The urgently needed transformations for safeguarding the cryosphere will only occur with fundamental changes to our mindsets. Such a shift in perspective will lead to reinventing lifestyles, building long-term resilience, and taking a regenerative approach for future pathways. In this intergenerational and cross-sector dialogue, we will discover actionable strategies to make eco-conscious choices that positively impact the cryosphere and contribute to a safe operating space for humanity.
Contacts: Brahma Kumaris
Hello and welcome to the cop 28 cryosphere Pavilion I’m Gabrielle cber I’m a postdoctoral researcher at the University of truma in Norway and I’m here to um present today’s panel um which is the pathways to transform safeguarding the cryosphere through mindset and lifestyle the moderator of
Today’s event will be Anita munat she is an interior architect and the Brahma Kumaris environment initiative youth representative welcome thank you so much kabi and uh good morning and welcome to all our distinguished speakers our esteemed participants and uh it is an insightful session today on how to transform it is
Pathways to transform and uh through mindset and through lifestyle so as Gabi introduced me already my name is Anita and I’ll be your moderator for this session and this dialogue we are about to embark on is transcending disciplines and generations and uh we are recognizing the importance of minute
Changes in our mindset to secure the future of the cryosphere so our session could uncover or may answer a lot of your questions a lot of the undeniable truth that safeguarding the cryosphere is a necessity more than just technological interventions we need a mindset shift and that is why we’re here so let’s
Shift that perspective and let’s transform uh collectively to reinvent our lifestyles and to maintain resilience and adopt a few regenerative approaches to pave sustainable ways forward so to guide us through this exploration I would say we are honored to have our experts on the panel uh I
Would like to introduce uh Pam pearon she’s the director of the inter National cryosphere climate initiative and she offers a wealth of knowledge and experience in addressing cryospheric challenges on an international scale and I would like her to come and have a short introduction because she won’t be
With the panel but she will speak beforehand yes thank you so much and I wanted to sort of set the scene for um what we’re discussing today because the CRI spere is changing faster than really any other part of the planet uh it’s very sensitive it’s been put in
Terms of being the canary and the coal mine uh especially in relation to the Arctic but things are changing rapidly in Antarctica and also in mountain regions uh you have the same levels of warming essentially in the Arctic Antarctica the hindukush Himalaya uh and most mountain regions around the world
World two to four times the rest of the planet um but what we have been focusing on more and more is the impact of those regions on the rest of the world uh those of us who care about these regions who think they’re beautiful who you know
Like to to be in them for their innate Beauty um are beginning to recognize that for most of the planet who maybe never experience ice and snow these are regions that are important to to their very lives they’re important to the continued existence of low-lying countries or coastlines or communities
Because when the ice sheets really begin melting sea level rise with our current emissions we’ll be unexpectedly fast and we need to think Beyond sort of our normal you know human short-term thinking and really take on board the longterm thinking of many many generations because what we can set in
Train with our eyce sheets can go on and Will Go On really for thousands of years um one of the new bits of science that we took on board here is also the the polar ocean current the Antarctic overturning bottom water that may sound like a very long thing but it was
Actually spoken about by un Secretary General gutterz last week um because that really is something driven by the freshwater coming off the Antarctic ice sheet that really drives the polar oceans and not just the polar oceans but via that the entire ocean current circulation system most people know
About the amoc in the North Atlantic that’s just a little piece of it it’s really driven by this system of currents that begins in Antarctica and it has already slowed down by about 36 to 40% this is such an ancient and slow moving system that we know that it has locked in this
Change this slowdown in the ocean system for 3 to 400 years at least already and that is just one thing that very few you know humans even pay attention to but it drives the nuclear the the nutrient cycle it drives the carbon cycle um and again once an ice sheet really tips the
Latest science is showing that it’s going to continue for Generations uh same goes for Mountain GL ERS they have so much warming built into their system that even if we did very low emissions we wouldn’t see much of a change in their loss it’s just steep
Steep steep right now um but if we have low emissions we begin to see a change around 2060 2070 by the end of the century a glacier that under high emissions would no longer exist is still going to be there you know maybe just half of it or a third but it’s still
Going to be there um why is this important then in this this context of mindset and lifestyle I think that humans in the past have been naturally multi-generational you know we lived often especially Farmers on the same land for Generations it was important to one you know farmer that not just his
Children but grandchildren their great grandchildren would still have something to live on um people planted trees knowing that they would never have a chance to harvest the nuts that might come from them uh or a pear tree for example it could take 20 to 30 years before it
