Episode Transcript
Speaker 1 00:00:08 Good planet. It's a hot zone and TRO climbs, sea wind is blowing some breathing trees. Strong, good planets are hard.
Speaker 0 00:00:34 Good.
Speaker 2 00:00:36 Hello case squid listeners. It's every other Sunday again, and you're listening to sustainability now, a biweekly case, good radio show focused on environment sustainability and social justice in the Monterey bay region, California and the world. I'm your host. Ronnie Lipshitz. My guest today is Dr. Shaan DLE. Dr. Lele is a distinguished fellow in environmental policy and governance at the center for environment development of the Ashoka trust for research in ecology and the environment in Bangalore India, as well as an adjunct faculty member in the department of humanities and social sciences at the Indian Institute of science education and research in Pune, his research interests include conceptual issues and sustainable development and sustainability and lyses of institutional economic, ecological and technological issues in forest energy and water resources management. He has recently been co-leader of an expert writing group of natural scientists, social scientists, and humanity scholars who published a letter to fellow citizens of the earth, an urgent call to our global neighbors to acknowledge the climate crisis, make personal and collective commitments in line with differences in privileges and responsibilities and work toward transformative changes. This interview was recorded on September 10th, Dr. Sherad lelet welcome to sustainability. Now. It's been quite a time, uh, long time since we talked to each other, you know, 30 or 35 years, I guess. Um, and as I, as I told you, I've been following your work over that period of time and, um, wanted to get some perspectives out from outside of California about various kinds of environmental issues. So this is a really timely interview. Anyway, welcome again.
Speaker 3 00:02:25 Thank you, Ronnie.
Speaker 2 00:02:27 So let's begin with some background. I, I mentioned in my introduction, your current positions and research interests, but what sorts of things do you do ATRI and, and ICER?
Speaker 3 00:02:39 So somebody might say I'm pretty much all over the place, uh, broadly work in the area of environment, obviously, but, uh, my particular interests are, uh, forests, uh, tropical forests, uh, and water, but increasingly also the links between development and climate change. So because I've been also involved in looking at questions of coal mining and dams and stuff like that. So looking at the question of development projects and how they impact the environment. And so what does it mean as you know, my longstanding sort of cross cutting interest and all of this has been, what does it mean when we talk about sustainable development? What do we actually mean? How do we actually bring it about,
Speaker 2 00:03:22 Yeah, well, the name of the show is sustainability now, and it's not, doesn't refer explicitly to sustainable development. Um, maybe you can tell us what does that mean?
Speaker 3 00:03:33 So I think one of the things to remember is that, um, uh, the term development is more popular in the global south because there is, I think a reasonable assumption that in terms of material wellbeing, certainly many countries in the global south are pretty much, uh, all of the global south, um, needs to make certain, uh, minimum, uh, steps forward, uh, especially in terms of bringing people out of crushing poverty, um, whether it's hunger, whether it is malnourishment, whether it's health issues, uh, you know, some basic standards of living are still out of the reach of a very large fraction of the people in the global south mm-hmm <affirmative>. And so I think it's in that sense that the word development becomes as important for people in India or other countries here. Uh, whereas let's say I was in the us, I would also tend not to use the word development because, um, I would say the us and most of the U C D countries are overdeveloped. And that's why sustainability alone makes more, more sense than talking about sustainable development. You should probably talking about sustainable growth.
Speaker 2 00:04:39 Right, right. And, and, um, that's not, of course, something that's recognized by, by more than a small fraction of the you people who, who support sustainability mm-hmm <affirmative> um, and, and isn't development. I mean, in some ways, development is a loaded term, you know, given that it comes out of, uh, early efforts by the United States, largely back in the fifties, right. To, um, to use financial aid and technology for political purposes, rather than for, you know, improving the lives of people in the global SA what we now call the global south. Um, but, and, and, oh, and then there's the, the, uh, the implication of progress, right? I mean that the sort of old, oh, I don't know, social Darwinian notion of ever increasing progress. Mm-hmm <affirmative> um, I mean, do you find that, do you find that problem arising when you, you know, you use the term?
Speaker 3 00:05:37 Oh, absolutely. I think, uh, in most countries, uh, at the national level decision making the word development is pretty much interpreted as straight economic growth mm-hmm <affirmative>. And I think that's one of the first problems that we all encounter that you equate development to economic growth and economic growth to human wellbeing. And you just say, well, if the economy grows, everybody is better off and then we are all happy. So there is a double implication that, uh, economic growth actually benefits everybody. And secondly, that the benefits, uh, which are basically in terms of increased material consumption are really the benefits you want when you talk about wellbeing, which is a much broader concept than just, uh, you know, uh, consumption of some material goods. So I think, uh, there are sort of several layers of problems when people conflate development and economic growth, but that's, that tends to happen in policy making circles a lot mm-hmm <affirmative> um, and even in sort of common discourse, I guess people basically think of development as whatever, building a bigger house or owning a car and so on and so forth. So there is a certain tendency, I think, even in common, um, conversation to think of development in only material terms, and to forget that you could be, uh, drifting away from product notions of wellbeing or the, or missing many of the dimensions of wellbeing.
Speaker 2 00:06:55 Yeah. Um, well, how did you get into this business? Maybe you can give us some, um, some history, some personal history.
Speaker 3 00:07:03 Sure. Uh, it is a very serendipitous pathway. I, uh, as a college going, or actually a high schooler, I was interested in nature wildlife. I was initiated into bird watching. I was doing hiking and treking and that kind of stuff. And I continued that when I joined my undergraduate college, which was an engineering college, and as you know, in the Indian educational system, we often tend to specialize very early on mm-hmm <affirmative>. And so I joined an engineering college, which had very little breadth in terms of the humanities of the social sciences. Um, but, uh, I was lucky that in 1982, while I was doing my undergrad, uh, a, a collective of Indian environmentalists scholars, journalists, uh, writers came together and published. What is, I think, a landmark report called the first citizens report on the state of India's environment. So it was a completely publicly led effort with no government support, um, to document what is the status, uh, in terms of India's environment and also why we are where we are.
