‘Understanding nature key to environmental transformation’

Lakshmi Prasad | NT

Bengaluru: Historian and author Mahesh Rangarajan has said that an insight into how nature works, public and popular concern and public action are the combinations that are vital for environmental transformation.

Taking part in a conversation focusing mainly on climate change at Bangalore International Center (BIC) Talks Podcast on Understanding Human Impact on the Earth, Mahesh Rangarajan referred to multiple events of the 20th century and discussed how ‘we make peace with nature’ as significant as ‘how we make peace among people.’

He spoke about how we live in epochal times, and how we witnessed a great surge in economic growth after 1945. Speaking of the Anthropocene, he stated how in 1995, the Nobel Prize-winning chemist said that the Anthropocene is a specific historical epoch.

It’s not an era, it's not a period. It’s not a few centuries, it’s an anti-epoch, and this epoch is defined by humans acquiring the power of a geological force. Later, while speaking about the industrial revolution, he spoke about the history of Britain and how significantly coal played an imperative role in gaining that massive power globally.

The British power was built on coal and the Empire extended itself through the Mediterranean and North Africa into Southeast Asia. Further, speaking about wars he says how in the First World War and the Second World War, the side which won the battles had more energy supplies to bank on. He further says how Britain was the first global Empire ignited by the coal fire. The United States was the first oil-fired global Empire.

Meanwhile, he also informed how in the 1970s Indira Gandhi's reign, took an enormous interest in the climate change debate and the environmental debates. Many scholars in the West argued that the problem of the environment was linked to the issue of population. And, developed countries said that the root cause of the problem was population growth.

Further, Mahesh Rangarajan said that there was a great environmental awakening across the world in the late 1960s. He added, “The question of climate change cannot be regarded as separate from the larger question of the Anthropocene. The Anthropocene goes back to a time when humans acquired the power of a geological force to transform life systems.

One of the great changes that have taken place between 1987 and now is that 85 to 87 percent of the nuclear weapons on Earth have been decommissioned. In the meantime, one of the great changes that the Anthropocene brought about to a large extent through refrigeration is the release of greenhouse gas, a set of greenhouse gases known as chlorofluorocarbons. Rangarajan concluded by stating, “Environmental transformation has been driven by a combination of science.”

A bit of insight into how nature works, public and popular concern and action - a combination of all that is vital for the transformation of the environment.