NA T U R A L LY VIKRAM SONI has been UGC Professor of Physics at the National

Physical Laboratory and at the Centre for Theoretical Physics at Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi. He is presently an Emeritus Professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. He was educated at the University of Delhi and the University of California, Santa Barbara, US. He has taught at universities in the UK, the US and Europe, besides India. He has worked mainly in high energy physics and astrophysics. Alongside, seeing the tragic shrinking of India’s rich forest cover, he has worked quietly for conservation. In physics, he has made seminal contributions to the understanding of phenomena ranging from the nucleon to neutron stars and from the matter-antimatter puzzle to evolutionary networks. More significantly, he has produced a body of work in public-interest science that deals with non-invasive ‘preserve and use’ solutions to contemporary problems, particularly water problems. This work has been published in various prestigious science journals. Acting on his convictions, he has also worked tirelessly to protect living natural resources, both with the courts and government. The Aravalli Biodiversity Park in Delhi exists thanks to these efforts. The protection and moratorium on building on the floodplain of River Yamuna followed from the novel natural water storage scheme proposed by Soni and his co-workers.

ADVANCE PRAISE FOR THE BOOK

[Vikram Soni] has for many years been a leader in the fight against the destruction of the natural environment in his home country, India, and elsewhere throughout the planet. In this book he describes some of the exquisite balances which nature has evolved in the course of the Earth’s four-billion-year history, and makes an eloquent plea for a kind of technology much more respectful and symbiotic with them than what we have today. —Antony J. Leggett, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics (2003) and John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Professor at the University of Illinois (Urbana-Champaign)

In an age characterized more than ever by extremes of opinion, ranging from techno-euphoria to doomsday catatonia, with little in between that is credible, this book presents a refreshingly sane and practical path for humanity to carve out a modus vivendi with nature and to design a future that is fulfilling for all and destructive for none. —Ashok Khosla, former President, International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) President, The Club of Rome and Co-Chair, International Resource Panel, United Nations Environment Programme

Vikram Soni’s book highlights the significance of living in harmony with nature through the prism of human evolution which is rooted in the ethos and traditions of the Indian heritage. —R.K. Pachauri, former Chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore in 2007

NA T U R A L LY TREAD SOFTLY ON THE PLANET

Vikram Soni

HarperCollins Publishers India

First published in India by HarperCollins Publishers in 2015 Building No 10, Tower A, 4th Floor, DLF Cyber City, Phase II, Gurugram – 122002 www.harpercollins.co.in 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Copyright © Vikram Soni 2015 P-ISBN: 978-93-5177-064-0 E-ISBN: 978-93-5177-065-7 The views and opinions expressed in this book are the author’s own and the facts are as reported by him, and the publishers are not in any way liable for the same. Vikram Soni asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior Typeset in 12/15 Joanna MT at SÜRYA

CONTENTS

Foreword Introduction

vii xi

PRELUDE Conservation in a Crowded World Conservation Can Work: ‘Preserve and Use’

7 19

1. WHAT WE ARE AND HOW WE GOT THERE Nature: The Creation of Cycles The Steady State Biodiversity Nature’s Canvas: Biodiversity and Locality

27 38 52 64

2. WHAT WE HAVE DONE Human Intervention: A Chronology The Dialectic: Ideology and Technology The Global and the Local

71 84 97

3. DISTURBING THE EARTH: CONTEMPORARY DILEMMAS Threshold Loss Climate Change and the Homo Sapien Pop-Up and Megacities The Energy Landscape

106 121 136 150

Contents

vi

4. FUTURE TENSE The Known and the Unknown: A Living Scheme Based on Natural Wisdom Solutions: Building into the Natural Cycle Evolutionary Resource: Preserve and Use Nature’s Rights: Preamble Nature’s Rights: Regulation Human Rights and Human Survival Conservation: Ethos and Practice Democracy and the Three Identities Wisdom, Full Circle References Acknowledgements Index

173 176 187 206 210 228 233 244 249 256 268 271

FOREWORD

‘Our planet is our home, so caring for the environment is caring for our home,’ I heard the Dalai Lama say recently. He was being briefed on the dilemma of this Anthropocene Age, the current geological era in which the activities of one species— we humans—continues to decay the operations of the global systems that support life on our planet. What amounts to a slow-motion species suicide can be tracked in many ways: the escalation of carbon released into the atmosphere that heats the planet; the growing number of bodies of water that no longer support life; the seemingly inexorable loss of species and destruction of the ecosystems they depend on for survival. This predicament has become humanity’s biggest crisis, and demands we rethink our relation to our planet. And that innovative look, in turn, depends on people who have the required heart and mind. Vikram Soni brings a unique blend of skills and outlooks to analysing the environmental predicament and proposing solutions, as this book attests. My first encounters with Vikram were back in the early 1970s, when as a graduate student I had come to India and spent time at an ashram in the Kumaon hills, in the lower ranges of the Himalayas. Vikram’s father at the time was the chief of forestry, and the Soni family lived in the richly forested hills. Vikram grew up in that natural setting, and naturally grew to love it. vii

