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A pessimistic vision of India’s looming environmental and economic collapse

310 points by Santosh83 9y ago

elipsey 9y ago
"Exploitation and inequality is innate to the industrial-capitalist system; a fact well-known at least since the time of Marx." Citation needed?
- roenxi 9y ago
  If 'exploitation' is in the ethically neutral sense of taking something with latent potential and bringing it to bear then this isn't particularly controversial. Capitalism has a happy partnership with inequality. People who exploit resource effectively get given more resources; that is the heart of the system. Works really well. Builds societies that are the envy of the world. Even people who squander resources can expect to come out ahead (they get a small share of a bigger pie).
- int_19h 9y ago
  I mean, Marx would be the citation, but it's important to remember that exploitation in this context is a neutral term, not a judgment. It just means that people who own means of production (i.e. capitalists) can extract economic rent from people who don't (i.e. workers, who need access to those means of production to generate wealth). That shouldn't be controversial - the problem with Marx wasn't that he pointed this out, but rather his statement that it is a fundamental problem, and remedies offered for it.
f_allwein 9y ago
"Economic growth is a central assumption to political and economic systems… But strong growth is not normal, being a recent phenomenon over the last two centuries… It was based upon the profligate use of mispriced natural resources such as oil, water and soil. It relied on allowing unsustainable degradation of the environment. The human race refuses to accept that it is not possible to have infinite growth and improvement in living standards in a finite world." Exactly this - it seems that while we are aware of it as individuals, we act as of it were not so as societies.
- stale2002 9y ago
  Yeah and the Malthusians have been predicting the downfall of civilization due to "non-infinite growth" for the last couple centuries as well. And they keep being proven wrong. Just because growth isn't "infinite" says nothing about how far away we are from reaching the limits of the planet. Personally, I think that limit is much closer to 1 trillion people living on the earth than it is to 1 billion people. So we've got a ways to go. The facts show, that by every metric of quality of life, life is better than it has ever been in the history of the world.
  - throwaway34DF23 9y ago
    The counter to the reflex argument "it's worked thus far" is the parable of the turkey. Or the guy who jumped out a 100th floor window (and passing the 2nd floor said "so far so good"). https://blog.commonwealth.com/independent-market-observer/the-parable-of-the-turkey https://blog.commonwealth.com/independent-market-observer/th... Looking at the past only works if the future is like the past. It's a lazy argument, but sure, statistically you are right most of the time. This in turn is a case of survivorship bias and a result of how you count: Everybody who is wrong is weeded out immediately. If you sample many times you are more likely to find that it all works just fine because those who survive are counted many times, failures only count one time. The more often you count the more your argument will look favorably for the side of the "anti-alarmists".
  - llukas 9y ago
    You always measure distance taken with speed? Quality of life is nothing without way to sustain it long term.
  - nils-m-holm 9y ago
    > Personally, I think that limit is much closer to 1 trillion people living on the earth than it is to 1 billion people. There's enough for everyone's need, but not enough for everyone's greed. -- Gandhi > The facts show, that by every metric of quality of life, life is better than it has ever been in the history of the world. Also, the gap between rich an poor has never been bigger.
arnie001 9y ago
As an Indian living in the United States, I hope the development choices made in India skip some of the unsustainable choices made by other countries. Car ownership should be discouraged to a higher degree than what it is today, and we should focus a lot more on efficient carpooling solutions. Things like bikeshare, etc however may never be a realistic solution in most urban cities. One other thing is most places in Mumbai for example don't have strict zoning practices. I do think that this has some unintentional benefits like lower travel time for commuting by colocating housing and offices.
- hkmurakami 9y ago
  As an "American" who's visited India as a tourist once, I have some questions to educate myself. 1) India is a very large and very diverse country. How is the culture of acceptance towards carpooling and resource sharing, especially when it will gain an ascendant middle class like we're seeing in China? 2) Vehicles have always had a status communication role. Is there something we can tap into that can impede this desire?
  - arnie001 9y ago
    1) I think most of the resource sharing is driven out of cost necessities. There are many places where people share a single autorickshaw to the same destination. This is sometimes because there is a shortage of taxi/autorickshaws/bus availability at peak hours. I tried Uber pool a couple of times in Mumbai and almost always travelled alone. Not sure what's the reason. 2) The status still exists. However it can be practical to not own a car as roads are extremely congested in big cities (in some places temporarily worsened by public transportation infrastructure projects)
