Hot, Flat and Crowded

The last week or two my mom and I have been in Pondicherry. Pondi is unique as Indian towns go. It has a very European feel to it (or so I'm told). This is because the French owned the town for many many years. The streets are wider than the average Indian street and clean. There are many town houses and other 'Western' looking structures. There is even good coffee.

So, when I left Pondicherry I was a bit shocked going back into 'India'. The drive from Pondicherry to Vellore took about four hours and showed me some aspects of India that I hadn't seen before. As we got farther away from the ocean it got hotter and dryer. The towns we drove through looked more like suburbs of Chennai than anything else. We were driving on one of the main India highways. Houses were built up on either side of the busy road way. Beyond the houses it was desolate.

There was vegetation and other 'natural' things, but it was so marred by human presence. Large piles of garbage were everywhere. Huge columns of oily smoke were rising into the sky as people burned their waste. It felt like I was in hell.

And then, every 20 km, out of this desolation there would rise a giant, glistening, factory of corporate office park. We would speed by and then we would be back to desert like desolation.

The driver, who's name was K-7, asked me if I wanted to stop for lunch. We found this 'Hotel' (remember Hotel usually means restaurant). It was a three story affair with lots of tinted glass. As soon as the car slowed we were assaulted by the oppressive heat of the day. We were ushered into the 'Hotel' which was probably 15 degrees cooler than outside.

The food was good. But it made me think.

If you have money (like I do) you can escape the devastation of ecosystems (at least for a time). I can eat in air conditioned restaurants, I can drink purified water, etc. Restaurants like the one I went to will be in this world for a long time. BUT, if you don't have money. If you're the people living by the side of and interstate in a polluted and hellish landscape, you can't escape. You depend on the local water sources. So when in the heat of the summer they become even more polluted than normal you get cholera. Maybe you survive, maybe you don't.

And the poor people are contributing to the pollution. They burn rubber for light. They cut down trees for fuel. They pee in the river. They poop in the ocean. But they don't have a choice. It's not like they could turn on the lights instead of burning a rubber tire. It's not like they have a reliable source of electricity. It's not like they have a sewer system. So, who's responsibility is it?

It's ours. It's the people that can afford to get online and read this blog. We are the ones with the money, the connections and resources. We are the ones with the education. We are the ones that should be leading our world out of the nose dive we've gone into.

But most of us aren't. Most of us (me included) are the ones that are directly or indirectly financing the gradual destruction of our planet. We are the ones that will hide in our air conditioned rooms, until it's too late.

If we wait that long air conditioning will be the least of our worries.

I don't want to be depressing. But it's a truth that is true. We can't continue to grow the way we've been growing. Our addiction to fossil fuels is contributing to the destruction of the climate and financing terrorism. We have to find an alternative way of living.

You might ask how that isn't depressing. Well it is (at least I think so). But the potential is so great. We are at a point in history where we have the opportunity to revolutionize how we live. The generations that are alive now could be remembered as the great reformers. The great innovators. We have the chance. We have the technology. We have the money. Now we have to find that resolve.

None of these ideas are mine. I'm reading a book called: “Hot, Flat and Crowded”. It's by Thomas L. Friedman who is a journalist. It's a great book. Well written and easy to understand. And it's hopeful. It shows how if we do what we need to do we can still have comfortable middle class lives. But we can have them without destroying the earth.

It would be great if everyone had to read this book in school.