
A pessimistic vision of India’s looming environmental and economic collapse - Santosh83
https://thewire.in/217773/india-systematic-destruction/
======
ignoramous
The thing that worries me the most is lack of fresh water. I belong to the
Indian state of Gujarat mentioned in the article, and the pessimism isn't
exaggerated at all. Soil erosion and fresh water coupled with rising
temperatures is a real and present danger seeimingly ignored in favour of
populist and industrialist projects such as GIFT (that keeps on winning
elections for the incumbent). There's no reversing desertification that
plaques my home state. It is heartbreaking, to say the least. It's taking us
towards a Mad Max Fury Road esque world, and how.

Uttar Pradesh, the quintessential Indian state that 200* million people call
home, along with another 200 million in the Hindi-Urdu heartland, has always
had abundance of natural resources but its utter mismanagement has led to an
unprecedented ecological crisis that no one in the political setup seems to be
bothered about; and that may be since they continue to grapple with challenges
of heavy population, unemployment, casteism, and near absence of law and order
in every fabric of the society. Most of its major cities are on the verge of
collapse, whilst the elites along with the politicians have cornered an
enormous amount of wealth for themselves at the expense of the environment and
the people; unlike in 2000s China, where the distribution of wealth seemed
more fair, in comparison.

I think, India and Pakistan (I was astonished at the very similarity of what's
happening to India's biggest states like Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Rajasthan,
Gujarat, Haryana, and Punjab; and Pakistan's Punjab and Sindh) and most other
tropical countries favouring unabated development at the cost of the
environment are going to end up in a very sorry state that's going to get
worse along an exponential curve for entities with larger than sustainable
populations.

I don't understand at all the increasing rents, property prices amidst the
impending crisis. Given that, especially, only a handful hoard most of the
wealth and could afford buying or renting at today's rates.

India is being held hostage in a prison of corruption by greed, will promptly
be taken to the altar of doom by ignorance, where civil unrest will have a
final swing of the sword culling the Virus, as Agent Smith would put it.

*edit

~~~
danmaz74
Making big sacrifices _now_ to avert a disaster that is "only" forecast, but
not yet tangible/certain in the mind of most people, is incredibly difficult
everywhere, not just in India. To cite an example from Italy, everybody who
had a basic understanding of economics knew that we had unsustainable rate of
growth of public debt and pensions promises, but there always somebody
promising that they had a magic bullet solution (or that there is no problem
at all), and most voters in the end prefer to believe in those. This is true
even now that the consequences of those policies have struck hard with years
of economic stagnation and a worsening general situation.

~~~
visarga
Romania is beholden to a post-communist party since 1989 using the same tactic
- promise pension raises. Old people mostly vote with them, sacrificing the
future of the country. They make a mess, then step down for a term to let the
opposition fix it, then come back with more promises. And the old people love
them because "What has the opposition ever done for us?" and "They are all
corrupt, anyway, no matter the party".

But now even the leader of this party has a huge corruption case against him,
so he tries to change the laws to save his ass, by making corruption legal. In
the last 12 months he changed 3 prime ministers (all from his party, absurd as
it seems) because even they were afraid to do the illegalities he demands.
He's a joke and we can't get rid of him. Why can't he directly take the PM
seat? Because he has already been condemned for corruption in a past case, so
he's barred. He can still lead by proxy, though.

Sometimes I think old people shouldn't be allowed to vote because they got
little time left and don't care much for the rest of us (the future they won't
get to see), so they'll gladly sell our futures for a modicum raise in their
pensions. If you vote, you should be held to the reality of what you voted on.
It's unfair to vote and die soon (same thing happened in UK where old people
voted out and young people are left with the consequences).

~~~
peoplewindow
And if you introduce a voting threshold of 80 because "they're going to die
soon anyway", thus ensuring their lifetime of experience is ignored, what
stops you deciding that it's now all the fault of 75 year olds? Where does it
end?

Your example of the UK gives away the problem. Lots of young people voted in,
because they naively believed the predictions of catastrophe and doom that
were being announced at max volume by the academic and governmental elites.
Older people who perhaps remembered their long history of failed economic
forecasting were less worried. Who was right? The older people were - the
forecasts that were made in the run up to the referendum have by and large
been systematically proven wrong since then, to the extent that senior members
of government and business are openly stating the forecasters at the Treasury
and Bank of England have no credibility and should be ignored.

~~~
barrkel
The original forecasts were based on immediate invocation of Article 50, and
without a significant intervention by the Bank of England, and without an
uptick in global growth (which Britain is bottom of the class in). Instead
what we got was a big devaluation in the Pound, slicing billions off the
wealth of the country.

