Towards net zero emission

Over reliance on coal as a source of energy and commitment to attain net zero emission by 2070 is delivering contradicting picture.

India’s environmental crises remains unaddressed partly because the expanding middle class focuses on search for private solutions that are at a cost to the environment, and the poor. For a majority of them, diesel generators secure reliable source of energy; groundwater pumps ensure water supply; air purifiers counter air pollution, and air conditioners work against summer heat. The prevalence of these market-led private solutions reduces political pressure to act. No surprise, the institutions that govern environmental matters continue to remain weak. The fact that a growing economy with the world’s largest population has yet to square up with global per capita energy use, which when achieved will have unimaginable impact on carbon budget and consequent climate change. Should that be the likely scenario, India would be both a major contributor to and a potential victim of climate change. This the world would not desire the most populous country to stand out for. Replacing the vicious cycle with a virtuous one may not be easy though. 

India’s energy consumption pattern is no longer a domestic issue, it has implications far and wide at the global level. Its over reliance on coal as a source of energy and its commitment to attain net zero emission by 2070 deliver contradicting picture. Transition from a coal-based power sector to a renewables-based energy sector is both feasible and desirable to mitigate climate change while delivering energy security and reducing air pollution. However, regional variations in energy production and consumption are too huge to provide a clear response. Johannes Urpelainen, a Professor of Energy, Resources, and Environment at the John Hopkins School of Advanced Internation Studies, draws a comprehensive picture on country’s complicated environmental situation to assert that only by reinforcing current policies can sizeable gains be reaped by 2030. Curiously and somewhat paradoxically, India has laws but lacks order to implement them.     

India has started on a low-carbon pathway but any approach to accelerate it at the cost of economic development is off the table. In this thin volume, Urpelainen has painted the complex environmental scenario of a country that is both full of potential as well as is afflicted by greater problems. However, within it lies the scope for the country to claim leadership role in global environmental politics. For such a distinction to be achieved, the country will need to ensure that its reduced water and carbon footprints become the guiding spirit of sustainable development, with a strong equity focus.  

Energy and Environment in India is an excellent reference book, that has profound reflections to trigger fresh debate on the subject. Urpelainen wonders if there are easy answers to most entrenched social and environmental challenges. What he instead does is to present possible qualitative scenarios. The first may see India as a giant with clay feet governed by authoritarian populism, wherein disappointing economic growth and environmental destruction drives a billion people into despair. The second and most likely scenario may be that the country charts an unabated economic growth that fuels inequality but lacks much-needed investments in climate-proofing. The third scenario is utopian that strikes a balance between poverty reduction, climate adaptation, and reduction in environmental footprints of the economy. Each of the three scenarios are discussed in detail for their potentials and possibilities. What comes clear is the compelling need for the political leadership to formulate effective policies, and to resist the temptation to exempt the mighty corporations from strict environmental rules.

What makes this volume distinct is its assessment of the energy and environmental problems from within the complex social, political, and historical settings. The book convincingly argues that to produce fair, equitable, and sustainable outcomes for almost two billion argumentative Indians, the country must strive for a sustainable future through democratic norms. Rarely have democracy and environment being dealt with in the same breath.  

Energy and Environment in India
by Johannes Urpelainen
Columbia University Press, New York
Extent: 220, Price: US$ 30.

First published in The Hindu on Dec 17, 2023.

AI : Where is the control key

The proliferation of technology in waves has been the story, but what if the wave turns out to be a tsunami?

As has been during the previous technological waves – the steam, mechanical and fuel automation - there remains both denial and stoicism for the coming wave of artificial intelligence, A.I. Will the new wave be useful or dangerous, or both. While there are skeptics who argue that the power of AI. has been overestimated, there are others who believe it will accelerate unprecedented human progress. Geoffrey Hinton, known as the father of AI, is worried that artificial brains may indeed transcend human limits. As the boundaries between the real and the virtual are fast disappearing, technology is indeed expanding what it means to be human. 

Each technological wave in the last 100 years did change the world despite Luddite protests, named after a mythical figure, called Ned Ludd, that had challenged automation of textile manufacturing to begin with. Their pain and disruption were real, but so have been the improvements in living standards that we enjoy unthinkably till today. The proliferation of technology in waves has been the story of Homo technologicus ever since, but Sulayman’s concern is what if the wave turns out to be a tsunami? With AI fast outperforming all human cognitive abilities, the unprecedented opportunities on offer hold dangerous consequences too. 

The basic premise for any technological progress is to enrich our lives, and that has broadly been the case with it thus far. However, artificial intelligence and synthetic biology are two general purpose technologies whose scope of impact still remains understated. Given that these technologies hyper-evolve with an increasingly autonomous asymmetric impact, it generates powerful incentives for geopolitical competition with massive financial rewards but without a strong regulatory mechanism. The consequences of AI powered automated wars, bio-engineered pandemics, and technological authoritarianism have already been put to practice. A founder of two AI companies, Sulayman stresses the compelling need for ‘containing’ uncontainable technologies because our species is not wired to grapple with technological transformation at this scale, let alone the potential of technology to belittle and fail us.   

The Coming Wave is absolutely clear, seamlessly compassionate, and immensely powerful listing of the most consequential issues of our times. Behind technological breakthroughs have been people but not anymore as AI has taken over people in the present scheme of things. Think of Open AI’s GPT models which are brain like as they involve billions of artificial neurons, profoundly different from human brain. The artificial neural nets don’t acquire knowledge organically as humans do, by having experiences and reality, but use a combination of data immortality and computing replicability to take over biological intelligence. 