Begins bearing fruit I think in in our our modern society we’re no longer thinking in this multi-generational manner and to me as someone who follows cryosphere that’s the mindset that needs to shift we need to understand and care that what we’re doing today could lock in things and already has locked in some
Things that are going to affect not only our children and our grandchildren but going out six seven eight many more Generations um and living our lifestyles within the boundaries that actually do exist even if we don’t like to admit to them all the time is going to be a
Really important piece of the puzzle uh I think most of us know how to live sustainably really we’ve learned about that do we do it probably not in most cases um maybe in small ways but what we really need is this greater change um and I think that one of the messages
That that is going to be important to put forward is the idea that the lifestyles that would be sustainable and the planet that we would be living on is actually a lot more pleasant than what we have right now you’re going to be hearing from Mark who I’ve worked with
For you know many years now um but you know works very much also on things related to air pollution and air quality they’re intimately tied to climate we would have much cleaner air if we lived a lowc carbon lifestyle a sustainable lifestyle we would walk more uh we would
Not go back to caves um but if one tries to think in one’s mind what kind of a life we would be living in a way that would preserve the cryosphere for many generations it’s actually not a bad life you know it’s probably a better life
Than what we’re living right now and so I think if we can take that on board and not look at this as something where things are being taken away but being given to us I think that can be a very powerful way of looking at uh the
Changes that are inevitably in front of us the question is as much of the debate today at this cop is you know are we going to phase out or phase down fossil fuels are we going to aim for 1.5 or allow the planet to warm to a point
Where for example there are no more glaciers left in countries like um Sweden and Norway or in the Alps which is what would be the case at two degrees you know is that the kind of world we want where we’re s sort of forced to change or do we want to embrace and
Enjoy the change and and look at the positives so um for this this panel I would encourage you to explore that as well I’m sorry I can’t stay for the whole thing but I would simply sit here coughing and sneezing the entire time and I do not want to get my other fellow
Panelists sick um so thank you for coming here thank you for your work and uh I look forward to hearing your your views and uh the valuable contribution that this can make this is the last day of the cop uh things like this need to
Be paid attention to as part of the cop as well and uh thank you for for coming here and for doing this important um Side Event here as as things wrap up and we move into hopefully a solution that will save the cere save the planet and save ourselves so thank you
How do you perceive your relationship between your own individual choices and the health of the cryosphere so since we’re talking about Lifestyle Changes how do you see your individual lifestyle changes that have actually that help in maintaining the C oh well I I think it’s the things again that we all know right
Uh you know live smaller uh we don’t need as much space uh use fossil fuel less I think that’s an important way to think about this right uh where I live right now it’s driven entirely by electricity um and we can actually opt into only being powered by Renewables
Now that is a little bit of greenwashing but still if enough people you know choose that for their energy um uh provider then maybe that pushes things forward a little bit uh so when I say use less fossil is a big one that I think many of us in the west you drive
Too much you know and one of the the joys often of coming to Cops is almost every single cop the people here get a local public transportation card um and use it and what has been sort of a shock to me is talking to some of the people
Who live here this is a wonderful public transportation system it’s fast but if you look at it the people who are on there are people who are workers and the the upper class drives you know and that’s completely unnecessary it’s faster uh and so things like that are
Really important too and I have to admit I I I lived you know close to Copenhagen for years but it was the cop 15 that introduced me to the public transportation system in Copenhagen and that’s all I use right now you know so I I think getting over humps like that is
Really important and associating them with cryosphere preservation at least you know there there is actually uh for example a CI study one ton of CO2 removes three meters of c i and so when we think about it in that term um you know what we’re doing actually can make
A difference and and we have some glaciologists who’ve done something similar I don’t know I don’t think we have anyone here who can give me the figures so I’m not going to quote it but you know when we make those associations that the little bit that we do actually
Does save a little bit of ice um that’s an important way of thinking as well thank you so much okay thank you yeah uh thank you to Pang for uh sharing her insightful you know efforts and her change in that Consciousness and what she explained about the
Glacial um issues so I want to go ahead and invite our next speakers so I’m going to invite Professor Mark Lawrence he is a renowned scientific director at the research institute for sustainability and he’s bringing invariable scientific insights to this panel and I would also like to call upon
Go pill he’s a trusted advisor on renewable energy from the brahmakumaris and he provides a unique blend of FAL wisdom and practical expertise in Sp Solutions so uh together we are going to go through this journey of actionable strategies and lo we can alate some equal conscious choices together don’t