The other elements of the forecast are coming, they're just following on a
time lag because they're dependent on choices getting locked in. The not so
funny thing about Brexit is that it's like a game of chicken: the market
doesn't believe Britain will choose drive off the cliff edge, so it hasn't
priced in the damage; but that lack of pricing information makes it more
likely Britain will drive off the edge.

It's one situation where markets might ironically be ill-suited to judge
because of feedback effects. The worse the outcome, the less likely the market
is to believe it, which sustains the delusion that it won't be bad.

~~~
peoplewindow
The forecasts were not based on that, you can go read them. That's something
invented later to try and explain why they were wrong.

But even if you were right about that, Article 50 was invoked and no insta-
recession occurred.

Regardless of how you try and slice it the consensus of economists was wrong,
100% and completely wrong. There is no way to deny it.

 _The other elements of the forecast are coming_

Wrong, totally wrong. Go read the Treasury's actual forecast:

[https://www.gov.uk/government/news/britain-to-enter-
recessio...](https://www.gov.uk/government/news/britain-to-enter-recession-
with-500000-uk-jobs-lost-if-it-left-eu-new-treasury-analysis-shows)

 _New Treasury analysis shows a vote to leave the EU would tip Britain’s
economy into a year-long recession._

 _Speaking at B &Q in Eastleigh, Hampshire, the Prime Minister and Chancellor
set out the Treasury’s analysis of the impact on the nation’s economy over the
immediate period of two years following a vote to leave._

Do you see that - vote to leave. Very clear. There was a vote to leave. Their
predictions did not come true. My point remains.

~~~
barrkel
Still a game of chicken. See the poll results in today's FT - businesses still
don't believe a hard Brexit is coming.

------
danmaz74
Interestingly, most of the article thesis isn't specific about India being
destructed, it's about the World being destructed (over exploitation of
natural resources + pollution).

But the element that I find strangely missing is the one about population
growth. I'm pretty sure that GDP per capita can grow, if not indefinitely, for
a very very long time - if the population isn't too big. India will soon be
the most populous country in the World and still growing strongly enough; I
would be curious to know if this is seen as a big problem in India, or not...

~~~
lozenge
The population growth isn't a problem "yet" but it is a problem when those
people want to develop (ie increase energy consumption). Hans Rosling explains
it well:
[https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_and_the_magic_washing...](https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_and_the_magic_washing_machine/transcript)

~~~
singularity2001
will energy consumption be less of an economic problem thanks to the break
even of solar and coal?

~~~
nabla9
World as a whole is hungry for energy. Industrialized nations have been able
to reduce the link between economic growth and energy consumption, but the
same is not true for the rest of the world.

Globally alternate energy adds to the global energy production, it's not
replacing. When the industrialized world moves to alternate energies,
developing world can afford to consume more oil, gas and coal. When solar
becomes cheaper, it makes hydrocarbons cheaper due to decreasing demand. I
don't see how solar power replaces the global hydrocarbon production
significantly before it's too late. It certainly will not do so in the short
or medium term.

Markets value large oil and coal companies and producers like the demand will
continue. EIA estimates that global petroleum and other liquid fuels
consumption and production are in constant upward path:
[https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/steo/report/global_oil.php](https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/steo/report/global_oil.php)

~~~
marcosdumay
Fossil fuel production is highly competitive, so prices are pretty much set by
the costs of the last marginal producer.

If the world decreases its consumption, the prices may go down (possibly by a
large amount). But any increase in consumption will very likely push the
prices up, it does not matter it the competition between consumers is small.

------
f_allwein
"Economic growth is a central assumption to political and economic systems…
But strong growth is not normal, being a recent phenomenon over the last two
centuries… It was based upon the profligate use of mispriced natural resources
such as oil, water and soil. It relied on allowing unsustainable degradation
of the environment. The human race refuses to accept that it is not possible
to have infinite growth and improvement in living standards in a finite
world."

Exactly this - it seems that while we are aware of it as individuals, we act
as of it were not so as societies.

~~~
stale2002
Yeah and the Malthusians have been predicting the downfall of civilization due
to "non-infinite growth" for the last couple centuries as well. And they keep
being proven wrong.

Just because growth isn't "infinite" says nothing about how far away we are
from reaching the limits of the planet.

Personally, I think that limit is much closer to 1 trillion people living on
the earth than it is to 1 billion people. So we've got a ways to go.

The facts show, that by every metric of quality of life, life is better than
it has ever been in the history of the world.

~~~
stupidcar
Original Mathusianism should be distinguished from neo-Malthusianism, in that
the latter does at least have some evidential basis in that it is based on
measurement of resource levels and their rate of use, not just some political
philosopher's wooly notion of overpopulation.

