JOIN USThe very Indian flatulence factor
Doctor Pachauri is being flayed everyday in the media. For, his work on global warning is seriously flawed, and that our glaciers are not as threatened as his reports suggest, and that a study done by a student has been the basis of his committee’s findings. And that he has vested interests in the businesses connected with carbon deposits.
My disappointment with his work is not on any of these issues but that he missed out a very important factor in global warming, the Indian flatulence factor, or the breaking wind factor which, on per capita basis, is the highest in the world. Given our billion-plus population, the combined effect of it is disaster in the making. It was our good luck that the Copenhagen meet did not bring on the table this very important issue. Was it out of diplomatic politeness or sheer lack of awareness of our deep rooted cultural habit that the international conference ignored it?
Let us admit that we are the champion farters on this globe. There is not a place in India that is free from this phenomenon. I am sure that I can clip at least five minutes from jogging timings if I did not face the combined headwind effect expelled by walkers ahead of me. I have changed parks and running routines but nothing has helped.
No place is free from this activity. The priests in the temple do it; company CEOs do it, as do the workers. Guests in the living room do it although some of them have mastered the art of muting the sound effect. You can blame this on Indian cuisines of pulses and grams but that will not wash with the international community. They will say it in our face. It is your problem. You solve it or face the penalty for carbon additions. Period.
Am I free from this habit that I am talking so much about? No. I will be the first one to plead guilty but one thing in my defence is that I am taking some medicines that give this kind of side effect. For the benefit of medicines that these medicines give me, this is the cost my fellow beings have to bear.
I believe the government has to wake up to the reality and allot funds for a massive, time-bound research to study this phenomenon and take steps to find a remedy. If we don’t do it fast, the next summit on global warming will tell us loud and clear terms — cap your gases, or else...