Speaker 3 00:08:06 And, uh, that report really changed my understanding of what we mean by environment. So from thinking of environment, as basically birds and tigers and watching documentaries, like setting the T shall not die and, and so on, um, this report made it clear that the environment is everything that we live in. So it included chapters on water, energy, food, uh, air habitat, dams, you know, and so on. So it, it provide very, uh, different perspective and in which wildlife or biodiversity was just one of 10, 15 chapters mm-hmm <affirmative>, um, and sort of that really opened my eyes. And that sort of also made me see the link between a little bit of a link between what I was doing as an engineer and what the environmental problem out there was. And that's when I decided to get to environ studies, but there was no formal way in which I could do that because there were Al studies programs in India at that time.
Speaker 3 00:09:02 So I went to the Indian Institute of science in Bangalore, uh, to do a masters with somebody who was willing to advise me on looking at environ impacts on dams. And so I saw that was my stepping stone from electrical engineering, into environmental sort of analysis. I learned by rudiments of environmental economics in the process, and then landed up at Berkeley again, serendipitously, uh, at the energy and resources group, which you are also a graduate of. And as you know, the energy and resources group is a really diverse, uh, set of students and faculty with an explicit commitment to the idea of interdisciplinary. And even though it was set up by a, a group of physicists and so may have, you know, had a relatively narrow perspective on interdisciplinary initially, while we were there, you may remember very, uh, very well, there were several students pushing for a broadening of what interdisciplinary meant.
Speaker 3 00:09:57 And I think you were one of them, uh, saying that it's not just economics, it's not just political science added to technology or normal science, but it has to be sociology. It's got to be anthropology. It's got to be a whole variety of social science and humanities disciplines that need to come in into our thinking. And I think that was a real challenge for me because I also came from a techn economic background and to sort of understand more broadly what the social sciences have to contribute, but my PhD work was back in India, my field work. And that really helped me make that connection. Mm-hmm <affirmative> because it, it sort of opened my eyes to how communities understand forests and how communities used for us and how can it is use forest and therefore how they define, uh, what is a good forest. And so that the word social construct, which wasn't in my Lexi at all right, when I began my PhD sort of, you know, hit me really, uh, hard when I finished my fieldwork, since we are constructing the idea of forest degradation in very particular ways, which, uh, foreground certain values and push back other values.
Speaker 3 00:10:59 Uh, so for example, as an ecologist, I, um, define forest degradation as, you know, declining biodiversity, but as a Forester, they tend to decline or define forests, um, degraded when they are less productive in terms of timber, uh, communities, however, who live in, uh, in the forest or around the forest, we're defining degradation as forest, which don't give them what they want, which is a combination of variety of things, five greasing material, non-term forest products, uh, you know, cultural value and so on. So clearly the idea of degradation is no longer an objectively defined, you know, thing. And this was a real eye opener for me, as much as also the, the, the socioeconomic processes through which people's control of the forest was eroded over time. And they were left with a very patchy kind of control and, and consequences that followed from that. So I think that was the beginning of my, my, uh, strong sort of stronger engagement with the interdisciplinary and understanding what it might mean and trying to keep practicing that in my work. So I kind of moved from being a, uh, maybe an environment engineer slash engineer economist to more of this interdisciplinary environmental studies person.
Speaker 2 00:12:16 Um, well, that, that sort of explains what, what a social scientist does, which was one of my questions. Um, uh, but let's talk about your work in India. First. I'd like to come back to this, uh, question of, of how can social scientists intervene in policy in effective ways, because I think, you know, that's pretty important, but tell us about your research in, in India. What are the greatest problems facing India? What are you researching? Um, and is there a sympathetic audience for your research in India and here, of course, I'm thinking not about the, the people out in the field necessarily, but, uh, you know, in, in the universities and, and government and things like that, mm-hmm,
Speaker 3 00:13:00 <affirmative>, mm-hmm <affirmative> so it's, it's really interesting. I think when I came back to India in 1995, um, it became clear to me that there were, there were think tanks doing sort of, uh, you know, short term consultancy kind of work or, or research, uh, in a very applied way. And then there were academic institutions which were doing more in-depth work, but in a much more disciplinary, narrow kind of way. And, uh, you know, from my E experience, I was trying to create a space where we could engage with in manual problems, uh, but in a, in a holistic interdisciplinary manner. And it ended up, um, me having to establish a center for interdisciplinary studies on environment and development in 2001. Um, and then we merged that center with a three in 2009. So that's where I am now in, in a three, uh, through this 20, 30 period, I've been working on forests a lot in different parts of India, asking questions about how people use forest, how do they benefit from forests?
Speaker 3 00:13:57 What causes forest degradation? How do they understand degradation? Of course, as I said earlier, what is the reason for conflict in the forest sector between the forest departments or the bureaucracy, local communities and conservationists, which are sort of the three important actors in the in India's forest sector? Um, the other area that I've been working in a lot has been water mm-hmm <affirmative> because as you know, India is a monsoonal climate country with the large population, and, uh, the agricultural system is heavily dependent on the vagaries of the monsoon. So the development in the water sector has meant two things. One is building big dams, um, to provide if for irrigation and hydropower. Uh, and on the other hand, in the last 30, 30 years or so, it's meant, uh, the drilling of a million millions of Bo Wells. Mm. Uh, and therefore the, you know, pumping and over pumping off groundwater, um, from these Bo Wells in many, many parts of the country.
