A relook at global warming/climate change!

FALSE ALARM
How Climate Change Panic Costs Us Trillions, Hurts the Poor, and Fails to Fix the Planet
By Bjorn Lomborg

There is no denying that the world is getting hotter by the day. If we go by our life experiences, we do not remember feeling fearful of staying outdoors in the heat of the afternoon tropical sun. Fans were luxury items, and air conditioning was opulent at its height. 

In the early 1990s, I had the pleasure of meeting some guests from Dubai during a family function. I was surprised when they started complaining about the Malaysian weather, specifically the heat. Living in a desert country, they were complaining about the Malaysian heat. When enquired, they unanimously admitted that because of the architecture and setup of their infrastructure, they were nicely shielded from the blazing desert sun. That carries a significant weightage in how we handle climate change, according to this book which gives a different outlook on how the world should looking this problem. 

True, human activities and fossil fuels are contributing to our degradation of the environment and the loss of the greenhouse effect and all the things we are familiar with. The approach to dealing with it is the author's bone of contention. 

Take the instance of the yellow jacket showdown in Paris. They are the unhappy product of the European carbon tax system. The French ruling party believed it was criminal to use fossil fuel as it polluted the environment at this time and age. The government imposed a high levy on petroleum to discourage people from using private vehicles. It was their wish for the public to use Government-subsidised public transportation. Well, it worked fine for urban dwellers. For the farmers in the outskirts who solely depended on their beaten-up cars and tractors for work and transportation of their produce, it was a hit before the belt. At such challenging times when production costs are already so high, the rise in petrol price is a double whammy. Hence, the uprising. 

Generally, humans tolerate heat better than extreme cold. Around the world, more people die from cold than heat. People have to spend more to keep themselves warm. Coincidentally, fossil fuel is needed for this purpose. If poor people resort to burning wood for cooking and keeping themselves warm, their health will be affected by the emitting soot.

What people need is resources (read finances) to uplift their lives. They must improve their living conditions to keep themselves cool when their living space becomes warmer. They need money to be able to afford air conditioning, fans and other means to make their living area bearable. People at the lower rung of society bear the brunt of the effects of climate change. They can ill-afford houses on higher grounds to avoid the impact of rising sea levels. 

If rising levels of our oceans are going to flood many low-lying areas, it is up to governments to build dykes, like the ones in the Netherlands, to protect the affected people. For that, countries have to prosper. 

If cutting carbon emissions is implemented so strictly, it will prevent newly industrialised countries from catching up with the rest of the developed nations. Wealthy nations handled adversities better than despotic third-world countries. The very nations that need assistance to pull themselves out of poverty will be trapped in the quagmire of poverty.

Chincha Island, Peru.
Pregnant with guano.

Sometimes, the world forgets that the human race is a resilient lot. They would not have become the most dominant species on Earth if not for their resourcefulness. Just see how fast we come up with solutions for any problem. Some time ago, we thought profound starvation would hit the world as the soil gets progressively depleted of its nutrients. The only known nitrogen-based soil fertiliser then was the progressively depleting bat-dropping reservoir on Guano Islands off Peru. In came Haber, who literally plucked nitrogen from thin air to make fertilisers via Haber Reaction. Of course, that led to other disastrous outcomes too. Now, we have malnutrition of the overfed kind.

With time, humanity can come up with ways to combat weather change. They can migrate to temperate countries. Different crops may be grown. In time to come, rice may grow well in Europe, or wheat may grow in what is now tundra land.

The author highlights that the occurrence of natural calamities has not really increased in intensity or number over the years. The publicity highlighted by the mass media makes it appear bigger than life. Fatalities naturally increase as the world population has jumped in leaps and bounds of late anyway.

The world's obsession with preventing temperature rise has diverted money away from what could have been used to develop industries, increase innovation and improve people's standard of living. After all, our civilisation is deeply rooted in energy. Climate change is real but let us be pragmatic about it.

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The face behind the mask!

Party (Hindi; 1984)
Director: Govind Nihalani

This film remains relevant even when we have ventured into the 21st century. The issues highlighted in this movie are not only confined to Indian society but can be applicable the world over. In fact, if activism and washing of dirty linen used to be restricted to exclusive cocktail parties those days, now it is party-time anytime. At the tip of the finger, with the clattering of keyboards, people can broadcast their views to the world.

Many things are going on in the lives of the attendees of this private party. The party was held to fete a celebrated playwright, Diwakar, who was recently conferred a national award. The host, Damayanthi, a widow, is rumoured to have an illicit relationship with Diwakar. Divakar's wife, Mohini, is a much younger person than him, an actor who stopped acting after marriage is a frustrated woman. Away from the limelight, she yearns for and reminisces about the centre of attraction she used to be. Others think she was not much of an actress anyway. This is made worse by her current state, a hopeless drunk.

Damayanthi's daughter is a frustrated unwed mother. She has her own issues with her determination not to conform to societal pressures. Amrit, a talented poet, is mentioned in absentia every now and then. He had apparently left the art scene to serve the underprivileged.

As the story unfolds, we, the viewers, are shown the behaviours of some members of that performing artists' circle. Social hypocrisy is apparent. They do not preach what they represent on stage -upholding Indian culture. The demeanour does not imply such. They, as actors, put up a front of having social consciousness, but in reality, it is just the next job that they worried about, not changing the world. Everyone put up a front to maintain an image. They do not say what they mean and certainly do not mean what they say. Portraying their involvement in activism for social justice is an exercise in public relations and image building to remind fans of their existence when they are not working. 

Many of them carry a load of psychological baggage. This popularity contest takes out a lot of juices from its members. Art seems to glorify body image. Time and biology are not kind to these. There is a constant need to reinvent themselves to stay relevant. 

