Global Warming and Economy: a Conscious Shift in Economy

By Jean-Yves Lung

Almost everybody now has heard about the Warming of the Planet, but its consequences for our collective life have not yet percolated entirely, due to the fact that it is difficult to assimilate: there is no technical solution in view. As it is described, it appears like a tsunami triggered by our industrial activities, slowly gathering force before rushing to our shores at the end of this century with devastating consequences.

Our economic system, which is only an outward expression of the predatory spirit it serves, is of the rajasic kind: through a lot of tapas (in the double sense of heat and pain), it extracts energy from below the earth, rich in carbon, and with it, it creates new materials (glass, steel, cement, plastic). Then it transforms them into finished goods, which are then taken by lorries, boats and plane to far-off outlets, for the greatest enjoyment of some and the profit making of a very few, all this fueled by the fossil energy. According to physics, the more intense the work, the more intense also is the heat released. The mechanization of industry and transports has multiplied the intensity of work and then of the heat released.

The process has an irreversible character: once triggered, it feeds itself on the dormant Fire of the earth: The carbon dioxide thus released creates a greenhouse effect. To use rather freely a Vedic image, we can say that the fire, Agni, which is used is a “smoky” one, it has not been purified and transformed into pure blazing light. In consequence of the greenhouse effect, the ice melts, which reduces the surface of white space reflecting the sunrays, thus heating up the planet. And then the permafrost, the frozen vegetal soil, defrosts and slowly decomposes, releasing more methane and carbon dioxide, accelerating the phenomenon. It is a chain reaction. Agni thus awakened can hardly be stopped and he promises to do what he always does, since the Vedic times: “burning the growths of the earth”. Of course, it is a little frightening, and that is why even serious people now speak about global warming and of the urgency to diminish drastically the emission of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere: According to experts, we have to divide our emission of carbon dioxide by two, but the economic system produces it structurally, and there is a demographic wave entering the heating machine: the population is going to increase of 50% in the coming 40 years or so. The equation is therefore particularly difficult to solve: With an input of +50% in population growth we have to get a final output of -50% in carbon dioxide emissions from the economic engine.

If we decompose the terms of the equation, as Prof. Kaya from Japan has done, we find the different parameters on which we could act to prevent or limit the disaster:

Emissions = Pop x (Economic Growth/Head) x (Energy/Econ. Growth) x (Carbon/Energy)

The total of emission is equal to the population, multiplied by the Economic Growth per head, multiplied by the Energy needed for its production, multiplied by the amount of carbon dioxide contained by the source of energy we use. So, we have four terms: 1) population, 2) the rate of economic growth, 3) the energy required by it, and 4) the quantity of carbon dioxide involved in this energy. On which of these can we act? We cannot diminish the population, only a world dictator could do that or some terrible war or epidemic; we cannot slow down the economic growth, it would mean recession, financial crises and massive unemployment; we can diminish a little the energy requirements of economic activity, but far from enough; and to a certain extend diminish the quantity of carbon dioxide of this energy, by a shift towards nuclear plants[1] very difficult to enact at the scale of the planet, and solar energy, under some reservations. Within this model, it seems there is no way to divide the emission by two with a demographic wave of +50% entering the economic heating engine.

So we have to think of a solution from within another paradigm. We have to go back from economic realities to the ways of life they implement, and from these ones to the attitudes they manifest and the spirit they serve. The solution is not to be found on technical parameters only but mainly on how we think Economy and the way of life it manifests.

We have the habit to consider that Economy deals with reality, but it is not so, it is selective in its data and turns these into the only perceived reality of the wealth created and enjoyed. Basically, there is economy only when there is a commercial transaction between a buyer and a supplier (for the benefit of a user), a bill with a cash transaction, money being the sign of the wealth produced and consumed.

As money is the only indicator of wealth and happiness, there has been the tendency to monetarise and commercialise everything that human life has created, so that it becomes part of the visible economic activity. If I give tuitions for free to my neighbour’s son for his homework in math, for instance, I do not contribute to the economic growth. But if I get paid, I integrate the system, in the sense that (1) If I declare my income it will be registered as production of service and an income tax will go to the State and (2) the money I receive will be used to buy some goods, thus joining the general flow of demand, contributing to the general circulation and production of the heating economic machine and therefore to the greenhouse effect.

