There's No Tomorrow (Make sure you watch ALL of this video)

This is a long watch, but do watch it. Its illuminating, thought provoking, and sums things up really really well.

It must be screened at every school. They're the ones who'll have to face it. They're the ones who'll need to discard everything we've taught them to be true and right and relearn, rediscover, experiment. All the while burdened with a terrible terrible legacy that we would have left them with.

The energy, oil economy decided everything, and the monetary system that encouraged growth, has needed more and more and more of it. The bacteria-in-the-bottle analogy is chilling.

Growth (as currently pursued) indeed is a huge problem - its a brave thing to call that one out in the current madness for it as the panacea that can bring democracy, solve hunger, provide for all and solve anything at all. 

Alternative energy, conservation, recycling - these are all twigs we're trying to use to try and hold against the ground to stop the bus hurtling rapidly towards the cliff. Nothing will "solve" it unless we relook at - or are forced to relook at - how we continue to live, and how many of us do. 

Our lack of acknowledgement, our inability to understand and react appropriately to this fundamental truth is apalling, scary and frustrating. 

There's no way of continuing the current way we live and hope technology will solve it enough so we can get away without having to do anything.

Thankfully, the movie does suggest a few fixes, and they're all tough. I don't see many willing or able to adapt to live the better life, and we'll eventually do when forced to.

• Question growth, globalization : they're pure bad as practised, NOT good.
• Walk, cycle more since you'll have to. Drive less. Way lesser.
• Buy less. Please. Everything,
• Buy local, seasonal, unpackaged.
• Fight fears and imagined inconveniences - the big ones haven't hit yet.
• Doing "more physical work" is NOT a bad thing.
• Get out of banking/globalized currency - its tough but make a start
  • A few ideas 
    • Potlucks to substitute restaurants
    • Barter skills and services
    • Co-operate for manpower needs, don't always buy it
    • Use everything longer
    • Optimize the hell out of everything
    • Slower, less commercial forms of entertainment
    • Grow some food
• Learn more about the land, growing food, water
  • We've lost half the topsoil in the last couple of 100 years!
  • We've completely lost any understanding of the carrying capacity of a place
• Learn more about building homes from stuff around you
• Re-invest in community - time and effort, not money

The current financial economy and monetary system are indeed a ponzi scheme. Frustrating that we're so wedded to it and almost powerless to fiind a way out.

Sometimes I think our faith in technology is a mere betrayal of our conceit, but it might just be the stupid-filter masquerading as smartness and intelligence. Our total lack of ability to connect the dots is apalling.

Or maybe we're just too scared to ask questions, change lifestyles that deviate from the marketed/accepted status quo.

2048, I'd say, is the new doomsday. In less dramatic ways but figuratively, yes. I'll probably die before that but in a terrible state of mind.

We're soooooo screwed. Sorry, kids, that we couldn;t see this, couldn't behave ourselves and were too weak to improve things in the face of the instant pleasure.

 

The Conscience of Things We Do(n't)

We, collectively, have a very funny conscience. We've trained it to keep it clean with the much practiced technique of not-digging-deep.

So trash put "neatly" in trash bags and picked up by staff on the premises is "well taken care of"

And an emission check actually makes us believe our vehicles are environment friendly

Water from the deep (borewells) is used just like water from easily renewable sources

And because they said its bio-degradable plastic, we can use as much of it as possible

The "re-cycle" mark on so many products makes it perfectly legitimate to chuck things in dustbins

And the colour green or the label "herbal" actually passes for the real deal

Notions of convenience, comfort, even extreme ideas about safety trump responsibility all the time, and the latter is anyhow outsourced - to service providers, manufacturers, the government. In short, "them".

So we can continue with our lives as we have gotten used to. And do as little as we can.

The government, the government

Everything is wrong because the government does nothing. 

Thats our reaction to, and way and extent of dealing with issues that we come face to face with, and having done this, continuing whatever it is we were doing earlier. 

The environment is not the government's responsibility. Its ours. We wither encourage, or let the government do certain things and so they happen. We clamour for better roads because we collectively have faster, better, more driving as a goal we've acquired from our trips to the western world, and want to see that here.

The GoI has implemented a whole lot of laws for controlling pollution, protecting forests, etc.

We - citizens - homeowners, industrial stakeholders, consumers, car drivers, etc - try our damndest to maintain status quo and not disturb things unless it has a direct positive material impact on our lives.

The BMTC has improved bus services manifold, both in terms of quantity and quality. Yet we continue forwarding one excuse or the other to avoid giving up on our perception of "convenience" in our own cars. Inertia is dearer to us than the condition of the species and the planet going forward.

We ape bad retail habits we have seen in the west merely because they seemed cool there, and we are too shy/lazy to stand out refusing plastic to put each individual vegetable purchase into before getting it weighed at our malls. Blame the government for that too ?

Sure these are small steps, but there's little hope of evolving the right collective goals, pushing the government towards real positive change, etc, from a population thats by and large content living off unsustainable behaviour for short term gains, and considering finger pointing as adequate contributiuon.

Somewhere, I fear the future will treat us with irritated scorn and incredulous disbelief for our shortsightedness.

Posted via email from bangalorekaapi

Legacy

The kids need a better world.

Better broadband ?

Better digital interfaces ?

More connected online communities ?

Cooler handhelds ?

Quicker cars ?

Or cleaner air ?

Water ? (Man, this one is getting close.)

Livable cities ?

What do we leave behind ?

Plastic hills ?

Fenced, protected, expensive fresh water sources ?

Bubbles of glass inside which breathing is possible ?

Anger, despair, anxiety as the collective consciousness ?

Will they mock us ?

Curse ?

Deride our shortlived choices ?

Our escapist mechanisms to cope with threats ?

The generations that did not stand and fight and solve.

But escaped into the nether.

Created money, and used it to hide the sins.

Our lifespans are a curse, I read somewhere.

Looks like the curse is on our kids. And we're responsible.

I'm just wondering if there's a breaking point someplace and if we're all Neros.

Posted via email from bangalorekaapi