Recently, I went to East Rathong Glacier, Sikkim for field work and met “Aachu” at the base camp. ““Aachu” being a caretaker of HMI base camp, Chowrikhang, Sikkim completely understands what Climate Change is all about. He says “Hiu paglinu ta yaha matrai kaha ho ra? Sansar vari nai cha ni” (Melting of ice is not only happening in the Himalayas but it is applicable to everywhere in the world). “Aachu is not a scholar nor a researcher like us but he knows and this is what matters. I wonder when will each one in the world will understand the simple fact that the temperature rise in the last couple of centuries is ridiculously high than that of the last millions of years. We all know that ice melts just near 0-degree Celsius temperature, so it is just obvious how much impact one or two-degree temperature rise can do on the world.
During my engineering days, I was unable to understand all of these because practically as I had not observed things. Anyways, the subject of Environmental Science was there in engineering but completely of no use. Why? Because it was just one course among 48 others that you need to pass to get an engineering degree. If I am not wrong the Environmental Science subject in engineering is just there for a formality, today also. Also, most people just don’t care because what matters is their career. Yes, this is an undeniable fact that is applicable to environmentalists and researchers too. A career is an essential part of living. And, everyone cannot build up a career as an environmentalist. Some have to definitely work on the fossil fuel sector too. But can we not go for start-ups related to the EV sector? Can we not select the career opportunity in eco-tourism? Can we not keep our passion to work for sustainable technologies?
Do you know with the joint partnership of the public and the government has positively impacted the ozone hole problem? Yes, you read it right, we have almost solved the problem of ozone layer depletion. Now it’s time to think about climate change.
Before that, we can focus on how this problem began.
Do you know for the last few millennials India used to be the superpower while contributing to the world’s GDP on the highest percentage? The economy was based on the philosophy of unity. This unity is the unity of nature and culture. We call it nondualism where we say nature is a part of us. This is just the opposite in the west dominated world. Here, the nature is exploited for the benefit of mankind. This needs to be avoided at any cost for saving the planet.