I often find myself being the unofficial optimist for India. And why not? When everyone’s bitching about how uncouth we are, how we’re so poor, how we have no civic sense, and how we’re the biggest hypocrites etc, I feel it’s only fair to give credit where it’s due.
My latest bit of sunshine refers to the fact that we Indians have been ranked as the greenest people in the world for the third year running! This study is conducted annually by National Geographic in conjunction with GlobeScan and is a measure of how environmentally friendly the people of a country are – not the government or corporations.
Now hold the screaming! Don’t be so eager to crash the party – I know the objections. “It’s only because so many Indians live in poverty” and “It’s because so many Indians are veggies.” These facts are true of course.
But here’s the kicker. We’ve actually increased our Greendex for the third year in a row! While more and more Indians are being lifted out of poverty at a breakneck pace, and we’re eating more and more meat, the fact that we’ve constantly increased our “green” scores really deserves some applause don’t you think?
Not only that, Indians have registered the biggest increase from last year compared to all the 17 countries after polling 17,000 people. The survey is pretty damn comprehensive and looks at a whole range of things such as housing, transportation, citizen attitudes, citizen knowledge etc. Strong growth with better environment friendliness.
Now isn’t that something that’s worth being optimistic over? So the next time someone tells you that Indians are good for nothing, you know what to say :)
I can believe that we still do have many beautiful birds around… but the other day in Gurgaon we were being shown some upcoming development project and I saw a frightened mongoose run wildly to hide somewhere… the work had just begun and that was the first time I realised how much we change when we develop some more.
Single houses with gardens are environment friendly, high rise buildings though cost effective and convenient are not how nature meant humans to live.
I can relate to the feeling that apartments are not natural. Environmentally though, I would guess they're better than the same number of people living in separate houses with individual gas and water connections and using up land that other creatures can live in etc.
Here in the US, there are hardly any apartments! The low density of people makes everything very far away and this lead to more cars being used too. So given a choice between living in a high density area or a low density area, I will almost always choose the high density area.
Of course, this is a matter of preference. But until one arrives in the suburbs of the US, you don't know how much we Indians have got used to crowds all around :)
But I guess I've strayed from the point!
We also rank first on the recycling list. It is said that Indians recycle about 80% of the things that they use while the Americans only 45%. So we are the 'GREEN KNIGHTS'. In India we have those 'kabadiwalas' who go to every house to collect papers, bottles and other things which they then recycle.
One more thing to note is that in India we have the 'Use and Preserve' system that we all follow. We do not buy a new car because our car is more than 10 years old. But in the US and other countries they have a 'Use and Throw' system. Thus we are actually doing our bit to make the world better. Hopefully, the others will follow.
Hi Dhruv! Thanks for stopping by.
You're right. Recycling and preserving is a big part of Indian culture. It also gives rise to the perception that we're misers! But who cares na?
The other day, the CEO of a European energy company said in an interview with Charlie Rose that India and China were doing much more to go green than Europe and USA…For instance, India has committed to converting 90% of it's electricity production to nuclear by 2050…
Are you back in the US?
We have a leg up on many countries because of the attitudes of the people. And attitudes don't change quickly. Our khap panchayats etc are proof of that! Luckily, this is a good attitude and it seems to be getting better :)
Yeah – came here in May. Visa expires in 2011 June so I'm sure I'll be back by then at least.
Was talking to a friend who runs an NGO on waste management. Schools that pride in teaching children about recycling, reducing waste et al do not want to pay the Rs. 1,000 it will cost to transport their waste to a responsible waste manager. In my opinion, real tasks like composting will give kids the best understanding of how recycle, reduce, reuse can work.
I think a lot of us being green is not true. We need to compare to ideal, not to the US! By the way, a lot of the waste we give to raddiwalas is recycled, the rest (a good 20% is estimated) is burned or sits in landfills. Who said we deserve to have any credit given for civic sense!
We all shine by comparison :D
Nice post. Our ranking would have been further improved if they would have consider the ancient and traditional practices being adopted by Indians specially those related to conservation and protection of Natural Resources be it Water, land , or Forests.