Planting Trees, Veganism, and Protests Aren’t Enough!  || AP Neem Candies - video Dailymotion

Acharya Prashant

Watch Planting Trees, Veganism, and Protests Aren’t Enough!  || AP Neem Candies - Acharya Prashant on Dailymotion

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00:00At the root of the climate catastrophe lies man's tendency to consume.

00:11And man consumes in three clear ways and three distinct ways.

00:17Man wants to consume the entire world.

00:19And the entire world consists of human beings, prakritic beings, which you call as natural beings, and man-made things.

00:30Whenever you will look around you, these are the three kinds of things you will find, right?

00:35Other human beings, other natural beings, and other man-made things.

00:42Man consumes all three and consumption of all three leads to carbon emissions.

00:48When you consume another human being, what do you get?

00:52What do you get? Kids.

00:55And that is the biggest cause of carbon emissions.

00:57When you consume man-made things, again, what do you emit?

01:02Carbon.

01:03Because whatever there is man-made is made using energy and energy comes from fossil fuels.

01:10So whenever you are consuming something man-made, you are causing carbon emissions.

01:14And the third thing is consumption of natural resources.

01:20Whether you are eating vegetables, whether you are a vegan or not, or whether you are consuming meat.

01:30All of this is highly carbon-emitting.

01:35Even if you are vegan, you will eat grains at least.

01:39Where will the grains come from?

01:43Where will the grains come from?

01:45They can only come by felling forests.

01:49But then you start feeling great.

01:51I am a vegan, you know.

01:52I am holier than thou.

01:53The earth does not have resources to support 8 billion or 11 billion vegans.

02:02So do not be so happy about just being a vegan.

02:06Veganism doesn't help the cause of climate change beyond a point.

02:13We need two things.

02:15One, less people and less consumption.

02:17And both of them.

02:19Both of them together.

02:20I am getting it.

02:25Even if one of them is missing, you are gone.

02:29US has not too many people.

02:34Just 32 crores are there.

02:38And yet they are the biggest carbon emitters in the world.

02:42Because they consume.

02:44On the other end is China.

02:46China, the per capita consumption

02:48is 1 by 5 or 1 by 10 of the USA.

02:53And yet they are number 2 on the carbon list.

02:56Why?

02:56Because they are just too many.

03:00You need a situation where there are not more than 2 or 3 billion people in the world.

03:04That has been scientifically calculated to be the sustainable limit.

03:07And currently we are 8 billion.

03:10We need to reduce it to 2 or 3 billion.

03:12That is the first thing.

03:13Secondly, these 2 or 3 billion people have to be spiritual so that they do not have a tendency to consume.

03:19Unless you are spiritual, you are bound to be living a consumption centric life.

03:25The very urge for liberation, when it does not find an outlet, it becomes the urge to consume.

03:33Do you see this?

03:34Where does the tendency to consume so much come from?

03:38It comes from the misidentified and thwarted urge towards liberation.

03:46If you will not provide liberation to a man, his energies will flow in the direction of consumption.

03:54So these are the two things that we require.

03:57One, less population.

03:58Secondly, the population that remains must be highly spiritual in its outlook.

04:03Only then can you avoid the climate catastrophe.

04:06All this tamasha that is happening on the streets will not help.

04:09Instead it is making people feel good about themselves.

04:12I look at these warriors, climate warriors, young men and young women.

04:17Some of them were fighting the police recently in Bombay.

04:21And I thought to myself, will these young people refuse to have a kid?

04:26No, that they won't.

04:27Here for a tree, they are prepared to lay down their lives.

04:31And I respect that sentiment.

04:33Seriously, I respect that.

04:34But then I want to question the efficacy of that.

04:38You don't want these 2,700 trees to be cut down.

04:42But then if you get one child, that is the equivalent of cutting down a lakh trees.

04:49Bringing one child to the world is the equivalent of cutting down a lakh trees.

04:55Maybe more.

04:56Just do the maths.

04:57But you show so much of sentiment.

05:02When a tree is hacked down.

05:07And you show no sentiment.

05:09When you see family after family procreating.

05:14You in fact send them congratulatory messages.

05:17Wow, nice.

05:19Didi.

05:19Good that you have had your second or third kid now.

05:25Returning from the climate demonstration.

05:28What does this young girl do?

05:31She calls up her Didi and says,

05:33So Didi, was the delivery fine?

05:36What nonsense is this?

05:41Do you understand?

05:42Climate catastrophe is a spiritual problem.

05:49And it can only have a spiritual solution.

05:55All else that you see happening around you in the name of climate activism is just tamasha.

06:01It will not help.

06:02It will boost up a lot of egos.

06:04It will give fame and limelight to a lot of young people.

06:09They will become climate warriors.

06:10They will become saviors of the world.

06:12Tomorrow one of them might even get the Nobel Prize.

06:16So much of limelight is there, you know.

06:19This young man.

06:20He has really brought this issue to popular consciousness.

06:27Let's bestow upon him the Nobel Prize for peace.

06:31All that can happen.

06:32But all that will be just symbolic.

06:35Not helpful at all.

06:37Or even if it helps, it will help only to a very marginal degree.

06:44Do you get the real solution?

06:48From 8 billion, take it back to 2 billion.

06:51And you don't have to kill people for that.

06:54You just have to educate and encourage people to not to reproduce.

06:59Even if they want to have kids, let them have at max one kid.

07:05And second thing is, this 2 or 3 billion that finally remains, must be deeply spiritual from the heart.

07:13So that it does not have a tendency to feast upon the world.

07:17Are you getting it?

07:21Huh?

07:22But the way climate activism is going, it is going in a very blind direction.

07:31People are trying to get governments to intervene by way of legislation.

07:37What can the governments do?

07:41It is a democratic world.

07:43The governments will only do what the people want them to do.

07:47And the people want only cosmetic steps to be taken.

07:52So the governments will take cosmetic steps.

07:55In fact, chances are, you know, as far as this tree plantation exercise is concerned,

08:02chances are we have already crossed the threshold

08:05where tree plantation can reverse the effects of climate change.

08:14That threshold has already been crossed.

08:15Now we need stricter action.

08:19Now we need more meaningful action.

08:21Now we need real action.

08:24Planting trees might have been a useful step 20 years back.

08:29But that threshold has been long since crossed.

08:32You need to do more concrete action today.

08:35And more concrete action is not about, you know,

08:38Friday demonstrations and all that stuff and Friday strikes.

08:41All that is just a show.

08:45Real action needs to be taken.

Planting Trees, Veganism, and Protests Aren’t Enough! || AP Neem Candies

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