Statement of Purpose

Its been a while since I have been able to blog, and while my journal of ideas is over-flowing, this is one "statement" I would like to put up for reference on The Sound of Thought. This is a letter I recently addressed to folks at the Virgin group; it aptly summarizes some of the thoughts I have been jotting down over time in my journal. I'm certainly not attempting to blow my own trumpet. Instead, this is a humble attempt to use the power of the internet to share ideas and thoughts that have the potential to create strong impacts..

Respected Sir/Ma’am,

I have been invited to attend the Business for the Environment (B4E) Summit, to be held in Jakarta, Indonesia. The Summit will be held between April 27th - April 29th of this year. (Link: http://www.b4esummit.com) On April 9th, 2011, I established contact with Global Initiatives, organizer of the convention, and presented my credentials and eagerness to be the voice of the world youth at the B4E. In a very favorable response, Mr. Kisha Krishna, senior manager at Global Initiatives, extended an invitation to me as well as waived all registration fees. More importantly, Global Initiatives will give me access to a special B4E Youth dialogue with current UNDP Administrator Helen Clark.
Here is the excerpt from Mr. Krishna’s email dated April 11th, 2011:

Dear Mr Gupta

Thank you for your email and interest in our event.

We are happy to invite you to attend and cover (i.e. through your blog and other social media such as Facebook and Twitter) the event as our guest. There is also a special B4E Youth Dialogue with UNDP Chief Helen Clark and other distinguished speakers, that we can also provide you entry to.

We can waive the conference fee for you, but you would need to arrange your own travel and accommodation in Jakarta.

Do let me know if you decide to join us at the event.

Best wishes

Kisha Krishna

Manager, Partnerships and Outreach

Global Initiatives

M: +49 151 **

Sir/Ma’am, I request your office to assist me with my travel to the aforementioned event. This is a tremendous opportunity for any student of Environmental Science and Policy to go out in the open, interact with the real change-makers and important leaders. In the broader scheme of things, this event would also be an opportunity for someone, such as me, to be the voice of my generation: bold young people eager to drive change. I urge you to consider this request for the following reasons:

1.) The Business of the Environment: This conference has a very specific objective ie sharing innovative ideas that will propel business(es) in the environment. These ideas are the much needed incentives for creating win-win situations between present day environmental conditions and economic profits. This is a good start to understanding various ideas, models, and techniques for change that today’s change-makers believe in.
More importantly, I look forward to the association of the people working on the issue of incentivizing the environment - innovative thinkers, prominent business leaders, even visionary world leaders. At the end of the day, Sir/Ma’am, making an impact isn’t as much about the resources one possesses as much as it is about the people one surrounds him/herself with. As an aspiring green-entrepreneur, I look forward to initiating, being part of, and working on social-entrepreneurial ventures… that start from associating with positive people here.

2.) An ambassador of the Virgin Group: Every investment is made to obtain returns - social, monetary, or anything positive depending on the context. You too will look forward to positive returns by investing in a student’s travel to such a conference.
Besides cultivating and grooming a future leader of the environment, you would also enable me to represent your conglomerate’s ambition as a green-business leader. It is a tremendous opportunity, for an environmentally visionary group such as yours, to showcase itself through the highest stakeholders of today’s environmental decisions - the Youth. At a convention attended by Former Vice President of the US Al Gore, Former Prime Minister of New Zealand, with whom I will have the opportunity to personally interact with, leaders and change-makers alike, Virgin will have another positive footprint on the environmentally conscious world map.

3.) International experience: In December 2009, I was India’s Climate Ambassador to the prelude of the COP15 negotiations in Copenhagen. This was on a UNICEF sponsored delegation. And even though I have a lot to learn, I have the experience of being at a mega international conference. This holds me in good stead to maximize on the three days of the convention. Knowing how to interact with people, move around, exchange ideas, I know I will be able to make best use of the resources at the conference. Combine that with my passion towards my work, and I’ll certainly represent Virgin in a just way so as to make your Group proud in its investment.

4.) Passion for the Environment: Even as an enthused 15-year old back home in Pune, India, I had a motivation to work towards change. I had this sense of foolishness to dream (which I still very proudly do possess.) After multiple (some unsuccessful) tries, and the sense of learning and wisdom that one obtains through the process, I connected with two Non-governmental Organizations and formed a joint-venture between them called 'Trees for Life.' The project is in its last year of operations as of today, and we have planted and maintained a total of 500 trees atop a previously denuded hill. Through other such efforts, the partner NGO, Green Hills Group, has successfully collaborated the plantation of 2000 saplings. In totality, our efforts can be compared to, very literally, drops in the ocean. What is important, however, is that through multiple campaigns and plantation drives, we have inspired community members to come out, participate, and make a difference. We have made people aware of not only the prominent problems, but also the solutions. And my role with the Trees for Life is now over. I have moved on in pursuit of inspiring change at a bigger scale. Be it through my internship last summer, where I made a report on the possibilities of business ventures in the environment (for a private financial services company), or be it through my blogs - which relate different subjects to the environment.

