Talking Shop: Cats going meow

"One thing leads to the other.

Deforestation leads to Climate

Change, which leads to losses in

the ecosystem, which negatively

impacts livelihoods–it's a cycle"

—Gisele Bundchen, UN Ambassador

Cats like it hot. So much so, that even in the hottest of summers, as you slink in front of your air-conditioners and look at the green light that indicates "Compressor On", worried silly about the hefty electricity bill that will come early next month, your feline is surely sitting far away in a remote corner of the house, perhaps in the hottest place that can be found. As I said, cats like it hot. Not anymore apparently.

There is a discernible change this year, especially over the last few days—so much so that my two cats are now going meow at 5 am every morning, demanding that me or the missus wake up and put some ice cubes in their drinking water dish. They patiently meow for five minutes. If we don't oblige, all hell breaks loose and they use their tiny paws and sharpened claws to topple over all the little shenanigans that adorn our sideboards and sit in our closets, things that they know will make a definitive thud when they hit the floor. Pushed to a scared corner, my wife and I have learnt to obey. We put in the ice, as demanded by the terrible duo. The two then slurp ice-cold water, purr for a bit, lick our faces till we protest and go back to sleep. Simpleton bliss...

Humans have not learnt to obey, though, as is overtly visible. Be it the terrible heat that we are witnessing this gory summer or the shambles that most find in their personal lives—lower income, lost jobs or total financial chaos in globally-dwindling economies—the nonchalance continues, as does our shameful non-acceptance of today's harsh reality; that life has changed, as has the climate and weather, both in terms of temperature and future financial visibility.

Who cares about cats?

I do, for cats and all animals can melt you with their true and innocent eyes, while they look at us with total predictability and purity of thought and objective, stating what they have to bluntly. Unfortunately humans do not, vitiated and complex creatures that we have turned into. How else does one explain the rot in the planet at many levels? How does one even begin to expound our lack of subservience to a higher force, one that can in a jiffy propel us to the afterlife? Hang on, I am not a philosopher or preacher, I am as human as you and I love my creature comforts as much as anybody else, perhaps even more. But I see the change.

We shall talk of the weather again after we talk some finance. The details are rather dismal, especially as India has woefully lost the preferred train and destination status over the last few years. I hate it when you want numbers, but here goes—just from January to June this year, Rs 200,000 crore was withdrawn from the Indian market by foreign investors. Some of India's largest companies are going bankrupt clinically. Fortunately for them, all they are losing is loans from banks, which are turning into non-performing assets (NPAs). Who owns that money? Well, you and I. It is eerie that the Reserve Bank of India itself has indicated that these bad loans (read NPAs) may run to some heady numbers.

I promised I shall not talk too much business in this piece, so I shan't. But what is being witnessed all around is worrisome, to say the least. Each rupee lost to a fallen Corporate is a rupee out of the account of an average hard-working and EMI-paying Indian. The runaway Corporate cats have to be brought to bay.

Back to the weather

There's havoc everywhere on the Climate front. Over the last few weeks alone, the world has been facing the wrath and fury of Mother Nature, battling unforeseen floods after an unseasonal tyranny of rain or hot spells, followed by bone-chilling cold. The only thing that is changing is the intensity of these aberrations, which are slated to increase with time as we continue to tear apart the very fabric on which the world's weather systems have been dependent on for centuries. What's going askew?

As I said once before, the world has known for years but not much has been achieved at mitigating this and no one foresaw the speed and ferocity of changing climate patterns. Worse still, experts now warn that this is just the beginning, the tip of the proverbial iceberg, and that we can expect similar events to become a regular occurrence. Climate Change is playing havoc with infrastructure systems that have catalyzed the world's runaway growth over the last few decades. Highway and rail networks, dams, metro and rapid transports systems have all increased urbanization, yet seen deforestation and a slow but systematic removal of Climate-impacting and supporting natural phenomenon. That very removal is now driving dangerous and disruptive change—forest fires, freak heat and cold waves and flooding in towns and rail systems around the world. Just last year, flooded tunnels and stations disrupted service and stranded passengers in Boston, London, San Francisco, Taipei, Bangkok, Washington DC and a host of other cities. And New Delhi.

What comes next?

Nothing good, unfortunately, for there are no clear answers. There is one, that Climate Change disasters across the globe underscore the need for stern resolve and introduction of global norms to bring about change while we still can. All powers and so-called superpowers have been idling around this burning issue, putting national and regional interests first, oft-forcing smaller nations to follow the diktat while their own industrial machineries chug along, spewing dangerous and lethal gases into the atmosphere.

Today, paradoxically, the timing could be conducive to increase global harmony and take on this menace. Most of the world, large or small, has been reeling under the deadly impact of freakish weather patterns. The very fact that such events can affect Developed Nations and their established infrastructure far more than smaller nations could just have the sobering impact needed to bring in some pliability in the otherwise very divergent stands of the Big Seven on Climate Change.

At the end of the day, we can't control the weather. We can't control the economy. But we need to somehow control ourselves and be more responsible. After all, as the youngest and globally-celebrated Climate Change activist Greta Thunberg said in her address to global leaders at the United Nations Climate Action Summit in 2019, "How dare you? You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words. We'll be watching you."

That's something I can claw on, alongside my now-purring cats.

The author is a veteran journalist and communications specialist. He can be reached on [email protected]. Views expressed are personal