Why we feel what we feel

“Save the tiger” seems to be the major buzz now. You turn on the TV and you have some celebrity appealing to save the tiger. You turn on the radio and you have another celebrity or well known figure pledging their support for the tiger. Many organizations have come out in support for saving the tiger.

Here are some of the quotes by celebrities on why they feel the tiger should be saved:

“The tiger is our treasure and we should do everything in our power to save it”

“We should ensure that the tiger is around for us and our children”

“The tiger is our most noble citizen and we should save the tiger”

“The tiger is the most beautiful creature to see in the wild”

These are the common statements made. The one which says that we should save the tiger for ourselves and our children is probably the most common reaction, “if the tiger goes, we all miss an opportunity of seeing something very pretty”.

Now is there a problem with this view?

I was fortunate enough to get an opportunity to attend a workshop conducted by Dr. Anish Andheria on the situation of wildlife in India. He is the Director of Sanctuary Asia Magazine (do take a look sometime, excellent material) and Wildlife Trust of India. It was mostly a non-structured but detailed presentation where he spoke of his personal experience with Project Tiger and explained exactly why the project was so crucial. On the surface it appears to be a project to protect the tiger but for a conservationist who understands connections between various species and the significance of forest conservation for survival, this project is of critical importance.

From my little experience, I feel that conservationists are the most passionate people. This is probably because wildlife conservation is the most difficult field to work in, and people take who take up this job really want to do it for the love of it. For those who don’t agree with me, I’d suggest spending a weekend at a sanctuary with a conservationist working for a non-profit. There are few experiences that come close to that.

At this juncture, I’d like to define the term wildlife – it refers to all creature, plants and animals, living in their natural habitat without human care/intervention. The important point is that wildlife is not just the big animals.

For Dr. Anish, the fight to save tigers is nothing but a fight to save ourselves. He showed the connections between deforestation, loss of biodiversity and climate change as phenomena where every susceptible species will suffer. Through Project Tiger, several forests in India and therefore several species in those forests are protected. What would happen if tigers were to vanish from those forests?

This discussion reminds me of an Australian aboriginal saying. This was told by an old aboriginal woman “If you have come to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you see my struggle as part of your own survival and liberation, then perhaps we can work together”. Probably one of the most beautiful quotes I’ve heard. It sums up the teachings of peace, interdependence and justice.

The tiger should be saved for nothing but the tiger, for the sake of justice. In other words, do it for what is right. I agree I am no authority to state right from wrong. This however, is my opinion on the issue. But are we in a position to feel at one with the tiger? or with any endangered species for that matter? We are and have been obsessed with saving what is physically beautiful. But conservationists have used this as an opportunity to save all the other endangered species too in those forests through habitat conservation.

If we continue to miss seeing the connections between the fates of wildlife with our own, not only do we miss the opportunity to understand and experience life to its fullest, we also spell our own destruction.

What I learnt from Darwin

The name Charles Darwin is familiar to anyone who has completed high school or has read about him otherwise. Since his name appears in a high school textbook, his contribution to science is assumedly very basic and important.

“The Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection” was what he had proposed around 1850. When a student now reads about natural selection in a matter-of-fact kind of way (which is the way textbooks render them too), they miss out on the wonderful process that effected the theory. Incidentally this year is the 200^th birth anniversary of Charles Darwin and the 150^th anniversary of the first edition of the book.

Darwin worked tirelessly for decades accumulating whatever information he could, through his own observations and experiments, and those from many other scientists all over the world. I don’t suppose we can even begin to imagine how difficult it would have been for a person to travel around the world and also keep in touch with hundreds of scientists from around the world without the help of the airplanes and the internet respectively. He pursued the information relentlessly.

I met a senior scientist of age seventy five recently at a conference who also coincidently spoke of Darwin, and he said- “he was very rich ….he didn’t need to do all this….but he did………when you get time, do read The Voyage of the Beagle”

It would be hard to digest the fact that until Darwin’s time, the commonly accepted theory, even among scientists, for the presence of the diversity of life on earth was the Theory of Creation, that all creatures were created independently. But what is stranger is that even now as many as 30 percent Americans don’t believe in evolution.

