THE CONSUMPTION patterns of the western countries and their lifestyles are completely at odds with the fight against climate change, author Amitav Ghosh has argued. Neither technology nor alternative sources of energy like solar or wind can ensure similar lifestyles to other people without completely jeopardising the earth’s future. Ghosh’s latest book, The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable, deals with, what he says is, the “most difficult issue that this world has ever faced”. In a conversation with Sunita Narain of the Centre of Science and Environment at the launch of the book in Delhi Tuesday, Ghosh said the kind of consumptive lifestyle that people in the western countries lead can be possible only for a minority. [related-post] Watch Video: What's making news “In the last 20 years, there is this rush, a temptation, to universalise that model. But it is clear that this model cannot work for the majority of the world’s people. In fact, what is really the issue here is exactly this: how does a small minority continue to enjoy this lifestyle while denying it to others,” he said. Ghosh said efforts to improve energy efficiency or substituting dirty fuels by solar or wind energy would bring about only incremental benefits. He said there had been studies to show that energy efficiency always leads to greater consumption. “So it (climate change problem) cannot be solved by energy efficiency measures. It has to be solved by addressing questions of consumption. And this is the question that is not allowed to be raised within the (climate) discourse,” he said. He said it was paradoxical that technology which has actually led to the problem of climate change — modern transport, factories — is also presented as the “saviour”. “Such great hope is now invested in this technological solution, technological future. Such hope is invested in this technological redemption. Never a word in changing lifestyle, never a word on changing economic systems or creating other factors of aspirations,” he said. He lamented the absence of climate change discourse in modern literature and also other forms of art, a point that he makes in his book as well. “This question (about climate change, about consumption) is not allowed to appear in literature. Essentially, literature is so much focussed on individual freedom that it overlooks this. And the way this freedom is conceived of (in literature) is the freedom to consume,” he said.
