The Sunday section of Hindu has a front page article on how India's rich are contributing 4.5 times more carbon emissions than the poor.
I thought about the article as I walked down to Periappa's house in Vasant Kunj. At a brisk pace the distance is about 30 minutes max from my house inside the University. On a pleasant winter day it is a pleasure to walk down. Though with the rampant felling of trees inside the campus makes me want to howl like Dogmatix. Just outside the gate, we can see the eyesore: The biggest Mall in Delhi.
As this is the ridge area, the last bit of the Arvalli Mountains, about a year back there was a massive protest against bulldozing this area to build a mall. (As an aside why would people want to purchase in the mall when they can go to their friendly neighbourhood shop, have a chat, and get what they want. I am in the minority here). Anyway, the developers won and the mall is slated to open some time soon. I watched the workers for some time and realized that none of these people are ever going to be able to buy or even enter these malls. The mall is going to escalate the electricity and the water problem but none of these made any impact on the Judges.
Inside the campus it is another story. Every time trees are cut and another building comes up we are told that if we don't build the government will move in. There is pressure on the land. But why can't we declare this as protected land because we have plenty of wildlife and provide the green space for the city?
As for the faculty the less said the better. All of them need the car to walk down to the academic buildings or even to the shopping centre within the campus. As the maximum walking distance from anywhere to anywhere within the campus (except for a section called Proovanchal)is just about 15 minutes, I fail to understand why they need the car inside the campus.
This time Rohan has ensured a space for himself in the Campus Development committee. His one-point agenda: to shoot down all requests for car parking space.
1 comment:
We each have our notions of what is indispensable. You might ask "Why is a car needed within campus?" but then, someone else might ask "Why can't you sleep without an electric fan?" Now this is not just rhetoric: both cars and electric fans contribute to pollution and strictly speaking, neither is really necessary. You might argue that cars contribute much more to pollution - true, but from the point of car owners, the comfort that comes with being able to travel whenever one wants, the comfort of not having to depend on Blueline buses, the comfort of not having to haggle with autorickshaw drivers along with the time saved in traveling outweighs any guilt that comes with having contributed towards pollution. You make the same type of judgment when you use the fan.
The problem, from an economic point of view, is what economists call an "externality." When you use the car, there is a cost you incur which is the cost of petrol. However, there is also additionally an indirect cost (the "negative externality") which is the cost that you impose on others by your contribution towards pollution. [The pollution affects not just you but many others.] The problem is that while you are responsible for this negative externality, you don't pay for it. From this perspective, the solution is to make you responsible for the cost that you impose on others. One way of doing this is through taxes - what are called Pigouvian Taxes. See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pigovian_tax
for more on such taxes. Some European countries already impose such taxes via the tax on petrol. You will find that petrol prices in Europe generally are higher than in the US. The "congestion tax" imposed on travel through Central London is another example of a Pigouvian tax.
I am aware that there are many non-economists who question such an approach towards pollution. I guess from my view, given my training, it makes sense. At any rate, I think economic incentives (via taxes or subsidies) are more effective than moral exhortation with regard to changing people's behavior. If you want people to use public transport or walk and not use cars, then the best way is to make using cars expensive. (It also helps if the public transport system functions well!)
And in the same spirit, I think a better approach to discouraging use of cars within campus is to make parking more expensive rather than refuse to provide additional car space altogether. If done properly, the revenue earned by this method (through parking fees) can be used to enhance facilities (not just parking) on campus. But then, in the Indian, and more specifically JNU context, "if done properly" is a huge qualifier. After all, any type of tax is a big no-no for the loony leftists who dominate your campus.
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