You think so let’s hope let’s hope yeah let’s all be a cist for this transformative discussion so again I would pae the same question to both of you um how do you perceive the relationship between your individual lifestyle choices and the health of the crow I would
Like well thank you a and it’s a nice opportunity to be here together with you all and thanks for the invitation for this um it’s great to have an opportunity you see my old colleague P Pearson again after quite a while and the answer to that question is of course
One that has a lot of very subtle facets for it so when it comes to the the question about living sustainably I wrote a Blog article on that at the beginning of this year where I had been asked the question a number of times in the last decade building up the
Institute that previously called The Institute for advanced sustainability studies now we changed our name to research institute for sustainability and I ask the question how can I live sustainably and of course short of saying well buy a very good knif and learn survival skills and go live in
Woods um which doesn’t work for everybody and if eight billion people were to try that it wouldn’t be sustainable either then it really becomes very difficult in our current life um situation our our societal structures actually to live in a way that is sustainable in the sense of the word
That we uh as we have defined it at our Institute or as others have defined it but if you change the question around to how can I live in support of sustainability then based on that I came up with a number of principles that had come out of discussions yelled and um
Crystallized out of discussions over the last years and so I invite so anybody who’s interested in that to have a look at the blog article rather than going through those but to make the big connection to that that in the end our systems are tied together very tightly our sustain
Structures and are individual structures are actually very tightly tied together the systems influence the individuals but again the individuals and their work towards Transformations influences and systems and one of the most vulnerable systems that we have on this Earth is the cryosphere as Pam just pointed out
Very well the changes in the cryosphere um are happening at a much greater rate than in any other environment or nearly any other environment any other major environment around the world and because of that then the changes that we make on our individual Lifestyles for each of us individually
It’s not going to change the world by any means even if 100 thousand or even million of Us come together it’s still only going to have a that but the those changes step by step influence the structures and the structures step by step then influence the overall environment and that’s what influences
The Arctic so it’s it’s a little bit of a distant question um but it’s one that is is very very important and then there’s another issue of that that comes down to the attitudes about our fellow people and about our fellow creatures and I’ll save that for another question Mayer okay so
Coming to what are the challenges that you believe are specific for these lifestyle changes that if someone wants to do to help Safeguard uh the envirment let’s say particular what can one expect you know what other the challenges can one expect well I see many challenges um
I’ll speak about three of them one of them is the challenge of the structures that you have around you so if everybody else is living a certain way for instance if everybody else is eating sugar and you want to improve your diet and they’re eating sugar at a party if
Everybody else is drinking alcohol at a party want to cut down on your alcohol consumption if everybody else is working through the night um because they want to get further accomplishments if everybody else around you is is driving a large car we’ve seen that in in our neighborhoods that once one comes in
With a large SUV then the next one Pops in the next one pops in and so on so so these kinds of pressures that’s one of the fundamental challenges that we face and it takes a lot of not just strength it takes a lot of desire to hold up against that challenge
If you want to live following whatever principles you as spouse take the ones that I have or people have other principles at the same so that’s one of the the biggest challenges that we have um the second one is very closely related to that and that’s the availability of sustainability
Supporting Lifestyles so I switched to eating a plant-based diet um 10 years ago now almost 10 years ago and the challenge of finding plant-based food has changed dramatically in most 10 years I remember at the cop in Bon Bon Germany lots of people are vegetarian
You’ think it’d be pretty easy and uh I ended up bringing my own food most of the time surprisingly to me now the last couple of cops where u in regions that aren’t as well known for pushing uh plant-based diets um in Egypt and Dubai there is a wealth of available food
There’s no problem with finding plant-based food here so but if you want to change to plant-based diet if you want to change to driving an electric vehicle if you want to use public transport which you live in an area where there isn’t public transport anywhere anything that you want to
Change if the system structure isn’t already there then you have to push to create that system structure in the first place and the the the third challenge is actually the first of my seven principles which is don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good we get
Too quickly in the mindset of if I can’t do this perfectly then I won’t bother it all and and that’s that’s a major challenge because it’s a common mindset that we have and getting away from that mindset and saying well you know 80% is
A heck of a lot better than 20% in this direction even if I can’t get up to 99 or 100% those are three challenges that I would talk about that we fac with thank you so much for that input uh so goo tell me how do you perceive your relation relationship between your
