The Great Simplification with Nate Hagens - Reality and Perseverance in India: Pollution, Poverty, and Policy with Sunita Narain

Episode Date: January 15, 2025

(Conversation recorded on December 4th, 2024)     It is an unfortunate reality that the countries least responsible for the climate and ecological crises we face are often the ones most vulnerable to their effects today and in the future. India – with its population of 1.4 billion, rapidly rising temperatures, and limited resources compared to many developed nations – finds itself at the crossroads of these challenges. What do India's leading scientists and advocates have to say about coping with these extreme pressures?   In this episode, Nate is joined by environmentalist and policy advocate Sunita Narain to discuss the intricate relationship between environmental issues and development, emphasizing the need for economically inclusive solutions. She highlights India's challenges with sanitation, urban mobility, and climate change, while pushing for wiser approaches to governance and community planning. How can the moral and cultural history of India combine with science and innovation to guide policy making decisions? Why does 'sustainable development' need to go beyond environmental considerations to include the economic availability for each nation's poorest citizens? And perhaps most importantly, how could today's challenges position India as a global leader in creating an economic system that prioritizes the health and well-being of all life on Earth?   About Sunita Narain: Sunita Narain has worked at the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), a research and advocacy centre based in New Delhi, since 1982. She is currently Executive Director of the Centre, Treasurer of the Society for Environmental Communications and Editor of the bi-monthly magazine Down To Earth. She is a writer and environmentalist who uses knowledge for change. In 2005, she was awarded the Padma Shri, the fourth-highest civilian award of the Republic of India. She has also received the World Water Prize for her work on rainwater harvesting and for her political influence in developing paradigms for community water management. In 2005, she also chaired the Tiger Task Force, at the request of the Prime Minister, to develop a conservation action plan for the country after the loss of the tigers in Sariska. Sunita Narain was a member of the Prime Minister's Council on Climate Change as well as the National Ganga River Basin Authority.   Show Notes and More  Watch this video episode on YouTube ---   Support The Institute for the Study of Energy and Our Future Join our Substack newsletter Join our Discord channel and connect with other listeners    

We don't have the luxury of wasting land for waste. We have to do things differently. The government of India today talks about circularity, not because it's a buzzword, because the government of India understands. It's the only way we can be resource efficient and we can reduce the load of pollution. And that's where I feel India will have

and will find pathways which are different, and will be an example for the rest of the world. You're listening to The Great Simplification. I'm Nate Hagan's. On this show, we describe how energy, the economy, the environment, and human behavior all fit together and what it might mean for our future. By sharing insights from global thinkers, we hope to inform and inspire more humans to play emergent roles in the coming Great Simplification.

Today on The Great Simplification, I am joined by Enverbalmings. environmentalist and political activist Sonita Noreen to discuss the current state and future goals for environmental policy in India. Sunita is the Director General for India's Center for Science and the Environment, as well as the treasurer for the Society for Environmental Communications. For more than four decades, Sonita Noreen has been influential in building public opinion through research on the management of the environment as well as directed campaigns. on air pollution control, community water management, pesticide regulation, among many others. She and I have never met before this conversation. We have a mutual friend.

Sunita is a powerful, potent human being. And I hope this is the first conversation of many. I wish I had met her on my recent trip to India. In this conversation, Sunita and I discuss her philosophy on the environment, on wealth and inequality, and the role that politics and government play in creating a society that works for all people. I live in North America. The Great Simplification doesn't just affect people in the United States and Canada,

but people in every country around the world, people that are not even born yet in other places in the world and other species. This is a right of passage for humanity, and India has one and a half billion people who are just as relevant to the Great Simplification as people in Topeka, Kansas, or California. I hope you enjoy and learn from and empathize with the people outside of our borders in the country of India and beyond. Please welcome Sunita Narein. Sunita, welcome to the show. Great to see you. Thank you, Nate. Happy to be with you. I know it's late in India right now.

I believe you're in Delhi. So thank you for taking your evening. I assume you've had dinner already? I did actually because I'm beginning to eat early as I, as all of us should. Yeah, I'm trying to learn that too. I was in India earlier this year and just humor me for my missing of Indian food. What did you have for dinner tonight? I had the most amazing prawns, actually, I have to say. I have this cook who is outstanding.

And a colleague of mine taught us how to make prawns, which you steam in the leaves of a tree called butius monospoma, if that means anything to you. It's called the Dhak tree or the palash tree. So it's fantastic. I mean, to eat, you know, the steaming in the leaves gives you this amazing. smell that goes into food, which is so unique to India, which I don't think, I mean, this is a very traditional recipe. And I think that ability to live with nature and to be able to understand nature, I really, Nate, I really wish more Indians would understand that we should not lose this knowledge. The spices and the smells and the taste were something.

out of this world or at least out of the Western world. So I really, among many things I miss in India, the food is one of them. I don't want to digress. You have had a long, very important and successful career over four decades of advocating for change at the intersection of environmental conservation, reducing poverty and inequity. And you've achieved many large-scale successes, not only in India, but globally. So maybe to start with, after talking about your prawns, maybe you could talk a bit about how the issues of poverty, inequality, and the degradation of the environment are intertwined, and why is this important?