Speaker 3 00:14:56 So we really have a problem of groundwater depletion. So these two, uh, issues, you know, the, uh, overbuilding of dams and the over pumping of groundwater have been quite central to some of the work I've been doing and looking at how water's used in both in the urban context and in the rural context, and what are better ways of allocating and understanding what sustainable water use might even mean? Um, that's been a second thread in my work. And the third thread is sort of coming back to my earlier work on dams and so on looking at environmentally disruptive projects and more, you know, more so now, coal mining and, uh, projects like that, which simultaneously effect, uh, forests affect forest dwelling communities cause local air pollution and of course contribute to, uh, development, but contribute to a carbon based development. Mm-hmm <affirmative> so therefore contribute to climate change.
Speaker 3 00:15:48 Yeah. So that's been really an interesting area of work for me now for the last 10 years. Uh, especially because in India, and I think in many parts of the world, coal mining happens in areas which are inhabited by communities, which are the most marginalized amongst all. They're the other cities as we call them or indigenous people, as one would say in the us or, uh, north America. Um, and so these are the most sort of, uh, economically and socially marginalized communities. And it's sort of a double whammy when they're already at the bottom of the ladder. And then on top of that, you have a mining company coming in, uh, and taking over their forests and often displacing the communities or leaving them without their forest and facing the air pollution and what pollution consequences of mining.
Speaker 2 00:16:36 You're listening to Ks QD, 90.7 FM and K squid.org streaming on the internet. Hello, K squid listeners. This is sustainability now, and I am Ronnie Lipshitz. My guest today is Dr. Sherod, Layla, who has recently been involved in writing and releasing a letter to fellow citizens of earth, an urgent call to our global neighbors to acknowledge the climate crisis, make personal and collective commitments in line with differences and privileges and responsibilities and work towards transformative changes. Uh, the, the water situation, uh, interestingly enough sounds an awful lot like California, although, uh, the, you know, the issues in some ways are different, right? Because, um, there are so many farmers who depend on water for, for subsistence, you know, much less livelihood, right. And, um, uh, the, the government looks at water as a productive asset. Something that can be absolutely, or, or, and forests of course, right. Things that can be turned into consumables. Um, mm-hmm <affirmative> right. And, and the conservationists are largely thinking in terms of biodiversity, which is exactly what happens here, right? Although the productive sector, which is mostly agriculture again, right. Uses most of the water. Um, but because water is so cheap, things are grown that really ought not to be grown in what is essentially a seasonal desert. I mean, is it the same sort of thing in, in India? Um,
Speaker 3 00:18:09 So fascinating parallel actually, because, uh, uh, although the climate is different in some ways, and, and certainly the, the economic and social context are very different. Nevertheless agriculture is the biggest consumer of water. Number one, the disparities within the agricultural sector are much higher in the Indian context than perhaps in the us context where, um, you have, you know, millions of farmers who are absolutely marginal farmers who do not have access to irrigation at all, and are completely rain fed in, in their cultivation practices. So they just depend on the monsoon. Uh, and then you have a, a smaller ion, uh, who have access to water from large irrigation dams. And in between your farmers over the last 30 years, managed to drill more Wells and suck out groundwater. And the, and groundwater was initially seen as, uh, a pro equity, uh, step because while, uh, water from dams benefited, maybe only 10% of the farmers who lived is strategically, you know, suitable locations where the canals brought the water, um, border Wells were seen as kind of equalizing, you know, uh, the playing field, because anybody could get ACC, you know, if they could just get the money to drill a Bowell, they could access ground water mm-hmm <affirmative>.
Speaker 3 00:19:24 Um, in reality, what has happened is that after an initial, uh, widening of the base of farmers who had access to groundwater, once groundwater became overused over pumped, the, the levels dropped board Wells have failed. And so you're back to only those farmers who can afford to drill five board Wells when they really have only one the need for one, because the remaining for stop functioning very soon. So again, you have the rich farmers who are the ones who have access to groundwater because the poorer guys have lost that access after a couple of failures. And so you have groundwater also, you know, uh, rated in the hands of a few. So, um, but so that's one dimension, the equity equity in the, or the inequity in the access to groundwater. Um, but at societal scale, certainly the agricultural sector also shows a certain lopsidedness.
Speaker 3 00:20:17 So an enormous amount of invest investment in cultivating rice and wheat and sugar cane, as you know, rice and sugar cane are the two most water intensive water guzzling crops. And then that reduces water availability for other farmers. And it's actually reducing water availability for other kinds of crops, which actually might be healthier, for example, milit based crops. Um, and that's really showing up, even in terms of health consequences for the consumer population in the cities. Um, the constant drumbeat has been, of course, that we are a poor country. We are a, we had famine in the sixties. We don't want to go there again. Yeah. We still have a growing population. Although the, uh, the growth rates have eased off quite rapidly, uh, but we have a very last population to feed. And so we cannot afford to, you know, Tiner with old crops.
Speaker 3 00:21:08 We need to have rice and wheat, but that's, I think that green evolution thinking needs to be redirected in, in other, other, you know, other ways to reduce the water footprint of agriculture. That's definitely one big source of the problem. The other big source of the problem is the competition for water for, from hydro dams and from thermal power plants, which want to use it for cooling in, in large quantities. And then of course the urban sector, uh, which is largely a polluting sector rather than, you know, it uses, but then it also lets 80% of the water back in, uh, to the streams in polluted forms. And so there it's pollution, which is the biggest kind of disruptor of the water ecosystem.
