Firstpost
  • Home
  • Video Shows
    Vantage Firstpost America Firstpost Africa First Sports
  • World
    US News
  • Explainers
  • News
    India Opinion Cricket Tech Entertainment Sports Health Photostories
  • Asia Cup 2025
Apple Incorporated Modi ji Justin Trudeau Trending

Sections

  • Home
  • Live TV
  • Videos
  • Shows
  • World
  • India
  • Explainers
  • Opinion
  • Sports
  • Cricket
  • Health
  • Tech/Auto
  • Entertainment
  • Web Stories
  • Business
  • Impact Shorts

Shows

  • Vantage
  • Firstpost America
  • Firstpost Africa
  • First Sports
  • Fast and Factual
  • Between The Lines
  • Flashback
  • Live TV

Events

  • Raisina Dialogue
  • Independence Day
  • Champions Trophy
  • Delhi Elections 2025
  • Budget 2025
  • US Elections 2024
  • Firstpost Defence Summit
Trending:
  • Charlie Kirk shot dead
  • Nepal protests
  • Russia-Poland tension
  • Israeli strikes in Qatar
  • Larry Ellison
  • Apple event
  • Sunjay Kapur inheritance row
fp-logo
Mumbai rains, Hurricane Harvey, Gujarat, Bihar and Assam floods: No place to hide from climate change
Whatsapp Facebook Twitter
Whatsapp Facebook Twitter
Apple Incorporated Modi ji Justin Trudeau Trending

Sections

  • Home
  • Live TV
  • Videos
  • Shows
  • World
  • India
  • Explainers
  • Opinion
  • Sports
  • Cricket
  • Health
  • Tech/Auto
  • Entertainment
  • Web Stories
  • Business
  • Impact Shorts

Shows

  • Vantage
  • Firstpost America
  • Firstpost Africa
  • First Sports
  • Fast and Factual
  • Between The Lines
  • Flashback
  • Live TV

Events

  • Raisina Dialogue
  • Independence Day
  • Champions Trophy
  • Delhi Elections 2025
  • Budget 2025
  • US Elections 2024
  • Firstpost Defence Summit

Mumbai rains, Hurricane Harvey, Gujarat, Bihar and Assam floods: No place to hide from climate change

Mridula Ramesh • September 2, 2017, 11:16:24 IST
Whatsapp Facebook Twitter

As the recent floods in different regions have shown, there’s no hiding from climate change; and citizen apathy, denial of the issue isn’t going to help

Advertisement
Subscribe Join Us
Choose
Firstpost on Google
Choose
Firstpost on Google
Mumbai rains, Hurricane Harvey, Gujarat, Bihar and Assam floods: No place to hide from climate change

Editor’s note: From May 2017, Firstpost is featuring a fortnightly column by Mridula Ramesh, titled ‘Climate Conversations’. In this column, we take a look at pressing issues pertaining to climate change — in an accessible way. We began this mini-series within the column by talking about the Gujarat and Assam floods. Major Catastrophes? Little more than a month ago, large parts of Gujarat and Assam had been inundated by water, and lakhs of people had been displaced. Between then and now, Bihar has been devastated by the floods. Parts of Bengaluru have been ravaged by floods. At the time of writing, Houston in the US has been flooded and closer to home, so has Mumbai. Google maps shared on WhatsApp groups show an angry sea of red, as commuters wonder how, and whether, to get home. If there was ever a lesson that there are no moats to hide behind in a warming climate, one would think this is it. But humanity, it appears, has unique and endless stores of denial and imagination. Witness this tweet by Anne Coulter, a conservative commentator, on the Houston floods: “I don’t believe Hurricane Harvey is God’s punishment for Houston electing a lesbian mayor. But that is more credible than ‘climate change’.” Wow. Just wow. [caption id=“attachment_3999135” align=“alignnone” width=“825”] ![People are rescued from a flooded village in Motihari, Bihar State, India August 23, 2017. REUTERS/Cathal McNaughton - RC16E0267260](https://images.firstpost.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/floods-2-825.jpg) People are rescued from a flooded village in Motihari, Bihar, on 23 August 2017. REUTERS[/caption] The many people I have spoken to in the past few years have agreed that it will take a major catastrophe for society to change meaningfully. Define major. At least 24 million people have been displaced in the floods in South Asia. More than 1000 people have lost their lives. Each death has been unique, and a tragedy.