The book “The Origin of Species” is the 500 page abstract of the theory, and is meant for lay people like ourselves. Before reading the book, I thought to myself ‘wow, this was written by Darwin himself…..though I already know what I’m going to read about, it’s still worth the read because it’s written by the great man himself’. Only now, after having finished reading the book, do I realize that I was wrong. Wrong in assuming that I know what was in that book.

I’m so overwhelmed at the knowledge I’ve gained from the book that I find it hard to decide what I should stress upon here. I view the natural world now with a new found admiration and love (more than before if that’s possible). It is futile and impossible for us to try to imagine the process of evolution. It is something that happens continuously, at all times to all organisms.

No organism is perfect. Each is trying to constantly adapt to the every changing conditions….and the ones which can adapt best are the ones that will survive. Though one organism may be more complex biologically than another, it does not by any means imply superiority. Each organism has its role to play in the economy of nature, the importance of the role very often being independent of the size. Since organisms have evolved alongside each other, the ones that support each other have survived through efficiency (and this role of support is played subconsciously). The species seen now may not have existed long ago, and may not live one for very long after. These species have evolved from a parent form and they will give rise to species which will be better capable of handling the conditions on earth in the future, through “survival of the fittest”.

Many objections to the theory were raised by the scientific and general community. Darwin took each objection one by one and effectively handled them. He cleverly used the evidences from geology, geography and climate to support his claims. This book has a truly interdisciplinary approach to make it a holistic argument.

All I’ll say at this juncture is that it has been a privilege to read this book and I would urge you to do so too. This book could even be used as a supplement to biology and geography in the high school level. When students read the process of drafting the theory, there is no reason to believe that they will not be inspired to say the least.

“But the chief cause of our natural unwillingness to admit that one species has given birth to clear and distinct species, is that we are always slow in admitting great changes of which we do not see the steps”

A thought on communication

(I had written this essay for an online competition conducted by the IPHU on the theme of “Innovating for the health of all” )

Countries of the world have been busy investing money in making bullets to silence communication. What we need now is for countries to invest time on making valuable communication.

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When the meaning of “health” itself is so diverse, varying from person to person, it is indeed a difficult task to work towards health for all. Health workers are not working on a homogenous problem here; the problems are diverse, complex and overwhelming.

Then again, if one were to sit down and think, is it possible that we already know the answers? Is it possible that in this chaos of approaches, there is actually a straight road that leads to the desired destination?

“All problems will be solved if everyone stopped doing all that they are doing” is what Masanobu Fukuoka had to say in The One Straw Revolution; and that got the machinery moving in my brain. The question now is to ask ourselves “what exactly is the problem?”

Through the last one year I have exposed myself to a plethora of literature on environment and health. It blew my mind, just the volume of literature, the number of ideas and the number of innovative approaches. Most of this material is just buried under a pile of newer literature that keeps getting churned up. It is for this reason that I picked up old books, books which were published decades ago and read them just for the sake of it. And I came across ideas, the relevance of which in today’s context I couldn’t deny one bit.

Why then have we not dealt with these problems effectively, as and how they arise?

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What is it that triggers a thought process in a person? I mean, when does a person really start to introspect, take some time off to think about things and not merely take them on face value? What is it that then pushes him or her to follow thoughts with action?

There is always an instigating factor for thought and action; and this may vary between situations and persons. A counter-insight to this understanding is provided by ecological historians like Peter Ray who talk about ecological impulse or ecological unconsciousness. But even though there is an ‘unconsciousness’ that exists, there needs to be spark for it to come to consciousness, at least for the human species. At this moment in time, I feel that the spark has something to do with “communication”.

Communication has never been this simple and simultaneously this difficult in human history. While it is easy to speak to someone across the world as though he or she were next to you, it is all the more difficult to have meaningful and introspective dialogue now. There are distractions everywhere, there is noise. How is one to find a meaningful answer in the midst of all this noise? People have termed this phenomenon as information overload; and this generation of youth are being referred to as the google generation. Things are being taken at a superficial level and in depth understanding about situations is lacking. So, at this time do we need more information for innovation? Are we not already overwhelmed by the information that exists? Have we taken the time to see what we already have in the bag?

