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Climate change has been one of the most pressing issues in recent decades, presenting an overwhelming challenge for scientists, and social, economic, and political systems around the world. The alarming rate of environmental and natural disasters in recent years poses a serious threat to the entire Earth.

While scientists have been warning about the severity of the issue for long, not until recently has it caught the attention of the public and politicians. This increase in consciousness has been changing how a society, in general, should define prosperity and the means to achieve it.

Greenhouse gasses are the major drivers of climate change. Ever since the advent of the industrial era, human activities have added an enormous amount of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere, causing a rise in global temperatures. Energy-use is responsible for emissions of almost three-fourth greenhouse gasses. Growing thirst for cheaper fuel sources to meet the society’s unquenchable energy demands is causing emission-induced climate change. This has disturbed nature, leading to environmental calamities.

Energy is fundamental to life and for the development of human society. The history of human civilization has been categorized based on the way humans recognized and used energy. The ability to create and control fire gave humans a massive advantage over animals. The Iron Age, the Bronze Age, and the Copper Age were all distinguished by the amount and intensity of energy humans used for social transformation.  From firewood to coal, and from petroleum to nuclear energy, humans have come a long way when it comes to harnessing energy.

But due to competition-driven globalization and open market economy a compromise has been made on the quality of energy. Fossil-based fuels for economic development flourished over the past 100 years. The downside of these 100 years of progress and prosperity is an unprecedented global environmental damage.

Learning from past mistakes, human civilization is slowly understanding the need of a “Carbon Neutral Society”. This would be a new era for humanity, a paradigm shift towards understanding the unity between ‘habit and habitat’. The Carbon Neutral Society demands strong political conviction and transformation at the individual, institutional, and societal levels. To achieve a green society, we need to adopt green energy and green conduct, which should be reflected in our thoughts and behaviors.

Has Nepali society gained the maturity to understand the concept of green society? How can our fatalism and modern social norms be transformed to meet the foundations for the creation of Carbon Neutral Society? What roles should politicians, government, academia, and think-tanks play? What are the indicators and influencing factors that guide this process?

A green society demands social transformation first, a paradigm shift in consciousness to feel unity with other living beings and the environment. A green economy is not for a society where only a small part of the population works while the remainder survives exploiting them. A green civilization demands society to work as one living organism. The communities which have understood this principle are transforming towards a greener sustainable society.

After decades of natural calamities and scientific evidence of even more environmental disasters, the modern scientific society’s sensitivity to make the planet liveable for future generations is rising. Such awareness is being converted into impactful outcomes through political interventions.

For a country like Nepal, the awareness level is still not mature. Several focused campaigns and targeted programs are still necessary to elevate the general conscience.

Kathmandu University has conceived a joint multi-disciplinary program called the “Green Society Initiative”, targeting transformation at three different progressive levels. This includes green thoughts and lifestyle at the individual level, a low carbon system and practices at the institutional level, and a sustainable economic ecosystem at the community level.

Broad participation from government, development agencies, private sector and civil society is necessary for a meaningful impact of this initiative.

The author is Assistant Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Kathmandu University

There are certain ways we engage with others that are likely to create more distance in relationships. These automatic ways of reacting can lead us to feel frustration at best and have conflicts at worst. Lucy Leu coined the term ‘4Ds of Disconnection,’ which explains four ways that create distance in interpersonal relationships. Let’s understand each of these disconnecting factors and the impact they can have on our relationships as well as our own well-being:

Diagnosis: In our day-to-day interactions, it’s easy for us ‘diagnose’ other people—meaning we find it convenient to blame, criticize, and judge. Diagnosis fuels defensiveness and discord in our interpersonal relations. Who likes to be blamed, judged, or criticized after all? Let’s take my own experience. I have always been an introvert, and I prefer one-one conversations and interactions with a closer group of people instead of parties and gatherings. Some of my relatives take this reality with a pinch of salt.

I remember this one time I went to a family gathering a few years ago when one of my relatives told me straight to my face, “You’re such a loner!” This comment became my self-fulfilling prophecy for not going to gatherings any more. We’re readily subject to being diagnosed in different kinds of social contexts—be it while commenting on someone’s weight (kasto moti bhaeko!) the moment we meet them or judging someone based on two or three interactions we’ve had with them (kasto kichkiche cha). Diagnosis is telling people what they are. When we do this, we get cut off from truly listening and learning what might be going on for them.

Denial of responsibility:  When we deny personal responsibility, we blame others for our choices and actions. We tend to take the ‘anyone but me’ approach. For example, we might say, “It is because you were not listening that I had to raise my voice!” “You make me feel alone.” “I have trust issues because you never tell me what you are up to.” In all of these expressions, if you notice, I, as a speaker, am not acknowledging my choices. I’m instead pointing at others, trying to make them feel guilty, and blaming them for what they did or did not do. Denial of responsibility, therefore, bars us from accepting that we do have personal accountability for our thoughts, feelings and actions.