Speaker 2 00:21:51 We, you know, we sometimes hear about, about conflicts over water when, uh, corporations come in, you know, to, to produce things. I seem to recall Coca-Cola yes. Uh, being involved. Can you tell us a little bit about that because, and what the outcome of those, those struggles are? Um,
Speaker 3 00:22:10 So in many ways I think the Coco-Cola conflict in plam matter, and Cara are a couple of other places are sort of flash points. When things go to an extreme level where you also have a relatively easy target, to be honest, a multinational company coming in and basically selling soft drinks, which by no stretch of imagination is a, you know, a merit good or something that people really need, um, is, is going, going to attract a lot of attention in a water deficit area. And a lot of these conflicts have been really about who controls the groundwater. Is it groundwater, privatized resource, or should it be considered, you know, as a common, uh, property resource and managed by local communities? Yeah. And unfortunately, although we have had these conflicts and these flash points, um, we've not made progress towards, um, improving the legal framework around groundwater. So in 2012, there was a proposal for a model groundwater law, which really try to change groundwater from a privatize, uh, good into a common property, uh, resource, but the act never saw light of date. And I, I, I noticed that there's some, some similarity here again with California, which has left groundwater unregulated for a very long time till I think, what is it last year or year before when it finally, uh, made some changes in the law?
Speaker 2 00:23:33 Yeah. We've had, we've, I've actually done a show about that. Um, uh, you know, it's a few years old, the, the law, but, but I think nobody is really clear on how it, how it's gonna, it works or it's going to work, but mm-hmm <affirmative>.
Speaker 3 00:23:47 Yeah. So this, so groundwater is, is really, I think, a big challenge. And as you know, groundwater is much harder to regulate than surface water because of the invisibility of groundwater and, uh, the lack of understanding, therefore, of what my actions are doing to my neighbor or somebody downstream and so on. And the government hasn't, as, as you said, by looking at water as a resource that is being that is lying unused or flowing waste into the ocean, which is sort of their traditional civil engineer's perspective on rivers, any drop of water that goes into the ocean is wasted water, right? So, uh, that perspective continues even today. When we have reached a very different stage from say, the 1950s, we have built enough dams, we've done enough groundwater pumping that now basin after basin is reaching, reaching closure, and there's no net water going from the, from the river to the ocean. And so we, we are in a, a very different regime now in terms of having used up the whole resource. In fact, we need to let go more water into the oceans. If you have to maintain certain coast ecosystems, we need to keep more water in the river. If you have to maintain even a minimum of aquatic habitat within the river and so on. So I think we need to, we need big mind shifts here.
Speaker 2 00:25:01 Well, I mean, but that raises the question, which we want to come back to later is, is, um, you know, you could say here is, is scientific evidence, right? Mm-hmm <affirmative> here are specific data. And yet the institutions in agencies, which, you know, would be responsible or are responsible for policy and practice not, they, they may recognize it, but they, they, you know, come up against very strong interests. Mm-hmm <affirmative> who, who, who are not, you know, they're also cognizant of this, but don't want to change because that would of course call into question their whole business model, their whole yeah. Economic model. So how do you, how do you manage to, to get that? And it's more than a mind shift, right? It's also very much about how institutions people in institutions engage in what they do and what they practice, how do you accomplish that? You know, that, that change in your view anyway.
Speaker 3 00:26:00 So, so I think this is a very good question, which speaks to both one is the receptivity to our work. And, uh, you know, the question, the role of the social sciences.
Speaker 2 00:26:09 Yeah. So
Speaker 3 00:26:10 Let me speak about the second one first, which is, uh, as I sort of became better worse with the social sciences, I, I could get a better understanding of this, exactly the question that you have raised, which is, it's not enough to talk about the technological side or the, the biophysical side of the story. Uh, you have to ask the question, why do we not have a groundwater law, uh, after so many years of discussion and debate and, you know, glaring evidence to about decline of groundwater. So what are the vested interests and how are those vested interests controlling the institutions, whether political institutions, whether bureaucratic institutions, whether institutions of common discourse. So what we see very interesting in an Indian context is there's a big sort of urban middle class interest in environmental issues, which translates into either planting trees or talking about rejuvenating urban lakes, without thinking about the, the, the science behind re you know, for example, river rejuvenation, or lake rejuvenation, and trying to make connections between planting trees and, and rejuvenating dried up rivers.
Speaker 3 00:27:15 Uh, so a lot of our NG is spending, trying to sort of deconstruct these ideas and explain to the common person that, well, no, it's actually not trees that are gonna solve your problem. If the reason the river has died is dried is because you've got dams upstream. You've got millions of Bo Wells pumping ground and therefore cutting into base flows. So you are, you know, backing up the wrong tree. You just haven't understood the basic science. So it's kind of a pseudoscience perspective that tends to take over quick fix solutions, which are supported by the media and so on. So we have a whole range of actors and, and, and, uh, processes happening here, the, the political economy side of it, the behavior, the bureaucracy, uh, and, and the sort of quicker, you know, uh, quick and easy environmental solutions that people are looking for.
Speaker 3 00:28:03 So it's really fascinating when we try to look at all of this together. Um, the receptivity for this kind of work is always limited because as you said, there's a whole bunch of Western interests who don't want to listen to all of this stuff. So there's always more receptivity for scientific solutions or technological techno fixes of some kind, but nothing beyond that, receptivity has also, uh, changed over time. Um, I think there was a period in the, uh, mid two thousands or 2000 maybe, uh, nine to 14 or, or a little bit earlier than that. Yeah. Maybe 2004 to 2014, when we had a regime in Delhi, which was sort of center center left, uh, and they could see the links between environmental problems and problems of poor people, which as I said, from the 1982 citizens report, that has been the major contribution of the Indian environment movement to point out that environmentalism is not just about being able to save the tiger or the pond out, or the whale for aesthetic or spiritual reasons.
Speaker 3 00:29:04 But also the very fact that lives are dependent upon access to the water access, to fire access, to braising, or, um, you know, uh, other kinds of forest products, uh, and so on. And so it's a matter of livelihood, not just, uh, not just the spiritual side of the story. Um, and there was a period when the government saw those links, you know, however limited it was, and that they passed a radical forest rights act. For instance, they made some progress towards drafting, a groundwater bill. They made, they passed legislation on the right to employment and so on. So you have a phase when they were more receptive. And now of course we have a swing in a direction where it's only about economic growth.
