Why Your Daily Choices Matter More Than Government? || Acharya Prashant, with Bard College

Added: 2026-05-25

[00:00:00]The climate crisis is challenging us to answer questions we should have answered several centuries back. It is just proving that the philosophies we have based our lives on since long are inadequate actually false.

[00:00:18]Is it not true and is it not obvious that the shape of the economic uh structure that we have the entire economic system of the entire world that's what is producing the carbon in the atmosphere.

[00:00:40]So if I may if I may venture that far, I would say the climate crisis is challenging us to answer questions we should have answered several centuries back.

[00:00:59]You could even say it's a crisis of philosophy.

[00:01:05]It is just proving that the philosophies we have based our lives on since long are inadequate actually false.

[00:01:18]We could not answer those questions then and there was nothing and nobody to conclusively tell us in our face that we do not know the answers.

[00:01:34]Now we have a very very tangible proof available a proof of our inadequacy in the form of this crisis.

[00:01:45]So you know we we need the right understanding. We need to know who we are and why we exist and that that determines our economics that determines our very lives.

[00:02:02]Is it is it not true and is it not obvious that the shape of the economic uh structure that we have the entire economic system of the entire world that's what is producing the carbon in the atmosphere.

[00:02:28]We we have philosophies that have no no space for compassion. We we do not want to look inwards. We do not want to know what should be the right relationship between man and the world he inhabits.

[00:02:50]And that's why we are living in an absolutely awkward way. Our lives are bizarre. They are bizarre and they are producing a a lot of gas you know like like the like the fart of the cattle that's responsible for uh so much of the carbon concentration that represents in a very dramatic way a picture of our lives.

[00:03:32]That can be changed. All that can be changed.

[00:03:39]People can give up flesh consumption.

[00:03:47]It it takes an instant.

[00:03:52]There are people and I I know several thousands of them optimistically I could say there are lacks of them who have given up flesh consumption in a matter of days, weeks, a few months.

[00:04:10]And we very well know that um flesh consumption and dairy they are either the largest or the second largest cause of um carbon concentration and that cause can be addressed in a jify because the climate crisis is a crisis of the choices we are making and since we are the chooser the choices can immediately change a lot of them. A few are structural that may take a little more of time but there is a lot that can be immediately done if we can show the total picture to the human being and the total picture must include his own face.

[00:04:59]If the climate crisis remains something outside of ourselves, we will not be too interested in tackling it. It is a crisis inside of us, not outside of us.

[00:05:12]If it is shown to be a crisis inside of us, I know I'm repeating these ideas, but I think I need to. So, I'm taking that liberty. I hope you'll pardon. Uh, >> it's it's a crisis inside of us and and when we see that it's a crisis inside of us, we'll be more interested in tackling it because as we said, we are all selfish people. Let's use that selfishness constructively.

[00:05:43]Yeah. Well, thank you. That's it's a it's a powerful answer and and uh and and one that I think we we all do do well to to heed. We we have uh um students who've been also thinking and and and have uh questions that are also powerful questions. So I I think uh we should uh um yield to them to to ask uh some questions that will I think enlighten all of us. So Anapam do you want to call on the first student please?

[00:06:14]>> Yes definitely.

[00:06:16]>> Sure sure David thank you.

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