  - ZeroGravitas 9y ago
    Not specific to India but one theory behind luxury tax type approaches is that the social signalling still remains, but everything is shifted down a bit. So if car pollution, parking, congestion is priced appropriately then some people will still have bigger, less efficient vehicles to show off but the baseline will be lower and therefore society as a whole is better off.
Alreadyobsolete 9y ago
I can't help but think that these problems won't be solved until there's an obvious, short term incentive for our lawmakers to actually tackle these problems in any tangible way. The public outcry has been constant for decades. The information and alarmism has existed for just as long. There's no shortage of reasons why we shouldn't tackle these issues. Those in the power to enact significant change to environmental and economic models aren't incentivized to. How do we shift perception to incentivize sustainable growth, rather than growth in isolation. How do we incentivize politicians to feel rewarded for methodical long term changes rather than short term successes at the cost of finite resources?
- chii 9y ago
  Run a patreon style system where sustained long term benefits are rewarded with sustained long term income/rewards to the politicians?
  - SturgeonsLaw 9y ago
    Interesting approach. I'd like to also see a transparent system where campaign funds are kept in escrow until specific goals are achieved, those goals set by the donors
    - awendt 9y ago
      This is a great idea but I'm not sure it will work out. Numbers are touched up all the time, both in politics (e.g. few governments will admit to lowering the employment rate, if things are not working, usually a new way of counting the unemployed is introduced) and in large companies (managers who report "everything's fine" up the chain until it's too late). Applied to your idea, donors will have to come up with KPIs to meet. Whatever the situation, the KPIs will magically look good. And if there are no KPIs, nobody will dare take the job.
      - lozenge 9y ago
        In my experience, politicians find new ways to massage the numbers but the civil service keeps collecting the old ones. But, I live in quite a democratic country: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/feb/22/britain-measures-child-poverty-lords-life-chance-government https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/feb/22/britai... https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/feb/26/uk-government-forced-to-retain-household-income-as-measure-of-child-poverty https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/feb/26/uk-governmen...
ignoramous 9y ago
The thing that worries me the most is lack of fresh water. I belong to the Indian state of Gujarat mentioned in the article, and the pessimism isn't exaggerated at all. Soil erosion and fresh water coupled with rising temperatures is a real and present danger seeimingly ignored in favour of populist and industrialist projects such as GIFT (that keeps on winning elections for the incumbent). There's no reversing desertification that plaques my home state. It is heartbreaking, to say the least. It's taking us towards a Mad Max Fury Road esque world, and how. Uttar Pradesh, the quintessential Indian state that 200* million people call home, along with another 200 million in the Hindi-Urdu heartland, has always had abundance of natural resources but its utter mismanagement has led to an unprecedented ecological crisis that no one in the political setup seems to be bothered about; and that may be since they continue to grapple with challenges of heavy population, unemployment, casteism, and near absence of law and order in every fabric of the society. Most of its major cities are on the verge of collapse, whilst the elites along with the politicians have cornered an enormous amount of wealth for themselves at the expense of the environment and the people; unlike in 2000s China, where the distribution of wealth seemed more fair, in comparison. I think, India and Pakistan (I was astonished at the very similarity of what's happening to India's biggest states like Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Haryana, and Punjab; and Pakistan's Punjab and Sindh) and most other tropical countries favouring unabated development at the cost of the environment are going to end up in a very sorry state that's going to get worse along an exponential curve for entities with larger than sustainable populations. I don't understand at all the increasing rents, property prices amidst the impending crisis. Given that, especially, only a handful hoard most of the wealth and could afford buying or renting at today's rates. India is being held hostage in a prison of corruption by greed, will promptly be taken to the altar of doom by ignorance, where civil unrest will have a final swing of the sword culling the Virus, as Agent Smith would put it. *edit
- danmaz74 9y ago
  Making big sacrifices now to avert a disaster that is "only" forecast, but not yet tangible/certain in the mind of most people, is incredibly difficult everywhere, not just in India. To cite an example from Italy, everybody who had a basic understanding of economics knew that we had unsustainable rate of growth of public debt and pensions promises, but there always somebody promising that they had a magic bullet solution (or that there is no problem at all), and most voters in the end prefer to believe in those. This is true even now that the consequences of those policies have struck hard with years of economic stagnation and a worsening general situation.