So, Nate, you know, I'm an environmentalist, as you know, and I have been working in India forever. Now, for us, when we look at environment, it is so deeply connected to development. And one of the biggest issues that we've had, and I think that's what makes the Indian environmental movement so unique and voices like mine different has been to challenge the Western view of environmentalism, which has really looked at environment beyond development. But for us, it is part of development. So for us, the issue of environment is how do you make development more sustainable?

And what we have understood so clearly, Nate, through all the work we've done is you cannot make it more sustainable if it is not affordable, which means if it is not inclusive. And that's where politics and environment have always come together in India. And it's always a dilemma for me because, you know, when I speak to many of my colleagues in the Western environmental movement, for them the politics of inclusion are not the politics of environment. Environment is about environment. Whereas for us, environment is about how do you make development? work for all. I mean, I'll give you a simple example because, so I work a lot on two things that are great area work. One is, forgive me when I say this on your show, but it's on excreta, shit. Okay. So I work a lot on shit. And as I work on shit, because we have very polluted rivers. So I mean, you know, my beginning point to

it is how do we clean up India's rivers. And to clean up India's rivers, you have to understand the excretta story of our households. And you essentially, in all my understanding, what I have begun and I've written about it and spoken and pushed policy is, you know, if you have an unaffordable system of sanitation in our cities, where only a limited number of people can have poured a flush toilet and a sewage system, which is highly capital intensive, highly resource intensive, you will never clean your rivers. Because the excreta of people like me, who live in a part of a city where the excreter is, you know, I flush and I forget. And it goes into this underground sewage network, which I hope takes it to a treatment plant. And I hope the

treatment plant, cleans it, and then puts it back into the river. But that's a minuscule number of people in our cities, because we cannot afford the resource capital intensive surid system, then frankly, you can't afford either. You just built it at a time when you had a lot more money. And you didn't have the kind of pressures that you have today. And today are a clear understanding. is that if you don't have a sanitation system in which everybody's shit can be collected, intercepted, treated and reused, you will never clean your rivers. So inclusivity, affordable development, the right to sanitation is the right to environment. It's the same thing with clean air of Delhi. I mean, I live in a city which is still a smog chamber.

And a lot of my effort many years ago has gone to push for very hard action to clean it up. But what we know very clearly is that the kind of a mobility system we have today, where the bulk of people in our cities still travel in a bus, in a subway, walk and cycle. And yet the car has taken up the bulk of the road space. and it is taken up the airshed of Delhi. It is the cause of pollution today. Now, how do you make sure that we do not choke on the spit of the cars as India grows? Because only 20% of Delhi still drives, 80% of Delhi does not.

So affordable mobility, affordable motorization is absolutely. critical for the clean air of Delhi, the right to walk, the right to cycle. So I'm not going to go on and on. I'm sorry, Nate. But just to make the point for us, environment is about politics. You cannot neuter politics from environment. Well, I want you to go on and on. And I have a lot of questions based on your opening statement.

In no particular order, you said that the environment has to be about. mobility has to be affordable. So we can make something affordable by being more wealthy and having more money and more capital. Or we can downscale the type of human service like transportation to then be affordable by more people. But if, for instance, we do continue to grow and India has been growing quite rapidly the last five to 10 years, doesn't, isn't there a risk that 23%, 26%, 30% of the residents of Delhi will use cars for transportation and therefore there will be more pollution? Absolutely, Nate.

But I would like to challenge what you just said, because the fact is you can become wealthy and you can think that you have dealt with the problem, but you have not. So most of US drives, okay? And you think you have fixed the problem because you have cleaned up your city's airs. But the fact is you have externalized it to create an existential problem called climate change. Transport contributes 20% of the emissions that lead to climate change. So yes, you can breathe clean air and you can look down upon the people of Delhi. Oh, you stupid people, you have such bad air, you know, and we've cleaned up LA's air and, you know,

Washington's air. Look, we're so smart. But I'm sorry, Nate. I mean, I think those are the myths that we need to break. You may have cleaned up your local air, but you've really created a problem for all of us. Our latest data tells us that we have one extreme weather event a day, a day. Okay? that's the extent of the devastation that we are dealing with today.

So, yes, India will grow. India will, and there is an aspirational India, and we will get on to cars because that's the vision we see from the rest of the world, is the vision of modernity, the vision of wealth, the vision of being successful is to own a car, and the size of the car is your status in the world. And today, if you have an electric car, it's even a higher status. You could have five diesel SUVs and one electric car, and you have solved the world's problem.

I'm sorry, Nate. Let's get real. First of all, I want you to challenge me. We have a mutual friend, and this is why I invited you on the show. Please challenge anything that I say. Second of all, for sure, for sure, I am not looking down on people in India. you stupid people. I mean... Nate, Nate, you don't get me wrong. I'm not talking about you, please. I'm talking about

more generally that there is this sense of, and I live in Delhi. And so please forgive me when I say this also, because I do feel extremely ashamed of Delhi's air. And I do feel we need to fix it. So please don't get me wrong on that. Well, let me share something with you, Sunita. this is our first conversation. I lived in China when I was younger. I speak Chinese and I've traveled a lot in my lifetime. I'd never been to India. I never knew much about India at all until I was there earlier this year.