Everything is connected, from health to development to environment to unanswered questions. For everyone to recognize the connections, all that is needed is a new pair of glasses, metaphorically speaking of course. The new perspective/mindset will be provided through the new innovation which would be a communication bullet (The term bullet may seem violent and inappropriate but my vocabulary limits me here). The bullet finds its mark, makes the impression and also leaves a lasting impact on the receiver.

The target audience is the entire population of the world. The content of communication will vary slightly with each subgroup concerned, but the essence of the communication would remain the same for all the groups of the world. The communication would not be about hygiene, immunization, disease or nutrition; it would be, in a way, about development. It would be about holistic and sustainable development and this is something no one can isolate himself or herself from. The only thing left to figure out is the intent, content and the medium of the communication. That is the big challenge. The probable intent of the communication would be to stimulate the thought process at various levels of the community, from members to managers.

I say this knowing the fact that 80 percent of the diseases occurring in the world are preventable. Intuition tells me that the number is more. Now, when we know that 80 percent of the diseases are preventable, don’t we already know how to prevent them? How about first achieve this feat by methods we know. It probably is political will that needs to be generated and general awareness that needs to be built, which is exactly the purpose of the communication bullet. Without the right communication, any corrective action taken would be meaningless and unsustainable. In this case, the communication itself is the important entity.

Countries of the world have been busy investing money in making bullets to silence communication. What we need now is for countries to invest time on making valuable communication.

Observation

“What the mind doesn’t know, the eye cannot see” is what our Forensic Medicine professor used to say back at medical college. We can only find what we’re looking for if we have an idea of what we’re looking for.

I recently took part in a workshop for teachers involved in environmental studies. It was called “Exploring environmental education beyond the classroom”.

One of the practical sessions was an exercise called “transect walk”. This method is used in community medicine and other social sciences, but this is the first time I got the opportunity of accompanying an environmental group for it. Teachers often complain that taking children out of the school for field trips to far off places is not very feasible. This exercise was an answer to that question.

How well do we know our own neighbourhood? Our context of environment is often clouded by images of forests, rivers and mountains that we forget that our immediate environment is in the midst of a city or village. What do we know of the road in front of our house?

During the 15 minute walk, the teachers were not able to identify most of the trees which lined the road. There were open manholes on the footpaths and piles of garbage in every street corner. Who were they supposed to contact, which government body was responsible for this?

We also came across the local office of the electricity board. What were their functions? Do they help individuals interested in going off grid?

When we crossed the newly widened road, we had to look in three directions before making an attempt to take another step. Who was responsible for this bad planning? Was the road planned according to how it is supposed be done? Is there a guideline or law for this?

The point the facilitators were trying to make with this exercise was to bring to the notice of teachers that getting to know what’s happening at and outside our homes or schools is the first step towards learning. The children or their teachers dont have an idea of where their water comes from, where their electricity is generated, what happens after the garbage van collects the garbage in the morning?

With a keen sense of observation towards our everyday activities, everyone can gain a much better understanding of how things work in their neighbourhood. This is key if the children are to become responsible citizens. The paradigm of keeping children locked up for hours and drilling them with books and tests will hopefully begin to melt soon. Rather than showing them pictures and telling them “This is how the world is”, a better approach would be to make them experience it.

This is what Aldo Leopold, the great American environmentalist of the early part of the 20th century had to say, “There are two spiritual dangers of not owning a farm. One is the danger of supposing that breakfast comes from the grocery, and the other that heat comes from the furnace”.

Play your part

“The first step in being a part of the solution is to not be a part of the problem”.

It becomes very difficult for us to suddenly accept that many of our activities of daily living are problem creators, “I’ve been doing this all my life… my parents have lived their life the same way and so have my friends”. Unsustainable habits and practices are many and they’ve infiltrated so deeply and effectively into our lives that life without them seems unimaginable.