Deserve: A ‘deserve’ language fuels disconnection because we try to become the judge of another person. We measure other people’s actions and behaviors in terms of whether they deserve reward or punishment. When we operate from this mindset, we are less concerned about connecting and more about who deserves what. This makes us lose connection with another person’s needs, objectives and challenges as we are focused more on what we think is right and what we think is wrong.

Demand: Demand in relationships implies the threat of punishment for others if they don’t comply with what we want. If they disagree, we try to make them submit through fear or guilt. You might have noticed that when we make demands, we might not necessarily threaten others with physical punishment but resort to emotional punishment like laying guilt and making ourselves the victim.

Consider a couple that has been planning to go on a trip after the ease in Covid situation. The partner who came up with the trip idea is excited. The other is wrapping his head around the work he needs to get done, now that his office resumed after months of hiatus. His concern may be to get things started at work, but if his partner is not aware of the four 4Ds of Disconnection, she might not be ready to hear a ‘no’ from him.

When he asks her to reschedule the trip, she might probably try to make him feel guilty. “I thought spending quality time with me meant something to you!” “I was getting excited in vain; you surely have more important things to take care of!” If not through guilt, she might subject him to criticism or judgment to make him comply with what she wants. “You worry about all other things in your life, but I am nowhere in it.” “You’re such a selfish person!”

‘Diagnosis’, ‘denial of responsibility’, ‘deserve’ and ‘demands’ are life-alienating forms of communication. They contribute to frustration at best and conflicts at worst. While we can’t escape from other people’s unconscious disconnecting behaviors, we can try not to reciprocate them in our interpersonal relationships.

The author is Linchpin at My Emotions Matter, an education initiative that helps individuals and teams learn the mindset and skills of Emotional Intelligence. Learn more at myemotionsmatter.com

One evening an old Cherokee told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside people.

He said, “My son, the battle is between two wolves inside us all.” One is Evil—it is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.

“The other is Good - It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith.”

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather: “Which wolf wins?”

The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed.”

The term ‘Positive Addiction’ to most of us is an oxymoron, isn’t it? It appears to make up a sense of an illogic which is hard to comprehend. This is mainly because the word addiction has such hard-wired and powerful associations to what we have seen, heard, and felt. The only ‘positive’ that we can associate to addicts is their single-minded pursuit for their choice of one’s ‘fix’; and towards which they gravitate by hook or by crook with an astonishing ekagrahta or unparalleled focus.

Let us look at what these words connote—positive deals with all that is good, bright, and wholesome—an expansiveness that reaches from us towards others. It is a movement from the center; to enlarge and envelop an ever-expanding circumference of sentient beings spreading love, caring, comfort, and bodhicitta with its special qualities of friendliness, joy, compassion, and equanimity.

Addiction on the other hand forebodingly conveys a condition of low resolution, dullness, foreboding hues - an ever-contracting selfish state of being parasitically feeding into one’s own entails, moving out toward others once in a while only to satisfy one’s intense cravings to scrounge off others; to devour both others and ultimately in a heroically tragic manner, oneself! The qualities that addiction festers are quite the opposite of bodhicitta and instead of love and caring for others there is more of self-love and selfishness arising from heightened ego state. These are frequently manifested destructively either in aggressive or suppressive forms of behavior. It is but natural then that when we think of an addict or addiction alarm bells are set off and we want to step aside from an addict’s trajectory.

However, in recent years there has been a special space carved out in psychology—under the realm of positive psychology—that attempts at enshrining the positive aspects of addiction. We certainly come across lots of planted stories by big businesses that extol the virtues of workaholics and how it leads to ‘longer, healthier, and happier’ lives but those are not the factitious Machiavellian kind of research that we wish to dwell on here.

The expression ‘positive addiction’ was made popular by the psychologist William Glasser. Essentially what we need to understand is that while addiction to drugs, alcohol, food, smoking, etc. are actually instances of powerful motivation, they erode our moral strength and values, and suffocate flow and creativity. This holds us back from doing our best.

With gross addiction, which after initially catapulting us to vigorous oomphs and aahaa’s of rajasic energy phases, we find ourselves into toxic tamasic dumps, often unable to pull ourselves out of there, even to perform simple day to day chores.

Unlike gross addiction, Glasser believed there were ‘other forms’ of wholesome and enriching addictive activities that give us strength, such as jogging, meditating, writing a diary, exercising, and relaxing. These, he categorized as positive addictions. We often hear people we know complaining how uneasy they are because they did not have their morning walk or skipped their yoga class.  These people, who hanker for their daily game of tennis, or feel very uneasy unless they have their daily ‘legitimate’ walk or jog, will understand what is meant by positive addiction.

Let’s look at some of the main differentiators between positive addiction and addiction. While positive addiction is a self-actualizing phenomenon (remember Maslow?) and invokes a higher spiritual pursuit and intent, addiction is more of an animal need in us. With addiction, the user is obsessively holding on to the thought of the next fix the whole day.

With positive addiction you only think of it once or twice in a day; and after you have performed the activity (such as meditating or jogging), you forget about it until the next day. You get uneasy if you miss your activity whereas with addiction there is continuous obsessive hankering about the ‘fix’; one neither has space nor time for other interests or pursuits. The withdrawal symptoms too are acute, severe and could be fatal sometimes.