PlaceNumber deadNumber AffectedTime
Bihar44017,000,00026 August
Gujarat218450,0002 August
Assam156431,00024 August
UP912,500,00026 August
West Bengal555,200,00019 August

* No totals have been given because there have been deaths and people affected in other states as well. The bill for damaged properties, trauma, lost lives and scattered memories can stretch over thousands upon thousands of crores. By any definition, this set of events should be fall under the title of major catastrophe. Not so in India. Hold the thought – we will come back to it soon. A fractured social contract The silver lining to this catastrophe is that we saw, in the last article of this series , our societal choices have at least as much of a role to play as does climate change in the tragedies that unfold before us regularly. This means the action is well and truly in our hands. So, what is stopping us? Why are we not acting? Why, if anything, are our choices taking us in the opposite direction? For one, as we saw last time, too many of us have far too little skin-in-the-game. Whether it be the very poor, who contribute little to the revenues of the state, or the large middle class, that doesn’t vote, and does not partake greatly of what society has to offer, or the rich, who live in cocoons. Many of us don’t see society as “ours”. We don’t believe we have certain rights and we don’t acknowledge our responsibilities. As a result, we have a societal contract where a large group of people have very little direct control over the services they receive from society. They, like Muniammal of the last column, strike an unholy bargain with the politician. This gives the politician tremendous power – some of which is used to avariciously exploit the commons – our shared environment. The system that has emerged works well in granting favours, not providing consistent, accountable service. This works well also for another group — the Rajeev’s from the previous column – the powerful — who gain by trampling on the commons. The middle class is distracted by their smartphones and their regular feed of stories by news channels. But status quo cannot persist The good news is this: India is slowly becoming wealthier — especially in her cities. This means what they want from the society, and by extension, their politicians, is likely to be different. And two, climate change casts a bright light on the fissures in our societal contract and the ways by which our coping mechanisms have been damaged. You cannot keep throwing rubbish in the drains once you know that intense rainfall is going to become the order of the day. Or you cannot allow leaks to persist, when droughts become much more common. The demands of the big groups of voters is changing: no longer is a favour enough, they need systematically good service. The rich cannot remain aloof and the middle class cannot remain indifferent, because the flood waters are affecting them as well. [caption id=“attachment_3999131” align=“alignnone” width=“825”] ![People walk through a partially flooded street at a residential area in Mumbai, India, August 30, 2017. REUTERS/Danish Siddiqui - RC1734A2D730](https://images.firstpost.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/floods-825.jpg) People walk through a partially flooded street at a residential area in Mumbai, on 30 August 2017. REUTERS[/caption] So how do we enable a better equilibrium, a more effective social contract? A starting point, as so many have advocated, is empowered city governance. The thinking behind this is that having an elected, accountable government closer to the problems to enact relevant policy and provide better services. Put another way, Pune is likely to elect a government on issues that are more relevant to Pune than Vidarbha. And that government is more likely to act on issues relevant to Pune than Mumbai. The good news is that we have the law in place: The 74th Amendment to the Indian constitution requires states to devolve power to the cities. A quarter of a century has passed since the amendment and yet, less than a handful of states have taken meaningful action in surrendering power to a municipal authority. Why should they? The voters in the cities haven’t made it an issue. Why give up power when the other side is not asking for it? De facto, power and responsibility is shared between a Mayor, the MLAs, the MPS, councillors, collectors and commissioners. When there are so many desks where the buck can stop, accountability, decision making and incentives all suffer. This reinforces a system that works well for favours and ad hoc-ism rather than systematic delivery. One reason pointed out for not devolving power is lack of talent. But, India has good senior talent – in the public sector, in the private sector and in her diaspora. Allowing for lateral entry at senior levels in city management can make a world of difference in outcomes. What is stopping us? The real bottleneck is not talent, it’s not the law, it’s the citizen apathy. Democracy is a contact sport, folks. You need skin in the game. Participation is NOT optional. There is a popular adage: the crying child gets the milk. Lobbyists and protestors swear by it. India is a land of protests. Indeed, a particular state is renowned for holding protests on Mondays or Fridays to stretch weekend time. But a quick survey of our recent protests shows where our priorities lie: Farmers for loan waivers , For and against the cow and cow-related violence , against an arrest of a convicted rapist/spiritual leader , against GST , for reservations . When is the last time we heard of a protest for the implementation of Amendment 74? Big surprise that city governance is not improving. This needs to change. That’s entirely in our hands. Our preferences. Our choices. Our protests. Our vote. Flooding (and its fraternal twin sister, drought) must compete for attention with cricket, a godman’s pillaging followers, his sex life, a super star and Game of Thrones. For many of us, focussing on the competition is so much more fun. And besides, there is the age-old mental voice saying: “What can we do about it?”