The challenge now for those working on environmental issues to answer one question,” Is it better to concentrate on stopping unsustainable practices or, is it better to allow convenience to prevail and redesign lifestyle to make ‘comfort’ sustainable?” After all, the individual is looking for the ’service’ rather than the item per se, in most situations. For example, in a cold area a family need a ‘warm house’ and dont really mind how their house is kept warm as long as it is affordable, acceptable and available. If someone were to design a solar warmer for that family which would provide warmth in a similar manner as an electric warmer, then the family would accept it because the ’service’ of warmth has been achieved.

Several brands in the market are now coming out with energy efficient alternatives and gives the choice to the consumer. In many cities, rain water harvesting and sewage treatment plants are being made compulsary by the authorities. The question is – will steps like this be enough to answer the problem?

Obviously we had to start from somewhere and with someone. As increasing number of people become more active in their involvment with local and world issues, things may gradually take their course for the better.

Unconscious Capacity and Implied Consent

I have already mentioned in previous posts that the consequences of our actions go well beyond the immediate. I recently read this phrase ‘unconscious capacity’ in an article and I thought it as another apt title for this subject. With our actions we demonstrate our capacity instantly to the ones near us. That is our conscious capacity. The implications of our actions go beyond that.

It may be in our capacity to buy wooden wardrobe from the neighbourhood store, but what we don’t know is our capacity to cause deforestation, soil erosion, climate change, loss of endangered species through the same action.

By ‘implied consent’ I refer to the agreement on the part of the person buying the wardrobe to deforestation and the other phenomena. A person who eats non-vegetarian food in today’s world consents to factory farming, rearing of animals in terrible conditions, reckless handling and transportation of these animals and finally their painful killing through mechanized means.

Of course, for the consent to be implied, the consumer of the product should have adequate knowledge and awareness; which is always not the case. In fact it is very rarely the case. The usual thought is ‘if it is in a shop, it is meant to be bought’. The concept of implied consent and unconscious capacity will only be applicable only when environmental consciousness becomes common sense.

The challenge is to bring out awareness and raise consciousness. What can be done practically is awareness building. The rising of the consciousness, I feel, is more of an individual phenomenon. Several times people don’t take to the reasoning. Why is that?

Communicating environmental message is a matter of great responsibility. The manner, the content, the medium and the occasion have to all be appropriate for effective communication and maximum effect. Sometimes it is scientific fact that does the trick and sometimes it is just bringing the audience face to face with reality. For example there are people who give up non-vegetarian food when they learn about how the animals are treated.

In this era where people don’t have time for themselves (time wasted is money lost) and where society defines success the way it does, is there a possibility to expect people to stop, look and listen? The only thing left to do for the likes of me is to continue working and stay positive.

Three beautiful poems about relationship with nature

A poem by the American farmer, environmentalist and poet, Wendell Berry:

Sowing the seed

My hand is one with the Earth

Wanting the seed to grow,

My mind is one with the light.

Hoeing the crop,

My hands are one with the rain.

Having cared for the plants,

My mind is one with the air.

Hungry and trusting,

My mind is one with the Earth

Eating the fruit,

My body is one with the Earth.

Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening by American poet, Robert Frost

Whose woods these are I think I know.

His house is in the village, though;

He will not see me stopping here

To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it’s queer

To stop without a farmhouse near

Between the woods and frozen lake

The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake

To ask if there’s some mistake.

The only other sounds the sweep

Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,

But I have promises to keep,

And miles to go before I sleep,

And miles to go before I sleep.

A poem by British poet Gerard Manley Hopkins

Wild air, world-mothering air,

Nestling me everywhere,

That each eyelash or hair

Girdles; goes home betwixt

The fleeciest, frailest-flixed

Snowflake; that is fairly mixed

With riddles, and is rife

In every least thing’s life,

This needful, never spent,

And nursing element;

My more than meat and drink,

My meal at every wink;

This air, which, by life’s law,

My lung must draw and draw

Now but to breathe its praise….

Precautionary Principle

This important piece of legislature is worth knowing about. It is a safety valve mechanism which allows us to challenge any developmental initiative on the lines of doubt of negative impacts the initiative may have.

Even though science is growing at an astronomical pace, there are many things that we don’t know and can’t prove. Any new technology or new chemical or new method will carry with it a baggage of unknowns. While there will be enthusiasm to put these new methods into use there will also be questions raised about the probable effects these things will have on health and the environment.

