Day 4

22nd April, 2011

Now this is what I call a day! well, I am still struggling to get up early. But I have reached a decent 7 AM time. Plan to get up at 5 30. well, this is the time people normally get up here. :-O.

Morning was in the grampari, looking at various things around and understanding how they work. In the noon, I went in a session on Integrity and Leadership. It was Conducted by Sidharth and Rhea. A wonderful session which threw light on 'What is Integrity' and how do we maintain it. Integrity is Wholesomeness or completeness of a person, system of an organization, for that matter any entity. A small flaw in the system or component breaks the completeness of the whole system and reduces its productivity. For a person, integrity means the completeness of his words.

If one wants to maintain the integrity of one's word, then one must keep their word. Once a commitment is done, then it should be obeyed. If one is not able to keep his or her word, the integrity is damaged. Then one needs to honor one's word. Honoring means cleaning the mess that has been created by not keeping the word. This would restore the integrity back - probably higher. This rule follows in the word you give to yourself too.

The next session was by Mr Dilip Kulkarni. It was on 'Environmental crisis and our responsibility'. We have 2 kind of environments today. One is Natural environment and the other is Man-made environment. Depletion of the natural env by the man-made env started in 1965 with the invention of steam engine. Before that man definitely used the resources, but in a limited manner. After 1965, man had been consuming the natural resources at a very rapid rate.World today measures the growth in terms of GDP. Growth in GDP shows progress of the country. Every one is in the race of attaining higher production. If we plot a graph, it would always be pointing upwards. Which is totally opposite to Nature. Nature is cyclic. Everything happens in a cycle. This is one of the very fundamental difference between the natural environment and the manmade environment. He then explained some more differences too.

• Nature has a policy of 'give and take' All the living organisms take a few things and give a few things out. Like trees take Carbon dioxide and give away oxygen while mammals give away carbon dioxide and take oxygen. Thus things remain in a balance. While the man-made environment has a policy of 'only take'. We just take everything that the nature has. Dont give anything back which is useful. Everything that we give back is harmful to nature. eg. plastic that we throw. Trees that we cut and a lot more.
• Nature believes in Equal status for all the species. distributes the resources equally among all. While Humans consider themselves as the king of the earth. They believe in homo centrism - They are the center of the earth. Everything happens for and due to them.
• Nature is full of diversity. Diversity can be compared to the bottom of the pyramid on which natural environment sustains. It has a lot of species and various organisms. The consumption patterns of theses organisms make the nature balance itself. On the other hand, humans believe in monocity. We have been responsible killing a lot of species. As a matter of fact, we had 30000 species of paddy in India. Today there are less than 300 remaining. Rest have died.
• Nature has a wonderful property of limiting itself. More important than the phenomena of growth is the phenomena of limiting the growth. The trees grow. But then after a certain height attained, it stops itself. Human body grows. But after an age, the cells know to stop growing. I dont know who instructs them. And those cells which believe in uncontrolled growth are termed as cancerous cells. They are considered harmful cells. Humans believe in unlimited growth. We keep on consuming things and making more and more powerful machines - consuming a lot of energy. It has to stop somewhere.

Our environment is facing some hard problems these days. Some very prominent problems and the basic prolems are listed below.

1. Depletion of resources
2. Pollution
3. Loss of biodiversity

Linear growth that we believe in, is really not possible at all. Even economics believes in the law of marginal utility. Similar is the case with our environment. It has a limit. It has to be cyclic. And if we disturb the cycle, then nature would definitely take some hard steps. The fundamental policy in the definition of growth is wrong. GDP being a measure of growth is totally wrong. For example take a road accident. When a road accident happens, a lot of income is generated in the economy. The doctors, the hospitals would get revenue. the pharmacists would make money for medicines that are consumed. The mechanic would gete to earn for car repairs. The sparepart manufacturers would earn. Thus creating more wealth in the economy. But then is it good to have more accidents?

Here are some solutions that can be thought of for solving these problems.

1. Change in the development policy. As discussed, we need to change the measures of growth.
2. Change in the lifestyle. This is something we can do at an individual level.

Follow 4 Rs:

• Refuse - refuse the things that you do not want. Concentrate on your needs than your wants. Consume less.
• Reduce - If you can not refuse it, reduce the consumption.
• Reuse - Reuse the things that are reusable. use them till their lifetime. Every resource is important.
• Recycle - though recycle is not completely environmental friendly, but still it is helpful. Recycle the waste created.

The above Rs would help in reducing the ecological foot print and thus help us in conserving the environment.

-SD