During an interaction with school students, to mark International Teacher's Day on September 5, Modi provided a garbled answer to a child's question about climate change. “Climate has not changed. Our tolerance and habits have changed. If we change, then God has built the system in such a way that it can balance on its own," he said. The PM made a similarly bizarre statement at another event, where he said, “They say this time that the weather is colder, people's ability to bear cold has become less. We should also ask is this climate change or have we changed. We have battled against nature. We should love nature instead of fight it."
This decidedly unempirical statement made by the Prime Minister of the world's largest democracy is a worrying indicator of the reigning government's attitude toward climate change. Denying the existence of human induced global climate change will be a major setback in finding solutions to combat the same.
While other countries scramble to halt deforestation, and decrease emissions of green house gases, Indians are going to have to seek consolation in the fact that at least our children are asking the right questions, even if they're being provided with unsatisfactory answers!
Read Bittu Sahgal's open letter to Prime Minister Modi, here.
Learn about the dilution of India's green laws and policies, here and here.
To understand more about climate change, its cause and effects, visit the website for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
Author: Cara Tejpal.