Speaker 2 00:29:46 Mm-hmm <affirmative>, um, what, what then, you know, I mean, what is the greatest, uh, challenge, you know, to achieving equity and, and social justice? Is it, is it ethics or economics or politics? I mean, you know, if you're going to try and decide where you want to intervene, particularly as a social scientist, mm-hmm, <affirmative>, you know, how do you, where do you do that, or at least how, what do you think about, you know, where you would intervene? I mean, I know it's the combination, but again, you know, if you're looking for leverage points, particularly sensitive leverage points since no one has infinite time to address this, you know, where do you do it? I mean, again, you know, the, the idea about if you have good knowledge, you get good policy or good information, you get good policy. We know at least some of us know that there is no connection. Okay. Yeah. So, so, you know, how do you approach that?
Speaker 3 00:30:43 I mean, you asking some really fundamental questions about the role of knowledge in, in social change. Uh, but just a step before that, I think, uh, I myself see my, uh, my work, not as a social scientist or as a national scientist or an environmental scientist, but really an interdisciplinary, uh, intu person. And I try to keep that profile. I try to keep that profile because it also helps me build bridges between the national and social scientists, as you know, academia itself is kind of fragmented along these lines. And there is limited conversations happening in spite of our lip service to interdisciplinary, right. So trying to build those bridges in my own mind in the teaching that I do. So I teach the core courses on interdisciplinary, environmental, uh, perspectives at a three in the PhD and the master's programs and in, in my, uh, sort of the academic community, but then also using that in the outside world because the outside world does pay more attention to national scientists and engineers.
Speaker 3 00:31:41 But if you start from there and then lead them to the social science, it often, you know, leads to a few aha moments in the audience. So I think it's really been useful for me to kind of keep that link alive and keep doing work, which is, which goes in deep, both on the natural science side and the social science side. So writing about groundwater hydrology and what that implies for groundwater policy or, or the legal regime around groundwater mm-hmm <affirmative> has been one example or the role of forest, for instance. So we are still having debates in, in the forest sector, for example, that there are multiple ways of managing forests and different ways of managing forests will prioritize different social objectives, right? So if you, if you want to prioritize biodiversity, you might just say, let's be completely hands off and leave it pristine.
Speaker 3 00:32:26 If you want to prioritize livelihoods, you would have a different approach and a different kind of forest. And if you wanted to prioritize timber or software for the industry, you would do much more of monoculture planting and, and selling. And that these are three different ways of managing forests and associated with them are three different stakeholders, three values around the forest, and that we need to look for a balance. And the idea of forest governance is to strike a better balance or a reasonable balance between, uh, these stakeholders and, and their objectives is something that requires me to, you know, go through the ecology and then come to the social science side of the story. I think that's been really useful for me, but coming back to the larger question, I think, uh, how do we, as knowledge producers make an impact? Um, I would not say there's no relationship, but the relationship is a really weak one, right?
Speaker 3 00:33:18 Uh, between us producing quote unquote, the right kind of knowledge and there being some change. So one of the things we do is work at multiple levels. So working with local communities, I, for example, right now I'm spending probably half of my time working in central India with, uh, indigenous peoples, uh, because we have a radical forest rights act past 2006, and that has really provided an opening for these communities to assert their rights over forests, not only to manage the forests in the way they want, but then also to have a say in whether those forests shall be given over to mining or dams or not mm-hmm <affirmative>. And I think that, uh, strengthening their ability to actually exercise those rights, get their control over forests, manage those forests in ways that lead to livelihood enhancement has been very exciting. Uh, but that's because there has been an opening and, you know, so trying to be in the right place at the right time when you see such an opening, uh, in an investing sort of, uh, work on the ground. And the other is always trying to speak to policy makers and the wider public at the same time, because there is gonna be, there are gonna be phases when the policy, uh, makers are absolutely deaf to whatever you're saying, uh, but sort of keep the public sphere aware of some of the larger issues. And then I think some, at some point you do see openings again in the policy space to make a difference. Mm-hmm,
Speaker 2 00:34:37 <affirmative>, you're listening to Ks Q D 90.7 FM and K squid.org streaming on the internet. Hello, K squid listeners. This is sustainability now on, I am Ronnie Lipshitz. My guest today is Dr. Sherod Lela, who has recently been involved in writing and releasing a letter to fellow citizens of earth, an urgent call to our global neighbors to acknowledge the climate crisis, make personal and collective commitments in line with differences and privileges and responsibilities and work towards transformative changes. Well, let's, let's turn to the letter to fellow citizens of earth since that's what I entitled, I titled the program. Um, and, and that was the point of my initial, uh, contact. Uh, can, can you tell us about that, uh, you know, your intentions and maybe read a few excerpts from it?
Speaker 3 00:35:30 Sure. I'd love to do that. So, um, as you know, we are in the year 2022, which is 50 years after the, the first United nations conference on the human environment. This was the first Stockholm conference, as we know, held in 1972 mm-hmm <affirmative>. Um, and that was the first time I think that the international community sort of formally acknowledged the importance of environmental problems beyond localized, uh, you know, issues and sort of came together. And you had several heads of state, including the Indian prime minister attending the conference and debating this question of how should we address annal problems? How serious are they? And, uh, what do we need to do about them collectively as an international community? And the 1972 conference was part breaking, because then it led to the setting up of the United nations environment program and triggered off more debates, more conversation around global environment problems, leading to multiple treaties and, and so on and so forth.