Individual choices and the health of the cryosphere so what are your well it’s a the cryosphere is far away but somehow of course through my personal lifestyle I will have an effect on my emissions and they will add up and that is causing climate change and that will affect all
The cryosphere and uh I liveed most of the time in India and um interestingly when I came first time to India that was 84 I 85 i s of realized that India has a vast potential for renewable energies and um I thought wow the lot of sunshine and at the same
Time I saw all these ladies with a headload of wood coming out of the forest and cutting down the last jungles literally the last trees because they were cooking you know it was the primary fuel H and so I thought wow we should do something and I brought some solar cells
And the little electrical car and showed it there in the Brahma Kumar to the Senior Management and Brahma Kumaris as their name says is administrated by women and when they saw this first little electric car going around in the courtyard they said oh wow that’s interesting and uh so from there a whole
Journey uh sort of began you know it was like a little seat and we set up a department for renewable energies and uh meanwhile after 25 years we are the biggest institutional user of solar energy in India and we have 5,000 meditation centers also and we rolled out renewable energy projects for all
Our centers we started with 2 um with a project to give 60 centers like a prototype 5 kilowatt system with battery and at that time this was quite Cutting Edge project nobody in India had much of photovoltaic and we used inverters from Australia and solar plates from cement you know it was like
Batteries from India because they were available so it was quite Cutting Edge get all the stuff together and we sort of raised the idea and the awareness within the institution and the idea behind it was to slowly slowly uh roll out renewable energy projects more and more and make the institution more aware
And more green and on an Institutional level reduce our the emissions per se on an individual level of course I had also my personal journey and uh you said nicely don’t be the enemy if you’re not become perfect or something don’t let the perfect the enemy of the good uh
That’s a very nice to note that down that’s a very nice statement um I somehow uh got involved our senior daddy she asked us every country should build a house I got in touch with a German architect Professor gut minker who is quite well-known environmental architect
And so I somehow started to build a solar energy house based on mud bricks so I had to select the soil make some testing is it good enough the composition is all right then bake it in the sun we made Adobes make the forms
Put the uh put the mud in mix it with sand and slowly build a solar energy house a green building but with your own hands which is a very interesting experience because uh you get your hands dirty I’m from construction business so it’s not that far away but I buil
Basically the house out of it has a passive uh solar architecture it means we have cross ventilation we have shading elements with the windows so uh it’s adapted to the local climate and I of course equipped the whole system with a wind solar power system which at that
Time a hybrid system which was also cutting edged 25 years ago and uh and so we sort of uh sort of was able I was very lucky that I was able to build the house myself equip it with Renewable Energy System and keep the carbon footprint very very low in addition the
House is double wall so in summer it’s insulated and in Winter it stays warm um and I planted trees so shading all these kind of features are there now it’s a very very beautiful building and in Winter Mount AOC get zero and people come inside and they say oh wow uh
Where’s the hitting and I say it’s like that it’s literally like that so this helped to reduce my personal carbon footprint I also acquired a electrical bicycle 5 years ago and I’m probably the first prototype Foreigner in mavu with electrical bicycle and everybody looks when I now already there are four Electric
Bicycl in M AB so slowly slowly by providing an example people see and then they copy um we also got engaged in tree Plantation which was a bit of a battle uh 20 years ago because India the goats come the humans come everybody is sort of grabbing your little sapling away and
It’s like a fight to bring trees up but we succeeded at least with some so um a lot of personal engagement was there to keep my carbon footprint law of course for example I come to the cop and I feel sometimes a pinch of um sadness that I
Use the airplane I like very much ships and um would love to come with a sailing ship uh Caron neutral but it’s not available somehow on that long distances you know um here as you said the Metro System I like very much and me and Sonia um after our climate Studio which we’re
Doing we always walk back and we try maximum to use also the Metro here so I’m trying on a personal level to to look as much as possible uh into my personal carbon footprint we have also initiated a um offset mechanism um we have created a Brahma Kumar’s
Environment initiative we have a plastic free campaign but we have also a CO2 travel offset so at the end of the year I put a bit of money into the trust um to offset my personal um carbon emissions as good as possible another another thing which is very helpful I
Would say is if you um care if you share things and you also receive things for example my brother is a doctor he’s bit more bigger now than me so I get a lot of good cloth from him for example and um so for and I like this idea you know
That I don’t waste things and they stay within the family literally um I also look um when I need some technical gadgets quite often I look for secondhand um uh in order to keep the Caron footprint as low as possible so there is a lot of opportunities you can