And I just had a wonderful experience. But given my job, given my role, given my work over the last 20 years, I'm intensely perhaps too intensely aware of what's coming. with respect to climate change, especially in places like the Indian subcontinent. And while I was there, I was surprised at how few people actually knew about climate change and what was happening and the reasons why. And it was hot when I was there in January, hot for me. And every single day, Sunita, I looked around and the emotional arc of my calculus and my brain

envisioned what's going to happen in coming decades. And I felt shame and sadness, even though I'm not personally responsible for it. I don't think anyone is individually personally responsible. And that's my work as we've become this metabolic energy-hungry superorganism. But yeah, maybe you could just respond to that. I mean, this is a difficult conversation for me to have because I don't think there are easy answers, but I really want to hear your perspective on these things. No, Nate, you're absolutely right.

And I share your anguish completely. I mean, you know, I was at the Rio conference in 1992. And in Rio, somehow it felt much more feasible, much more real that we'd be able to deal with climate change. You know, I call it the age of innocence. And I call it time when we didn't even know what it would mean. I mean, frankly, in 1992, it was all about models and about future, futuristic discussions about, you know, this could happen. And today, you and I are living it.

I left, you know, this summer in Delhi, the trees burnt in my garden. They burnt. And I kept telling myself, my trees are burning. But I am privileged. I live in a place where I can still have the comforts. But we are getting to a point where nature is really telling us enough is enough. And then my colleagues came back to me and they said they were, they like you, journalists, and they were going out and interviewing a lot of people, particularly people,

the poorer people in our cities. And they came back with a horrifying piece of news, which they said, and then we started looking into it. They said, you know, the more they're talking to people, they're hearing, people are dying at night. And we said, why? Why are people dying at night? And then it came out that what's happening now

is that the difference between daytime temperature and nighttime temperature. and nighttime temperature is actually decreasing. So what would happen is that it would get really hot during the day, but night times would cool down. Now this is the double whammy, that on one hand you have climate change, which is spiking the temperature, we'll live in an inferno, and then you have everything that we're doing wrong in our cities,

concretization, less green spaces, less water bodies. And ironically, the more cars we use, the more heat we generate. The more air conditioners we use, the more heat we generate. Now, as a result of it, we're actually making sure that we have this double impact on us. And I don't think it's only India. It's all over the world. So we are doing. development wrong and we have climate change and they're both in a sense a loop which is feeding each other and so I I share your anguish completely Nate I mean I also believe at some level sometimes I feel we have failed as a as a generation we failed we tried so hard to fix things to make people understand that there was

this impending catastrophe coming this existential crisis, but we have not succeeded in showing them a way ahead. I think that's where our biggest failure has been, is not being able to capture the imagination or the policy space in being able to show that there is a different way ahead. And that way ahead is better than where we are today. And is that what you're working on now? And do you have any broad brush descriptions of what that pathway might be? And is that pathway just for India or for the whole world?

So yes, I think that's where we all need to work on. And I'm sure you are as well, Nate, and I'm sure many other people are, because I keep telling my colleagues, we have to have a duty to hope. We have to create hope in people that we have solutions to move ahead. But I think those solutions require us to be much more bolder and much more imaginative. And I think that's where I am always struggling with my own community, with our community, both in, you know, where we are also very, we're tinkering around with the solutions. I'll take the example I gave you earlier of shit.

Let me take that forward where we are taking it today. So as I told you, we basically found that if you don't have an inclusive system of sanitation, you can never clean up your rivers. You can never really have clean water because the sewage of very small number of people will get treated. But the sewage of very large numbers of people would not get treated because the system couldn't afford the treatment of the majority. So with this understanding, we have been looking at, so what's the solution moving ahead? And the solution moving ahead, which interestingly, the government of India has actually now made part of its policy moving, is to say, okay, let's not think of underground sewage as the answer to management of our waste water. let's think about how we can do non-suard sanitation.

So you would literally take, let's say if you lived and you had a septic tank in your house, you had a tank where all your excreta went. Now, in yesterday's time, you would say, government would say, oh, I will build an underground sewage system, take your sewage to a treatment plant. Now India is beginning to say, why are we, we need to define how we move ahead differently. So we will take the sewage from these underground tanks, take them in tankers, treat them, and reuse them on the land. So recycle and reuse the sewage. And the perfect analogy for this is really your landlines.

You know, when I was growing up, getting a telephone connection in India was virtually impossible because you had landline systems, very expensive. Only a few people could get even a telephone line. Today, we all have cellular phones because we've gone to the satellite. So what we have been arguing is let's leapfrogged to a sanitation system in which we don't have landlines anymore. Now, the same parallel would be for the energy system. The same parallel would be for the water system. Let's harvest every drop of rainwater so that rain is decentralized, so is a supply of water.

