Towards making the existing model obsolete

In the page immediately after the contents of A Year in Green Tea and Tuk-Tuks is the Buddhist adage “What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls the butterfly.” I knew right away that this was going to be a different kind of book. A book that showed 1. an awareness of the problem 2. creative and yet practically sustainable solutions to it. My introduction to the environmental crisis happened in grade 10. There were a couple of questions on the climate change and ozone depletion. Definite questions which would fetch you 10 marks. As I saw it then, there was nothing much I could do about the reducing the rate of ozone depletion except to convince the examiners that I knew the processes. The equation was so simple and for all practical purposes, the ozone hole became my favourite topic. My curiosity regarding environmental management shot up when I saw An Incovenient Truth. To tell the truth, I felt a lot wiser but strangely uncomfortable. I needed to know more. Suddenly terms like genetically modified food, ozone hole, climate change, biological warfare etc. started acquiring a sinister meaning. From the way I look at it, a book that tries to address environmental issues should essentially 1. Give the real picture of the crisis in a language that a layman can understand 2. Suggest practical ways and means to address them both at the local/global level 3. Narrate real life experiences to prove that living in harmony with the environment doesn’t necessarily mean uncomfortable living. Rory Spower’s book is an excellent instance of environment awareness in daily life. As he narrates his experience of creating an organic farm in a country torn apart by natural disasters and civil strife, we accompany him on a journey to create a more self-sustaining lifestyle. There is no problem without a solution. This is exemplified in his attempts to address the need for comfortable yet ecologically sustainable living. Is he joking? NO. He proves that this is possible with a few modifications to the design and structure of of our living areas. Electricity? Spowers tells me that I can generate enough power in my own backyard and stop depending on the unpredictable power grid, or fuel my living expenses with diesel. From what he says it appears that it is also possible not only to recharge a laptop but to address all the electricity requirements of a household using solar power. But what about the costs involved in designing and restructuring our living space in a manner that would preserve the biodiversity and promote sustainable lifestyle? Spowers does not simply throw statistics at us. When he calculates the cost of this kind of sustainable living and the savings and the profits that can be generated out of it, we can see that the man knows his economics. Sample his narration of the Doc Man’s life style [Chapter 3] and his own attempts at building his domicile in a cost-effective manner. Colin, the doc-man hits the nail on the head when he says that ‘the only way to reverse the situation was to bring economics and ecology back into synergy, to apply ecological truths to our corrupted economic thought and make it beneficial not only to all human beings, but all forms of life.”And this remains the effort of Spowers. Combining ecological and economical sense in designing a sustainable lifestyle. The best thing about the book is that it is not just mere narration, but narration backed with research, experiences and most importantly, a tinge of humour. And when it ends, you have the ‘highlighting of the horrors of our predicament with respect to various apects of our life’ along with the ‘initiatives, projects and technologies that give us a cause for hope.’ And it was this section which caught the interest of my curious mind which was in search of knowledge about the fuel consumption by vehicles, genetically modified food, the effects of pesticides, the impact of the pharmaceutical industry, so on and so forth. Here Spowers blows apart many myths about the role played by the developing technologies in creating a sustainable and peaceful life. According to him, they seem to be directed only along the capitalistic lines and the generation of profits with scant regard to environment. He does manage to make his point here. The final solution apparently seems to be in education. Right type of education which would enable us to be informed beings living in harmony with our environment rather than machines living in isolation. For which the ‘illusion’ of us being separate little selves rather than a ‘manifestation of one universal and absolute self’ has to be removed.It is on this affirmative note that the book ends. One of the quotations used in the book remained in my mind for quite sometime is: "You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete." And to make the existing model obsolete, we need to understand our own roles both as a part of the problems and the solutions. But for that mere concepts, models, and theories alone do not suffice. You need to have your heart in the right place. At the end of this journey of exploration, discovery, challenges, minor/major victories, minor/major defeats, the point really driven home is that there is no problem without a solution. To make the existing model obsolete, you need not only need a new model, but also your heart and mind in the right place. That remains the USP of this book.