Do on a personal level um walk the talk you can inspire people you can work with your own institution with whom you are connected um as I said now we’re pumar is now the biggest institutional user of solar energy in India we’re a research organization we do workshops trainings
And we try to bring out the good news what is possible and we try to inspire all our members but also the people who come to get the ball rolling and change the awareness the Consciousness that people wake up and they understand the relation between my personal footprint
My awareness my personal footprint and what happens then at the end also in the cryosphere so um we’re on the job since 25 years it takes time and it’s a stepbystep process amazing thank you so much go for sharing but do you feel like there are challenges there as well like as an
Individ ual to execute these you know sustainable choices or the sustainable lifestyle choices do you think there are challenges for you have you personally you know faced anything that you want to share uh I can write five books on of the challenges which I face whenever you bring uh new technologies
Or New Concepts is like a shifted change in Paradigm and uh it’s mindset changes are probably the most difficult to initiate because you’re dealing with habits of the people um you deal with their conditioning you deal with their inner neuronal networks you know how they have been brought up how they used
To do things and suddenly you come with something different and you face actually resistance you face sometimes resistance in yourself uh I appreciate very much that you are on a plant-based diet I’m a vegetarian since 40 years and sometimes I contemplate to go vegan but then when there’s a yummy cheese you
Know I fail so you know so there is resistance within yourself for lifestyle changes you know because we’re used to certain taste or to certain comfortable habits um but of course when you try to roll out your ideas and Inspire others for inspire an institution of course you deal with a
Mindset and old habits and they’re always it’s always slow process and you face resistant and challenges challenges challenges on the way now I’m 60 plus and take things a bit more easy and uh I’ve meditate luckily regular which keeps my me healthy mentally healthy and helps me also to think outside of the
Box so yes it’s a it’s a journey I would say and it’s in the aftermath I can say it’s a very interesting and lovely Journey if I would have known in the beginning what’s in the pipeline it I would have probably scared and overwhelm probably quite scared you know but it’s
Totally all right and uh it’s it’s a beautiful Journey because you’re doing the right thing and this gives you a positive feedback loop you know and that puts you in a totally different space you know you can be happy you can be confident and you can radiate that out
And that helps a lot in inspiring people also to go green yeah you are an inspiration you are my inspiration I know so much that youve done for the organization and beautiful beautiful positive feedback yeah and it’s amazing because you know um I feel like for youth I’m talking on the perspective of
Youth because I’m the only youth here except for you maybe both of but anyway uh for me I feel like you know a collective change is what uh keeps youth moving like if it is a collective effort from everyone like you know if okay suppose I trying to go
Vegan and maybe looking at me someone will go like okay maybe I can join you as well and we can you know sort of have a journey together and you can see who one UPS the other like it’s like a competition okay no I didn’t eat today
You eat like you know it’s like that with us for youth so I feel like uh coming to Bringing whatever both of you said there is peer pressure there is you know there are challenges where you face that okay it’s resistance from within but then you overcome that with maybe
Commun we see the resistance we see the resistance here at the you know so it’s on individual but it’s also on organizational level National level and supranational level the whole world you know you see what’s going on since we know uh the effect of Emissions on the
Cryosphere on the world and I think since 28 years we are debating uh if we should reduce our emissions and still today it’s crunch time and things are negotiation are going on on the final text uh coming to uh a few more you know insightful questions I would like to ask
Um as a scientist addressing key challenges of the androp what connections do you see between systemic Transformations and sustainable development particularly in the context of the triosphere well sustainable development is um what I would say is the goal is the overarching challenge that we’re facing or or finding Ways to Live towards uh
Sustainability more in supportive sustainability and systemic Transformations are one component of sustainable development and say there there’s two major components of sustainable development the systemic Transformations are the transformations of our big systems so the transformation of the energy system of the food system so we need an energy transformation an
Agricultural transformation a Mobility transformation a production transformation consumption transformation and and then comes the the more subtle parts of sustainability so the the sustainable development goals depict that nicely you have ones that are are more hard goals that are environmentally oriented like the sg-13 which is the climate and 14
Which is oceans and 15 which is on land you have ones around energy and so on and then you have ones that are more Society oriented goals like like uh gender equality and good education and good work and peace in particular and so the systemic Transformations are one
Component of that it’s the emission systems and the energy and Agriculture and Sol systems that lead to emissions that lead to and the environment that also now more and more systemically protect us from the impacts of the environment on us due to our impacts on the environment so the adaptation
