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