danmaz74 9y ago
Interestingly, most of the article thesis isn't specific about India being destructed, it's about the World being destructed (over exploitation of natural resources + pollution). But the element that I find strangely missing is the one about population growth. I'm pretty sure that GDP per capita can grow, if not indefinitely, for a very very long time - if the population isn't too big. India will soon be the most populous country in the World and still growing strongly enough; I would be curious to know if this is seen as a big problem in India, or not...
- baxtr 9y ago
  I totally agree, I also noticed that this element was missing. A think, a crucial first step would be to stop population growth. This is very intrusive in people’s lives and hard to control as measure, but more than necessary. The footprint of a human being needs to be sustained by its local environment. Global effects are not helping, but in the end this problem requires a local solution.
  - jpatokal 9y ago
    The world's population growth is screeching to a halt almost universally, even without China-style coercion. This includes India, where the total fertility rate has fallen from >6 in the 1950s to around 2.4 today, and the steady decline is set to continue.
    - baxtr 9y ago
      Do have source for that on a country level?
      - jpatokal 9y ago
        The animation & sources here is a good starting point: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_fertility_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_fertility_rate
        9y ago
forinti 9y ago
I live in South America, where we have plenty of space. Bangladesh is half the size of my state, but has 14 times its population. And 18% of Bangladesh floods during the monsoon. China has more people than India, but because it is so much larger, its density is similar to a European country's (Italy is denser than China). India and Bangladesh make me very afraid for the future.
- throwaway34DF23 9y ago
  > China has more people than India So what? Population density map of Asia: http://www.china-mike.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/map-population-asia-china-india.jpg http://www.china-mike.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/map-pop... (the date in the lower left corner says "2008", so while there are more people now the distribution should not have shifted significantly) Source: http://www.china-mike.com/china-travel-tips/tourist-maps/china-population-maps/ http://www.china-mike.com/china-travel-tips/tourist-maps/chi...
- lispm 9y ago
  China's population is unevenly distributed. There is a large concentration in eastern coastal regions. There are provinces with larger population than Italy and MUCH higher population density. The whole of Europe, similar in area to China, has 1/2 the population density of China.
- sanmon3186 9y ago
  India has more arable land (though less productive) than China.
jstewartmobile 9y ago
Always nice to see mention of Kumarappa in an article. His viewpoint deserves more consideration than it gets. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._C._Kumarappa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._C._Kumarappa
virtualwhys 9y ago
Not being able to drink the water is bad enough, but not being able to breathe takes it up another level. It's such a sad state of affairs that in many parts of the world we can't even breathe the air. I'm in Thailand up in Chiang Mai where the "burning season"[1] has just begun. The mountains in the distance, normally plainly visible, are gone, hidden behind a blanket of smoke/smog. And the locals tell me, "hah, this is nothing, wait until March [when the air quality goes from merely unhealthy, to hazardous]". Berkeley Earth[2] reveals the state of the air in this side of the world. Am thinking of heading to northern India but it seems there's no safe haven short of climbing Mount Everest. Maybe at other times of year the air quality is much better; for the locals I hope so. [1] In Asia apparently every spring the farmers burn the previous season's rice fields in order to enrich the soil for the next crop. [2] http://berkeleyearth.org/air-quality-real-time-map/?z=4&x=107.07813&y=31.13512#links http://berkeleyearth.org/air-quality-real-time-map/?z=4&x=10...
- metalon 9y ago
  You could consider going to Laos, the air is definitely better here
  - virtualwhys 9y ago
    Thanks, think I'll probably head somewhere in southern Thailand until my visa expires.
smnplk 9y ago
I hope that one day, government corruption will be a solved problem. []-[]-[]-[]
pankajdoharey 9y ago
All India need is a change in government whose focus is on Development instead of some bigoted Hindu agenda. Current central government is focusing on creating an environment of "Us vs Them", this is what destroyed Germany. Ofcourse it will destroy India if you dont rid of such religiously driven notions in 2018.
- sanmon3186 9y ago
  And India did have different govt for 6 decades that didn’t focus on Hindu agenda but had “Us vs Them” in other forms.
  - pankajdoharey 9y ago
    Which government are you referring to? India had several governments in the past. And yes the same lumpen elements in the past too had created the same "Us vs Them". There is a known religious right wing which follows this agenda. Which other government apart from that are you referring to how ?