Systems are also part of sustaining and so that’s a major part of sustainable development the other part like I said is the is the the more societally oriented Transformations which you can consider that systemic but I would say these are more about attitudes and about um about relationships between people gender
Equality and peace and and good work the respect of like workers from employers and so on is um where we get much more into the hro aspect and that I mentioned the word respect which I wanted to get back to before but I didn’t want to talk
Too long before uh in terms of respect I brought something special to me I’m wearing a polar bear tie with the right sun and 30° temperatures outside it does seem a little bit weird wearing a polar bear tie I got this one at a at the cup
In Bon at a cryosphere event and uh I wear it very often to remind us of of a couple of things of mindsets one is the polar bear used to be the poster child for climate change it’s not so much anymore and but it it certainly um depicted the challenges of
The transformations in the Arctic for Life Beyond human life that we have in the Arctic and it reminds us of the importance of respect for non-human life in the world and respect for our future future Generations in terms of having wonderful creatures like polar bears around but it also reminds us of
Something else which is that the polar bear was the poster child and the polar bears suffer but the indigenous communities in the Arctic also suffered horribly bami and many others and they have begun raising their voices very very strongly and I’m very pleased to be working together with many of them from
Our Institute in terms of understanding how we can more effectively bring those voices together with the understanding from science that’s needed to help to support trans systemic transformation but bring that form of respect in and I think that there’s really a lack of respect in humanity or in humankind I’m not sure i’
Call sanity um in this lack of respect for the way that others live and the challenges that others have in their living and when we talk about the arch of change we’ve talked about the cryosphere and we’ve talked about all the changes and Glaciers and ice sheets
And and M to animals but we do need to remember that there are communities that have long long traditions and actually is up on the wall changes in climate limit on traditional fishing and hunting practices um limit I think is is a very diplomatically put understatement um the devastate the traditional practices and
That’s a shame because in the same way as she as as preserving an environment preserving creatures that we’ve known in our environment like Po bear in the future preserving cultures is also something that uh we can respect and value and these are these are wellestablished longstanding traditional cultures that
Have a special relationship with the environment from which I think we can learn some and in terms of respect rather then just accepting okay they’ll be wiped out after a while just like the low Island States and and states and in coastal regions and so on but they’ll just move
Inland and we’ll pick them up somewhere else and so on it’s that’s sad that we missed the respect Mark so so then to come back to your question systemic Transformations and sustainable development I’d say the systemic Transformations is one leg of sustainable development and for me respect and things around that
Solidarity kindness um a a a sense of of societal belonging and and humaness in the whole is the other leg to sustainable development that’s very true belongingness and that connectedness that one feels that see this is our one planet and we need to go between the safu it as communities as individuals
And as a system it’s so diff to transform the system that’s why communities are trying to go in and just do how much they can it’s lovely to see all the initiatives that people have started all the organizations that are contributing and um thank you so much
For that answer um okay go so you are a trusted advisor on renewable energy from the for the Kumaris that is a big big leg so advocating system stainable Solutions through ethical and value based approach is a very different perspective so how do you believe these considerations can play a role in
Shaping more Sustainable Solutions and how can we link it to the CH F Well I think uh if you are engaged in um clean technology or in any environmental project you need some sort of foundation you know like something has to drive you because quite often it’s not the financial incentives which
Are there especially when I started uh renewable energy was not at all business oriented or something like that it’s one more like like crazy Engineers some old hippies uh funny people who were in solar 30 years ago you know like quy people there was no um specific um education
Even for uh for all these areas you know like there was no environmental engineering there all what you find at universities nowadays it didn’t exist at that time these were mostly people which came from other areas and which started we were motivated by the idea uh to do something good and to
Create clean technology and to replicate it and to give it others this was bit the motivation behind was a bit to help actually you know and to demonstrate that something can work with the power of Sun so some people were driven more by let’s say technological aspects you
Know something should work and we can improve it a little bit here or there and other people were more uh by uh this idea of I should help the world I should help the people I should save the planet you know at that time in the 80s there
Was a big movement in Germany of the Green Party and the rain for the forest in Germany was suffering by acid rain and a lot of people were worried you know um by the emissions of the coal power plants and so on and uh so the
