Antarctica The Untold Story of Climate Change
all right
first of all thanks a lot uh arjuna and
chilika for inviting
uh for this talk and i hope i can uh
do justice to myself so my talk is all
about my journey to antarctica and what
it really taught me about sustainability
because sustainability and climate
change
being the theme of this uh workshop
uh of the tedx at suny university so in
this 21st century
uh i would like to say that most of the
problems that we are facing right now
are basically global and scientific in
nature
and these scientific problems really
require
scientific solutions so many people have
asked me what is my view on the climate
change or
gmo the genetically modified organisms
or the nuclear energy and so on
you know vaccines for example views
beliefs
immaterial in sciences because science
is based on objective reality that we
tend to overlook it you know beliefs and
views have
actually no place in it so your beliefs
are irrelevant in science
how about views on climate change those
are immaterial for science
that much is certain so scientists can
only tell you what will happen if you
jump from fifth story of a tall building
you know of course probability is quite
high that you will die but scientists
can never tell you
do not jump that’s up to you that
purview doesn’t come in the sciences
you know so risk perceptions differ
widely
across the general public and the
scientists on various scientific issues
that are facing in this space age the
21st century
now coming to the climate change most of
you might have thought that it’s very
very slow process so
it doesn’t cost much of the risk it’s a
low risk but
friends scientific consensus that the
climate change
has entered to a domain of dangerous
predicament
a point of no return the science
magazine called it as
hot house earth the new paper argues
that earth has entered
a trajectory called hot house earth i
had been to a place where most of you
hadn’t been
i’m privileged to be part of that
antarctica the final frontier
i was privileged to be part of the 36th
indian
international mission to antarctica you
know indian antarctic mission
so what did i see in antarctica you
might wonder of course i saw penguins
at plenty of them emperor penguin adelie
all varieties of course other animals
too only animal
only mammal in antarctica is sealed
elephant seal and leopard seals
snow petrol turns physical
spectacles too including glacial blue
eyes
mass sea blue glaciers ice caves
frazzles fast eyes 22 degrees hello
around the sun
uh you know aurora australia is too yes
i did see that all of these
there is a flip side of this story the
flip side is the best kept secret of
this
white pristine continent on the way to
antarctica
in the antarctic ocean i saw an island
full of marine litter you know the
plastics that you throw away
the final destination is ocean and the
thermo halide circulation
make it converge into one big island
full of marine plastics friends
these plastics get degraded by so-called
photolysis
and degradation of the plastic result in
something called microplastics
these micro plastics friends leads out
from this marine litter islands
do uh you know gets into the biosystem
including
the sea birds and even penguins friends
there are research that shows that
penguins even the microplastics have
been found in penguins and what is the
consequence
same thing like in the human being we
see os
and infertility penguin populations are
now diminishing or because of the
microplastic use
you know so what is the solution for it
you might wonder like uh you know
expensive eco-friendly stuff
is the best solution for it right uh
probably you are using i don’t know
bamboo water bottle water bottle made up
of bamboo you can get it in amazon
or wooden toothbrush because toothbrush
is plastic so let us
get out of this i want to project myself
with a eco-friendly image
let me get a wooden toothbrush you know
or
i call this as urban vanity it doesn’t
work that way
or answer philosophical preachers they
argue
for innovation government should for
innovative products
developing expensive eco-friendly
products that are affordable only for
the affluent people
in the in the world there is no point in
going for that or investing in academic
research on plastic degrading bacteria
spending crawls and clots closes rupees
uh on so-called research on
a plastic degrading because we already
have plastic problems let us degrade a
solution for that problem
no it doesn’t work friends there is a
concept in philosophy called oxam’s
razor so exams razor is a mental model
so simple solutions are most elegant
that is what it is it’s it’s
pretty much used in ai artificial
intelligence and regression algorithms
dog translation just carry a reusable
mug
and cutlery solution so most of the
solution is sold
reusable shopping totally uh you know i
don’t even argue for
going for a cloth even plastic is
absolutely fine
plastic is not inherently bad using it
multiple times
is the key just using and throwing is
the problem here you know see
there is some a concept called life
cycle assessment in environmental
