Is this the kind of planet we want to leave behind?

Latest UN study says we have 12 years to prevent the world from an environmental catastrophe

11 months ago, Om, my nephew was born. Almost every morning since then, I spend at least a good ten minutes staring at his pictures & videos, where he innocently tries to explore his surroundings and learn more about the little world around him. The past 11 months have swooshed by and I can’t get enough of him and the rate at which he’s growing. But the past couple of days have been disconcerting. A few days ago, I woke up in the morning to read an article about the latest UN IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on climate Change) report. Since then, I can’t stop beating myself about the sort of planet you and I, together, are leaving behind for Om and his other friends. I cannot stop obsessing about the impending danger this brings to everyone and everything we love. I cannot seem to wrap my head around the scale of this problem. So, this post is my attempt to understanding what this means for India.

IPCC report & its takeaways

Intergovernmental Panel on climate Change, a UN committee says the Paris Climate agreement, made in 2015 – to reduce greenhouse emissions, maintaining the global warming from rising more than 1.5 degrees Celsius is simply not enough. It says, we would require a 40-50% of reductions in emissions by 2030. This may seem impossible, but the report leaves us with hope. It talks at length about ways in which we can cap this situation through use of technology.

India: The biggest loser

Social cost of carbon (SCC) is a policy tool which is being used to attach a monetary value to the societal damages caused by the emission of every ton of carbon. It captures the loss of productivity due to extreme heat, loss of agricultural produce and other outcomes which impact the lives of people negatively. Though an imperfect tool, it helps us in gauging the costs and benefits and the way we need to adopt to fight climate change.

Research shows that India loses the most in the world due to climate change – up to $86 for every ton of carbon emission. This means that India loses $210 billion annually at current emission rates. US is behind, losing $48 per ton. With so much to lose, we cannot sit on our hands waiting for the disaster to strike. Another interesting find is that, how climate change results in negative social cost of carbon for countries like Russia, i.e they gain as the world gets hotter. Some countries pay a higher economic cost than the rest. But one ton of carbon emission contributes equally to climate change regardless of where it comes from. Thus, as countries come together to set regulations to check the damages caused, they should all be equally responsible to share the load, without just focusing on the SCC of their own.

 

Collective conscience: The only way to make the world a better place to live

India emits 6% of the global greenhouse gases and will bear almost 20% of the global economic burden because of climate change. Most wealthy countries are almost balanced in terms of the high SCC and its greenhouse gas emissions. This sort of injustice can only be resolved by ensuring India does its best in cutting its carbon footprint through many ways which have been elaborately discussed by scientists in the past (also beyond the scope of this article). It’s also time we sit up and start pushing our neighbours and other wealthy countries to bring down their emissions, which is what Paris climate agreement attempts to do. Though some of the wealthy nations have very little incentive to do so economically, morally, all the countries owe this to our future generations. 

It is immoral to leave a place worse off than the one we grew up in. It is nearly impossible for ordinary people like us to envisage the sort of changes a 2 degree increase in climate can do, because we take so much for granted. We are so used to the status quo, we are ignorant and in denial about the impact it can make to our lives, in less than 15 years! Though we all talk about how hot the world is getting, there is nearly nothing we are doing on a day-to-day basis to change our practices. This is exactly what scares me. If we do not change our lifestyles and adopt the idea of being environmentally more conscious, how do we even hope this problem to get any smaller? I hope to see a day where everyone around us lead their everyday lives trying to make their surrounding a cleaner, healthier place to live in. Till then, I guess this will continue to trouble me.

References:

https://www.vox.com/2018/9/26/17897614/climate-change-social-cost-carbon

https://insideclimatenews.org/news/24092018/climate-change-economic-damage-america-social-cost-carbon-china-india-russia

https://19january2017snapshot.epa.gov/climatechange/social-cost-carbon_.html

"Parks & Recreation" shows us how to fix our education system

How Leslie Knope’s ideas of management can change the way our Indian higher education system operates

A hearty shout out to all the Parks & Rec fans out there! I’m sure everyone who has watched the awesome TV show, would agree with me on this -beneath all the silly, sometimes-mindless comedy, it is a show that leaves you thinking about how to lead a good life filled with passion, goals and just pure zest. Every time I watch it, I’m left thinking about it with an entirely new perspective. This time, I figured there were so many simple, yet powerful messages a few episodes sent across and they strongly resonated with me.