The problem, as I see it, is that even if you are optimistic about the
_theoretical_ capacity of the planet to sustain human life, its _practical_
capacity is limited by how efficiently we use the resources to hand, and the
current system does not properly incentivise efficient use. More often, it's
the complete opposite, because the price of resources like water and soil does
not reflect their true scarcity.

It's like having a large store of firewood. Enough, in theory, to heat your
home through several years of harsh winters. Then you burn the whole stockpile
in a great bonfire on the first cold Autumn night. That night, by every
metric, you'll be warmer and cosier than you ever have been before, but you'll
still have doomed yourself.

~~~
anvandare
Reminds me of the well-known type of question in introductory calculus:

Q: "A population of bacteria in a petri-dish doubles every hour, after 24
hours the petri-dish reaches 100% saturation. At what time did the petri-dish
reach 50% saturation?"

A: 23 hours.

------
virtualwhys
Not being able to drink the water is bad enough, but not being able to
_breathe_ takes it up another level.

It's such a sad state of affairs that in many parts of the world we can't even
breathe the air. I'm in Thailand up in Chiang Mai where the "burning
season"[1] has just begun. The mountains in the distance, normally plainly
visible, are gone, hidden behind a blanket of smoke/smog. And the locals tell
me, "hah, this is nothing, wait until March [when the air quality goes from
merely unhealthy, to hazardous]".

Berkeley Earth[2] reveals the state of the air in this side of the world. Am
thinking of heading to northern India but it seems there's no safe haven short
of climbing Mount Everest. Maybe at other times of year the air quality is
much better; for the locals I hope so.

[1] In Asia apparently every spring the farmers burn the previous season's
rice fields in order to enrich the soil for the next crop.

[2] [http://berkeleyearth.org/air-quality-real-time-
map/?z=4&x=10...](http://berkeleyearth.org/air-quality-real-time-
map/?z=4&x=107.07813&y=31.13512#links)

~~~
metalon
You could consider going to Laos, the air is definitely better here

~~~
virtualwhys
Thanks, think I'll probably head somewhere in southern Thailand until my visa
expires.

------
Alreadyobsolete
I can't help but think that these problems won't be solved until there's an
obvious, short term incentive for our lawmakers to actually tackle these
problems in any tangible way.

The public outcry has been constant for decades. The information and alarmism
has existed for just as long. There's no shortage of reasons why we shouldn't
tackle these issues. Those in the power to enact significant change to
environmental and economic models aren't incentivized to. How do we shift
perception to incentivize sustainable growth, rather than growth in isolation.
How do we incentivize politicians to feel rewarded for methodical long term
changes rather than short term successes at the cost of finite resources?

~~~
thaumasiotes
> How do we incentivize politicians to feel rewarded for methodical long term
> changes rather than short term successes

Make sure they stay in office for a long time.

------
jpatokal
I find neo-Malthusian arguments like this need to be taken with a serious
grain of salt. Much of the article would have applied word for word for China
a decade or two ago, and that country continues to struggle with environmental
problems as gargantuan as India's -- but it's now also equally clear that they
have turned a corner and are not just taking the issue seriously, but starting
to make an impact.

------
arnie001
As an Indian living in the United States, I hope the development choices made
in India skip some of the unsustainable choices made by other countries. Car
ownership should be discouraged to a higher degree than what it is today, and
we should focus a lot more on efficient carpooling solutions. Things like
bikeshare, etc however may never be a realistic solution in most urban cities.

One other thing is most places in Mumbai for example don't have strict zoning
practices. I do think that this has some unintentional benefits like lower
travel time for commuting by colocating housing and offices.

~~~
hkmurakami
As an "American" who's visited India as a tourist once, I have some questions
to educate myself.

1) India is a very large and very diverse country. How is the culture of
acceptance towards carpooling and resource sharing, especially when it will
gain an ascendant middle class like we're seeing in China?

2) Vehicles have always had a status communication role. Is there something we
can tap into that can impede this desire?

~~~
nordsieck
> 2) Vehicles have always had a status communication role. Is there something
> we can tap into that can impede this desire?

I really doubt it. People are always looking around for honest signals about
each other, and a vehicle is the most expensive possession other people will
see in a casual social setting by at least an order of magnitude. Whether
you're at school, work, a bar, hiking, etc, people will see you get into your
car.

------
thallukrish
It shines new light on the mindset that promises bullet trains and ‘smart
cities’ while neglecting public health and malnutrition; the pursuit of
heartless policies calculated to keep agriculture economically unviable,
driving the rural poor "wholesale into the cities to serve as cheap fodder for
India’s ‘economic miracle’; and the permanent destruction of million-year-old
mountains, forests and rivers to create a ‘nine-day’ industrial wonder."

I cannot agree with this more.