Each time we give our time and work instead of selling it, we interrupt the heating system or slow it down. And it doesn’t mean that nothing has been produced or consumed, it means only that it has not been egoistically done so. And this is why it doesn’t count. We have to remember the basic assumption of Adam Smith who created the capitalist model of the invisible hand of the market resolving spontaneously our egoistic activities into a collective harmony: by pursuing egoistic aims, people tend to specialize into what they do best, thus creating a diversified economy of complementary activities, and unknowingly contributing to the general good. That was the good news of the century: “Yes, your egoism can make a difference!” Kama is the only dharma and even the only moksha, the only thing to be released (mukta) in man. Here is the rajasic component of Dana: “Don’t give, take! Bargain!”. This theory has been very seriously accepted as a realistic model in the West (and that means now everywhere) but from the point of view of Indian psychology, it would be unthinkable, except in some obscurity of the mind and soul, dreamed maybe by the slayers of the soul âtmahanah, as the Upanishad says, to build up such a fallacious theory, so contrary to all the established facts of life and consciousness.

But when we look closer, we find that the capacity of giving without counterpart is what makes possible the development of economy: it is by that act of giving that family, friendship, mutual assistance and solidarity can exist. These things are the very fabric of society, the accumulated wealth of previous ages and, as the French economist Serge Latouche has underlined, they often repair the damages done by the commercial and public economy in the name of development, which has been destroying the social links between human beings and the very sense of human life. In fact, the commercial economy can be seen as a parasite growing on this first substratum of human civilisation (created by older ages of dharma), and sucking it for its own growth. The lowering quality of social life and the loss of meaning is the counterpart of economic development in industrial and post-industrial economies, and the mushroom slowly exhausts the tree of life.

But if my basic needs were covered with a sense of security, and if I could renounce “the greed for what another possesses” (mâ grdhah kasyasvid dhanam), as the Isha Upanishad says, I could give more of my time, and maybe would I find another way of enjoying the world (tena tyaktena bunjiithâh) “by the object renounced, enjoy it”. This is a reality of consciousness, which can be rediscovered by men and put into practice, experimented with (more likely in times of crisis) with a liberating effect. If this attitude could be picked up on a significant collective level, our life would become richer and more creative in many ways, although more simple on the material level, with less need in energy and with more social links and exchanges (But the economic indicators presently used would collapse). So finally it is possible to act on the economic parameter of Kaya’s equation, but under the condition that we change our ways to think out what economy is about, and also what human life is about.

In a way, the most an-economic production is the Zen ceremony of tea: it is mainly made of water, a bit of grass, stirring the stew, serving it and then consuming it. In the process, a lot of value has been created (and that means a lot of consciousness has been manifested into forms, and maybe that is the wealth we have to pursue and measure), although it has no recognized economic value.

So the aim of life has to be reconsidered and refounded, so to say, with a new kind of social contract: men are not in society to be predators of the earth and of each others but to grow together and learn and progress in consciousness and in capacity to manifest it. The only heat which is needed is the inner tapas (which is free from carbon dioxide). And because we need to grow, we need to give more than we take. This is the new paradigm: We grow more when we give ourselves than when we take, because this how we grow in consciousness, which is our real wealth. In fact this is visible in the modern economy itself: the products tend to become mere support of meanings, image, identities, and it is the meaning which is bought and consumed. We even have a new consumerism popping up and developing very fast: people want to buy goods which are ecofriendly and related to a sustainable development. Dharma is reintegrating the game! Because dharma also is a basic human need. And Sattva is emerging out of Rajas. So it is not absolutely impossible to change the system (if the system and those who live by it accept it), at least the human beings who live under it might be capable of choosing a new one, if by they could recover by it a meaning and a plenitude of life which has been so much missing since Europe has imposed its model as the standard of progress and happiness for all.

Jean-Yves Lung

Auroville

January 2007