viii

Foreword

Then years later I met Vikram again—this time when he came to lecture at MIT in his role as a well-respected theoretical physicist. His scientific bent has found fertile ground in exploring the causes and potential cures for our planetary crisis. That crisis can be seen in terms of the planetary systems that support life on Earth: • The carbon cycle: We hear much about humanity’s carbon footprint, and how carbon dioxide emissions are warming the planet. • Ocean acidification: These same emissions are changing the chemical balance in the oceans, which may have devastating results. • Depletion of ozone in the atmosphere: Ozone protects us from sunburn, and chemicals used in refrigeration are the main culprits. • Nitrogen balance: This chemical cycle has been under threat from man-made nitrogen, mainly in fertilizers. • Fresh water: The world’s sources of drinkable water are shrinking, mainly from use for irrigation. • Biodiversity: This system may be the most threatened, with the natural habitats that support a wide variety of species being destroyed for human use, from farming to factories. • Chemical pollution: Industrial chemicals are so widely dispersed in air, water and soil that our bodies carry a chemical burden, no matter where we live. Each of these systems is under dire threat, and Vikram uses vividly colourful examples to bring home the underlying causes as well as possible positive responses. This book offers a primer on our relationship to nature, and how to be a better partner. Vikram’s examples come from around the world, though many of his solutions speak to the particular needs of his native

Foreword

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India. This Asian-focused set of solutions represents an urgently needed response to our planetary crisis. The rising economies and growing populations of Asian countries will mean greater challenges—and richer potential for creative solutions—as this crisis mounts over the course of the current century. I’m particularly glad that this crisis has aroused the intellect and passion of Vikram Soni. We need more like him, and more of the innovative but well-grounded thinking he represents. DANIEL GOLEMAN

New York City, May 2015

INTRODUCTION

Someone asked me what kind of a book is this, where will it sit on the library shelf? First, it is about the evolution of life—the only life we know. It is also about human conduct—especially over the last 200 years. It is about science and the technology it has spawned. It is about the ethos of the living planet. It is about being at a boggling and critical crossroad in the present times. But, finally, it is about working out a scheme of living that can endure. If we stop all emissions today will the Arctic and the glaciers stop melting? Will the sea-rise that is submerging the coral Eden of the Maldives stop? It is a foregone conclusion that some of the Maldives will go down, that much of the Arctic and the glaciers will recede. Even if we act now, climate change will last a hundred years and the ozone hole could take over a hundred years to close. But the species that have gone extinct will never come back. While global warming and carbon emissions made up much of the sky at the Copenhagen Climate Summit (2009), dwindling rivers, disappearing lakes and vanishing forests are all on hold, just waiting to emerge from the shadows. It is a much larger angle than seen from the window of Copenhagen. The entire evolutionary network of life on the planet, created by millions of years of evolution, is being taken out. The landscapes, the seas and even the air that we breathed as children are fading into memory. xi

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Introduction

Since the trouble is on the planet, we have to really start by finding how the living planet works. Naturally digs deeper into the past, to the evolution of life on the planet, to find out where we are coming from. This book sets the direction by placing human interventions in the matrix of life on earth. From there it gathers wisdom to walk in symbiosis with the planet. Both the human being and the planet are evolutionary beings, as are plants, seeds and geological formations that make our rivers, aquifers and forests. They are all symbiotically linked by evolution. They all enter into natural cycles that keep the planet stable. It is biodiversity that repeatedly makes the waste of one species the food for another to close the chain and make a natural cycle. Nature is an incredible production system without waste. Naturally starts by understanding these fundaments of the life process that hold the planet in a steady state. It moves on to show that human beings have invented for the sake of invention, driven by the global market. We have dumped enough waste to make waste of the planet, from an endless list of over-indulgent creations, be it computers, cars, television, iPods or PlayStations. All of them come with good science and technology but end up being no good for the planet. And yet, none of these products come with the statutory warning, ‘This product is injurious to the health of the planet’. We have strayed away from the natural wisdom in nature where invention is integrated into cycles to banish waste. We need a radical shift in invention and production to non-invasive technology. That is exactly what Naturally does—look for enlightened solutions that are not injurious to the planet. The latter part of the book goes beyond the present, to a template for a change to symbiotic solutions that build into natural cycles. It finds unique, non-invasive solutions that ‘preserve and use’ evolutionary resources, with great health and economic benefits.

Introduction

xiii

None of this can work unless it comes from deep within our consciousness. Finally, the book addresses our ethos, the values of conservation and the ideology for an enduring living scheme. P.S. I should point out that much of this book was written four years ago. I have not tried to update the predicament we face, except where the change has become more pressing and so the call for action. Although the book may challenge the reader, it does not underestimate the reader’s intelligence.

P R E LU D E

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