- count_dracula 9y ago
  Pretty apt. In its pursuit of Hindutva agenda, the govt is encouraging rabble-rousers and actively persecuting the liberals. Heck even the PM and his immediate advisers resort to demagoguery every time there is an election around the corner.
- dang 9y ago
  Please don't use HN for political battle. It's not what this site is for, and it destroys what it is for. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
jpatokal 9y ago
I find neo-Malthusian arguments like this need to be taken with a serious grain of salt. Much of the article would have applied word for word for China a decade or two ago, and that country continues to struggle with environmental problems as gargantuan as India's -- but it's now also equally clear that they have turned a corner and are not just taking the issue seriously, but starting to make an impact.
largote 9y ago
One of the biggest flaws of democracies is that they strongly incentivize policy makers to follow short-term gains over long-term goals.
- peoplewindow 9y ago
  Because dictatorships are so famous for their 100 year horizons? The USSR planned its world in 5-year spans. That's about the same length of time between elections in most democracies. Lots of people like to say things like "one of the biggest flaws of democracies" but I've yet to see such a statement that actually doesn't also apply to other systems of government.
  - lsd5you 9y ago
    Except china had the one child policy which clearly had long term goals in mind. Singapore also implemented eugenics policies and still has them to some degree. Realistically population one of the few things you can take a long term view on, since so geo politics and technology are so unpredictable. With population planning much of the effects are only to come a generation later so mostly only a long term concern. It is also completely radioactive as far as modern democracies are concerned.
lozenge 9y ago
The article on China linked to is also excellent: http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/31478-china-s-communist-capitalist-ecological-apocalypse http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/31478-china-s-communist-c...
sidcool 9y ago
That's an Interstellar like scenario. Things literally are very bad in India. Ecological disaster has already started. But the same is true for most countries.
parthmehta23 9y ago
Article discusses only one side of the debate, and media just publishes it without proper research. It should also mention the efforts taken to overcome the issues of environment, economy or infrastructure.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- deathtrader666 9y ago
  So what are the efforts taken to overcome these issues?
known 9y ago
1% in India cannot own 73% Wealth unless they're running Pyramid schemes. Govt should impose 30% #InheritanceTax and use those funds for free healthcare/education/pensions.
vs2 9y ago
100
known 9y ago
I think Govt should focus on Solar based Lift irrigation projects https://www.telegraphindia.com/india/gujarat-model-of-hate-is-evident-everywhere-economist-202946 https://www.telegraphindia.com/india/gujarat-model-of-hate-i...
thallukrish 9y ago
It shines new light on the mindset that promises bullet trains and ‘smart cities’ while neglecting public health and malnutrition; the pursuit of heartless policies calculated to keep agriculture economically unviable, driving the rural poor "wholesale into the cities to serve as cheap fodder for India’s ‘economic miracle’; and the permanent destruction of million-year-old mountains, forests and rivers to create a ‘nine-day’ industrial wonder." I cannot agree with this more.
blunte 9y ago
You could change "India" to "United States" in this article and still be pretty accurate.
hedora 9y ago
Are short-term sea rise forecasts really up to 11 feet? Won’t that wipe out a big chunk of Silicon Valley?
- ancientworldnow 9y ago
  If you ignore the IPCC reports of 1.5m because it was based on inomplete data and consequently intentionally ignored several positive feedback liops, the most recent studies suggest 3m-4m by 2075-2100 are very possible and even likely. This obviously totally floods places like miami, osaka, all three airports in NYC, Bangladesh is gone, many of the coastal Chinese cities, parts of vancouver, etc. I haven't looked in detail at Silicon Valley but the western coast tends to fare better because there is a rapid rise from the coast (many cliffs as well though they are extra vulnerable to increased erosion and you will see many collapses) and because of how the rise won't be even (due to gravity and other variables), places like the east coast will see a much greater percentage of that water focus there.
lamby 9y ago
I was recently in Delhi for a few days.. the pollution really is truly awful. Indeed, I even had an layover on the way back (where I didn't even leave the airport) and I almost needed to wash my clothes after walking from the terminal to the plane doors. :/
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
ohiovr 9y ago
I read the other day that chicken farmers are working on a solution to this problem https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16281316 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16281316
olivermarks 9y ago
It took 200,000 years for our human population to reach 1 billion—and only 200 years to reach 7 billion... 6 minute American Museum of Natural History animation https://youtu.be/PUwmA3Q0_OE https://youtu.be/PUwmA3Q0_OE The fundamental problem is over population IMO