Let's make sure we capture every drop of rainwater, harvest it, recharge our groundwater, build lakes and tanks, so that when we have this extreme rain event, we can actually hold the water. So the point I'm making is it's going to be business unusual. It's going to be business different. Is that what you mean? I've heard in some of your speeches you talk about a new old government that we need. What do you mean by that? And what would the ideal government policy structure be to implement?

some of the things you've just said. So I think what for your need is, you know, for me, democracy is critical. I think the more deepening of democracy you will have, the more stronger your sustainability goals will be. And for me, therefore, the new old government has to be one in which India has a concept, which was brought forward by Mahatma Gandhi, he very strongly believed in something called the Gram-Swaraj, the village republic, where he literally believed in every village of India,

having its own republic. And that meant participatory democracy, not representative democracy, which we have adopted more. And I think that's a lesson, Nate, which I look at today increasingly, because today we have a very modified democracy in our world. I mean, one of the reasons why we're all grappling with an environmental crisis and not knowing what to do with it is because we have changed the nature of democracy.

We have changed the nature of social spaces. We have a world in which social media dominates, where, the individual has become more important than the society in which we live in. And a lot of India is still wedded to the place where we live. We are losing it. I mean, you started off it saying, and very rightly so, that India will change. And India is changing. The question is, can we change in a way that we can still keep some of the richness

the wealth of India, not in terms of the wealth in money terms, the wealth in wisdom. I mean, my biggest example is always the food of India. I mean, we have such an amazing cuisine. Every region of India cooks differently, Nate. I mean, the same lentil that I will eat in North India is cooked differently, you know, even 100 kilometers away. It's the richness. And it came out of the biological diversity of India.

Because of the biological diversity, we had a cultural diversity. But today we are getting, you know, everybody eats McDonald's. In India? Not everybody. No, no. Not yet. But we would like to. Let me ask you this.

Is there talking about Indian culture and the, the, the biological diversity. And is there a chance that the Indic wisdom that still exists, because not everyone still is going to McDonald's and many other such examples, can the cultural heritage of the people in India play a role in what I refer to as the coming great simplification, which is a human species level conversation about where we are, how we got here, what we need. We don't need all this energy and stuff to be happy as a Western perspective, but we do need

basic sanitation, food, transportation, things, some sort of contraction and convergence in the global consumption footprint. What can India and the people of India contribute? to this global conversation? So I think we definitely can, Nate. I think India has intrinsic wisdom. And it has this enormous wealth of practice. You know, at the end of the day,

there's a lot of, there's a cacophony of noise out there. What you and I are looking for is practice. We're looking for real stuff. I mean, that's very clearly what I can see from you, that you want something real, and that's what you and I want. India has that. I mean, if I look at the water harvesting traditions of India,

they were built out of the concept that I just talked about, catch water where it falls. Every city, every region of India, had this amazing tradition of lakes, of ponds, of harvesting water from its roof. It came out of the wisdom that you need to make sure that every bit of resource is used carefully. I mean, in today's world, we talk about circularity, we talk about resource efficiency. That was part of the way we lived. We talk about frugality.

and that not being poverty, that frugality does not mean that you're poor. It just means that you have learned to live with making sure that you are happy with little. Now, the trouble natis, and I'll be very frank with you, the trouble is the headwinds are against this. And the headwinds are against this because what we see as the icons of tomorrow or today are people who are no longer living the kind of life that I believe would be something that everybody must emulate. So we had this amazing industrialist, Rattan Tata, the man who built the Tata empire. He just passed away a few months ago. And when I was reminiscing about him and writing about him,

I realized that the biggest reason why we hold him with such high regard was that a man who both understood that there was a need to hear different voices, but he also lived his life with enormous dignity and simplicity. and that this meant something to him, that wealth wasn't about flaunting it, but wealth was about living it so that you lived for others. And on the other hand, we've had this wedding, which I'm sure has captured your,

I mean, it seems to have been the wedding of the century by another Indian industrialist for his son, Mukeshambani, which has been this torrid, gross spectacle of wealth. Okay? Now, the problem is, Nate, that most of India looks at the wedding and says, that's where I want to be. And that's what you and I are faced with today, Nate. That's what is the global dilemma because simplification means having people who you would look up to values that you would cherish and say, this is how I want to be.

We had that. We had Gandhi. We grew up in an age of Gandhi. I grew up in an age of Gandhi. when so much of my life was about my mother telling me, don't waste food because somebody else does not even have what you have. We grew up being told not to be poor, but to be sure that the values that you had were very important.

To me, Nate, what we are losing today is human. What we are losing today is the word morality. When I use the word moral values, people laugh at me and say, oh, you're old. That's why you talk about morality. The young generation doesn't talk about morality. They talk about getting things done. I just don't think it's going to make our world better. I agree with you.

And one of my efforts is to change the values and consciousness and minds and hearts. of some of the 10,000 wealthiest people to direct a few of them towards directing their creativity, their networks, their resources, their skills in service of life. And it's the first gentleman you mentioned, you know, that's what should we be using capital and wealth for to make the future better for all. And so I agree with you. Let me ask you this. in the context of recent political developments in the world, you know, what are your thoughts on that, first of all? And then second of all, is it possible that we could in the first quarter or plus or minus first third of the 21st century have an emperor or a Shoka sort of development,

where some very wealthy or powerful person kind of feels in an embodied way what you just described and makes changes at that sort of scale. What are your thoughts? So on the political developments that you and I are seeing today, it is what it is, Nate. There's no point in my, you know, crying over it. And, you know, it is what it is. It is our world today. We live it.