Idea already in the 80s in Germany was pretty popular um that we should do something and that we have to protect the forest and the herb they love their Forest so I feel um an ethical Foundation is is is at the heart of all these activities and uh when I came to
The Brahma Kumaris and first propagated these ideas interestingly in India suria is a dating is the Dy of sun and everybody said oh making cooking for example with with the sun with so there’s a Divine energy in the cooked food so everybody liked this combination and sort of accepted this also then in
India of course there is an economic reason also um in India gas uh fosil foods are costly relatively costly the income is relatively low but there’s an immense pressure also on the environment because high density High population small land marks so India is actually in a very tight spot and deforestation is a
Big big issue especially Rajasthan which is a semiarid area uh the forests they under constant threat and mount Abu for example is a is a environmental protective zone is under the ministry of environment and Forest is Forest area but the locals go inside and they cut their firewood you know and slowly
Slowly they have them ways and means to get every day their firewood out and you come every year and you see one tree less another tree less another tree less and slowly slowly slowly and there is not much left so there are various motivations which actually can drive you
But I think at the at the bottom it boils down that you have love for the creation love for the world around you and uh you would like to do something good for it you know and uh you love to inspire other people to do good to use
Uh resources Avail things which are available you know and to live in harmony with the surrounding and in India this is a very uh uh practical uh concept of living because you see it really how Forest disappear how Rivers get dirty uh or or they also disappear because of
Pumping you know the pressure on the land is immense so it’s a very uh deep motivation on the inside laugh and compassion I would say that was for me personally the big motivation and of course if you uh have such an ethical Foundation um it translates into all
Aspects of your life and ultimately also reduces your personal footprint footprint of people whom you’re working together all the projects which you’re doing um we have lots of projects also where we work with villages or with local people and we try to inspire them also for example we promoting since 20
Years the solar cooking box and uh try to roll it out in villages we have the solar Lantern which we are promoting and trying to bring it out in small villages so they have people have a little light in the evening also there are lot of
Power Cuts in India still and uh so we’re trying to to create little uh seats of hope uh through your personal activity but also through little projects which we’re doing with the local community we have a radio station radio maduban and there for example we have an environmental program also where we try
To bring up these topics and try to teach people to sort of at least have an idea what can be done and we try to help them also to get the G to make the gadgetry at least available you know so I think ethical Foundation super important for everything because without
That um it’s going to be difficult you know um at least I’m on the volun basis you know in India since 30 years so um I’m not driven by by personal yeah income considerations or this and that and somehow now solar or wind or this whole transition has become a big
Business also you know and I heard a um calculation study by deat towards the world economic Forum published a couple of days ago and the study just said that there’s 43 trillion us business opportunities if we go Net Zero until 2050 43 trillion is a is a
Huge amount and um and so of course now lot of businesses they are jumping in and their motivation might be different you know that might be um more profit oriented motivation but however at least it goes in the right so that’s a bit of a uh on one side I
See now that solar becomes super popular and every everybody has now small wind or solar cell and so many houses it’s quite good but on the other side it has become also big business and the initial um Goodwill has been a bit replaced by purely economic considerations but it’s okay at least
It’s happening it’s happening you also see that with uh with plant-based diets and with other things that uh they start off with sort of a small hi like community that is interested in it and then somewhere or another it catches on yeah and and then suddenly it’s a it’s a
It’s either a trend and a fad or it’s an opportunity to make a lot of money or both yeah and and the vegan is quite costly and sometimes if you look what’s inside you know you’re thinking twice you know because because they they they
Make a money out of it you know so it’s not necessarily healthier if it’s just a bunch of chemicals together and and with with tofu wish together to make it look like some kind of imitation meat good steam vegetables is is a completely different thing than than a lot of what
He’s done in the sort of to make it look good and I mean this this making it look good that goes along with um with a point that was brought up last night we brought up last night responsible Yachts that are solar powered and so on and but
You know it’s hard to imagine yacht being responsible or maybe and that that’s that’s a limited market it’s not going to be having huge impact but where it’s really important is an electrical vehicles and people are now going towards electrified SUVs because the SUVs are big enough to hold very large
Battery arrays they can get the distance that they want but by the time you put this huge battery array in the vehicle since you don’t have to charge it so often you can long drive a long distance that battery away takes a lot of carbon dioxide orits lot of carbon dioxide in
