The other day I was at a dinner with folks who are clearly well heeled, if not very rich. They have a tastefully furnished home, a music system for the discerning listener and a high technology kitchen. The main protagonist of my story, a lady with some pretentions to minimalism, was mulling over how important money was to her. “It has its place,” she sniffed delicately, “I live within what we earn. Basically, I am a very simple person.” This argument is decidedly specious : indeed, ‘simple’ may just be the most abused word in the English language.
This got me thinking quite a bit about what simple living means to the middle and upper economic strata; in essence, it means living with just what you need, not with what you can afford. The more I think about it, the more I realise that the difference between these terms is the difference between night and day.
The Mahatma would have approved.
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Monday, December 7, 2009
On the Opening Day at Copenhagen, December 2009
This morning’s newspaper is a fascinating contradiction. The front page editorial of The Hindu, and many pieces on other pages, revolves around the Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, that will debate on an issue as important as our future and the future of our children. Across the newspaper, though, are advertisements, enticing, cajoling ones, pushing the sale of 2009 model cars of every auto company, as car makers want to empty their stock out before the year ends.
You could believe, with some justification, that, as Governments across the World meet to address the single biggest challenge humanity has faced, that of catastrophic climate alteration as a result of excessive carbon in the atmosphere, the Corporate sector continues to address the only challenge it has ever faced, viz., that of increasing sales, at any cost, even if such sales was only to add carbon to the atmosphere. This is so accepted now that no one could see the contradiction, if it was served on a plate with a salad dressing around it.
Yet, we should begin to. The Corporate sector, to which all of us are dutifully attached in some capacity or the other, is the largest force in society today and the impact of, say, Toyota effecting a 25% reduction in its carbon emissions can equal that of a country. Indeed, as Paul Hawken noted, of the top 100 economies in the World today, over 51% are corporations.
The problem arises because corporations are considered to be amoral in some sense, and need not have values that are necessary for every individual to live in society. Just how this has happened beats me, yet it is true. Therefore, most of us have begun to accept that asking a company, the company you work with, for example, to reduce its pollution impact, is violating principles of a working relationship. Like many things assumed, this is never questioned or, when questioned, dismissed as heretical.
The Hindu’s editorial has a brilliant end note: The politicians in Copenhagen have the power to shape history’s judgement on this generation: one that saw a challenge and rose to it, or one so stupid that saw calamity coming but did nothing to avert it. Are we, all members of an educated, ‘elite’, intelligent group, aware of the calamity ahead and what it means for each of us? Are we clinging to those dubious pieces of science fiction that deny that our climate is in inexorable alteration, because such prose is convenient to read and a feel-good story?
Are we willing instead, to change things around us towards a sustainable future, to make a substantial alteration to our standard of living and to become the catalyst, using the influence each of us has?
I do not have great aspirations from Copenhagen. Yet, in asking you to examine your own lifestyle, the consumptive and unsustainable way in which your business is run, as well as the future of our planet, and to disassociate all this reflection from business imperative, I am making a request, a sincere and heartfelt one, to do the right thing. As the many leaders debate and negotiate with, contradict and annoy each other, please use your circle of influence within your corporation to make a real, tangible difference to the planet, devoid of political agenda and, more likely than not, in contradiction to short term profit objectives. If the process of climate change is to be arrested, the first step will have to be taken by each one of us, not by the jesters at the court of Copenhagen.
In other words, its your problem.
You could believe, with some justification, that, as Governments across the World meet to address the single biggest challenge humanity has faced, that of catastrophic climate alteration as a result of excessive carbon in the atmosphere, the Corporate sector continues to address the only challenge it has ever faced, viz., that of increasing sales, at any cost, even if such sales was only to add carbon to the atmosphere. This is so accepted now that no one could see the contradiction, if it was served on a plate with a salad dressing around it.
Yet, we should begin to. The Corporate sector, to which all of us are dutifully attached in some capacity or the other, is the largest force in society today and the impact of, say, Toyota effecting a 25% reduction in its carbon emissions can equal that of a country. Indeed, as Paul Hawken noted, of the top 100 economies in the World today, over 51% are corporations.
The problem arises because corporations are considered to be amoral in some sense, and need not have values that are necessary for every individual to live in society. Just how this has happened beats me, yet it is true. Therefore, most of us have begun to accept that asking a company, the company you work with, for example, to reduce its pollution impact, is violating principles of a working relationship. Like many things assumed, this is never questioned or, when questioned, dismissed as heretical.
The Hindu’s editorial has a brilliant end note: The politicians in Copenhagen have the power to shape history’s judgement on this generation: one that saw a challenge and rose to it, or one so stupid that saw calamity coming but did nothing to avert it. Are we, all members of an educated, ‘elite’, intelligent group, aware of the calamity ahead and what it means for each of us? Are we clinging to those dubious pieces of science fiction that deny that our climate is in inexorable alteration, because such prose is convenient to read and a feel-good story?
Are we willing instead, to change things around us towards a sustainable future, to make a substantial alteration to our standard of living and to become the catalyst, using the influence each of us has?
I do not have great aspirations from Copenhagen. Yet, in asking you to examine your own lifestyle, the consumptive and unsustainable way in which your business is run, as well as the future of our planet, and to disassociate all this reflection from business imperative, I am making a request, a sincere and heartfelt one, to do the right thing. As the many leaders debate and negotiate with, contradict and annoy each other, please use your circle of influence within your corporation to make a real, tangible difference to the planet, devoid of political agenda and, more likely than not, in contradiction to short term profit objectives. If the process of climate change is to be arrested, the first step will have to be taken by each one of us, not by the jesters at the court of Copenhagen.
In other words, its your problem.
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