We work it. I think, frankly, and if I may say so, and I have the audacity to say this to you, it's the first time I'm actually saying this because maybe it's good for us. It'll challenge us. In my view, we have taken too much for granted. We have taken the green transition for granted. We have looked for answers that will never work. I mean, I've always been a critic of the automobile electrification.

Because for me, you know, electrifying the cars of rich people is not the answer to climate change. I have always discussed coal openly and had violent debates with colleagues because I believe that we need affordable energy in my country. We need answers out of coal, but moving from coal to gas does not mean that you are better than me. And those are issues on which we needed an honest, open discussion. and I believe we have never had that because there has been a huge amount of complacency in our community. So maybe this will challenge us to listen to each other better. Maybe we will get smarter in the way we do things.

I don't know, but I'm definitely worried about the state of democracies as I see it. in an age of climate change and in the coming age of artificial intelligence. I don't know what all that is going to mean, Nate. And I live in a part of the world which needs to do much better, but needs to do it differently. And my only hope is can we do it with the humanity that we need in our world? or and I'm not sure. Well, I'm not sure either, but it certainly starts with people like you voicing the things you've voiced today and worked on over the years.

Do we have a way to have 8 billion people aspiring for better material futures than they have today given the source and sync capacity of the world? How much does population and material economic growth expansion as our cultural goals fit into this conversation? So, you know, population is a tricky issue, Nate. It's a human issue. It's a woman's issue. Okay. I mean, you and I know why population increases and we know why population gets controlled. and it's very clearly about the empowerment of women.

It's about girl children going to school. It's about women having livelihoods. In India, you are seeing rapid decline in the fertility rate. The states which have seen the maximum decline in fertility rates have been the more progressive states of India. the state that you talked about, Tamil Nadu, is one of the biggest, I mean, Kerala has always had, because it has a very strong literacy program for women. Women have always been empowered. But Tamil Nadu is a clear case how you can see population levels not just stabilized, but fertility levels decline as women get more empowered, as women have more opportunities for employment.

So we know that. And so therefore, the control of a woman's body has to be her own. Cannot be a state's control over a woman's body. As a woman, I feel very strongly about this. Is that the case in India now? I think so, more and more, more and more. I think, well, let's be very clear. The one very good news out of India is that we are seeing enormous, enormous growth of women

empowerment. Women are today leading the change in India. And it's not middle class, upper middle class women like me. I don't matter, Nate. I'm talking about the vast majority of women in my country. And that is huge, Nate. That is changing. That is a game changer. And it's happening. And there are only three states of India where population levels have still not stabilized. Only three states of India. And they are clearly the states where we still don't have the level of women's literacy and empowerment. And we need to aspire towards it. But it's happening. But to me, the question of population and consumption, the question of whether we can live, whether this billions of people can live within the planetary boundaries has very much to do with how we will live within it.

Right. Not the numbers of people, but the amount of consumption. So in your four decades of advocacy on these issues, you've been quite successful pushing through environmental and resource management changes that benefit the working class people of India. and I'm still kind of metabolizing what you said earlier that the Western view of environmentalism is separate from development to separate conversation,

but in India, or at least from your lens, you think they're intertwined. What have you learned? And what have you found effective in working with powerful people on these issues, especially in government? I think there's huge sensibility in people. I have really learned that people are very good people.

I have no doubt about that, Nate. What people look for is solutions that will work. And I think what they look for is people who can have the credibility that they are voicing solutions without any vested interests. And this is where, you know, the... Governance models of our worlds are getting so completely distorted because if you look at what's happening today, you're actually getting into a world where more and more governments are getting disabled. And I'm not talking about India now. I'm talking about governments across the world. We are depending much more on consultancy organizations, on banks and others to inform government policy.

Now, all that we believe is being done in a way that is, you know, is neutral. It's public policy. But it isn't. It's getting to be one private interest versus another private interest. And that's where public policy is getting disabled more and more. And I think what people look for is today people who really have no vested. interest. I'm not saying it's easy that, you know, you suggest something, it will get accepted. But I feel today with all the disappointments I may have, Nate, I can tell you, I know that

the work that we do, and it's not me, it's my colleagues, it's all of us together. It has respect. It has public respect. Only because people know we are working in the public. We haven't, We haven't compromised on that value. And that's to me where if you look at the institutions, and I'm just going back to where I was, even say 30 years ago, 40 years ago, we had civil society organizations, which were much more in the public interest.

And now increasingly, because of financing, I'm not blaming anyone. And it's just the nature and the structure that we have developed. They have increasingly become organizations which can't afford to be only in the public. And that's really where we have weakened our public discourses. We have weakened our systems of having conversations which will reflect different points of view. What about science? In addition to being pro-poor and focusing on the development of keeping the well-being of the poorest areas in society as an important pillar, you've also been a strong advocate for science in policy. What is the role of science in governments currently? And what could you see more of from scientists and researchers in terms of policymaking and advocacy?

