'Café Classroom': a pursuit to relearn relationship across humans and nature
The idea of coexistence and interdependency between atmosphere and humans more often than not falls into the trap of assumption – a deficit of understanding the human-led asymmetrical balance between the two. Over the years, the capitalistic way of life has sharply stifled the atmosphere, turning the natural process of breathing into a forceful exercise. As the terms pollution, toxicity, and suffocation received mainstream attention, especially in the year 2016, the urgency to curb the further deterioration of the atmosphere was all-time heightened. The series Café Classroom, part of the Does the Blue Sky Lie? Testimonies of Air’s Toxicities project by Khoj studios, emerges from the exigency to “relearn” our relationship with the natural world. Curated by Pradip Saha, Director of Damage Control, a communications agency in the sustainable development context, the Café Classroom acutely emphasised the collective effort of citizens, creative minds, environmentalists, economists and policymakers, to restore the equilibrium of the ecosystem. In an interview with STIR, Saha explains, “The Café Classroom was not conceived to address ‘rising air pollution’, but to use air pollution as an entry point for a larger discussion about ecological crisis. We used two threads. One was to enter through air pollution and move towards the larger crisis of climate change. The other was to connect ecological crisis (environment is a management term, it is anthropocentric and fails to address larger issues) to its reason which is political economy.” The Café Classroom began with in-person talk Decoding Dirty Air: Joining the Dots for the Big Solution by Anumita Roy Chowdhury, who is the Executive Director, Research and Advocacy, Centre for Science and Environment, India. The lecture at the Canteen, Khoj, Khoj studios traced the spiral concern around air pollution since the year 1996. Against the political and social issues, the crisis of air pollution and entailing health issues are deemed of lesser importance. The detrimental air makes for a “compelling human story,” which continues to be the most conflicted and unresolved one. While giving the statistical data on the declining quality of the air in the national capital New Delhi, India, Chowdhury observed the road design structure favours the car owner resulting in the disproportional effect on the pedestrians. The unfavourable road structures fail to promote the interest among the public to take a walk across the short distance. The talk walked us through the variety of places in Delhi which have been transformed into people-friendly and accessible on foot. Largely, the mobility by a vehicle is perceived as a sign of privilege. To deflate such preconceived notions of entitlement, Chowdhury gave an example of a Dutch minister who visited the queen on a bicycle. The image introduced the idea of owning the environment rather than being a purchaser of an automobile. When the atmosphere is a universal equaliser, we need to reciprocate it in a similar fashion. The next in-person talk Assessment of Vulnerability/Risk to Climate Change by Sandhya Rao focussed on the interconnection between climate change and vulnerability. While looking at the data produced by the IPCC report, Rao underlined how humans are forcing a substantial increase in the temperature globally. Be it Texas cold snap in February 2021, Canada heat wave in July 2021, floods in Germany in July 2021, Greece wildfire in August 2021, a Day Zero declared in Chennai, summer of 2019, Delhi urban flood in July 2021 and ongoing heat wave in the Indian Subcontinent are the cumulative results of the urbanisation and destruction of natural habitats. The vulnerability determined by climate change highlights the inequality among humans. The talk had Madhya Pradesh and Uttarakhand as the case studies to indicate how the factors such as economic, social, cultural, institutional, and politics play a significant role to define the living conditions of the people. Rao highlighted an informed decision-making process is pertinent to make an appropriate adaptation.