310 points by Santosh83 9y ago

"Exploitation and inequality is innate to the industrial-capitalist system; a fact well-known at least since the time of Marx." Citation needed?

roenxi 9y ago
If 'exploitation' is in the ethically neutral sense of taking something with latent potential and bringing it to bear then this isn't particularly controversial. Capitalism has a happy partnership with inequality. People who exploit resource effectively get given more resources; that is the heart of the system. Works really well. Builds societies that are the envy of the world. Even people who squander resources can expect to come out ahead (they get a small share of a bigger pie).
int_19h 9y ago
I mean, Marx would be the citation, but it's important to remember that exploitation in this context is a neutral term, not a judgment. It just means that people who own means of production (i.e. capitalists) can extract economic rent from people who don't (i.e. workers, who need access to those means of production to generate wealth). That shouldn't be controversial - the problem with Marx wasn't that he pointed this out, but rather his statement that it is a fundamental problem, and remedies offered for it.

f_allwein 9y ago

"Economic growth is a central assumption to political and economic systems… But strong growth is not normal, being a recent phenomenon over the last two centuries… It was based upon the profligate use of mispriced natural resources such as oil, water and soil. It relied on allowing unsustainable degradation of the environment. The human race refuses to accept that it is not possible to have infinite growth and improvement in living standards in a finite world." Exactly this - it seems that while we are aware of it as individuals, we act as of it were not so as societies.

stale2002 9y ago
Yeah and the Malthusians have been predicting the downfall of civilization due to "non-infinite growth" for the last couple centuries as well. And they keep being proven wrong. Just because growth isn't "infinite" says nothing about how far away we are from reaching the limits of the planet. Personally, I think that limit is much closer to 1 trillion people living on the earth than it is to 1 billion people. So we've got a ways to go. The facts show, that by every metric of quality of life, life is better than it has ever been in the history of the world.
- throwaway34DF23 9y ago
  The counter to the reflex argument "it's worked thus far" is the parable of the turkey. Or the guy who jumped out a 100th floor window (and passing the 2nd floor said "so far so good"). https://blog.commonwealth.com/independent-market-observer/the-parable-of-the-turkey https://blog.commonwealth.com/independent-market-observer/th... Looking at the past only works if the future is like the past. It's a lazy argument, but sure, statistically you are right most of the time. This in turn is a case of survivorship bias and a result of how you count: Everybody who is wrong is weeded out immediately. If you sample many times you are more likely to find that it all works just fine because those who survive are counted many times, failures only count one time. The more often you count the more your argument will look favorably for the side of the "anti-alarmists".
- llukas 9y ago
  You always measure distance taken with speed? Quality of life is nothing without way to sustain it long term.
- nils-m-holm 9y ago
  > Personally, I think that limit is much closer to 1 trillion people living on the earth than it is to 1 billion people. There's enough for everyone's need, but not enough for everyone's greed. -- Gandhi > The facts show, that by every metric of quality of life, life is better than it has ever been in the history of the world. Also, the gap between rich an poor has never been bigger.

arnie001 9y ago

As an Indian living in the United States, I hope the development choices made in India skip some of the unsustainable choices made by other countries. Car ownership should be discouraged to a higher degree than what it is today, and we should focus a lot more on efficient carpooling solutions. Things like bikeshare, etc however may never be a realistic solution in most urban cities. One other thing is most places in Mumbai for example don't have strict zoning practices. I do think that this has some unintentional benefits like lower travel time for commuting by colocating housing and offices.

hkmurakami 9y ago
As an "American" who's visited India as a tourist once, I have some questions to educate myself. 1) India is a very large and very diverse country. How is the culture of acceptance towards carpooling and resource sharing, especially when it will gain an ascendant middle class like we're seeing in China? 2) Vehicles have always had a status communication role. Is there something we can tap into that can impede this desire?
- arnie001 9y ago
  1) I think most of the resource sharing is driven out of cost necessities. There are many places where people share a single autorickshaw to the same destination. This is sometimes because there is a shortage of taxi/autorickshaws/bus availability at peak hours. I tried Uber pool a couple of times in Mumbai and almost always travelled alone. Not sure what's the reason. 2) The status still exists. However it can be practical to not own a car as roads are extremely congested in big cities (in some places temporarily worsened by public transportation infrastructure projects)
- ZeroGravitas 9y ago
  Not specific to India but one theory behind luxury tax type approaches is that the social signalling still remains, but everything is shifted down a bit. So if car pollution, parking, congestion is priced appropriately then some people will still have bigger, less efficient vehicles to show off but the baseline will be lower and therefore society as a whole is better off.

