Climate Change Debate

I get a bad feeling when I read the newspaper articles these days on the climate change debate and the UN Climate Summit due in December in Copenhagen. The arguments by Indian politicians that India will never go past the per capita carbon footprint of developed nations so it does not have to pay the price now may sound justified but does not make a lot of sense.

Thanks to our ancestors and our value system that we still have this beautiful planet to live on otherwise a billion plus population from both China and India would have long sucked the planet dry if they were to consume the natural resources at the same rate at which the western nations consume today.

Civilisations of the east especially India far out lived some of the western civilisations simply because these civilisations knew how to co-exist with other living and non-living things and balance the planet's eco-system. It is unfortuanate that both India and China are now in a race to compete with the western nations for an increasing per captia energy consumption in the name of development. I am not saying development is a bad thing but we should figure out a sustainable development model. 

In India we have rich culture in human development such as Yoga, Ayurveda and many such things. Instead of practicing them and improving the well being of the people we are just aping the west for material development. It is my personal belief that people were a lot happier before we had all this technology. Don't you agree? So, I feel instead of using tit-for-tat tactics with the western world we should encourage simple living and also teach the rest of the world how to do the same.