Vijay - and Buddha's Valuable Lesson on Utilisation July 12, 2010
Thanks for the story you sent me about the Buddha, and the related comments about sustainability you sent in your email.
Why don't you bring those ideas to your open letters to me?
I think that concerns about sustainability are relevant for all of us no matter which continent we live on. We all have different cultural histories regarding "how things work" and we need to learn from each other to work out ways that will work well for all of us in future. I touched on this when I wrote "Pam - we want street lights".
There are so many challenges to be faced during this century. Fortunately, one of the things that we do have on our side is the way that the Internet enables us to rub minds across different cultures and therefore learn from each other. New perspectives are always useful. Even if we don't have any answers to the big (and small) challenges facing us we can at least explore some of the questions together and see what useful insights turn up in the process.
I wonder what your concerns are about sustainability locally. Here in the UK I am aware of the Transition Towns movement but I'm not an active participant yet. So far I haven't got much further than trying to reduce my carbon footprint, being more aware of what is in my food and where it comes from, growing some lettuces and herbs on the balcony, and being interested in issues of our systems of power production, water supply and sanitation systems etc.
On reflection I realise those systems featured in the technology foundation course of my Open University degree many years ago. I tend to think its general knowledge and "everyone knows that". I'd forgotten that I'd done a little formal study, so when Vinay Gupta (and others) talk about these issues in Global Swadeshi and elsewhere I do already have quite a few reference points to hang the comments on to. I feel guilty that I'm not being more proactive about these issues - but then I feel guilty about a lot of things - and knowing things are rather broken is not the same as knowing what to do to fix them.
How about you - and people's interest in local, and wider, sustainability issues in India?
Pamela