So science is critical net. I mean, the problem is, and I think this is where we are in two worlds in different ways. So in the rich world, which is, sorry, I'm generically calling it the rich world, but the sort of the industrial world, the old industrialized world. I mean, today when I look at what's happening in the United States and I see the anger against the elite, the experts, it's almost like a negation of the science, the educated class. It's almost saying, oh, if you're educated, you're elite. And if you're elite, you're out of touch with reality. And if, you know, that's not what we want. So it's a negation. It's a sort of, you know, it's like saying that's not. what it's all about. In my world, it's a different scenario. Science is very highly respected.

The vaccine issue is a classic issue. You had vaccine deniers when it came to COVID. We had no problems with taking vaccines because for us, vaccines are part of, you know, doctor gives it. We take it. We believe in it. We genuinely believe in the value of science. We have no reason to undermine it. We have no reason to dish it and dismiss it. Our problem is slightly different. Our problem is the scientific institutions which give us the science are within a system

where they're not allowed to be part of public discussions because they are largely state funded. So scientists can't speak up. They can't be part of the public discussions. So whereas science needs to be heard a lot more, it's not being heard as much in our world. In your world, it's heard. But now increasingly, and that worries me even more than my world,

because when science experts get dismissed as elite, you're literally dismissing the need for education. And that to me worries me even more than anything else because that means we are creating a world where some of the most important values of our world will get undermined. I have a lot of follow-up questions to that, but while you were speaking, what was going through my head is I just wonder in an alternative universe if you or someone

like you, if there was some international United Nations protocol where you had to sit on the U.S. cabinet as an advisor, the global perspective cabinet, and you were saying these things to whoever the president and the cabinet are in the United States. And every country would have that. Because the things that you're talking about are just not commonly said here in the United States. That's just a speculative thing. If you want to comment that, I have other questions. I don't know, Nate. I find these things very hypothetical.

I say what I have to say. And I say it for whoever cares to listen. Okay. And I mean, I'm not powerful. I'm never going to be able to whisper it in the years of the U.S. president. but frankly, I'm not sure if that makes the difference. I think societies make the difference. And what you do, speaking to people, speaking out, to me, that's what I believe in.

I believe in the change that we can make in the thinking in people. I don't believe power is just in the hands of very few. So expanding on that, I'm going to assume around 40% of our viewers of this channel are in the United States and probably two-thirds in the global north at least. So for the countries who are burning the most energy and making the largest negative impacts on our environment, what message do you have for them, for us? What would you like to see us doing differently? Is there anything specific you can think of the United States in particular should think about and change? You know, Nate, climate change is an issue which will force us to work together. I have no doubt about that.

It is nature's way of telling us we live in one planet. We are one people. We cannot afford not to listen to each other. And I'll give you the facts on this. I mean, this sounds very sort of moralistic. Let me break it down into just some basic facts. The fact is we have a carbon budget. It's a limited carbon budget.

It's the amount of carbon dioxide we can emit into the atmosphere, which is a common atmosphere. So it doesn't matter if you burn it where you're sitting or I burn it in Delhi. It's all going to go into this common soup, one atmosphere that surrounds. us on planet Earth. And there is a carbon budget for it, a finite amount of carbon dioxide that we can emit to keep the world below a certain temperature rise. We know what it's like for 1.5 degrees.

We know how much it can, it will be for two degrees. At least that's what we know today when it comes to science. Science may change a little bit, but the numbers are not changing a lot. Now the inconvenient truth of that is as follows. Number one, the world is going to exhaust the carbon budget to keep it below 1.5 degrees by the end of this decade at the rate we are burning today. That's the one truth. But the other part of the inconvenient truth is that by 2030, when we have exhausted the budget for 1.5 degrees, 70% of the world's population, 70% of the world's population will have access to only 30% of the carbon budget. 30% of the world's population, which includes countries like the US and China, would have appropriated 70% of the carbon budget.

Now you can argue saying, oh, that's what it is. We were rich, we were wise, we were clever, we took it. You have nothing left. The fact is, Nate, we exist. You can't wish us away. We continue to live, breathe, develop and emit. This is why we have to understand that we live, live, in this one world together.

That is why the latest cop in Baku was so important, because it was about UN language called means of implementation, which simply means the financial resources it will take, so that a country like India, the continent of Africa, will develop, but develop differently. So let's be very clear about this, Nate. I don't know if it'll change now. I don't know if we'll change in the next decade or so.

But climate change is nature's way of telling us we are together. We live in one planet. I agree. Let me ask you a difficult question. Earlier you talked about the fact that India and other places don't necessarily have to or shouldn't follow the Western model. of intense resource and energy development. And you mentioned this as leapfrogging to do things differently, not following the Western model.

You talked about the landline and applying that model to lots of different things. Are there people in India, meaningful amounts of people, considering the climate maps and the implied temperature increase for the impact? Indian subcontinent in the coming 30, 40 years that are integrating that into some of this leapfrogging ideas, to have ways to cool the population or, like you said, take advantage of all the rainfall and do things in a way to make India more resilient to the droughts, fires, floods, and other things that, like you said, almost every day this year, 20, there was an environmental disaster.

