ABSTRACT
A disclaimer to start with: in a federal union of 1.3 billion persons comprising 17 per cent of humankind, 36 states and territories, multiple languages and ethnic groups, few if any observations are valid across the whole country. Democracies find it hard to make tough decisions and to adapt when they need to improvise without precedents;pre-emption to tackle a problem before it becomes a crisis is never a democratic strength, especially in a federation. India took relatively early steps against Covid-19: visas were rescinded on March 18;international flights stopped on March 22;and domestic flights were terminated on March 24. Prime Minister Narendra Modi called for a 12-h nation-wide voluntary curfew on 22 March, marked with high observance, which was a dress rehearsal for a full lock-down from 24 March for 21 days with relaxations for medicines, media, banks and groceries. The national closure was the most comprehensive in history. At that stage, India had registered 500 cases and 10 deaths. The trade-off was to lose lives to Covid-19, or gain time to prepare health services and risk the economic consequences. Modi acted quickly although it caused hardship to millions. By and large, the lockdown was observed, justifying the theory that Indians react best in emergency mode.
ABSTRACT
The best way to think about the climate emergency is to imagine humanity has just arrived at a new planet somewhere in a distant galaxy. After all, as scientists tell us, our planet Earth will soon look like a new planet, with conditions radically changed from the 'climate niche' of the past 10,000 years, during which human civilization developed. Once settled on the new planet, our task is to terraform it, to build a new natural environment fit for human life and human flourishing. My general approach to the politics of climate change thus differs from the most common view among environmentalists. I do not believe we can speak of climate change as a product of the Anthropocene, the human-built world. Our inability to control the consequences of climate change shows this is still at heart a natural process, one triggered by human beings or, more specifically, by our limited ability to control natural processes and therefore by our incapacity to control the unintended consequences of our actions and choices. The solution to the climate emergency is not to exit the Anthropocene but, intriguingly, to enter it for the first time. The world building is a task significantly full of existential meaning and urgency.