Against RK Pachauri

Today, June 5, is World Environment Day, and so the Times of India leader article is by the scientist RK Pachauri, who recently shared the Nobel peace prize with Al Gore for his work on “global warming.” Pachauri’s article of today deserves careful scrutiny, for it is nothing but a litany of errors. If these errors are translated into official policy, India will remain poor and backward forever. For the central theme of the article is the call for more and more State action. Pachauri, it becomes obvious, hates The Market. He loves our The State.

Pachauri starts off with a bang:

“The first and most important change that the new government at the Centre ought to address is shifting the pattern of development itself.”

Now, this is something that I would agree with, while arguing for free markets. But Pachauri thinks differently. He is for “sustainable development” – which means continued State interference in markets. He says, in the first para itself, that the basic problems are caused by “blind aping of everything that defines lifestyles in the developed countries.” He lists his targets for attack:

“The unregulated growth of shopping malls, each guzzling several megawatts of electricity; the unsustainable exploitation of our groundwater resources, driven essentially by heavy subsidies on the price of electricity for farmers; and incursions into tribal areas and agricultural or forest lands for setting up industrial projects…”

Actually, Pachauri’s office is bigger than any mall: the Habitat Centre in New Delhi. I am confident that the central air-conditioning system in Habitat “guzzles” more electricity than all the malls in Gurgaon combined.

But that apart, it does seem perverse to argue against projects in tribal areas. Surely “sustainable development” does not mean that all agricultural and forest (unowned) land remain frozen in their current use. Indeed, it is well known that one of the biggest corruption rackets in India is the “permission” given by our The State to use agricultural land for non-agricultural purposes.

I would argue – Let The Market Decide. Let landowners be Free. Pachauri is batting for the other side.

Pachauri then throws a wild card into the ring: he calls for “distributive justice,” the great idea of Socialism. He says Naxalism is caused by “the growing disparity between rich and poor, symbolised by the insensitive and vulgar display of wealth by the rich in our society.”

The dude is a “watermelon”: green on the outside and red inside.

And he is not just any kind of red: he is an étatist. His next para is all about State action required to promote green energy, strengthening the pollution control bureaus, and saving the tiger as “an economic and cultural imperative.” Of course, in the meantime, I just suffered a 2-hour power failure this morning, which is why this post is late. Most people in India do not have energy – neither electricity, nor cooking gas. Most people do not own cars. Which is the way to proceed? What is “development”?

Pachauri goes on to call for Gandhian “rural development,” and strengthening the “delivery mechanism” of the – you guessed it – civil services. It seems in the utopia of sustainability, baboos will “deliver.” Not markets, but baboos. Sheer nonsense.

The rest of the article babbles on about the need for an “external assistance programme” by which India can assist poorer nations. What rot! He calls for action by our The State on global warming – or “climate change,” as he prefers to call it. Never mind the fact that they could not predict the arrival of this year’s monsoon correctly. Even with their “supercomputers.” Pachauri concludes by calling for a united political response to his agenda – the BJP and the Congress should combine to bring this about.

Thus it becomes obvious that the votaries of “sustainable development” are enemies of prosperity. Thereby, they are enemies of the poor. They do not want to raise consumption and living standards in India. They do not want free trade and free markets. They want State action. They idolize baboodom.

Actually, prosperity is eminently sustainable.

It is poverty that is unsustainable.

Think about that.

Recommended reading: My article on the Al-Gore - IPCC agenda, titled "Just Hot Air," available here.