Peace and Politics: an unlikely synergy

As I think, "What does peace mean to me?", the words, “A peaceful world is one where everyone has equity in access to opportunity and where every child has equity in access to education, nutrition, and love” ring in my head. But, the ringing of these very clichéd words stops as soon as it begins. I feel the realistic and practical need to question if peace comes from this need for equality or education and nutrition.


Considering the margin for imperfection: disparities, crimes, wars and violence will always exist in society.

So, what really determines peace? 

A good starting point to question the dynamics of peace in society should definitely be politics; after all, our leaders and their policies determine the environment of our surroundings. 

Let’s begin by looking at the three forms of governances – Monarchism, Communism and the (Western Capitalist) Democracy – and see whether peace prevailed in either of the three.

It is a well-known fact that the Maurya, Gupta, and Chola kingdoms of ancient India were considered the “Golden periods” of our history. People not only prospered, but were happy, peaceful and content with their lifestyles under their Kings – a reason why India was the envy of the entrepreneurial European sailors. In monarchies such as these, people never had an equitable access to opportunity. The caste system then in prevalence, assigned the Shudras, or in today's terminology the lower-class, the jobs of the farmers, cleaners and service-men. The business-folk and the warriors were Vaishyas and Kshatriyas respectively. The Brahmins, or teachers, imparted knowledge to the people as well as advised the Kings on how to rule their kingdoms. No one ever tried to switch their "career-paths"; everyone stuck to their duties. And back then, according to our government sponsored history books, things were good. 

So why didn't this sort of a system work? The power wielded by the monarchs most often ended up being misused by the lethal combination of corruption, influence and greed. Repetitive trends made mankind brand the system of monarchism as “un-progressive”. At the center of this unbalanced equation, lays the answer to the most recent Arab world uprisings: in Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain, and Libya.

Then, there were/are the communists of Eastern Europe, Russia and China, who believe(d) that a system of governmental control and dominance yield both, prosperity and peace. In theory, there is no reason not to believe that such a system would create a happy society. For instance, the Native Indian American society was built on the community-based model of living. There was no sense of ownership, yet the people lived peacefully content lives.
However, in recent communist regimes things have changed for the worse. Governmental oppression led to the human-induced Ukraini Holodomor famine. It also led to revolutions in the Soviet Union and its' post-Cold War collapse. Meanwhile China’s forceful centralization of everything - from farmlands, education, media, business, to the economy - shows nothing but a hazy picture of happiness in that society.

Fast forward to the 21^st century era – a small and globalized world dominated by democracy and capitalism. Today, people have the freedom of thought, speech, movement, and most importantly freedom to access every opportunity possible. 

However, today's vicious cycle of buy, throw and buy, is not only fostering the infamous greed is good principle, but is also hurting the middle and poor classes of people. Even though the absolute measure of poverty has improved (the percentage of people living under a $1/day, as per 1970 UN Metrics, has reduced), inflation-adjusted relative poverty has increased. Let’s not forget the damage tribal groups, and the repeated rape our environment and planet have undergone.

When one looks at a country that has excelled in providing all fair and democratic services to her citizens, the United States of America, the current speaker of her Congress, John Boehner, comes to mind. A janitor in his teens who lived the American Dream to become the top-boss of the World's most powerful democratic body. How more peaceful, according to those words that rang in my head, can a world get?

Not really much, right? 
But when we look at this piece from the average plane, we see that average Americans work all throughout the week on things that they dislike (according to a survey by Market Watch, 53% of Americans said “I hate my job”, even before the economic crises crippled the luxury of opportunities), and then, get drunk, drugged and wasted on Friday nights. As an indirect result of which, homicides, violent crimes, rape, assaults, robberies, have ensued into swollen American prisons. This somehow doesn't look more than an illusion of peace.

In all the three governing models, the end results are theorized to hover very closely around peace. The actual results are stark and diametric opposites of any such projections.

So how does one work around this? Do we lose hope in the harsh reality that a greedy race of men can just never create a peaceful environment?

There are no definitive solutions to this. Activities occur in our world in random, multifarious and incredulously large volumes. Integrating solutions and ideas into the invisible forces of activity would end up being a bigger problem than being the solution. 