Alreadyobsolete 9y ago

I can't help but think that these problems won't be solved until there's an obvious, short term incentive for our lawmakers to actually tackle these problems in any tangible way. The public outcry has been constant for decades. The information and alarmism has existed for just as long. There's no shortage of reasons why we shouldn't tackle these issues. Those in the power to enact significant change to environmental and economic models aren't incentivized to. How do we shift perception to incentivize sustainable growth, rather than growth in isolation. How do we incentivize politicians to feel rewarded for methodical long term changes rather than short term successes at the cost of finite resources?

chii 9y ago
Run a patreon style system where sustained long term benefits are rewarded with sustained long term income/rewards to the politicians?
- SturgeonsLaw 9y ago
  Interesting approach. I'd like to also see a transparent system where campaign funds are kept in escrow until specific goals are achieved, those goals set by the donors
  - awendt 9y ago
    This is a great idea but I'm not sure it will work out. Numbers are touched up all the time, both in politics (e.g. few governments will admit to lowering the employment rate, if things are not working, usually a new way of counting the unemployed is introduced) and in large companies (managers who report "everything's fine" up the chain until it's too late). Applied to your idea, donors will have to come up with KPIs to meet. Whatever the situation, the KPIs will magically look good. And if there are no KPIs, nobody will dare take the job.
    - lozenge 9y ago
      In my experience, politicians find new ways to massage the numbers but the civil service keeps collecting the old ones. But, I live in quite a democratic country: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/feb/22/britain-measures-child-poverty-lords-life-chance-government https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/feb/22/britai... https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/feb/26/uk-government-forced-to-retain-household-income-as-measure-of-child-poverty https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/feb/26/uk-governmen...

ignoramous 9y ago

The thing that worries me the most is lack of fresh water. I belong to the Indian state of Gujarat mentioned in the article, and the pessimism isn't exaggerated at all. Soil erosion and fresh water coupled with rising temperatures is a real and present danger seeimingly ignored in favour of populist and industrialist projects such as GIFT (that keeps on winning elections for the incumbent). There's no reversing desertification that plaques my home state. It is heartbreaking, to say the least. It's taking us towards a Mad Max Fury Road esque world, and how. Uttar Pradesh, the quintessential Indian state that 200* million people call home, along with another 200 million in the Hindi-Urdu heartland, has always had abundance of natural resources but its utter mismanagement has led to an unprecedented ecological crisis that no one in the political setup seems to be bothered about; and that may be since they continue to grapple with challenges of heavy population, unemployment, casteism, and near absence of law and order in every fabric of the society. Most of its major cities are on the verge of collapse, whilst the elites along with the politicians have cornered an enormous amount of wealth for themselves at the expense of the environment and the people; unlike in 2000s China, where the distribution of wealth seemed more fair, in comparison. I think, India and Pakistan (I was astonished at the very similarity of what's happening to India's biggest states like Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Haryana, and Punjab; and Pakistan's Punjab and Sindh) and most other tropical countries favouring unabated development at the cost of the environment are going to end up in a very sorry state that's going to get worse along an exponential curve for entities with larger than sustainable populations. I don't understand at all the increasing rents, property prices amidst the impending crisis. Given that, especially, only a handful hoard most of the wealth and could afford buying or renting at today's rates. India is being held hostage in a prison of corruption by greed, will promptly be taken to the altar of doom by ignorance, where civil unrest will have a final swing of the sword culling the Virus, as Agent Smith would put it. *edit

danmaz74 9y ago
Making big sacrifices now to avert a disaster that is "only" forecast, but not yet tangible/certain in the mind of most people, is incredibly difficult everywhere, not just in India. To cite an example from Italy, everybody who had a basic understanding of economics knew that we had unsustainable rate of growth of public debt and pensions promises, but there always somebody promising that they had a magic bullet solution (or that there is no problem at all), and most voters in the end prefer to believe in those. This is true even now that the consequences of those policies have struck hard with years of economic stagnation and a worsening general situation.