An exciting offering from India's parallel cinema. It is not the usual fare that one associates with an Indian movie.

(P.S. While mainstream cinema seems to portray a seemingly fair view of an issue, in reality, the real message is cryptically hidden and woven to satisfy the demands of their financiers or powers-that-be.) 

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Peel open the eye of ignorance

Doctor Strange (2016)

They say Dr Strange dabbles with magic in his crusade to fight the destructive forces that attack Earth. An intelligent but arrogant neurosurgeon in the real world, he is floored by a nasty accident that damaged his hands so severely that all the modern medicine could offer could not put his hands in working order again. No amount of aggressive physiotherapy or experimental avant-garde modality of treatment could resurrect his limp hands. They continued tremoring like leaves.

At this juncture, he heard of a patient with a transacted spinal cord who attained 100% recovery with alternative therapy when modern science failed him. Dr Steven Strange's subsequent journey for a cure led him to Kathmandu to things beyond his imagination. He got sucked into a world of 'magic', harvesting inner energies, dark forces and alternate dimensions. Things became so complicated that he found himself defending the Universe's right side against the Dark Forces.

I could not help but saw parallelism in how the story went to what is perceived in Vedantic teachings. Similarly, the mathematician Ramanujam saw his formulas spilt out of his mind as he sat and gazed at his devata, Namagiri. Hindus believe that the various Gods and Goddesses are a personification of conduits in pursuit of specific vibrations. Tune in a particular wavelength and see a sea of knowledge deep and too immense for the human mind. Seek Saraswati for an educational path, Durga for athletic endeavours, Lakshmi for a road of prosperity, Ganesha to remove obstacles, etcetera. 

Another exciting part of the story is the concept of time in a loop form. Unlike modern man's idea of time being linear, the Vedic teachings suggest that it could be cyclical. What takes place now had probably happened many times before and bound to happen again and again.

Among the many that get thrown in along the movie's course, one philosophical question is whether it is alright to be dishonest to win over your opponent? Is it acceptable for a leader to do the very thing that the rest of the subjugated are forbidden from? When life is simple, the rules of life must be followed to the tilt. As life becomes complex, rules are not so straightforward and can be bend.

We can draw our conclusions from the events in Ramayana and Mahabharata. Ramayana, depicting simpler times, portrayed Rama's life decision that was cut and dry. Do this and that. Simple. During Mahabharata, things become complicated. "They are your relatives, but you Arjuna still have to defeat them in battle. That is your dharma, the correct thing to do." In another scenario, it is perfectly expectable for Yudishtra to 'lie' that Drona's son Aswatthama 'died' when in fact, Yudishtra meant Astwatthama the elephant died. It was justified as Drona was almost undefeatable in war with his unfair usage of the celestial weapon. Drona's subsequent slaying was excused. These days we call these half-truths white lies.

Watch out for its sequel in 2022.

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OK Boomer?

Once upon a time in Hollywood (2019)
Screenplay and Director: Quentin Tarantino

It is funny that every young generation feels that they have been taken for a ride by the generation before them and that there is a dire need to put things in order. Invariably, they all fail miserably. Look at the timeline at which this film is based. It is the late 1960s. The world is in chaos, yet again. After getting the world crippled with two world wars, the baby boomers got the world upon its feet again. But that was not to last. Within a decade, the world nestled back into two camps yet - the 'good' and the 'bad', and the whole imbroglio of violence and killing is to repeat. The youngsters see this as the failure on the part of the adults to set a just world. They venture into the realm of the unknown to set into motion a new world order. 

Just like Greta Thunberg and the angry kids around the world in the 21st century, the 60s had their share of anti-establishment. The anti-Vietnam demonstrator, the hippie culture and the flower power movement are examples of the above. Unfortunately, they chose many self-destructive avenues to mull their pain of an unknown future. A group of them built a commune in the middle of the Navajo desert with an ambitious plan to plant crops. The plan failed miserably, and they end up having free sex, booze, illegitimate children, drugs and crimes under their belt to support their sustenance.  Their dreams of living in a free world never saw fruition. They ended up in the same world that they abhor, of subjugation, control, dominance by one party and victimisation. The ladies thought they were liberated by burning bras. They felt they attained women empowerment through contraception. They got neither. They found themselves getting unknown diseases, unshakeable baggage and answering to the dominant force they were trying to shake off.

We are angry, and it is your fault!

It must be the curse of mankind. They are forever trying to find the best way to find peace with themselves and their surroundings. They have trying multiple economic modules with the same disastrous results. Trickle-down economics, fountain effect using the market forces or a utopian leftist agenda, it gives the same answer -disappointment.

Coming of age around the mid-70s and early 80s, we are all too familiar reading of Marilyn Manson and his occult cult. The tabloids kept us informed of the pretty Natalie Wood and the mystery surrounding her yacht accident and the gruesome murder of a gravid Sharon Tate in her exclusive Hollywood home.

Not knowing what to expect but deciding to watch it anyway after finding out that it is a Tarantino movie, I was wondering what the movie was all about. At first it about the story of a struggling actor and his stunt double. Then it moved on to 1969 Hollywood, the commune of hippies, Sharon Tate, Roman Polanski and the murders towards the very late part of the show.

The author took the liberty to give a totally different twist to the course of history as we know it. The three members of the Manson cult/family end up having a duel with the actor and his stunt, as well as dying in their hands. Tate is nowhere nears the assassins. In fact, at the end of the movie, she calls her neighbours over for drinks. 

Maybe Tarantino is hoping for an alternate universe where Tate becomes a big star, and the world would come together and sing Kumbayah! 

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