Whom we need most today, for the most effective change, are social entrepreneurs; those entrepreneurs who are not driven by individualism. 'Cause while greed maybe good, its only so for the individual, not for the society in entirety. The greater the inequality, the greater the masses are disadvantaged. The greater the masses are disadvantaged, the greater the loss of peace. 

We need social entrepreneurs to change the current linear system of consumerism, which is nothing but out-of-control capitalism, of extract resources, produce, sell, and throw to a sustainable cycle that would repeat itself - Reduce, Reuse and Recycle. How we manage our resources is a critical factor that would influence the random order of activities that occur simultaneously in our world. This would ultimately influence peace.


We also need the more privileged people to adopt a socially responsible mindset. To help undo the damage done on our poor. Instead of having debt-laden governments' - except China's - try to organize education at the grass-roots level, which they anyway make a mess of, the educated urban folk should come out more often and help the lesser privileged sections of society as part of voluntary social service. With due credit, there are salutary examples of such existing groups of people: Teach for America, Times Group's Teach India, YUVA Unstoppable, The Joy of Giving Week, and so on. Such groups now need to expand, infect and reach out to as many members of society as possible.

Sounds simple, doesn't it? "Its all about converting the straight lines (that go to nowhere) into efficient cycles." But it requires heaps of effort and determination. With that, I leave you to the sound of your thoughts: are you doing your bit?

Climate Change: Progress vs Humanity?

Irregular ,sporadic and unseasonal rainfalls (thanks to our doing: Climate Change) destroyed nearly two lakh acres of crop land in Western Maharashtra. How does that affect us? Well sugar that used to, a week back, cost Rs 10/kilo is today, priced at Rs40 for the same. Pulses or Dal that were priced at (already exorbitant rates) Rs80/kilo have recently struck their maiden centuries. Isn't this good enough a highlight to show the practical problems rooted to Climate Change?


Devil's advocacy. The naysayers of the Climate-change saga hail the whole deal (of Climate change, Global warming) to be a myth. To be a hype. OK
Some people (for example the unpopular former prez., Mr. Bush) believe that the Earth has been warming since the beginning of the century. Its a natural development. OK
Economy is much more precious than something which isn't truly, fully understood (ie the entire climate-change dilemma) OK
And so on... (this is in fact the power of reasoning. There are logical counter-points to even the most simple truths.)


Angel's advocacy :). Firstly, the human race prides itself (more than anything) in its advances in science. And it is that same science that has observed irregularities in the occurrence of naturally occurring events. On one hand, we hail science to be a cult, we follow it as nothing less than a religion. On the other, we indirectly point a finger at it saying that it is a cook of myths and hypes?  (For those who would point: 'everything has flaws'. When many observations are made, and the same conclusions reached, over a period of time. Odds are, that the particular observations aren't flawed)
To people falling under the umbrella of Mr. Bush. Granted- scientifically -that the Earth has been warming by itself since centuries. Does that mean we should continue ravaging It? Continue depleting natural resources at alarming rates? Continue polluting our surroundings so as to cause sufferings to ourselves and our fellow earthlings? We, as a race, wouldn't be the root cause of the Global heating phenomena... but we're surely playing the role of a catalyst, an over-enthusiastic catalyst.
Addressing the economists who presume priority of the economy. Rising prices are like a cancer. Here, as mentioned in the intro., isn't inflation the most troublesome economic ill (to the majority, common-man, human population) a result of the poor use of our environment? Another point that deserves mention. Many industrial lobbyists argue that a transformation to green-lifestyles will have a drastic impact on society. People will lose jobs. People won't be able to accustom to the change. Basically, economic cataclysm. Its only the people on top (these industrialists) who will lose grip over power. Who will lose out on money-making opportunities. The non-conventional energy industry, if harnessed, will produce more jobs than are at present. Human nature is such that is highly adaptable to change. After all, why did America vote for Obama? :)


Lets put it this way. The many problems humanity faces are in many ways correlated. The population outburst resulted in spiked demands for food, housing that led to deforestation and urbanization which further led to industrialization that has become a prime contributor to the whole Climate-Change emergence. 


In fact, the latest blockbuster release 2012 is a splendid effort by the entertainment industry to raise awareness (of course, tagged along with a vested commercial interest) among people. Who need the kind of masala and unrealistic fiction portrayed, to wake them out of their stubborn sleep. As otherwise shown, the planet won't necessarily come to such an end.  But, who says the human race can't be wiped off by nature? Weren't we taught the 'Tit-for-tat' ideology during our very early years? If thats what the principles of our life are built on... Why wouldn't it be applicable for our disrespect to nature? Newton's third law would act as the scientific logic here. 


