The 70 million citizens of India’s national capital region and its extended districts are choking on air pollution. Freshwater underground is depleting rapidly in the NCR with the pressure of urbanisation. Delhi’s 70 million are not alone in their environmental misery. India, with its 1.5 billion population, is the most environmentally-stressed large economy in the world.
Environmental stress is a global problem: the air above and aquifers underground, cross state and national boundaries. Nations are unable to cooperate to arrest global climate change. The US, the wealthiest nation, and the largest polluter per capita, has backed away from global climate agreements. Even wealthy, “green conscious” European nations are avoiding the “polluter pays” principle. They want to impose a carbon tax on poor countries, who have suffered the most from the Western, techno-centric, free market driven model of economic growth that has been imposed on all.
“Decarbonisation” is not happening fast enough to reverse the addition of more carbon into the atmosphere. Global temperatures will continue to rise for much longer than they should to attain the moonshot goal of “net zero”.
Albert Einstein, who upended the physical sciences in the 20th century with his theories of relativity, said that it is madness to continue solving…
Source: The science of climate change and why India must look beyond green energy solutions