Of course it is not always possible to say with definitiveness what the effects may be. For example, if a safe limit for a chemical was to be established, it would probably take decades of studies to evaluate for disease outcomes in cohorts. These studies have their ethical issues also. Science has its limitations in seeing all outcomes. The realization of each outcome takes its own time.

There are so many confounding factors for health and environmental damage in the world right now that it becomes very difficult to study the impact of one technology or process in isolation. In such a situation the companies producing these new implements use this weakness to their advantage and go ahead with production.

Also, to promote economic growth, several times laws and regulations are relaxed. Companies usually put a lot of money into research and hence they want profits at the end of the research at whatever cost.

Precautionary principle is a legislature which can be called upon in case of a doubt on the safety of a new technology, chemical or method. It gives room for the consideration of ‘un-provable’ negatives aspects of innovations. If sufficient doubts can be aroused then the use of the new innovation can be stalled till such a time that these doubts can be cleared.

One example is can give is the verdict given by the High Court of Kerala, India where the spraying of a pesticide called Endosulphan was banned when adequate doubt was raised about the health effects it caused on the local communities.

The Illusions of Time, Space and Person

Consequences of action seek definability. One knows through experience not to touch a steaming cup of coffee or their hands or lips may get burnt in the process.

The ramifications of ones actions are not always so definable. If one spills water on the stairway, someone else may slip and fall a few minutes later. But the fall usually occurs out of notice of the person who spilt the water. Hence there is always that bit of carelessness associated with most actions. This carelessness is especially profound when it concerns the broader environmental perspective.

During the last one year, I’ve been to many areas affected by severe environmental degradation, spoken to many activists and experts and also read a great deal about perspectives.

Most people notice only immediate consequences of actions. Most people are in a position to only notice immediate consequences of their actions. Most people are unaware about the total consequences of their actions. Science itself is unaware of the total consequences of any action. This puts us all in a precarious position.

I will now demonstrate my points with appropriate examples.

The Inuit Case Study, Alaska, USA (excerpt from my report on the IPEN conference held in Trivandrum, India in August, 2008)

The Inuit folk get their main nutrition from the surrounding seas. They eat the meat of the large mammals of the region and the fishes from north pacific. These people have never used any pesticide in their region. Yet, they have the highest levels of pesticides in their bodies. Among the Inuit women, the breast milk levels of POPs (Persistent organic pollutants like DDT, BHC and dioxin) are the highest in the world. This has resulted because the chemicals, being non-biodegradable, are carried through the ocean currents and the marine food chains from seas bordering SE Asia and the west American coast. They are carried to northern latitudes by ocean currents, which eventually bioaccumulate big mammals of the Arctic through the food chain, which then are consumed by the aboriginals of the Arctic. The Inuit representative made a very touching presentation on the sufferings of the Inuit community to the international delegation here.

The above case study is but one example to demonstrate the illusion of space. The usage of pesticides in Asia has led to loss of marine life in the arctic and also led to congenital anomalies and abortions among pregnant inuit mothers.

The similarity between plastics and carbon-dioxide is their half lives, both being approximately 500 to 1000 years. The consequences of the carbon we emit through our activities now will be borne by several generations after us. They will have to pay for it by struggling for water and food and land (consequences of global warming). Similarly, most of our forefathers defined development as a conquest over nature and natural law; and we are paying for it by living by the same mindset.

The illusion of person is more difficult to understand. The person may be another human or another creature. Very recently, a staff member at the centre I work at mentioned to me that he always does things to help other people; like when he destroyed many bee hives killing over 10,000 bees over a month ago. He claimed that this was in the interest of everyone.

The world population of honeybees has reduced by 40%. That is a terrific statistic. If one were to ask a life scientist the importance of these creatures, the most direct answer would be that they are the reason for our food. All food grains and fruits are the consequence of pollination caused by these busy insects. Moreover, these insects attack only when directly provocated and are nonviolent otherwise, like any other non-human creature. By killing the bees this man has affected food production. In many areas of the world suffering from low yields of food grains, one of the major causes is said to be the dwindling population of honey bees.

