyond what it can "give". Our WANTS require 1.7 Earths...but what we "want" from 1.7 Earths, we are extracting it from the one Earth, the only Earth we have. Simply put, our wants have outgrown the allotted budget and we lead our lives (extravagantly or otherwise) at the cost of exploiting Earth.
If you have observed, I said we "want" 1.7 Earths. I said that based on the resource consumption statistics for the past decade. On an average, it seems we have been "using" 1.7 Earths year after year! But do we really "need" to use 1.7 Earths? If the answer is no, then my previous statement can be modified as - On an average, it seems we have been using 1.7 Earths year after year whether or NOT we need it.
When I just step out of home and go out, I see the roads buzzing with cars. These days almost every second person has a car in Hyderabad I guess. Just some 7-8 years ago, this was definitely not the case. Having a car was still a luxury back then. That was the transition point when the gap between need and luxury was blurring...for cars I mean. There was a time when I wanted to buy a car quite some years ago, but for whatever reasons I did not. Later my brother did. From then on, I didn't see the need for it. I use public transportation most of the time and so far it has been going good. Anyway back to the point, now how do so many people get to use cars? Simple, one might generally say. "They have the money for it, they can afford it, so they buy it." But not really! More than half actually can't afford it right away. Maybe they can, but that is eventually...half way down the line in their lives. But for now, they do it through loans. If the concept of loans wasn't there, the consumption patterns of not just cars, but of many things, would be so much more different!
Whatever maybe the reason, it hurts to see the planet being affected by the emissions from this traffic just because people can somehow afford a luxury. We are leaping towards cleaner energies now..CNG, Electric vehicles...so maybe in the coming future, the growing number of cars might not be that much of a concern after all.
When I go to Malls, I see that they are filled with heaps of clothes, accessories, appliances, electronic goods, food and beverages and many other goods. People, some people, not all, buy them beyond their needs. The amount of clothing, a person just a century ago used in their whole life time, perhaps is being used in a couple of years itself now. People in general would not see any harm in this sort of consumption. One might ask, "What's wrong in it? Things are being produced. We have the money for them, so we buy them!" So, there shifts the problem! The problem does not lie in buying. It lies in producing! The society is just driven by consumerism. What can any "one" person do? And how can any one person change this? But slow down and think once, where are the resources for ALL these goods and services coming from? They are coming from Earth itself.
Another thing I watch in dismay is - the growth of software sector...the trend of more and more people becoming software engineers, like clerks of the yesteryears! The trend of everything being woven around software...that trend looks very disturbing for me. Let's take a simple online transaction for example - "Ordering a pizza online to eat it along with the family". On the outset, it involves a few internet clicks by the customer to place an order, pickup of pizza by the delivery person and finally the delivery. Now, let's compare it with "Buying a pizza offline to eat it along with the family". The customer has to go to the restaurant, pickup the pizza and bring it home or the whole family can go and dine in there and come back home. On the outset, the first transaction looks simpler and looks like lesser resources are involved because the fuel for commutation used by the delivery boy is less given that the delivery boy is not dedicated for one delivery only and has multiple deliveries on a given route. On the other hand in the second transaction, the fuel is more than double the fuel taken in the first transaction. But, what about the internet clicks in the first transaction? Are they just benign? No resources involved in it? As you might already know, there is indeed some carbon footprint involved in the internet traffic. You can check here, the amount of CO2 emissions triggered by different kinds of activities.
What hurts me the most is the waste disposal system. The inefficient ways through which waste is disposed in India at least, is alarming. Have you ever heard of Ghazipur mountain of trash? At a height of 40-50m (around the size of a 10-storey building), spanning 70 acres, this is the largest garbage mound in North India. Last year, an avalanche of garbage collapsed from the landfill, killing two people. If you want to know more, you may google it up. It is during such a search that I came to know that this landfill has grown beyond the waste management techniques available in India. Since the basic tenets of segregation at source and decentralization of waste management haven't been followed here, simple burning is not going to solve the problem in this case, as it involves the release of poisonous gases. European countries are doing very well in this aspect for a long time already. Kudos to them! I do not have links to the exact sources I had referred to, but long back I have come across some references which say that US too is struggling with this menace of waste management...with disposable diapers alone contributing to 30% of its non-biodegradable waste. All I can say here is, we humans really complicate things in the name of sophistication and development.
If there is one thing I'm interested in, at the moment, it is this - innovate solutions for efficient waste management. Nothings interests me as much. I wish I had a Masters Degree in it from Europe by this time, lol. I wish I could do some research on it and offer simple, workable solutions in India. To me, this is the need of the hour. It is during such times that one realizes that this life is too short to do the things you want to do. It's definitely not impossible to do, but given my current state, I do not have the resources and circumstances favouring me. Instead, I would just wait and watch somebody else do it.
Going back in time, perhaps happy were the times of barter exchange. Happy it was, when there was no money. People produced only what they needed.Whatever was excess, they exchanged it to get things they needed. Man created money, much to his detriment maybe! By creating this illusionary concept of money he is assuming ownership of resources of earth in arbitrary fashion! Yes I said it, "in an arbitrary fashion, man is assuming the ownership of resources". Man decided that the work of a software architect is more valuable than that of a person who lays a concrete road. The first one is paid, say 1 lakh rupees a month and the later one say 5000 rupees a month. The first one gets access to more goods and services, hence more natural resources, through the license of money. The later one gets access to lesser resources. The superiority or inferiority of the work is decided by man. But, when seen from nature's point of view, a software engineer damages more nature than a person who lays a road. Who is supposed to be rewarded and who is supposed to be granted more resources?
The production of goods and services today is NOT happening based on the NEEDS. It's happening based on the WANTS, the arbitrary wants shaped by the comforts and far-flung ambitions of man because of which mere growth is not sufficient..he needs accelerated growth, the brakes of which he long lost control of. But my question here is, why should the Earth pay for his overambitiousness and selfishness?