danmaz74 9y ago

Interestingly, most of the article thesis isn't specific about India being destructed, it's about the World being destructed (over exploitation of natural resources + pollution). But the element that I find strangely missing is the one about population growth. I'm pretty sure that GDP per capita can grow, if not indefinitely, for a very very long time - if the population isn't too big. India will soon be the most populous country in the World and still growing strongly enough; I would be curious to know if this is seen as a big problem in India, or not...

baxtr 9y ago
I totally agree, I also noticed that this element was missing. A think, a crucial first step would be to stop population growth. This is very intrusive in people’s lives and hard to control as measure, but more than necessary. The footprint of a human being needs to be sustained by its local environment. Global effects are not helping, but in the end this problem requires a local solution.
- jpatokal 9y ago
  The world's population growth is screeching to a halt almost universally, even without China-style coercion. This includes India, where the total fertility rate has fallen from >6 in the 1950s to around 2.4 today, and the steady decline is set to continue.
  - baxtr 9y ago
    Do have source for that on a country level?
    - jpatokal 9y ago
      The animation & sources here is a good starting point: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_fertility_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_fertility_rate
      - 9y ago

forinti 9y ago

I live in South America, where we have plenty of space. Bangladesh is half the size of my state, but has 14 times its population. And 18% of Bangladesh floods during the monsoon. China has more people than India, but because it is so much larger, its density is similar to a European country's (Italy is denser than China). India and Bangladesh make me very afraid for the future.

throwaway34DF23 9y ago
> China has more people than India So what? Population density map of Asia: http://www.china-mike.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/map-population-asia-china-india.jpg http://www.china-mike.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/map-pop... (the date in the lower left corner says "2008", so while there are more people now the distribution should not have shifted significantly) Source: http://www.china-mike.com/china-travel-tips/tourist-maps/china-population-maps/ http://www.china-mike.com/china-travel-tips/tourist-maps/chi...
lispm 9y ago
China's population is unevenly distributed. There is a large concentration in eastern coastal regions. There are provinces with larger population than Italy and MUCH higher population density. The whole of Europe, similar in area to China, has 1/2 the population density of China.
sanmon3186 9y ago
India has more arable land (though less productive) than China.

jstewartmobile 9y ago

Always nice to see mention of Kumarappa in an article. His viewpoint deserves more consideration than it gets. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._C._Kumarappa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._C._Kumarappa

virtualwhys 9y ago

Not being able to drink the water is bad enough, but not being able to breathe takes it up another level. It's such a sad state of affairs that in many parts of the world we can't even breathe the air. I'm in Thailand up in Chiang Mai where the "burning season"[1] has just begun. The mountains in the distance, normally plainly visible, are gone, hidden behind a blanket of smoke/smog. And the locals tell me, "hah, this is nothing, wait until March [when the air quality goes from merely unhealthy, to hazardous]". Berkeley Earth[2] reveals the state of the air in this side of the world. Am thinking of heading to northern India but it seems there's no safe haven short of climbing Mount Everest. Maybe at other times of year the air quality is much better; for the locals I hope so. [1] In Asia apparently every spring the farmers burn the previous season's rice fields in order to enrich the soil for the next crop. [2] http://berkeleyearth.org/air-quality-real-time-map/?z=4&x=107.07813&y=31.13512#links http://berkeleyearth.org/air-quality-real-time-map/?z=4&x=10...

metalon 9y ago
You could consider going to Laos, the air is definitely better here
- virtualwhys 9y ago
  Thanks, think I'll probably head somewhere in southern Thailand until my visa expires.

smnplk 9y ago

I hope that one day, government corruption will be a solved problem. []-[]-[]-[]

pankajdoharey 9y ago

All India need is a change in government whose focus is on Development instead of some bigoted Hindu agenda. Current central government is focusing on creating an environment of "Us vs Them", this is what destroyed Germany. Ofcourse it will destroy India if you dont rid of such religiously driven notions in 2018.