What are your thoughts on that? No, Nate, we are beginning to understand the impacts. And we are, you know, the one point on which I don't completely disagree, but I would like to say, you know, so it's often said to me, who Indians don't know about climate change. And a lot of my own colleagues, I mean, you know, I was at a meeting recently, where also people said, I met a lot of people

and they didn't even know the word climate change. And I keep saying, well, you meet the wrong people. Middle class Indians may not know. But the poor farmers of India understand climate change. They may not know the word climate change, but they understand that weather is changing. They understand that nature is giving them a message. They understand the revenge of nature.

So they understand. And they are beginning to do things as best as they can. The trouble is they have limited resources. And this is where we will begin to see as we see more and more impacts. We will begin to see more pressures on urban India because migration will increase as we see this double whammy playing out. Now, where will be the trigger for change? What will make us do things differently? I believe it is not climate per se, but it's going to be the need to do things differently

because we need to survive together. And I think that's where India holds a lesson, because we will do things differently not to save the world, but to save ourselves. So for the longest time, many, many, many centuries, India was, I mean, I don't think you've ever invaded another country. There's a certain pacivism and nonviolent behavior in India. And for the longest time, you were not part of what I call the economic superorganism, which is this metabolic pursuit of surplus that is the the global financial system. But now, like you said, people want to go to McDonald's and there's a striving to have the

fancy weddings and the cars and the diesel engines and all that. But there still is this kernel of your cultural history within you, within all the people there that can maybe play a role in these international conversations about climate and other ecological issues. I mean, what role do you believe India could hopefully play in the international conversation about the planetary commons and the air and the CO2 that we is part of the pool and all of our ecosystem services in the world? Do you have any thoughts on that?

I do, Nate. I am not such a romantic about India's intrinsic wisdom, okay, where I live here. I see it playing out and I get really. worried about whether we've lost it. I have an absolute clarity that we will do things differently because we will have to do them. See, the reason why the U.S. doesn't have to practice anything differently is because you just have the wealth, you have the land, you have the resources where you can keep making mistakes and going ahead with it. We don't. If you go back to my example of the ship story, we have to fix the pollution of our rivers.

We have to make sure that we have to have sanitation for oil. We have to make sure that the waste of all is treated. We have to make sure that that waste goes back as treated water onto the land, back onto the reuse of water. we don't have the luxury of wasting land for waste. We have to do things differently. And that's where I see government policy evolving. The government of India today talks about circularity, not because it's a buzzword,

because the government of India understands. It's the only way we can be resource efficient and we can reduce the load of pollution. So I think the wisdom that we had in the past, and I'm not undermining it, I believe very strongly in the wisdom of India's rationality, in its ability to live with its ecology. And I see it as an ability to understand Mother Earth. But I think today that wisdom is going to go through a different form of modernity, where we are going to, accept the science of it. And that's where I feel India will have and will find pathways which are different and will be an example for the rest of the world. So I don't know if you've heard of

my colleague, Andrew Millison, works with the Pani Foundation in India and the stuff they're doing with water and permaculture. It makes things in the United States look like kindergarten. And it's because they have to. And that's what I mean on the practical side. There's a lot of longer-term ecological, sustainable solutions that are being implemented or at least tried in India that we haven't even thought about because, as you said, we don't need to yet. Do you have any comments on that?

No, I agree, Nate. And I think that's the kind of work I'm talking about, where we will do things different we have to scale them up, we have to amplify them, we have to respect them, and we have to create a sense of pride that we have practiced it at scale and we can show that this can be done differently. I mean, there is huge innovation happening in India today, huge. I mean, you go to the state of Andhra Pradesh today, which is practicing natural farming, regenerative farming, at a scale which is unbelievable. And when I went to meet those farmers,

the reason why they're practicing it is because it is cost effective for them. Because when they return wealth back to the soil and the soil gets richer in its microbes, in its fungus, in its bacteria, the wealth that that soil gives them is what gives them good food. But that also changes the nature of what they eat, what we need to eat.

So I think there's a huge, I mean, I'm very excited about that, Nate, because I think that's the story of hope that we need in our world, which gives us a sense of what we can do differently and not do it differently because, you know, I'm an organic farmer, but, you know, I've just sort of, you know, I've removed a little bit of chemicals. But no, I'm a farmer which can provide a livelihood security because I've reduced the cost of my cultivation. I think that's the kind of disruptive thinking that is happening in India and that we need to make sure that we, all of us, you, me, all of us, we need to make sure that we can stand behind and make it work. So you have had a highly successful career with many successful and important projects. Which of your initiatives do you feel has been the most impactful looking back? Well, difficult to say, Nate. I mean, we keep working, so it's very difficult. I mean, I honestly don't look back.

I mean, when I look at the air of Delhi and I'm very depressed and I look at, you know, there's so much that gives us a sense of where. we are going wrong, I don't quite know what to sit today and tell you that what we have, what I can feel good about. What was the most fun or satisfying at the moment if you can't comment on it? Success. Okay. Okay.

