May Day 2020 Vision 2023

earth

This year Nature has given us a clear message. It sent us COVID 19 and halted capitalism for 4 months, made us stop burning fossil fuels and use just the bare essentials. And it has rewarded us with clean air, cleaned up our rivers and lakes, improved our human relations and restored wild life. There are dolphin in the Ganges in Kolkata and leopards are frolicking in our cities. Many birds have come back in our cities. Ozone hole has been repaired. Workers travelling back to their villages found unusual warmth from people every where. They also performed Herculean tasks – a man travelled 1100 Kilometres in seven days on a three old bicycle with his wife riding pillion. With such bountiful Nature can we not envision restoring a paradise on earth in 3 years?

May Day 2020 Resolution

1) We are part of capitalism. Let us start by destroying capitalism within us by reducing unnecessary consumption.

2) We celebrate death of capitalism and birth of a paradise on Earth.

3) We resolve to rebuild our local community on the basis of equality and end of discrimination. End of Discrimination on the basis of class, caste, colour, gender, sexual preference, age and disability (physical and mental).

4) We resolve to restore and rebuild our local environment with community effort.

5) We resolve to build a self sufficient local economy with minimum imports.

6) We will federate with neighbouring communities on the basis of a free association of free people.

Vision 2023

We will have:

1) Clean and fresh air because there will not be any fossil fuel based industry or transport. Most transport will be either on foot or on bicycles/cargo bicycles, or animal driven transport.

2) Clean water because there will not be industrial effluents, excess chemical fertilisers or chemical pesticides flowing into our water bodies.

3) Clean and healthy food because it will be locally produced organic/permaculture food, fish, poultry, eggs and meat. Unnecessary and bad crops like tobacco, sugar, flowers for sale, fodder for milch cattle for sale of milk etc. will be drastically reduced. Export and import of food will be minimal.

4) Clean environment because there will be zero plastic and all organic waste will be composted. Small amount of remaining non biodegradable waste will be recycled.

5) Good health because with clean environment there will be fewer diseases and sicknesses. Still there will be provision for local health care and every one who needs health care will get it.

6) Healthy children because their education will be combined with play (cycle riding, swimming, climbing trees) and work on agricultural fields, artisan workshops and visiting forests to collect raw materials, fuel wood, seasonal fruits and studying nature.

7) The community will be free from electric or water grid. Most of the work will be done in day light and a minimal local electric power generation will be carried on micro hydel or solar thermal plants. There will not be flush latrines, but composting latrines which will reduce the use of water. Most water use will be directly at source – river or lakes and a very small amount of water will be carried home for drinking and cooking purposes.

7) Community facilities. No one will starve or lack health care. The community will provide for all the needy people – old, sick and poor. Recreation clubs and debates, play grounds and forests around the settlement.

8) Freedom to express, to haver adventure and travel provided that resources are not unnecessarily wasted. Sport hunting will be banned.

9) Add your own vision.

T. Vijayendra (1943- ) was born in Mysore, grew in Indore and went to IIT Kharagpur to get a B. Tech. in Electronics (1966). After a year’s stint at the Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics, Kolkata, he got drawn into the whirlwind times of the late 60s. Since then, he has always been some kind of political-social activist. His brief for himself is the education of Left wing cadres and so he almost exclusively publishes in the Left wing journal Frontier, published from Kolkata. For the last nine years, he has been active in the field of ‘Peak Oil’ and is a founder member of Peak Oil India and Ecologise. Since 2015 he has been involved in Ecologise! Camps and in 2016 he initiated Ecologise Hyderabad. He divides his time between an organic farm at the foothills of Western Ghats, watching birds, writing fiction and Hyderabad. He has published a book dealing with resource depletions, three books of essays, two collections of short stories, a novella and an autobiography. Vijayendra has been a ‘dedicated’ cyclist all his life, meaning, he neither took a driving licence nor did he ever drive a fossil fuel based vehicle. Email: [email protected]


SIGN UP FOR COUNTERCURRENTS DAILY NEWS LETTER


 

Tags:

Support Countercurrents

Countercurrents is answerable only to our readers. Support honest journalism because we have no PLANET B.
Become a Patron at Patreon

Join Our Newsletter

GET COUNTERCURRENTS DAILY NEWSLETTER STRAIGHT TO YOUR INBOX

Join our WhatsApp and Telegram Channels

Get CounterCurrents updates on our WhatsApp and Telegram Channels

Related Posts

Join Our Newsletter


Annual Subscription

Join Countercurrents Annual Fund Raising Campaign and help us

Latest News