So, this post is my attempt at breaking down the different elements of what makes this show so fantastic & how we can think about how implementing some of these principles into our education system. Why education, you ask? Well, because it needs some heavy-lifting now more than ever & it’s high time we address it. 

“Never half-ass two things, whole-ass one thing”

 Ron Swanson gives Leslie this piece of advice when she finds herself juggling between various assignments, her work with the Parks & Rec department & running for city council. 

Lesson for the education system: #1

The Central government & the State government are always locking horns about funding, quality, access of education. They are hardly ever on the same page about what the priority is.

Education, a subject of national importance has been a concurrent subject since 1950. Higher education is a subject of shared responsibility of the State and the Centre. But they have always exercised these responsibilities in different areas. While the Central government paid attention to quality higher education, the State governments have stressed upon expansion of access rather than on quality. Producing less expensive and low-quality higher education institutes to increase access have been proven to be more politically rewarding for the State governments. Due to budgetary constraints, coupled with popular pressures, states push for expansion of higher education institutions. The asymmetry of the federal system has led to a constant friction between the Centre and the State about the utilization of funds and misplaced priorities. While both quantity & quality are of equal importance for a fast-growing education sector like ours, it is of paramount importance for both the entities to work to prioritize, plan & execute.

Meaningful partnership. Always.

Almost every single episode in the show talks about team effort, identifying strengths & simply the joy that comes out of working together.

Lesson for the education system: #2:

While the Central government complains that states are not doing enough to implement the national programmes such as universal elementary education or allocation of 6% of GDP to education, the state governments complain about how they are strong-handed into implementing uniform schemes, restricting the need for tailoring to the local needs. Although this has brought down the inter-state disparities with respect to per capita expenditure and enrollment ratio, the inequalities remain high. Our constitution strengthens the role of the Central government, despite Education being a concurrent subject. In contrast, the US constitution declares Education to be a state subject. Even in the absence of any constitutional obligation for this purpose, the federal government takes definitive interest in making scholarships & fellowships available in Higher education & for improvement of teacher education. The federal aid is given without any federal control. This is the meaningful partnership which needs to be advocated in case of Indian Higher education system too.

Keeping the community in mind

The show shows us the sort of positive impact people in the local government can make if it is empowered and given the right resources to operate. It shows us how enforcing useful programs/policies such as soda tax, sex education was staunchly opposed, hence proving the need & preferences of the community plays a vital role in creating any program.

Lesson for the education system: #3

A subject such as higher education is highly community-oriented. Research in the US have shown that, policies related to education need to be stitched based on 4 distinct factors – Educational load, ability, effort & achievement. Educational load - denotes the number of children to be educated per 1000 of population. Ability – like the name states, is the ability of the community to support education, measured by their taxable capacity. Effort – It is the percentage of its taxable capacity spent on education. Achievement – it is measured by the standard of education. Thus, the variations are high between villages, cities & states. Thus, blanket education schemes across the country will not yield the intended results. Ideally, the State government must use these metrics to create its own education packages for its districts. The funding provided by the Central government should be carefully calibrated on these metrics, to equalize education across the country. The Central government should only nudge the States to think along these lines by providing achievable targets & incentives to reach the targets. This bottom-up approach empowers the local government & the State government to make their own decisions & navigate towards their end goal at their own pace.

Conclusion

30 million students, 40,760 colleges and 757 universities. Let those numbers sink in for a while. That’s how large the Indian Higher education system is – the third largest in the world. The student population was much lower than 200,000 in 1947. In 6 decades, it has grown more than 150 times. “Explosive growth”, you say? Despite that, only 23.6% of the Indian 18-23 age-group have access to education or choose to pursue higher education. We’re on the path to equalizing education, but we still have a long journey ahead of us. Like Leslie Knope, it is quintessential to never lose sight of the goal and work relentlessly towards it. Parks & Rec gives you a lot more than laughter, it reminds you of your priorities and inspires you to do the right thing! Ought to take a lesson or two from it!

References:
http://www.arvindguptatoys.com/arvindgupta/JPNaik_01.pdf
http://www.nuepa.org/New/download/Publications/Occasional_Paper-50_Prof.JBGTilak.pdf