There is no denying the fact that AI and immersive media will permeate society, blurring the boundaries between the real and the virtual while unleashing significant new risks to our privacy, autonomy, and even our identity. Not far is the time when the majority of our daily interactions will not be with other people but with AI, if not already there. While unfolding significant features of the technological wave of intelligence, Suleyman enlists several critical aspects that hold the potential to amplify fragility of human survival – with a power to destroy us as well. In saying so, however, the techpreneur author remains optimist.

Global living conditions may be better today than at any time in the past, yet there is lot yet to be achieved.  The Coming Wave cautions that even in best-case scenarios the coming wave will be an immense shock to the systems governing societies. The question worth exploring is whether the nation-states are in any shape to meet the challenges ahead? Declining public trust, rising inequality, and a warming climate is unlikely to absorb the destabilizing force of the wave. The essential challenge, the author argues, is to maintain control over powerful technologies.  

AI is not only a technology but a way of future life that is hard to imagine and comprehend. No wonder, following the release of GPT-4, thousands of AI scientists called for a six-month moratorium on further research on the most powerful AI models. Despite debates and discussions on the emerging possibilities of AI, rarely anything is heard about containing it. Suleman makes a compelling case for policy makers and security experts to address the ‘containment challenge’ by developing regulatory framework for AI that works well in places as diverse as the Netherlands and Nicaragua, New Zealand and Nigeria. The Coming Wave provides a much-needed narrative on the potentially anticipated and yet disastrous consequences of AI. The easy-to-read book provides a persuasive roadmap for containing the technology rather than to be contained in it. 

The Coming Wave 
by Mustafa Suleyman 
Bodley Head/Penguin RandomHouse, New Delhi
Extent: 332, Price: Rs. 799.

First published in Deccan Herald on Dec 10, 2023.

Life amidst the dead

The theatre of death has remained a burning spectacle.  

The ceaselessly burning pyre at Manikarnika Ghat in Banaras is a living spectacle, where death asserts itself as the last witness to life. That cremation along the banks of the sacred Ganges on the steps of this ghat alone can liberate one’s soul from the endless cycle of death and rebirth is entrenched in the Hindu psyche. It is at Manikarnika Ghat that Lord Shiva whispers the ferryboat mantra into the ears of the dead before escorting their souls to heaven. So enduring is this belief that countless Hindu families prefer to have their loved ones cremated at this ghat. On this belief rests the ritual of sending off the departed from this ghat. 

The sacred fire at Manikarnika is what makes this place special. It is unclear when and how the sacred fire was first lit. It is used to set dead bodies alight. It is believed that, without this, the soul may not achieve moksha. Lighting each pyre with the sacred fire is considered both auspicious and crucial. The sacred flame has been burning for centuries and this has made Manikarnika ghat the unofficial headquarters of the corpse-burning business. No wonder then that mourners queue to give their loved ones a spiritually dignified send-off at this specific ghat. For others, the theatre of death remains a burning spectacle.  

Manikarnika ghat is perceived as a place for the dead; but it is a place for the living too. Fire on the Ganges portrays the lives of the Dalit community entrusted by Hindu society to perform its ancient funeral services. The Doms are keepers of the sacred flame. They are also untouchables, who lead a life that is often crueler than death itself. Bound by traditions, this Dalit community lights funeral pyres and carries the stench of death back in their daily lives. Their essential traditional role in cremation notwithstanding, the community has not been spared caste prejudice.      

Poor and socially neglected, the Doms face persistent acts of oppression by the upper castes, who have an overpowering hold on their lives. They give the dead a respectable send-off, but their lives remain at a mercy. By studying the lives of some three dozen inter-related individuals from the community, the author Radhika Iyengar pieces together a narrative about their struggles for self-respect and growth. The stories of those whose livelihoods depend on the dead are heartbreaking and uplifting too. Clearly, the voice of the voiceless is worth listening to.    

Why don't they escape their circumstances, you ask. To venture out in search of another job is a nightmare for the Doms. “People still consider us untouchables, if inadvertently touched they immediately run off to take a bath,” says one. Consequently, the idea of seeking a job outside remains an alien concept. An inward-looking community, it continues to align itself to the diktats of orthodoxy and to practices imposed by the caste system.

Fire on the Ganges is possibly the first attempt to chronicle the lives of those who give the dead an essential send-off. Banares may have got a facelift in recent times, but the burning pyres still obscure the lives of the community engaged in putting the dead to rest. The corpse burners toil in a debilitating work environment; Community children scavenge unburnt firewood at the pyres for domestic use and the young steal and resell good-quality shrouds. Survival amidst the dead remains a daily reality.

Can they ever escape the caste system that has forced them to burn corpses, even if the task has been glorified for centuries as the only way of providing moksha? Iyengar gives voice to the feeling and concerns of community members, many of whom are trying to free themselves from this doomed existence. While some are moving out in search of education and jobs, others are following their hearts and pursuing love interests from different castes. Yet, escape is no less an ordeal. What eventually emerges is the sociocultural irony that allows little scope for Doms to escape the ordeal of corpse burning.

Written with empathy and concern, Iyengar presents lived reality and compels the reader not just to acknowledge the plight of the Doms but also confront their own complicity. She presents some difficult questions too: since the Doms are doomed to burn the dead, shouldn't they be given an economically and socially respectable position in society? This is especially pertinent given that no upper caste Hindu would ever take on the task of burning corpses even though it has been glorified for centuries as the only way for the deceased individual to attain salvation. Fire on the Ganges makes for interesting reading. It draws attention to an essential social act that doesn’t get the attention it deserves while also helping shape our collective understanding of India.  

Fire on the Ganges: Life among the dead in Banaras
by Radhika Iyengar
HarperCollins, New Delhi
Extent: 482, Price: Rs. 799.

First published in Hindustan Times on Dec 2, 2023.