sanmon3186 9y ago
And India did have different govt for 6 decades that didn’t focus on Hindu agenda but had “Us vs Them” in other forms.
- pankajdoharey 9y ago
  Which government are you referring to? India had several governments in the past. And yes the same lumpen elements in the past too had created the same "Us vs Them". There is a known religious right wing which follows this agenda. Which other government apart from that are you referring to how ?
count_dracula 9y ago
Pretty apt. In its pursuit of Hindutva agenda, the govt is encouraging rabble-rousers and actively persecuting the liberals. Heck even the PM and his immediate advisers resort to demagoguery every time there is an election around the corner.
dang 9y ago
Please don't use HN for political battle. It's not what this site is for, and it destroys what it is for. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

jpatokal 9y ago

I find neo-Malthusian arguments like this need to be taken with a serious grain of salt. Much of the article would have applied word for word for China a decade or two ago, and that country continues to struggle with environmental problems as gargantuan as India's -- but it's now also equally clear that they have turned a corner and are not just taking the issue seriously, but starting to make an impact.

largote 9y ago

One of the biggest flaws of democracies is that they strongly incentivize policy makers to follow short-term gains over long-term goals.

peoplewindow 9y ago
Because dictatorships are so famous for their 100 year horizons? The USSR planned its world in 5-year spans. That's about the same length of time between elections in most democracies. Lots of people like to say things like "one of the biggest flaws of democracies" but I've yet to see such a statement that actually doesn't also apply to other systems of government.
- lsd5you 9y ago
  Except china had the one child policy which clearly had long term goals in mind. Singapore also implemented eugenics policies and still has them to some degree. Realistically population one of the few things you can take a long term view on, since so geo politics and technology are so unpredictable. With population planning much of the effects are only to come a generation later so mostly only a long term concern. It is also completely radioactive as far as modern democracies are concerned.

lozenge 9y ago

The article on China linked to is also excellent: http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/31478-china-s-communist-capitalist-ecological-apocalypse http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/31478-china-s-communist-c...

sidcool 9y ago

That's an Interstellar like scenario. Things literally are very bad in India. Ecological disaster has already started. But the same is true for most countries.

parthmehta23 9y ago

Article discusses only one side of the debate, and media just publishes it without proper research. It should also mention the efforts taken to overcome the issues of environment, economy or infrastructure.

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deathtrader666 9y ago
So what are the efforts taken to overcome these issues?

known 9y ago

1% in India cannot own 73% Wealth unless they're running Pyramid schemes. Govt should impose 30% #InheritanceTax and use those funds for free healthcare/education/pensions.

vs2 9y ago

100

known 9y ago

I think Govt should focus on Solar based Lift irrigation projects https://www.telegraphindia.com/india/gujarat-model-of-hate-is-evident-everywhere-economist-202946 https://www.telegraphindia.com/india/gujarat-model-of-hate-i...

thallukrish 9y ago

It shines new light on the mindset that promises bullet trains and ‘smart cities’ while neglecting public health and malnutrition; the pursuit of heartless policies calculated to keep agriculture economically unviable, driving the rural poor "wholesale into the cities to serve as cheap fodder for India’s ‘economic miracle’; and the permanent destruction of million-year-old mountains, forests and rivers to create a ‘nine-day’ industrial wonder." I cannot agree with this more.

blunte 9y ago

You could change "India" to "United States" in this article and still be pretty accurate.

hedora 9y ago

Are short-term sea rise forecasts really up to 11 feet? Won’t that wipe out a big chunk of Silicon Valley?

ancientworldnow 9y ago
If you ignore the IPCC reports of 1.5m because it was based on inomplete data and consequently intentionally ignored several positive feedback liops, the most recent studies suggest 3m-4m by 2075-2100 are very possible and even likely. This obviously totally floods places like miami, osaka, all three airports in NYC, Bangladesh is gone, many of the coastal Chinese cities, parts of vancouver, etc. I haven't looked in detail at Silicon Valley but the western coast tends to fare better because there is a rapid rise from the coast (many cliffs as well though they are extra vulnerable to increased erosion and you will see many collapses) and because of how the rise won't be even (due to gravity and other variables), places like the east coast will see a much greater percentage of that water focus there.

lamby 9y ago

I was recently in Delhi for a few days.. the pollution really is truly awful. Indeed, I even had an layover on the way back (where I didn't even leave the airport) and I almost needed to wash my clothes after walking from the terminal to the plane doors. :/

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ohiovr 9y ago

I read the other day that chicken farmers are working on a solution to this problem https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16281316 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16281316

olivermarks 9y ago

It took 200,000 years for our human population to reach 1 billion—and only 200 years to reach 7 billion... 6 minute American Museum of Natural History animation https://youtu.be/PUwmA3Q0_OE https://youtu.be/PUwmA3Q0_OE The fundamental problem is over population IMO