Speaker 3 00:36:30 Um, the 1972 conferences also important in the Indian context because it triggered a lot OFS legislation in India, uh, in the mid seventies. So, uh, 50 years later, Stockholm plus 50, uh, was a conference organized by the United nations to sort of look back and look forward, look back at what we have achieved in the, in these last 50 years. And then what are some of the pressing issues that we need to address? And of course, one of the big changes since 1972 has been the emergence of climate change as one of the mother of all environment problems. If, if I may call it that mm-hmm <affirmative>, um, and that's a big difference between 72 and, and now we've maybe addressed a few of those problems, uh, that reflect in the seventies like the ozone hole, um, is something that we claim we have almost solved through collective action.
Speaker 3 00:37:20 Um, there's been some progress on biodiversity conservation to just, again, give you an Indian example. The tiger has certainly come back from the brink of extinction in India. So from maybe a thousand tigers, we are back to about 3000, 4,000 tigers in the wild. So, uh, we definitely have some gains to show. Uh, I think air quality has improved in certain cities, although deteriorated in most parts of India, um, and so on, uh, but a whole host of problems remain. And so in the run up to this, uh, Stockholm plus 50 conference, um, the international science council, which as you know, is the, the apex body of the social and natural science councils across the world, uh, along with, uh, Stockholm environment Institute and future earth, which is another network of scientists working on environ problems sort of came together and suggested that can we write a letter from scientists to humanity on this question?
Speaker 3 00:38:16 And they were inspired by the, uh, the example of a letter that was written in 1971 and presented to the UN in 1972, signed by 2000 environ scientists, which was an appeal to humanity to take the annal crisis seriously. Um, and so this was kind of modeled on that, that effort. And, um, it was an exciting and really interesting experience for me as a co-chair of this, uh, expert writing group that they convened to craft something which reflects our current understanding. And I think we made a lot of progress in terms of at least our understanding of the problem in academia. Cause for academic writing this letter, that we could write a letter in a much more interdisciplinary manner. The very fact that the international science council is now the apex of social and natural science disciplines, all combined is I think a big jump in since the 1970s.
Speaker 3 00:39:10 And, uh, just to give you an example of what we think are some of the key contributions in this letter, we sort of start out by, by laying, you know, the problem, which is fairly obvious that our, uh, our home planet earth is in jeopardy earth, provides us with sustenance and shelter inspires reverence and nurtures our dreams, but we are pushing the planet's systems to the edge, threatening our own wellbeing and data of future generations. Um, but in terms of understanding why we are where we are, I think that's where we try to make an important contribution by saying that the environmental and social predicaments we face today are interconnected actions that contribute to the destruction depletion or disruption of nature lead both to unsustainable and injustice mm-hmm <affirmative>. And the way this happens is the richest 20% consume about 80% of the world's resources and the top 20%, sorry, 10% emit as much as 80%.
Speaker 3 00:40:07 Uh, I'm sorry, the top 10% emit as much carbon dioxide as the bottom 50% do this. Consumer is lifestyle of a minority has led to loss of species pollution and climate change, all of which not only threaten our collective future, but also the lives and livelihoods of many people today, especially the poorest and the most marginalized. So this connection between sustainability and, uh, equity, the idea that you are actually not just jeopardizing the wellbeing of future generations, but of many millions today yeah. Through the actions that produce climate change or, or various other kinds of impacts is I think one of our key contributions in this letter
Speaker 2 00:40:50 Mm-hmm <affirmative> is, is there, are there any, any bits of it you would like to read out to us?
Speaker 3 00:40:55 So this is act, uh, sorry. This was what I read out from the letter.
Speaker 2 00:40:59 Oh, okay. You know, I, I thought it would be interesting to go back and look at that, um, letter in 1971. And I just wanna read a few little bits from it, you know, in comparison, uh, it's, it's called a menton message because it was drafted in France, in Minton, I guess it's Manton. Um, and, uh, it's entitled a message to our 3.5 billion neighbors on planet earth. That's a, an eye opener from 2200 environmental scientists. Um, and the problems it describes are environmental deterioration, depletion of natural resources, which was a big thing at the time, um, the club of Rome report, right. About them. Absolutely. Although it doesn't say anything about who's consuming the resources, uh, population overcrowding and hunger, and although population remains a concern, it's been very much deemphasized, um, war, uh, and of course that was the threat of nuclear war. And then what can be done, um, a moratorium on technological innovations, the effects of which we cannot foretell and which are not essential to human survival. That's a very interesting one. You know, you don't hear that one absolutely days, right. Um, application of existing pollution control technology, intensified programs in all regions of the world to curb population growth with full regard, for the necessity of accomplishing this without aggregation of civil rights. Um, when did endure a Gandhi, uh, try to impose her program of population control. Was that later, or was that
Speaker 3 00:42:39 Just a little bit after this? So 1975
Speaker 2 00:42:42 Part of her interesting
Speaker 3 00:42:43 Right. Sort of taking over the, or, or dismantling parliamentary democracy for a couple of years. Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:42:49 You know, and then find a way to abolish war. Well, um, you know, we, haven't done done that very well Haven them. I, I put a link on, uh, the website, uh, the, the program website to these, these two things. So, um, you people can go and take a look at them, uh, and, and see what, what might have changed over the last 50 years, at least in terms of the way that we think about these, these challenging issues, what's been the response to your letter and do you have any follow up plans for it?
Speaker 3 00:43:20 So I think one of the things that people really liked was that our attempt to go beyond, um, proximate causes into some of the deeper causes mm-hmm <affirmative> and the, the three deeper causes that we have identified is a values. So individual is taken materialistic thinking, uh, you know, and consumerism and self indulgence are glorified, um, resulting in ill health, injustice, and apathy. So sort of the issue of values, um, the issue of worldviews, you know, a belief in technological progress will solve everything and economic growth is sort of desirable and possible at infinitem sort of that kind of a worldview. And the third of course, is structural problems. Uh, what we call economic political and social institutions. Mm-hmm <affirmative> uh, and we talk about all three sort of economic system that concentrates financial power in the hands of a few and legitimizes pursuit of profits and manipulation of citizens as consumers, a political system that does not prioritize the public good lacks, accountability, and fosters false dreams and ness and social institutions of racism and patriarchy that continue to legitimize the deprivation of, and environment impacts on people of color indigenous communities and women.