The production so much so that the difference between then driving on renewable energy charging the car versus driving on gas you have to drive for 30 40 50,000 kilometers before you’ve even broken even on that and you move you move two tons you move your
Cent so but you feel good about it I mean there are there you know I see plenty people who feel like they’re in a bicycle because they’re an electric vehicle even if it’s a huge SUV electric vehicle and so we get these this these kinds of trends that make it very
Difficult the balance where do you find that balance of your model scale I like by the way also to repair things you know that’s I think is also a good uh a good um Habit to develop um in India anyhow um there are masters of repair but I like always if something breaks
Down I like to cloth I get get it to stitching or um some technical Gadget always try to repair it and it’s a bit of a sad development that nowadays kitchen applicant applicants or whatever they have an inbuilt uh death uh date and there was a study by the green party
Some years ago and and some Gadget like washing machine they just last for three years where you have the warranty and then three and a half years it makes cling a particular part goes and quite often that part is not available and it’s called planned obsolescence and that way you have to
Replace the entire washing machine so I’ll do something that you’re never supposed to do during a panel discussion I’m going pull out my cell phone you’re not supposed to do that but to make a point on that the cell phones are exactly what you’re talking about the
These are one of the major markets where people go to replacing them very often and it’s through the opsol Lance I I bought a fair phone which is a movement in in Holland in Europe and there are a number of others like ship phones and so
On that are working with this it’s great I love it and you can and I had the the Fair phone one um I must have taken it apart a half dozen times and and replaced the screen replaced this and replaced that and so on until it got to
The point where the software the hardware wasn’t able to run the Google um Android system software for a high enough Android version to run the apps that I wanted to run and so I had it basically still worked but it wouldn’t actually work in the modern day because
We still moved along so fast I you the fairphone 3 version um but this is again this is this is a small corner of the market it’s the hippie the modern hippie version of what you have running around and I know from the others that I see running around with these things and
It’s that version and again it comes back to your original question what does this have to do with the Arctic and with the Antarctic and with the Himalayas and with thees and the pest on the H and it has a lot to do with it because our our resource
Use connects to emissions and those emissions connect to the changes in vulnerable regions and they suffer most because they the the snow reflection of sunlight when the snow melts it absorbs more sunlighten so that amplifies the whole signal of warming in this future right thank you so much for that
Insightful discussion I think we have a lot of uh things for our audience to take away and I’m just going to go one by one for me the personal thing was perfect don’t let perfect be the enemy of good please take that away that is
Such a lovely quote and it is it is for me as say I’m a perfectionist I have to do things the right way or else I don’t do it and I lose the motivation so that is something for me and uh preserve cultures I feel like what Mark touched
Upon that yeah systemic transformation is about adaptation it is about you know transforming this transforming those systems trans Food Systems but how are we preserving the culture social leg along that whole journey also is important and kindness solidarity humaness like these are some key words you know that there’s a lack
Of respect and uh that is something that really um I see here at Pop as well that you know there are so many uh stories that are quality that learning you know that impact or that change but they’re not getting it because there’s no respect for their Story and there’s no
Respect for that nation and I was having a discussion with the one panelist yesterday and she mentioned that it’s a story of a remote you know Village in India from madhya Pradesh and they don’t have it’s about the women suffering there but nobody’s listening nobody’s listening and they’re suffering so much
But uh because of so much of rainfall so much of issues due to the land and they just they just they don’t have a voice and I think respect is something that is important indigenous communities are now bringing forward their voice and even from the Artic and that is something new
For me I I learned that today that there are indigen communities also who are suffering like they don’t have a livelihood and in the Artic so and from goo we learned that you know motivation to do something different like you need to have that drive and uh the foundation
Is of course ethics but at the same time for me from uh from my perspective to take away from his answer was love love is the seed I mean why did he make that whole Solar he was he had the love for the planet he had the love for that
Institution he had the love for doing something and that drives him to doing something much more better for the institution or for himself and um we have that Harmony that compassion and one you know line that he used was Seeds of Hope so these are really Seeds of
Hope and I hope all of you um don’t resist yourself into transforming or changing your lifestyle changing your mindset yes it is difficult it is challenging we’ve been brought up with certain you know things that we do certain lifestyle that we maintain but there is a chance for us to change and I
Would end the discussion on this thank you so much for joining us on this panel discussion thank you to our speakers thank you thank you thank you okay