------
forinti
I live in South America, where we have plenty of space. Bangladesh is half the
size of my state, but has 14 times its population. And 18% of Bangladesh
floods during the monsoon. China has more people than India, but because it is
so much larger, its density is similar to a European country's (Italy is
denser than China).

India and Bangladesh make me very afraid for the future.

~~~
lispm
China's population is unevenly distributed. There is a large concentration in
eastern coastal regions. There are provinces with larger population than Italy
and MUCH higher population density.

The whole of Europe, similar in area to China, has 1/2 the population density
of China.

------
lozenge
The article on China linked to is also excellent: [http://www.truth-
out.org/news/item/31478-china-s-communist-c...](http://www.truth-
out.org/news/item/31478-china-s-communist-capitalist-ecological-apocalypse)

------
olivermarks
It took 200,000 years for our human population to reach 1 billion—and only 200
years to reach 7 billion...

6 minute American Museum of Natural History animation

[https://youtu.be/PUwmA3Q0_OE](https://youtu.be/PUwmA3Q0_OE)

The fundamental problem is over population IMO

------
lamby
I was recently in Delhi for a few days.. the pollution really is truly awful.
Indeed, I even had an layover on the way back (where I didn't even leave the
airport) and I almost needed to wash my clothes after walking from the
terminal to the plane doors. :/

------
jstewartmobile
Always nice to see mention of Kumarappa in an article. His viewpoint deserves
more consideration than it gets.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._C._Kumarappa](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._C._Kumarappa)

------
parthmehta23
Article discusses only one side of the debate, and media just publishes it
without proper research. It should also mention the efforts taken to overcome
the issues of environment, economy or infrastructure.

~~~
deathtrader666
So what are the efforts taken to overcome these issues?

------
sidcool
That's an Interstellar like scenario. Things literally are very bad in India.
Ecological disaster has already started. But the same is true for most
countries.

------
known
I think Govt should focus on Solar based Lift irrigation projects
[https://www.telegraphindia.com/india/gujarat-model-of-
hate-i...](https://www.telegraphindia.com/india/gujarat-model-of-hate-is-
evident-everywhere-economist-202946)

------
blunte
You could change "India" to "United States" in this article and still be
pretty accurate.

------
ohiovr
I read the other day that chicken farmers are working on a solution to this
problem
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16281316](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16281316)

------
smnplk
I hope that one day, government corruption will be a solved problem.
[]-[]-[]-[]

------
known
1% in India cannot own 73% Wealth unless they're running Pyramid schemes.

Govt should impose 30% #InheritanceTax and use those funds for free
healthcare/education/pensions.

------
hedora
Are short-term sea rise forecasts really up to 11 feet? Won’t that wipe out a
big chunk of Silicon Valley?

~~~
ancientworldnow
If you ignore the IPCC reports of 1.5m because it was based on inomplete data
and consequently intentionally ignored several positive feedback liops, the
most recent studies suggest 3m-4m by 2075-2100 are very possible and even
likely. This obviously totally floods places like miami, osaka, all three
airports in NYC, Bangladesh is gone, many of the coastal Chinese cities, parts
of vancouver, etc. I haven't looked in detail at Silicon Valley but the
western coast tends to fare better because there is a rapid rise from the
coast (many cliffs as well though they are extra vulnerable to increased
erosion and you will see many collapses) and because of how the rise won't be
even (due to gravity and other variables), places like the east coast will see
a much greater percentage of that water focus there.

------
elipsey
"Exploitation and inequality is innate to the industrial-capitalist system; a
fact well-known at least since the time of Marx." Citation needed?

~~~
int_19h
I mean, Marx would be the citation, but it's important to remember that
exploitation in this context is a neutral term, not a judgment. It just means
that people who own means of production (i.e. capitalists) can extract
economic rent from people who don't (i.e. workers, who need access to those
means of production to generate wealth). That shouldn't be controversial - the
problem with Marx wasn't that he pointed this out, but rather his statement
that it is a fundamental problem, and remedies offered for it.

------
largote
One of the biggest flaws of democracies is that they strongly incentivize
policy makers to follow short-term gains over long-term goals.

~~~
peoplewindow
Because dictatorships are so famous for their 100 year horizons?

The USSR planned its world in 5-year spans. That's about the same length of
time between elections in most democracies. Lots of people like to say things
like "one of the biggest flaws of democracies" but I've yet to see such a
statement that actually doesn't also apply to other systems of government.

~~~
lsd5you
Except china had the one child policy which clearly had long term goals in
mind. Singapore also implemented eugenics policies and still has them to some
degree.

Realistically population one of the few things you can take a long term view
on, since so geo politics and technology are so unpredictable. With population
planning much of the effects are only to come a generation later so mostly
only a long term concern. It is also completely radioactive as far as modern
democracies are concerned.

------
vs2
100