So I think the most fun was when we worked on food. I mean, we tested your two biggest brands, Coca-Cola and Pepsi Cola for pesticides. and we found very high levels of pesticide in their drinks. And that ended up with creating a huge stir in India. For me, it was very, we really didn't, it wasn't Coca-Cola or Pepsi-Cola that we cared about. We cared about the toxification of our environment. We cared about the food that people in India were eating and drinking. We cared about the fact that, you know, what are the values that we need to look at when we look at food and say, what is good food, what is bad food?

And when I look at that, I do feel that we made a difference. We managed to make a dent in the way Indians look at glamour and food. And they are beginning to respect their own food, their juices, the natural juices, they have and not the juices that pretend to be juices, but they're really just sugar, but the real foods that we have. And I think that's something I feel very good about. I'm not sure if we are responsible for it, but I feel good about it. So I want to be respectful of your time, which means I have to not ask you 20 questions that I had planned to ask you, but instead ask you some closing questions that I ask all of them.

my guests. But from your perspective, for the people watching this, what can someone do today now this month to help address some of the broader issues that you raised in this conversation? I don't know, Nate. I don't have simple answers. I really don't know. There are no 10 ways to save the planet. I think all I can ask everyone who's watching this show is, Let's respect each other's point of view, our opinions, the differences that we have. Let's keep the hope alive and let's keep humanity alive. That's all I can hope for as we move ahead. Relatedly, what is one thing or several things you think all young people,

young humans in India and the world should understand? I think they should understand the despair of the poor. It worries me, Nate. I see young Indians. Most people who would come and work with me in the past always came from some part of village India, came from households which had understood what it meant to see. succeed. There's still a lot of that in India and I think that's what keeps us real. But we need a lot

more of that because I find today, in today's world, we are all in little bubbles. So the, so the young of the world are in a bubble of the people that they like, they read, they hear, because they're in that bubble. And I think more and more I believe we need to. We need to bust the bubbles. And the most important thing is for them to understand, put a human face on the tragedy of climate change that is in front of us. It's not climate change. It's about the impact on the poor woman who doesn't even have the money to buy the fuel wood, to cook her food, And she today is caught at a time when not only is she already poor, but she's getting poorer with every time there is an extreme weather event. But she's coping. She's surviving. She's working at it and she's still smiling.

that's the human tenacity that we forget in our world. So I just want the young of the world not to be denied the opportunity to understand human endeavor as it really exists in the majority of the world that is. That what gives me hope. Every time I've traveled, you have traveled. as well. And that's the human face that you and I take back to give us the hope. That's, I think, what the young people of the world need is. You can't unsee that, both the tragedy and the beauty of humanity around the world. There are borders. There are nations. There are individual governments,

but we are all one species figuring it out in the early 21st century. Thank you for that answer. You told me off camera that you didn't look at my outline, so you may not know that I ask all my guests this, but if you had a magic wand and you could wave it and there was no personal recourse or risk to your decision, what is one thing you would do to improve human and planetary futures? Oh, Nate, I should have looked at your outline.

So I had a better answer. Now you've really got me on that. A magic wand. I don't know, Nate. I really don't know. I mean, you know, I think as you get older at this, you realize the solutions will not come out of that magic wand. They will come out of persistence, perseverance, and tenacity.

And that is the magic wand that I really believe will give us that different tomorrow and the duty to hope. I keep repeating it, but I really believe in it that in today's very dark, times when we have wars around us which are crippling. I mean, mind-numbing when you look at those wars, I cannot even see them. You look at the war we're losing with nature. You see what we are doing to our democracies, changing our democracies. You would want to give up, but you can't. And I think that's the magic wand that I want, is the ability for all of us to learn from the very poor of the world, the tenacity it takes to make tomorrow better. Thank you.

We've touched on so many things here. And I think this is a great first conversation. I really would love to have you back. If you were to come back, or if I make it to Delhi, what is one topic that we could spend an hour on to take a deep dive that's relevant to our futures that you're passionate about, like one of the single topics? So, Nate, I'm more and more interested in the whole de-globalization issues. I'll send you a PDF for my recent book called Neu Locals, really looking at what does this mean for the world? It's real in our world today. We have geopolitical wars happening. We have a chain scenario of globalization. And as I wrote in my book, I'm a child of de-globalization.

And yet I have seen globalization happen, and I'm not sure who it has benefited. And so now in the new world as we are walking towards it, what is that new world that we want to make? I think that's a question that really interests me today. I don't have answers, so I don't know if I'm ready to go on your show again. But that is a question that I'm most interested in today. I'm more interested in people coming on the show that admit they don't have answers than those that do. Thank you for your time today and thank you for your lifetime of work on these important issues and to be continued, Sunita. Thank you, Nate. Pleasure to be with you. It was very nice. Thank you.

If you enjoyed or learned from this episode of the Great Simplification, please follow us on your favorite podcast platform. You can also visit you. visit the great simplification.com for references and show notes from today's conversation. And to connect with fellow listeners of this podcast, check out our Discord channel. This show is hosted by me, Nate Hagan's, edited by No Troublemakers Media, and produced by Misty Stinnett, Leslie Batlutz, Brady Hyan and Lizzie Siriani.