G Ate; Others, Please Wait!

As the G8 Summit of the world’s richest countries is on in Hokkaido, Japan, I’m thinking of the growing disparities and despairs of the world – the current so-called boom in India and other developing economies notwithstanding. Today, many point out that global warming and green initiatives have become bigger issues than terrorism. Leaders of the world are worrying less about third world war and more about the “devastating growth” in third-world countries (which are second-world, by the way?)

Recently there were some interesting articles in Economist and Newsweek on the future of energy and the greenness – or lack of it – on the only orb we got here. For all the hype and the hoopla, apparently less than 1% of the current energy is supplied by renewables. On the lines of GDP, thinkers are coming up with calculation of EPI (Environmental Performance Index) for various countries. The only ones who seem to fare well on the index, apparently, are sparsely populated nations of Europe.

Making all sorts of calculations and coming up with theoretical models keeps economists and scientists busy – but does it really help solve the problems? It may or it may not. But IMHO, it often certainly does create complications – like those we saw with the misplaced corn-ethanol frenzy and carbon-trading. Shifting resources or carbon emissions elsewhere is something like sweeping your house clean but depositing the pile of garbage on your neighbors’, or, sometimes, “distant relatives’”. Only, the fumes from the garbage now reach far and wide – causing weather nightmares everywhere.

While people at the top (those with the power to make policy decisions that can have country-, region-, or globe-specific impact) lunch and munch together – not to much avail – the consumers and citizens of the world are getting increasingly confused about “their tiny bit” in bringing down their carbon “footprint”. According to an essay ‘I’m So Tired of Being Green’ by Susan Greenberg (what a surname! – no offense) in Newsweek, there’s an entire branch of eco-psychology growing out of people’s eco-anxieties.

It’s OK for people of rich countries – who have been devouring resources and gallivanting around the world for several decades – to now feel a pinch of conscience at their profligate ways. But who will nudge the minds of hundreds of millions of developing-country consumers who have barely begun to guzzle gas, munch meat and throng ‘1,000 places to see before they die’?
All these tree-uprooting, carbon-sooting and vehicle-scooting years the rich have left a deadly trail of environmental destruction and economically-induced cult of consumerism – which the poor and upcoming are only too happy to emulate. Do the paunchy leaders of different countries have the stomach to ask these billions to wait? And even if they do, will they wait?