NOT TAKEN FOR GRANTED!!

Leonardo Di Caprio delivered a potent message for climate change on the Oscar stage! Great, it has got everybody talking about how timely and well delivered the message was. Yes, climate change needs to be addressed real quick and there are no two ways about it. 

I was recently watching some South Indian movie awards night, SIIMA or Star or Asianet (they are so homogeneous that it is difficult to distinguish one from the other), where many stars were giving small one liners about how there is ‘solution for pollution’ etc. etc. and some such stuff straight out of the TR style book. Then we have had this habit in the IPL of one match or one team looking to ‘Go Green’. What they basically do is wear green or greenish jerseys for a match of a few and exchange saplings between captains at the start of the match – go green.

Now all these are initiatives to raise awareness about how much we need to start taking care of our planet. But, I do keep wondering, is the message really delivered or whether the only thing that is being achieved is a propagation of a style of hollow posturing and lecturing without actually getting anything done?

Why do I say this? Look at the stages on which these statements were made. Cinema and cricket! Now, name anything to do with cinema or cricket that has anything associated with reducing consumption of energy or bringing down the carbon footprint. Now, Leonoardo in his speech said that last year was the hottest year in recorded history and they had to travel to the southernmost tip of the planet to find snow. That is great observation. But, tell me where is the environmental consciousness in flying around the planet, with a huge crew no doubt, to the only place that seems to have escaped the heat just to shoot a movie? Would the shooting of The Revenant in that fortunate and part of the planet have done any good to the environment over there? No, actually it would have been the reverse. Shooting in those parts with a huge crew, lights, lots of vehicles and meters and meters of green mat would only have adversely affected the environment, destroyed microhabitats and created more chaos than ought to have been there. If the environment should not be taken for granted, why not wait another year for the snow to fall in your part of the world and shoot the movie over there? The Oscar could have waited one more year! No disrespect to Leo or the cast and crew of The Revenant, but the words seem far removed from the actions. In a year when the earth sweltered under the heat, you chose to tread on the little amount of snow that had fallen in one corner of the globe so you could make your movie. I understand the ambition, the commitment to the craft and the deadlines that you might have had to meet, but aren’t they the same things that drive a big multinational corporation or an industrial conglomerate? Why are ambition and commitment termed as greed and monopoly when they are exhibited by businessmen?  

Now, am I writing in favor of businessmen or corporates? No. I am as much concerned about climate change as the average man. But that is not the first thing on my mind at any given point of time. My life, my career, my future top the priority list, much like almost everyone on this planet. And to ensure  we have a good life we might be willing to work for any of these corporates, fly all around the globe without worrying about our carbon footprint, use sheets and sheets of paper to print our resumes, criss-cross the city in our vehicles, use many lifestyle products made by these giant corporations and what not. It is personal ambition, personal choices. It is the same personal ambition and choices that made the team of Revenant fly across the globe and tread on the wee bit of snow that was available. Yet at the end of all that when we heard two lines of talk about ‘not taking the planet for granted’ we clap and we feel good as if we supported a worthy cause! Damn!

I felt the same way during the IPL when players wore greenish jerseys and exchanged saplings and tried to give the world a ‘message’! Seriously? Eight teams flying all across India, almost twenty times each in the space of 45 days, flood lit stadiums for more than half of the 60 matches, huge support staffs and their travel, and the after night parties – the energy expenditure goes through the roof and yet they deliver a message about going green and it is beamed all over on television and we watch in glee and decide to wear a bit of green ourselves! Damn!

And the south Indian film industry uses all the arc lights, shoots in whatever little forests we have left, flies around the country and organizes the min numbingly bright and loud awards function (can’t imagine the amount of electricity consumed on that one night alone) and then delivers one liners on ‘solution for pollution’! Damn!

With every such instance we are becoming a world of increasing symbolism. A world that is easily gratified or easily deceived into thinking that we have actually done something only by uttering a few hollow words.  Look around us and we can see that the practice is already rampant. More and more ‘awareness’ drives being organized where everyone attending is already aware of everything that is being said. Cars driving in, cars driving out, papers cups being disposed and everyone feels that they have done enough for the environment for a year. And the internet celebrates! Damn!

If at all we want to celebrate, why no celebrate this man

who doesn’t just talk but gets down and does things that actually make a change. Or why do not we

celebrate this man enough, a man who made a forest all by himself, even though the statements in the picture look a bit exaggerated! Fact is, there are many other examples of action over symbolism that we can find around ourselves, but the symbolism gets highlighted more, talked about more, and worse even, it gets mimicked more, not helping us move ahead an inch.

 The Oscars, the Filmfares, the IPLs are not stages where green talk will ever be appropriate because these are stages where personal ambition and success are celebrated, and it is the excess of these elements that makes the world hotter every passing year. I admire Leo for saying what he did, but cannot agree with the context or the stage. A stage like and Oscar can be good to make a political point, like Marlon Brando did in 1976.

or it can be used to make a point pertaining to cinema like Sean Connery did in 1988.

 

But Oscars are not a worthy stage to discuss the environment because the very purpose and ambition of the industry go against what is required of the earth right now, which is for everyone to live quiet and disciplined lives without too much energy consumption, and not take flights to New York and Los Angeles just to say that we have to reduce energy consumption.

Speaking about climate change on the Oscar stage, or the cricket stadium is like the leather industry talking about animal welfare. In pretty simple terms, it is conflict of interest! And let’s not take that for granted.