The consequences of global warming will hit everyone but most severely the poor and agricultural community. Water scarcity, changes in insect populations and disease patterns are all in the process of blooming.

The Buddha proposed very early on in 500 BC that time, place and person are all illusions. If one were to see himself or herself in everything, and everything as an extension of himself or herself, how could he or she attack it? Because anything you attack is an attack upon yourself. In this moment lies all of time. The whole of the universe is your home. This is the principle of ahimsa or non-violence.

The Earth Organism

I’ve already introduced the term ‘Gaia Hypothesis’ in a previous post and I think it is about time we explore a little further into this all important concept.

An easy way to get a better understanding of the concept is to compare the earth as a whole to the functioning of the human body. The human body is composed of several organs and tissues each of which has a specific function. Some organs perform more vital functions as compared to others. For example, one could easily say that the heart is more important than a hand for life.

None the less, every organ is also dependent on other organs and tissues for its functioning. No organ is capable of independent existence. If one organ starts to fail, it reflects on the functioning of other organs.

There are several processes going on in the body – regulation of temperature, processing and cycling of nutrients, respiration etc and these are the processes that keep ‘life’ going in the organism.

The body is capable of dealing with insults to a certain extent without causing any alterations in the condition of the body. The body always tries to maintain the optimum conditions within the body and this process is called ‘homeostasis’.

But sometimes, the body is exposed to such a degree of insults that the compensatory mechanisms give way and disease strikes. Let us consider the example of the chronic disease ‘hypertension’. Since a very young age the body a person is exposed to physical, chemical and mental stresses. Initially, the body compensates for these by trying to excrete the excess salts, the blood vessels dilate to keep the pressure under control. At this stage his ‘compensatory mechanisms’ work overtime to keep things working normally in the body. But due to continued intake of improper diet, chemical exposure and stresses of life, the blood vessels, the kidneys and the heart give way one by one and the persons suffers from overt hypertension and is labeled a patient. At such a time the person needs medication to keep things normal. Medicines however can only do so much. If one doesnot take care of his health, he would have to pay a lot for it, eventually with premature death.

Similarly, the earth is made up of organs which are the abiotic components like the oceans, mountains, the air, ice, land etc and also biotic components which include all the plant, animal and microbe species on the planet. The abiotic components affect the life forms and the plants and animals have affected the abiotic components through important events like formation of oxygen in the atmosphere and in the carbon cycle. There are several important processes on the planet which include regulation of planetary temperature, water cycle and carbon cycle.

Each of the components contributes to these vital processes and help in maintaining the homeostasis of the planet. The conditions on earth are of course affected by several celestial events but there are many mechanisms on the planet which help maintain the conditions of temperature on the planet. In fact, the temperature on the planet has varied very little since many million years. The temperature has intimate connections with the amount of greenhouse gases in the air, ocean currents, ice covered area etc.

Since the beginning of civilization ten thousand years ago, man has started to have an effect on the environment. This initially was negligible because the number of people was very small and also the needs of each person were very little as compared to today. With time, there has been a continued rise in the amount of insult man has rendered on the environment. Gaian mechanisms have borne the brunt of damage to natural processes for a long time now. Although several people have been skeptical as to how much human activity can alter things on a global scale, it is more or less now an accepted fact that there have been severe alterations of certain processes like the carbon cycle. This is due to the combined effect of burning fossil fuels, increased population, deforestation, increased material needs, melting of polar ice, cattle farming, release of trapped GHGs etc. According to several respected authorities in the field, this process may have already been altered beyond control and the consequences will reveal themselves over the next few decades. Many effects are already being seen with weather unpredictability, species loss, melting polar and glacieral ice, crop failures etc. A detailed explanation of the carbon cycle and its implications will be made available in my next post.

Could it really be that we’ve caused damage beyond the regulatory capabilities of the earth as a whole? Through the books I’ve been reading over the last year and also the discussions I’ve had with eminent scientists, my doubts have been cleared. Gaian mechanisms  have indeed been overwhelmed. Apparently we’re in a stage where all activity will prove to be ’damage limitation’ rather than cure. Anyhow, damage limitation in itself is invaluable and I feel that one should not give up. Each one should hence work towards sustainable lifestyle.