sciences not many of us are aware of it
cloth bags you know cotton cloth bags
are worst for the environment rather
than plastic bags if you use it multiple
times
we should understand that it’s a very
low cost solution just use the same bag
a large number of times incidences of
algae blooms are increasing antarctica
is now greenifying
because of the normal warming that is
exactly what you can see in antarctica
these days
i have taken several helicopter rides
that is what i use
uh you know we use to travel from one
location to another and from the
helicopter
reconnection missions we can see the
pristine white carpeted ice sheet
and we could also see glacial milk water
lakes
blue color deep blue lakes everywhere in
this continent
so antarctica friends not only serves as
a shock case of the climate change
climate change is real you can really
feel it if you go to antarctica but also
it also serve as an untouched museum
specimen that enables us to study uh the
climate change
you know scientists like us why we are
going to antarctica to study how the
climate is changing
you know antarctic ice core it’s just
like a borewell we
drill and retrieve the eyes the core of
the eyes
you know that enables us to study uh
what the past climate that is called
paleoclimatology you know because
uh when this antarctic ice sheet formed
in the eoc
epoch approximately 45.5 million years
ago
you know the the it has trapped relics
of the past climate in the air bubbles
so we just have to take out the air
bubbles injecting
lcms that is liquid crystallography uh
you know the
mass spectrometer and then it can tell
you how much is a co2 level
during that time and you can they take
the gradations in
each depth profile you know so that is
how the scientific consensus is that co2
level is
really increasing and also if you look
at the oxygen isotope ratio it will tell
you what was the temperature
when this ice sheet had been formed so
all these evidences point to the same
direction
accelerated global warming post
industrial revolution is mostly man-made
you know so now the million dollar
question is
how to save the planet so who whose
responsibility is to fight the climate
change
many people will say it is ipcc you know
intergovernmental panel on climate
change or
governments across the world it’s their
duty or big big corporations
you know friends not at all
you know united nations sustainable
developmental gods that is you and sdgs
we should bring that into the personal
life so sustainability at the individual
level
is the key that is what i believe in i
remember a court by seneca
be the user but not the slave of the
gifts of the fortune
think we our days are numbered we have
limited time in
on this planet earth you know so think
that every single position that you have
it’s not you are the honor you’re just
taking it as a gift
uh from the fortune or the nature
another called by marcus aurelius my one
of my favorite god is that
things that we treasure are like leaves
on a tree
you know it’s it’s never nothing is
permanent in this world you know so my
one of my favorite tool which i always
advocate for everybody to follow is
bicycle commuting because bicycle
commuting is the easiest and simplest
step towards
minimizing our carbon footprint you know
and
last year alone i cycled 3490
kilometers it has come in newspaper too
what does that mean 3498 kilometer means
it is offsetting 680 kilogram of car
uh carbon carbon dioxide had i been
traveling in a
in a normal sized car you know so 680 kg
of carbon i
offset it and i’m really proud of it so
my own lifestyle changes include
not wearing jeans have you ever thought
genes environmental impact yes
tremendous
impact liquid microfiber and also the
impact
due to the the dye environment
degradation in some of the cities in
china is
extremely polluted because people are
wearing the denim cloths
think about it if you are wearing jeans
think twice before
wearing it or composting i started
composting now
organic composting and shifting to
energy efficient appliances
here in indian bsi star rating 5 star
get the every appliance is 5 star what’s
the problem even though you’re spending
little bit
uh you’re spending for the environment
and shifting from
cooking you know the normal cooking the
whatever the preschool
steam cooking you know it is much more
nutrient efficient
as well as energy the carbon footprint
is so much lesser if you cook with the
steamer
and also instead of ironing the cloth
use a steaming steamer
for the the ironing you know instead of
ironing just use a steamer
or bar soap you know instead of
uh the aqua you know whatever the the
shower gels
that is nothing but aqua is nothing but
water you’re paying a huge amount for
the water but more than that
all these things are coming with a
single use use and throw
disposable plastic all this end up in
the ocean friends
causing harm to the penguin population
the micro plastic remember
and also for the instead of the shampoo
that comes in plastic bottle i just use
a shampoo bar you know very nice
packaging it’s really good for the
environment
and minimizing the purchase is number
