Returning awards a way to protest: Alan Weisman

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“I respect their decision to return the awards. It is a way of showing disapproval for something,” Weisman said in an interview at the US Consulate in Bandra Kurla Complex. He added that he supports their decision and method of expressing anger and that the writers are entitled to voice their opinion.

On Wednesday, 12 filmmakers said they would return their National Awards over unresolved FTII issues and “growing intolerance” in the country. Dibakar Banerjee, Anand Patwardhan, Paresh Kamdar, Nishtha Jain, Kirti Nakhwa, Harshavardhan Kulkarni, Hari Nair, Rakesh Sharma, Indraneel Lahiri and Lipika Singh Darai were among them. They registered their protest against the killing of Dr Narendra Dabholkar, Govind Pansare and M M Kalburgi, and the recent killing of Mohammad Akhlaq. Joining writers and filmmakers, scientist P M Bhargava announced to give up awards he received from the government citing similar reasons.

Weisman, who has written on environment and effects of population explosion in his books, ‘Countdown’ , and ‘The World Without Us’, spoke about the need for birth control measures, and education among women to curb population. “We can’t keep growing on a planet that cannot grow,” he said, adding that by the end of the century, population is expected to touch 16 billion which Earth cannot support.

In his book, he hints at the end of human life on Earth. He visited 20 countries to research for ‘Countdown’ during which he looked for optimum solutions in each nation to control degradation of environment.

Talking about the discovery of water on Mars, Wesiman says a space mission to another planet is possible but it is not possible to shift the entire population.
“Unless we use existing fossil fuels in a sustainable fashion, species will keep getting pushed into extinction,” he said.

tabassum.barnagarwala
@expressindia.com