cvikash - 15 April, 2008 | Bangalore | Culture | sustainability | Peak Oil

Hi! Here is a primer for a proposed world seminar series to create awareness and mobilise support for action about a new thinking for sustainable prosperity through the 21st Century and possible solutions that we shall need :

Finding A Higher Comfort Zone: Solutions for A Small Planet and A Big Family

We have individual responsibilities that we are needed to conduct - like for family, for the organisation that may be paying us, and for our self. We also have collective responsibilities - as a family, as an extended family and friends network, as a neighborhood community, as a region, country and as a planet - with deep awareness that it's a razor thin balance that has existed only since past 10,000 years or so that sustains human life...( a tiny, infinitesimal fraction of the known existence of the universe or even planet earth). A deeper awareness that we may be on the verge of destroying this delicate balance due to our ignorance - wilful or otherwise, addiction, greed and other vices that seem to have spread its tentacles far and wide..often in the disguise of "respectable" institutions and conventions.

NOW OR NEVER, more of us need to be fully aware..and illuminate the concentric circle of our relationships outwards and laterally through mass media...with this new awareness..and start acting on them. Many people have unforetunately, come to believe that the problem is already being solved - people are getting aware and making "greener choices" at "individual" levels, they say, as an aside from their primary work. How much of the problem does it solve ? - Not more than applying face cream to a festering wound according to most concerned experts: "How can greenhouse gas emissions possibly be curtailed when such global population growth and high emissions rates in China (and India) are undoing whatever cuts the rest of the world makes?"
American journalist Robert Samuelson derides such tiny cuts as part of a feel-good political culture that is mostly about showing off, not curbing greenhouse gas emissions, and is made worse by politicians who pander to green constituents who want to feel good about themselves.
Grandiose goals are declared, he writes, but measures to achieve them are deferred or don't exist.
He adds that it's all just a delusional exercise in public relations that, while not helping the environment, might hurt the economy...."Take Australia, for example, where about 135 million incandescent light bulbs are in use. The Government wants to ban them by 2010 to cut the nation's greenhouse gas emissions by as much as 800,000 tonnes a year by 2012. If this sounds a lot, bear in mind that it represents a reduction of just 0.14 per cent. " Source: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=39&objectid=10502373

Is it possible to develop far-reaching solutions that will help the environment and at the same time boost the economy? That's the teaser...that got me interested 7 years back. 124-FuelSaver is a key trigger that paves the way forward to solve the hydra-headed problems facing the world - energy , food and water insecurity, diseases and wars, loss of social harmony etc.. As you discover how the 124-FuelSaver trigger works, you may get the a-ha feeling. Let us celebrate. It could not have been possible without the support and good wishes of numerous individuals and organisations worldwide...Let us now put our resources and energies together to implement these solutions around the world.

 IS IT THAT SIMPLE ? The central problem is a frightening one, even for a braveheart, never-say-die guy like me. The reality of a world which is ruled by people who are either pathologically addicted to the old world or they lack the will-power to break the shackles of "sanctified" drug-peddling that they find themselves locked into. An old world, where "helping the environment" is inevitably seen as "harming the economy" by the ruling and other powerful groups against growing evidence that if the environment is damaged, beyond repair and starts affecting our health, the economy will in any case collapse. An old world where "mediocre minds offer violent opposition to great spirits" when the later shake them out of the stupor to douse the fires that may bring the house down. This includes the violence of sleep and inaction, when a small child is playing in other room and a pregnant mother taking rest on the bed, sure that the head of the family will take care. The mediocre minds like this head of the family, feel disturbed just b'coz they are still sleeping, even after sensing that the house has caught fire. Is this the third stage of their resistance, to paraphrase what Mahatma Gandhi said. Will they next, see the light, like he believed they do? Is this the darkest hour before the dawn? Or will the old world addicts spoil the party..b'coz they don't like fresh air, deep blue sea, a starful of night sky, healthy children and mindful adults, great spirits...(their hate list is much longer) That is a more sober thought... I have some good advice from someone, who I deeply regard - Prof. Rishikesh Krishnan, Professor of Strategy and Business Policy at IIM Bangalore.
"Keep up the good work and don't get worried by naysayers", he says.

Regards,

Vikash

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