There is lot of political activity and excitement currently in the UK. The Liberal Democratic Party had its conference last week and this week the Labour Party is having its conference in Manchester. I was just curious about the nature and tenor of political debate in UK and followed some of the important speeches. The LDP has a byline for a Fair and Green Britain. Their leader Ming Campbell gave a lot of importance to climate change issues and how LDP would address these issues, for e.g. have higher tax on air travel and creating a fund for more serious research on greener energy and related technology. Today I watched Gordon Brown (the chancellor) of Labour Party give his address. His was a crucial address as he is pitching for the prime ministers post once Blair steps down. All the talking heads were saying that this would be the make or break speech for him and so I watched it live on TV. He also gave considerable bandwidth for climate change issues and his policy on how to address the issue. Interestingly he mentioned the solution would involve personal as well as collective changes, on how to come up with a policy that would alter personal choices towards greener choice. Even the conservative party leader David Cameron waxes eloquent about climate change. Recently the head of Virgin Air made a that he is setting aside some of the profits for research on making air travel greener like using bio-fuels or something, though his statements are being dismissed as a marketing gimmick by environment agencies. In a small village on our way from Cornwall I saw a bumper sticker in a Smartcar expounding to boycott Esso since Esso does not give a damn about global warning. (www.stopesso.com).
The global warming seems a well accepted fact in UK and is not debatable anymore. The solution to it also seems to be a mainstream debate now. The green debate has move from the supposedly loony environmentalists to the regular politician who wants to appear more caring about our childrens future. A recent article in National Geographic claims that if we don’t address this issue in the next decade or so, the accumulated carbon would create an irreversible change to the climate for the worse!
It is interesting to note that The Economist found it worthy to give it cover page importance. It is interesting to note the same newspaper (as they call it) called it fear mongering in one of their 1997 editions.
India has 1/6th of the humanity and one would think we should have an equal or greater concern about the future of humanity. Is there any debate on the environment in mainstream Indian politics at all?
6 comments:
A series of articles recently published in NY Times about the environment and India...
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/01/world/asia/01voices.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/01/world/asia/01india.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/29/world/asia/29water.html?n=Top%2fNews%2fWorld%2fCountries%20and%20Territories%2fIndia
From a personal perspective I think it is the inner voice that says, "I don't think anything really catastrophic is going to happen, surely somewhere someone is fixing this, now let me go back to worrying why my kid didn't eat enough breakfast today".
Right here, I might just have channeled the inner voice of every average Indian.
-Gayathri
Environment and weather have been crucial topics.
More awareness results in it being recognized. But, getting actionable points seems to be a challenge.
Walking, cycling are some alternatives which are taught in schools as alternatives to motoring. Catch em young ? Eh!
There are others who think that the sky will not fall on our heads
Hi posters,
The question I was raising was not about individual awareness amongst Indians but about the lack of political debate on this topic.
Ram,
I followed your drift. I was just thinking out loud on the possible reasons, one being that environment is still not treated as a 'mainstream' concern (as it should be).
While it is as popular as the phrase 'World Peace' in a Miss Universe contest, there is still lack of awareness of the need to be concerned when it comes to the average person.
-Gayathri
The BBC also has a series of features ("The sixth great wave", "World water crisis", "Soaring energy demand", "Feeding the world", "Tackling pollution", "Facing climate change").
I'm itching for a no holds barred people versus environment type pointless argument with your Holiness sometime soon!
PS Have a great tag line for your blog's tagline.
"Not all who wander are lost ..."
"...we are most likely lazy and unemployed!"
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