With droughts becoming common, sea-level rising, resources depleting (at the same time, the demand continuously rising), diseases spreading (as if it were the Happy-hour in the bacterium clans) ,floods increasing (in both frequency and magnitude). With the lack of clean water, clean air, to the so ons. We're in a mess. Perhaps, again as shown in the movie, only the rich and powerful would be able to hedge themselves out of catastrophe. 


On a more positive note... There still is hope. Provided we act in unison. There is tremendous potential in the green industry. Which is limitless and commercially, if utilized to that extent, much more beneficial. For those who think that only fossil-fuel obtained energy will drive economic growth, are either ignoring green-power or are too scared to lose their monopolies in the non-renewable energy markets. Yes, there is a great deal of research required before we can efficiently harness naturally abundant renewable energy. But with the way we have progressed in science, there is nothing that should deflate our hopes. Its a safe-bet. 


At this current hour. We, in many ways, are aware of the problems at hand. Be it Obama meeting Hu Jintao. Or Miliband tweeting. Or Manmohan meeting Obama. Or the APEC meeting conducted in Singapore. Climate-Change is a buzzword in the policy-makers' circles. But we as such, don't have a practical reason to be a part of the war against the blatant mismanagement of our precious Home. Unless driven by incentives (practical reasons), not many of us will come out of our cozy nests to fight against the menaces of Climate-Change.


If Copenhagen is to succeed where its predecessor, Kyoto, fell short – to become Hopenhagen, as some have said – then world leaders must walk away on December 18 with a signed plan in their back pockets that does more than tick a few token boxes. 


(This is perhaps a cliche of an addition to the pile of articles suggesting the problems we face, and that why the leaders should come up with concrete agreements. We forget, that we are as much as at fault as are our leaders. If the industry sells fossil-fuels fueled products, thereby polluting Mother Earth, who buys those products? After all, we too want the luxury of flats in high-rise buildings, of lavish cars, of enough water that could cater to entire villages, of air-conditioned rooms, of the so ons. We too need to make a difference, at the very grass-roots before we can point fingers at or expect leaders to work out resolutions.)

What is needed @Copenhagen!

Just the other day, I was speaking to a garderener in my society. The poor fellow seemed rattled about life. Despite being in times of de-flation.. he has to pay Rs 100 for a kilo of Dal (which was Rs 40 a month back!).. He has to pay for water and His electricity bills have shot over the roof - enough to rattle the life out of a lower-middle class man in India. So basically, he is bearing the brunt of - Climate Change (No monsoons, no food, higher prices.. Shortage of electricity.. and shortage of drinking water)

He isn't bothered if the US Congress signs Sen. Kerry's Climate Change Bill. He doesn't give a damn if India asks developed nations to bear responsibility for Global Warming. He doesn't give a damn about anything political. What he wants is prices coming down. What he wants is availability of water. Even so, this is on the wish-list of almost every ordinary human.

So what do we need @Copenhagen? The proposals tabled so far - briefly - include reducing CO2 emission levels. Now whats so hilarious about this is, that most of the participating countries will pledge to reduce CO2 emission levels and thats it! What we fail to understand - keeping aside all complex stats - is that we don't have much time! What we fail to understand is that Nature will move on.. we will be the ones to suffer.. Nature has endured change countless times over its billion year life-span. It is our civilisation- as quoted in the 11th hour - that will perish.

So lets get on with this - What do we need as a unified race to come up with @Copenhagen? Keeping in mind, that one thing we're short on is Time!

We should have incentives for families/individuals practicing green-habits. Like, tax-incentives, carbon points and so on. Again, what we need to understand is that governements are not solely responsible for the world's shape right now, and are not solely responsible for fixing it either. All of us has to come together. And there needs to be something common for such a unity - incentives! Only until the common man saves money on taxes, earns carbon points or gains any such incentive, will he start living a green life. Until then, we can give great lectures, write great dossiers and so on. But the implementation at grass-root levels won't occur.

A little more elaboration on my part here.. Tax-benefits if a family uses solar power, drives an electric car, or so on. Carbon points for planting trees in the thousands. Large-scale institutes/firms should switch to using green energy and gain massive tax-benefits.

Also, aforestation is an effective way of combating climate change. But it is easier said than done. For every tree uprooted, we need to plant seven trees to bring about equilibrium. Nonetheless, even if each individual plants a single tree and maintains it, it could work well for our survival. If a family maintains a garden, it should be awarded certain carbon points. Carbon points are usually for green-works at higher magnitudes. However, we need to device another system here. Where carbon points can be considered an equivalent for money!

Unless the common man doesn't have a strong practical - not ideal - reason to join the war against climate change, why would he be a part of it?