However, the most important divergence between them is that positive addiction enhances physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual quality of our life while addiction debilitates and affects our whole being negatively. Positive addiction leads to a healthier and longer life span.

This clearly explains that positive addiction stems from and strengthens our innate self-esteem; while addiction arises from giving up on our dharma or duties or responsibilities. While looking for immediate satisfaction and pleasure to offset real-time failure or disappointment in life, the addict is unable to delay gratification and slips into an abysmal quagmire of harmful addiction. Along with self-esteem two other factors that are deficient in an addict are resilience and hope.

The real tragedy of addiction is the hole that is dug into by the addict, bereft of possibilities—this snatches away the ability from the person to make choices. For the addict, the world exists in black and white. A life in which there is only addiction is a life with no other life! It results in loneliness and isolation from others. 

If you are in a good mood to celebrate, you reach out for your addiction, if you are sad, you reach out for it. If it’s a manner of having fun, or relaxing, or an intellectual-stimuli, or venting out of anger or depression—whatever it is, it prefers to be ‘self-medicated’ with the ‘substance’ of one’s external dependence.

On the other hand, positive addiction allows one a lot of space for possibility thinking and many choices of what we want to do with our lives. On Monday I can choose to read a book, on Tuesday I can paint, on Wednesday I can be playing golf, Thursday I spend a quiet evening, and on Friday I can even go to the pub and chill out with friends…and so on. Life is then vibrant with rich pastels of baroque colors and the in-between shades and hues. One can manifest oneself with an abundant repertoire of thoughts, emotion, and actions. A person with possibility thinking and with a choice of creative abundance dances fearlessly between the innocence of the Fool (zero) and richness of the Magi (infinity).

Today the tendency of gross materialism and a sensate lifestyle takes us far away from our natural curiosity to conjure and manifest unique expressions of possibilities. Isn’t it important, therefore, for each one of us to introspect how much of a choice-making ability we cultivate and how much space for practicing the art of possibility we allow and create in our lives? As the old Cherokee asks, which wolf would we choose?

The author heads Upaaya—a Contemplation and Research Collaborative at Srishti Manipal Institute of Art Design and Technology, Bangalore

A bad dream is not a good way to start a write-up. 

But it can’t be that bad (or can it?), what with the old Delta and new Omicron crises, recurring hikes in the prices of oil and natural gas and subsequent rise in the cost of living affecting our dear lives in varying degrees depending on our respective economic statuses. 

Without mincing words, let yours truly put his nightmare in brief: Shabby public toilets located in a dark underbelly of a decaying city. 

Well, that is what yours truly sees in his dreams once in a while. Where is that city located? Is it the construct of his mind? Yours truly has no idea. Perhaps the nightmare is the result of his recent involvement in some research on the condition of public toilets in the Kathmandu valley or his brief association with the water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) sector as a small-time consultant in the world of larger-than-life officials/subject experts/specialists/urban planners having unparalleled expertise. Surprisingly enough, our taps have been running dry and public toilets stinking despite huge contributions from these people of high repute and expertise.  

On second thoughts, why blame our crème de la crème alone for all this mess and regard ourselves as holier than thou? We too have some role to play in this, no? 

Can those bad dreams be a call to action from high above? Well, that’s overestimating individual capabilities, though it’s perfect for ego soothing.

While yours truly cannot divine the meaning of those horrific dreams, allow him to share his first-hand experiences and thoughts about the problem with responsible officials, which will surely not make their day!  

My experience of using (or almost using) public toilets in our cities is not much different to that of hundreds of thousands of other people, who have faced similar predicaments and will continue to do so, at least in the foreseeable future, given that magic does not happen in our ordinary lives where the more things change, the more they remain the same. General elections are around the bend, but it will be far-fetched to hope that WASH will be the top agenda of our political parties, who are likely to promise the moon again instead of pledging to bring about small changes in our lives unless and until we make them do it.   

Suffice it to say: Most of these toilets stink to high heaven. Water is hardly available in these toilets and brave sanitary staff stationed there are without personal protective equipment (PPE). On more than one occasion, yours truly had no option but to return without going to the loo for obvious reasons. 

Many government offices use members of the public as second-grade citizens in the matters of the loo. At such offices, the toilets meant for the ‘commoners’ are generally unclean, whereas those meant for their employees are kept clean and locked to prevent the public from (mis-) using them. This level of disrespect for the taxpayer is exceptional and simply unforgivable. 

So much so, the toilets at such infection-prone areas like hospitals are far from clean, generally. Granted that they almost always remain crowded and keeping them clean at all times is a challenging job. But imagine what will happen if hospitals themselves turn into disease/infection hotspots? 

With those parts of our public lives that should be the cleanest at their filthiest, what would the status of public health be, is anyone’s guess. The pandemic should have woken us, including those with the means, ways and authority at their disposal, up to the threat that these toilets pose, but hasn't.      

Would a nightmare like the one yours truly had wake up our authorities from deep slumber and press them to make sure that our public toilets remain clean? If it would, I wish them all some compelling nightmares.