Speaker 3 00:44:31 So we sort of tried to go beyond what the men message tried to do. So it said let's abolish war, but it didn't ask the question, why are we at war? Or, you know, why, why are we not able to abolish war? And we sort of tried to push a little bit in that direction saying we need to address questions of individual values, but also social structure, and we'll have to work individually and collectively, because we cannot change structures individually. So that's kind of the bottom line of our message that it's collective organizing, which is gonna be at the sort of core of whatever we, we might to change where we,
Speaker 2 00:45:08 I just wrote, finished writing a, a, a book review for a, a journal of three books by international relations, uh, scholars, uh, uh, about, about international politics and climate change. And of course they all blame the state system, the system of states, right. Sovereign states. Um, and I'm not sure that is the, uh, necessarily mm-hmm, <affirmative> the cause or the problem. Right. But, you know, where would, and, and the way that you've Des described it, right. You've, you've really put much more emphasis on the, on the economy, on the markets as being the cause. So, I mean, how do you think about the tensions then between this global economic system, which cultivate certain kinds of views and practices and, and norms, right. And the whole issue about international cooperation, and we've had, um, 27, or this, this year it'll be 27 climate conferences. Mm-hmm <affirmative> right. Without any real notable accomplishments. Right. Uh, you know, and, and I can't remember whether you mentioned that at all in the letter. I mean, what's your, you know, sort of sense of that contradiction or, or,
Speaker 3 00:46:25 So I think there's actually a very interesting interplay between the two, um, because you describe the economic system as a market based system, but as you know, it's more than that, it's the capital system
Speaker 2 00:46:35 Of
Speaker 3 00:46:35 Yes. Right. And it's the capitalist side of the story, which is really responsible here because in, in this system of capitalism, which I think all of us are party to, even if we are, you know, small, uh, house owners renting out our house all the way to sort of corporate capitalists, uh, you know, making money by renting out, uh, their capital in some sense. Yeah, we are, uh, all partied to this system where we legitimize making off money off money. Um, and I think that's really driving, uh, a big chunk of the story, uh, intertwined. This is now my personal opinion, intertwined with the emergence of a fossil based economy. I mean, the technology to harness fossil fuels, uh, post-industrial revolution, uh, whether it's call or petroleum is really crucial in generating the kind of surplus that then capitalism thrives on in appropriating and, and, and sort of reusing for its own purposes.
Speaker 3 00:47:29 And I think there, what then happens is that when you have, uh, nation states negotiating, supposedly on climate change, you've got as, as you probably know, there were more representatives from, uh, petroleum companies at many of these conferences than the whole civil society sector. Uh, and of course representing much more power, uh, you know, in economic and political terms. So I think we can blame the nation states, but many of the nation states are, um, captive to economic interests, both within their countries and multinational. And they're also not able to visualize a pathway, which is different where the economic and political system might be different. So I think also that the nation state system is failing us, not because the world is divided into the nation states so much, as I think there is much less downward accountability of these systems to the communities that are gonna be affected by climate change. Right? Mm-hmm <affirmative>, I mean, the, the disparity between how many people in the us believe we should do something really, you know, seriously about climate change and the political establishment, which continues to drag its feet, not withstanding some recent, you know, action in the us Congress. Um, it just shows that it's the lack of accountability of our nation states. I think to the, uh, to the citizens, which is the bigger problem than the fact that we have multiple relations states or, you know, hundred 18 nation streams or whatever.
Speaker 2 00:48:53 You're listening to Ks QD, 90.7 FM and K squid.org streaming on the internet. Hello, K squid listeners. This is sustainability now. And I am Ronnie Lipchitz. My guest today is Dr. Sherod, Layla, who is recently been involved in writing and releasing a letter to fellow citizens of earth, an urgent call to our global neighbors to acknowledge the climate crisis, make personal and collective commitments in line with differences and privileges and responsibilities and work towards transformative changes. So, I mean, that raises a, a, a question, right, which is in some ways, you know, very timely, do you think, um, and of course, you know, democracy doesn't exist or so-called democracy doesn't exist everywhere in the world, but, um, democracy and capitalism leave a lot of the decisions, the critical decisions to individuals and institutions and organizations and companies. Um, and so, uh, now I lost track of what I was going to ask, which, which happens, starts to happen at my age.
Speaker 2 00:50:02 Um, oh, well, we'll come back to it. If I remember it, it was, and, and I'll cut it out of this. Um, so, uh, you know, you've, you've, you're proposing in this letter a lot of changes and reforms, right. And, and maybe even some revolutions to protect the earth in its inhabitants, how, you know, have you thought about, you know, how do you actually do that, right. I mean, mean, this is really the, the key quick que key question, what is to be done, not what is to be said or written, or, you know, express his opinion, what is to be done. And we look at, uh, governments, you know, as the instruments of legislating this change, and then, you know, somehow it's going to percolate down. I people ask me about the inflation reduction act and I tell them, well, now they have to figure out how to give out the money and that's not easy. Right. It's gotta be sort of passed out lower and lower. And, and there's gonna be a lot of fighting over that. Um, so even, you know, appropriating money is not what is to be done. So what, what do you think, you know, how do you, how do you think we go about actually doing the stuff that's necessary to make change, to make these changes? Yeah,
Speaker 3 00:51:20 I, I guess probably, you know, 30 years ago, I would've said, uh, or I would've believed that, well, we just need to continue to speak truth to power and yeah, the governments will listen. We just keep, you know, saying it over and over again, they will listen. I'm much more, you know, uh, I think clear now that governments will only respond to public pressure. And so we'd have to work at the bottommost layer, which is us as citizens, and really work with social movements, which are trying to reduce the role of role of money, power, reduce the role of, you know, concentrated political power and, uh, uh, have a much more democratic society. I just said so-called democratic societies are still a, a far cry from where we need to be in terms of having power with the people. And so I think that's where I would personally place a lot of emphasis and also a certain amount of faith, because if you've seen in spite of the, for instance, the swing towards the right, in many countries, including the us in Brazil or France or India over the last 10 years, um, the pushback has come from students has come from the younger generation, uh, whether it's greater Thunberg in the climate change context or the NTCA protests in India, uh, you know, pushing for democratic values.