climate-conversations-logo-for-mridula-ramesh

Perhaps we should consider that any change in the history of mankind has come about because a small group of people believed they could do something about it. Indeed, that’s the only way for change to come about. Cities around the world have shown that groups of people have taken the initiative to solve their own problems. And it has worked. But we need to be concerned. More than we are today. You may be thinking. Rubbish. Of course, we are concerned about the floods. Google trends says not enough. Google trends measures the search interest in a particular topic and allows anyone to compare it with search interest in any other topic. This serves as a useful (if imperfect) proxy for public interest in a topic. Let me share a Google Trends comparison I ran between “Floods” and other issues in India.

chart 1

Chart 2

chart 3

Our preferences suggest that, as a society, we are concerned with first-world problems while living in a third-world country. We do not have the luxury to that – especially in the face of a warming climate. Some of you may ask: Has concerted action by concerned citizens worked? Well, yes. We got our Independence that way. Nearer to today, and smaller in scale, Bengaluru has a thriving ecosystem in solid waste (which we shall explore deeper later) because of this. Johannesburg turned its finances and functioning after it made significant governance reforms. As long as our current preferences continue, an Indian Game of Thrones with Rajinikanth playing Jon Snow and overcoming the Night King and doing a dragon dance with Dany is more likely than effectively adapting to climate change. The writer is the founder of the Sundaram Climate Institute, cleantech angel investor, teacher and author of a forthcoming book on Climate Change and India. Follow her work on her  website; on  Twitter; or write to her at  cc@climaction.net

Tags
Environment climate change Governance Floods Global warming Assam floods Mumbai rains Gujarat Floods FWeekend social contract ClimateConversations
  • Home
  • Lifestyle
  • Mumbai rains, Hurricane Harvey, Gujarat, Bihar and Assam floods: No place to hide from climate change
End of Article
Latest News
Find us on YouTube
Subscribe
  • Home
  • Lifestyle
  • Mumbai rains, Hurricane Harvey, Gujarat, Bihar and Assam floods: No place to hide from climate change
End of Article

Top Shows

Vantage Firstpost America Firstpost Africa First Sports
Enjoying the news?

Get the latest stories delivered straight to your inbox.

Subscribe
Latest News About Firstpost
Most Searched Categories
  • Web Stories
  • World
  • India
  • Explainers
  • Opinion
  • Sports
  • Cricket
  • Tech/Auto
  • Entertainment
  • IPL 2025
NETWORK18 SITES
  • News18
  • Money Control
  • CNBC TV18
  • Forbes India
  • Advertise with us
  • Sitemap
Firstpost Logo

is on YouTube

Subscribe Now

Copyright @ 2024. Firstpost - All Rights Reserved

About Us Contact Us Privacy Policy Cookie Policy Terms Of Use
Home Video Shorts Live TV