There has been a distinct lack of posts on this blog because I have been visiting India for the last four weeks and took a break from blogging at the same time. This was my first visit to the Indian subcontinent but it won’t be my last. Originally the visit was designed to reunite my family - my daughter has been traveling for over a year and refused to return to Canada for Christmas - so we went to see her.
However I had not anticipated to have my perspective on the world to be so altered by a trip abroad. India has a population of 1.1 billion people 12.9 million of them live in the city of Delhi. I only spent two days in this city - I’m not sure my body could have survived any more - I live in the highest city in Canada and my lungs have been spoiled with fresh air it would seem. The air quality in Delhi was so poor that all four of us (my two kids and wife) became sick with chest infections that were very hard to shake off. I have only been back in the beautiful clear air of Alberta, Canada for a few days now, but I already notice a change in how different I feel. I was curious to find out what I had (rather naively) exposed myself to and visited this article on pollution in Delhi. I had not realised that I was visiting the most polluted city in Asia.
The visit brought home to me in a very physical way the monumental task we have as a species ahead of us. Ironically at the very same time as our stay in Delhi the Bali climate conference was taking place. I would have thought that rather than an up-market resort in Bali - a more appropriate place to have a climate conference would be a downtown, New Delhi hotel. Then all of the delegates (especially those who like myself may have never visited a highly polluted city before) could feel for themselves the real effects of heavy pollution. Maybe the experience would have helped some of the delegates realise that if we don’t collaborate as a planet - we simply won’t have one that is habitable.
I met some of the most beautiful, sincere, and joyful people I’ve ever met in my life on this visit to India. My heart went out to these great people when I realized that most of them did not have the choice, as I had, of leaving the filthy air behind. The experience also impressed upon me that the anthill we need to ‘teach to fetch’ is the anthill called ‘planet earth’.
2 users commented in " Why Does the World Need to Collaborate? "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a TrackbackThis clarifies the view quite a bit. How is it possible that people living in our version of hell can still find happiness and joy?
Why are we so unhappy when we have so much?
And how can we stop the corruption of the planet when we already know how bad it is and what we are doing to it?
Information seems to be the key. The other part is realizing that everything done comes back to you. This means that whatever you do, it will affect someone and you certainly want to understand that it doesn’t matter who it is as long as you understand that it will have an affect.
This goes both ways. Negative and positive. In general, the world is suffering from a massive negative spiral. The secret is to reveal the nature of how to start a positive trend.
The deepest secret is already known deep within the brain. The hardest admission is to allow for this basic truth to come to the surface. It is a very personal experience and yet it has implications to us all.
Here’s to positive thinking and changing ourselves.
Thanks Stephen for this story and I’m glad that you are recovering well back at home. You are certainly an inspiration.
HI Stephen
I’ve not been to India but know a number of people who have. Their comments are similar to your own in many ways. The shere number of people concentrated in a small area. The pollution and of course the poverty. One person I met recently was quite shocked by the pollution. While she had prepared herself for the poverty that we hear about she had not made a connection that maybe the two are inextricably linked. China is in a similar situation. The world is now a very small place and India and China are moving towards being the super powers of the 21st Century. They are however developing nations with lots of manufacturing which the rest of the Western world uses because labour is so cheap (at this stage. This is reminiscent of the rise of Japan.
This is why collaboration is so important. Climate change is now the major issue for the world. A researher from Oxford University spoke recently in Australia to the higher echelons in police and security and said it is not terrorism per se that is the major issue it is in fact climate change that will have a bearing on terrorism such as border security.
This issue is not one nations responsibility. It is all our responsibility. If the Western world is happy to use the cheaper labour resources of the Asian countries then it must be prepared to work with them and help them to deal with this situation.
Collaboration is the key. Competition is all very well and good but I believe to have truly great things happen, then collaboration is often the key.
Thanks for letting me post my comment.
Regards
Cathryn
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