As I accompanied Dr Anil Kakodkar to the Rama and Sundri Watumull auditorium, of the HSNC University for the International Symposium on Basic Sciences for Sustainable Development, my thoughts were on a time travel backward. Dr. Hemlata Bagla, the buoyant Vice Chancellor had firmed up her mind that the historic IYBSSD-2022 richly deserved a closer and sharper focus with engineering wavelength added. As the Year of Basic Sciences for Sustainability is concluding. A conference was organised at HSNC University. I had prepared a concept note with historical perspectives….
Relativistic Concern
2022 will go down in recorded history as the existential year when humankind looked inward critically for its very survival as a species. It is an year when the Einsteinian admonition reverberated the world of thought. “Concern for man and his fate must always form the chief interest of all technical endeavors. Never forget this in the midst of your diagrams and equations.” Sandwiched between the two sentences of the famous 1931 quote is the one – “Concern for the great unsolved problems of the organization of labour and the distribution of goods in order that the creations of our mind shall be a blessing and not a curse to mankind.” The creations of our mind from which technology emerged with its intensive use of energy and materials do threaten to decimate us.
Woman’s Voice
The best minds and great thought leaders converged to ponder the fate and destiny of humankind. They weighed in grudging scales the probable and natural consequences of our actions on a planetary level and gravitated to a doomsday metaphor. The word sustainability gained currency. Defining that abstract noun to kickstart actionable programs was formidable and Sustainable Development was coined to condense all relevant paradigms. Ambassador Brundtland, an outstanding physician-politician, forged the concept of Sustainable development. “Development that meets the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”
Tragedy
It all began with Garrett Hardin half a century ago. The University of California professor penned an influential essay in the journal Science titled the “Tragedy of the commons.” He saw all humans as unabashedly selfish herders worrying that the neighbours’ cattle will graze the best grass. All of them feverishly send out their cattle first to consume that grass first. This paper remains an academic blockbuster, with 40,000 citations and influencing present thinking on ecology, economics, political science and environmentalism.
Population Bomb
In 1966, Harry Harrison wrote a science fiction novel titled “Make Room! Make Room!” He painted a dystopian world in which too many people scrambled for too few resources.” An influential Stanford University biologist, Paul Ehrlich, in his 1968 book, “The Population Bomb,” asserted that humankind stood on the brink of apocalypse because there were simply too many of us. His introductory statement is dismally dark. “The battle to feed all of humanity is over.” He predicted that aggregate world demand for resources, driven by population growth, would lead to future starvation.
Limited Growth
Riveting attention on the finite planetary resources, an ominous paradigm, ‘Limits to Growth’ was brought into public discussion by a team of MIT System Dynamics professionals in 1972. “If the present growth trends in world population, industrialization, pollution, food production, and resource depletion continue unchanged, the limits to growth on this planet will be reached sometime within the next one hundred years. The most probable result will be a rather sudden and uncontrollable decline in both population and industrial capacity.”
Clearly Nuclear
The keynote address was delivered by Dr.Kakodkar, a distinguished nuclear engineer. He asserted in his clear and sober voice of reason that the cacophony of antinuclear noise needs to be filtered out for our survival package and focused on atomic energy and research for sustainable development. He said, “People should be out of catastrophic syndrome and understand the use of nuclear energy and nuclear waste for sustainable development.”.
Young Mindset
With a view to capturing the mindset of the new generation, Sanjith Nambiar(23) an engineering graduate of Imperial College London and working at the London office of a leading consulting firm was invited to speak on sustainability initiatives. He explained the concept of ESG and described the challenges faced by the Private Equity Firms and Portfolio Companies. He highlighted the opportunities and challenges in value creation in the business environment. Expanding the concept of Scale of Sustainability Ambition from the Corporate perspective he categorized CEOs as Sceptics, Pragmatists, strategists and Idealists based on their approach to ESG.
Sound Mind
Summing up the daylong sober deliberations, I put my thoughts together: “If we plunge the planet into an unsustainability holocaust, we will go down in history not as scientific citizens but as lunatics. The verdict of history on technological civilization would be suicide in a state unsound and unscientific mind. Sustainability is the only key to survival of the planet earth and humankind.”
-Dr A P Jayaraman
Chairman, NCSC
