Western science is lauded as the ultimate
arbiter of knowledge. When it comes to climate change, they are often quoted as
the experts, with people from all fields urging the irrational: “Listen to the
science!”
The only problem: scientists are limited in
their imagination and cannot see beyond the 1.5 degree threshold. Much like Tom
Friedman’s “The World is Flat,” they imagine the planet to be flat, warming at
an even rate all over like a nice tortilla, from mountains to Himalayan
glaciers, from Antartica to the Gulf.
But the world is not shaped like a
tortilla. It has immense geographical, environmental, social, political and
policy variations, even a few kilometers apart.
In some parts of India, peak summer
temperatures already reach 50 degree centigrades. This is unsustainable for
human habitation. Some of this heating is caused by global climate change, but
other reasons for warming and drought is local deforestation, extraction of
water without rain recharge, and industrial application of chemical fertilizers
which turn soil into fine dust. Cities and tenements built without planning for
greenery exacerbate the urban heat effect. All are catalysts for heating.
A policy decision made a kilometer away can
create a thriving, water rich, forest dense community living sustainably while
another can be a desert only a few minutes drive away. I visited one such
community in Nepal in 2009. A village of Khadgas, poor but still educated, were
tending a community forest from which they harvested herbs for essential oils.
They had plumes of water from groundwater to grow corn. Their lives were on the
upswing with one liter of essential oil bringing in Rs.30,000 in income. The
next community of Chidimars, a Dalit community which made a living off trapping
birds, were living in an desertified environment—they’d been encouraged to put
in a tubewell by a development agency, had stopped building traditional gadda to store rainwater, and had cut all their trees to build a
schoolhouse. The community was on the edge of migrating due to desertification
caused by bad policy and environmental distress.
How poor communities build up resilience to
survive the global as well as local warming effects will depend heavily upon
local policy decisions. In Nepal, local governance structures like ward offices
and village development committees have been annihilated by the Loktantric
regime. In my own neighborhood in Handigaon, I have been hard pressed to find
an elected representative who could address my concerns about huge numbers of
motorcycles driving through a historic area. I would like to stop this
onslaught. But who do I turn to? There is no clear representative, no ward
officials, no VDC structure.
This lack of local governance means special
stress and vulnerability to poor communities often at the mercy of outside
actors. Often current policy decisions, made ad hoc and on the spot, are driven
by external Kathmandu based NGO actors whose motivations may consist of showing
a progress report to the donor agency rather than the true concerns of the
community. Tubewells and now solar pumps that pump up riverwater, which are
unsustainable in the long run, are being introduced (to much applause) at the
expense of long-term sustainable water harvesting and irrigation systems. As
the traditional methods fall apart, and the people have no way to maintain
expensive polythene pipe systems, a rural community can plummet into drought
and distress.
This sort of development-triggered distress
is never accounted for in M and E reports, a genre of writing which documents
glowing successes. “Is this policy sustainable in the long run?” is not a
question asked of development practitioners. Grant burn rates (throw money at
people who can use it up fast), flashy new technology, hot button themes,
progress reports and deliverables drive policies, rather than long-term
environmental stewardship.
Fossil fuel needs to be phased out, as does
plastics. But central to people’s
survival in the climate heating era will be local governance. A strong network
of local governance existed in Nepal in the past. This is quickly being
eradicated as crony communism takes hold. If we don’t address this, this will
be a threat to the very existence of local communities.
Annapurna Post, February 14, 2020
Comments