Speaker 3 00:52:34 So I think it's one can't place a hope. So pin some hope in the younger, younger generation, because their lives matter. They see these problems much more clearly than we do. And I think building social movements is the only way to go, because we can continue to speak to government, but not assume a whole lot, unless it is backed up with a certain amount of social mobilization.
Speaker 2 00:52:59 Well, so I wanna be a devil's advocate here, not the devil's advocate for the, the current system. Um, but I want to invoke Carl Marks. Okay. Uh, and, and the idea, you know, that the, the, the, uh, material based determines the social structure,
Speaker 3 00:53:18 Mm-hmm
Speaker 2 00:53:19 <affirmative> right. And I know that's been discredited by many, but it still strikes me as being, uh, certainly a relevant observation. The two of are are obviously, you know, mutually related. Um, yeah. But, but you know what you do in many ways, shapes how you think about what you do and, and, you know, relationships. So, um, I become kind of a skeptic of social movements as a mechanism for, for pressure in governments and indeed pressuring governments. Uh, what does that accomplish?
Speaker 3 00:53:54 Mm-hmm <affirmative> mm-hmm <affirmative> I mean, so I think there's a difference between social movements that are triggered by particular, you know, issues mm-hmm <affirmative> and remain focused on those issues. So we could have an anti-D dam movement or a anti coal mine movement, or, you know, on around a particular project that's, you know, disrupting, let's say few hundred thousand people's lives mm-hmm <affirmative>. And so it really hurts them and leads to a movement, but unless that is transformed into a, a movement, that questions, some of the structures.
Speaker 2 00:54:22 Sure.
Speaker 3 00:54:23 Um, you know, and that's the material basis that you're talking about, for example, whether it's inequitable, land ownership, inequitable ownership of mineral resources, um, you know, water, you name it in the Indian context, the, the colonial regime or forest control and so on, unless you're actually questioning some of those, uh, structures, you're not going to make any long-term impact. Mm-hmm <affirmative>, I think it is absolutely right with the material and the sort of the superstructure, uh, interact in these ways. And you have got to find openings on both, I think on both sides, mm-hmm sometimes it is a world of ideas where you have openings. Yeah. But you have to translate them into material changes on the ground.
Speaker 2 00:55:02 Well, and, and then finally, as a social scientist, you know, just to get back to that, uh, where do you think you can intervene most effectively?
Speaker 3 00:55:15 So I think as you know, in the social sciences, there are these two streams sort of the positivists and the critical social scientists and the positive social scientists continue to believe that. Well, if we just put out a better analysis of policies to government decision makers, they will change their decisions. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. And, uh, I think there's some truth in that obviously, if there's a receptive government, it might be open to some ideas and, and analysis, you know, as to what's the best policy, but to get the, to see why the government is not receptive, you need a certain critical understanding of the political economy and other dimensions of what's going on. And so I think there, we, uh, the, the critical social sciences recourse is to educate the public mm-hmm, <affirmative> more than the decision makers mm-hmm <affirmative>. So I think that's that I think when I should lay both roles and given my lack of any disciplinary affiliation, <laugh> <laugh>, I can, because I come from an engineering background and I've learned the social sciences sort of poor force when it came to understanding and, you know, thinking through and normal problems that I encountered, or I studied, um, I have the luxury to kind of not be tied down by any particular, uh, you know, either the POS positivist or the critical perspective alone.
Speaker 3 00:56:28 Yeah. And to work with you in a, in a more integrated manner.
Speaker 2 00:56:31 Well, we're, we're at the end of the, of the show. Uh, is there anything that, uh, we might not have addressed that you want mention?
Speaker 3 00:56:41 So I think one of the things I'd like to is given that this is a Californian audience. I do find that, um, as I mentioned, right, in the beginning, the word development is inappropriate in the context of an overdeveloped country. Yeah. And so I think an awareness of how much the disparity in the consumption levels of people living in, you know, Northern America or in Europe, Western Europe, Vivi, many other parts of the world. I think just this basic understanding would really help mm-hmm <affirmative> because then that would make people think twice about what, what they are saying. Are they only asking for sustaining current lifestyles when they say sustainability, or are they talking about sustaining a lifestyle that is possible for everybody in the world,
Speaker 2 00:57:27 Right. Yeah. Yeah. Well, uh, Dr. Shara, Lela, thank you so much for being my guest on sustainability now.
Speaker 3 00:57:35 Thank you, Ronnie.
Speaker 2 00:57:38 You can find out more about Dr. Sherad Lela and his work by following the hyperlinks in the blurb for this broadcast. As a reminder shows from the five to 6:00 PM, Sunday slot our rebroadcast, the following Tuesday mornings from six to 7:00 AM. And if you'd like to listen to previous shows, you can find them at K squid.org/sustainability now, and Spotify, Google podcasts and pockets among other podcast sites. So thanks for listening and thanks to all the staff and volunteers who make case good, your community radio station and keep it going. And so until next every other Sunday, sustainability now
Speaker 1 00:58:24 A final tempera zones and Tropic climbs, not through current and thriving seas, winds blowing, some breathing trees and strong zone, safe suns, planets, hard to
Speaker 0 00:58:45 Out. Good.
