Coal
Katowice in Poland and Dhanbad in India – share a unique attribute. Both are coal mining town in coal-dependent nations. The kind of cities that invite the despise of the world and understandably so. However, my experience of living and studying in Dhanbad gave me a different perspective.
I realized how vital access to energy is to anyone who doesn’t have it. Reliable power is an essential requirement for human well-being. I felt everyone in Dhanbad knew that and had an emotional alliance with coal. It was like being in a time capsule when coal and mining were cool – which I’d argue has been true for much longer than it should have. As Katowice hosts a climate change conference now, it represents an exciting turn of the page for both itself and Dhanbad.
Carl Sagan
While I can’t wait to dive into details of the negotiations, I can’t escape the bigger picture either.
As Carl Sagan, the astrophysicist, and my childhood icon would point out – The Earth, an insignificant piece of rock is our stage to the universe. It’s the only home we knew. This is where our loved ones came into life. It’s the only place we know where conditions were perfect for us to evolve, and for us to stretch a bit closer to the grand questions – Where are we? And how did we come about? The Earth is our stage to know the nature of reality, and for the universe to identify itself. I can’t imagine what great miseries of the universe might be unlocked in the next 100 years. But as we make our planet inhabitable, the continuity of that endeavor- greatest of them- might be in doubt. And that to me is one of the biggest dangers from impacts of Climate Change.
In the next week, I’d come to know how we decide what we do with the consciousness that evolved over 3.6 billion years? What defines us as a species? What is our collective aim for the next 100 – 1000 years?
I hope the answers are as grand as our collective story.
