and the Nobel goes to ...

so Al Gore (what an incredible year - first the Oscar and now this)
and the IPCC have won the Nobel Prize
i couldn't be happier since I am working on a film on climate change

last evening me and A were walking in IHC and we saw a crowd of news camera teams
at the TERI office
the buzz was there to see
i knew it was a press conference
finally it was a news cameraman who broke the news to me
A refused to believe that an Indian had won the Prize (later we realised it was for IPCC not Dr. Pachauri)
In the end it was - an Indian had won, kind of

outside
a man kept arguing on the phone
two women kept deciding between five abstract canvases
kids were playing with the bells at the entrance of IHC
a DTC bus was trying to run down people on Lodi Road
and three men were trying to take out money
simultaneously from an ATM

i thought
does the Prize make a difference?

as is it
over the years
environmental issues have been
removed from the hands of
communities and groups
and moved into the hands of the safari suits and khadi kurtas

there was a time
when the Chipko movement
or the CSE
focussed attention on the environment
now it the Delhi government that ensures that
only CNG buses will run in the city

While governmental action is required
for us to adopt cleaner technology
that action always comes a decade or two later
after the movement began

today no one remembers the thousands
of groups that put this whole process in motion
long before terms like climate change were invented
instead of rewarding them
the prize has been given to an American (who has built a media empire out of his environmental campaigns)
and a bureaucratic entity that only has an advisory role

i hope the winners remember
that they have stood on the shoulders of millions
who started this movement in the first place