one solution for most of these plastic
crisis
as well as the sustainability to achieve
the sustainability number one
recommendation would be stop towards
zero waste you know minimize the waste
so the purchase loss will lead to
uh waste will be automatically less you
know there is another court
very famous caught by seneca the
destroyed philosopher
if you live your life in harmony with
the nature
you will never be poor if you live life
according to what others think you will
never be rich
see how profound the god is so if you
live harmony with nature you will never
be poor
you know so there is another
philosophical concept called why are
negative ah
so why are negative exactly it resonates
this thought
remarkable progress in our life can be
achieved by
not doing uh the things you know that
that actually cause a harm
so that that is what the lifestyle
changes we really have to incorporate a
lot of lifestyle changes that itself
will be a huge cure you know a solution
for this
climate crisis you know instead of
spending thousands on crores of the
rupees for to clean up the dirty rivers
so we should spend it to stop the
pollution from happening
so if we actually do that the upper
ganges valleys
you know if we stop the ganges river
from polluting then
the pollution will automatically stop
instead of cleaning up the river so that
cleaning up the river is not a
viable solution friends i had an
ultimate sustainability experience a
zero waste i’m a big advocate of zero
waste but my ultimate sustainability
uh you know experience was also in
antarctic offense
you know in antarctica as you know the
temperature goes as low as minus 79
degree celsius
nothing can grow in that temperature no
bacteria can grow
how about waste you might uh wonder what
is uh how is the toilets in antarctica
looks like
excrements the human excrement if you
throw it out
millions of years it will be there
without decomposing because decomposing
bacteria cannot live at that low
temperatures
you know so friends
while returning we brought every single
waste of us including the excrement we
packed the excrement in the barrels
and we bought home here in india you
know so that
really taught me that how to minimize
the waste and how to incorporate
sustainability
to a personal level how to align our
life to the
17 united nations sustainable
developmental goals the sdgs where most
of the cad missions simply preach
i can also preach for hours and hours
what these 17 sdgs are all
but the point is that just like what
ganthi says my life
is my message bring it to your life show
the world that through the actions not
just by
mere speech you can do it see remember
we spoke about the risk perceptions
right earlier when i began this talk we
were talking about the risk perceptions
many climatologist friends of mine uh
they can’t even sleep at night
you might wonder what is what is going
going on with the climatology friends
they are worried they are really worried
because the climatologist georges and
now they predict that
earth’s major geological event is now
going to be the complete
meltdown of antarctica due to the global
warming friends
and what are the repercussions and when
this is going to happen next 50 years
if the trench goes by within next 50
years we are going to lose
antarctica the pristine white continent
and what is the
the impact of it it would raise the
global sea level by at least 2.5 meter
even one inch you know or
three centimeter is enough to displace
hundreds of kilometers you know so it’s
gonna have
uh a tremendous impact almost entire
uh cities the coastal cities will be
submerged and displacing
billions of the human population because
most of the human population
live in the coastal regions antarctic
ice sheet also store
almost 98 percentage of the fresh water
of our planet earth
and melting and you know dissolving into
the
the global oceans will have another
serious ramifications including
you know earth’s tilt the axial tilt
might also be
that is what the climatologists are now
predicting you know
uh remember jumping from fifth story uh
fifth floor of the tall building
you know the scientists are informing
the same about the climate change right
now
today scientists are informing us what
is going to happen soon
so the climate change is just like slow
growing cancer fronts
by the time the cancer is detected it
might have already spread to
multiple organs you know stage four
cancer
right now we are nearing the stage for
cancer of the climate change not many
people are talking about the climate
change
at the start of every disaster movie
there is a scientist being ignored
to ignore or not is an individual choice
the choice is
up to you to ignore the science or go
with the science
remember there is no viewpoint or belief
in science science is only for objective
reality
so my voice for antarctica has taught me
why minimizing carbon footprint and
waste through the lifestyle changes
is the key to the sustainability and the
climate action
why bringing united nations sustainable
developmental goals to the personal
level
is a need of the hour thank you so much